How many naps/hours sleep should an 8 week old baby have during the day?

[RebeccaP]

My DD is 8 weeks old and I'm trying to establish regular naps in the day (She's sleeping well at night and only wakes up once between 7pm and 7am). Should she be having 3 naps or just one in the morning and one in the afternoon? Also, how long roughly should each nap be? I know all babies are different, but I'm a bit clueless as to how many hours sleep she should be getting in the day.

Hi There
You are very lucky to have a good sleeper at night.

If it were me i don't think i would worry to much.Whether anyone in the medical profession would agree is another matter.

My ds did 3x1.5 hour naps (awake about 1.5 hours in between) plus a catnap at about 5pm for 45 mins.

This might help

All sorts of things put them off a rhythm at this age though!

To be honest, at 8 weeks I still found it a bit early for rouine, things keep changing so fast... Just when you think you have them pegged, they go and change the rules!
I think DS had around 3 naps, and could go 3-4 hours some afternoons, just go with the flow, she knows what she needs.

Today my 8 week old was woken at 9.20am as we were heading out. Was asleep again by 10.30am, she woke around 12ish and fell asleep before 1pm, slept till about 3pm, had a 20 min nap in friend's arms around 4.15pm, then slept from 5.15pm till 6.15pm. Down for the night before 8pm.

My older 2 slept a lot less than this - a short nap in the morning, a longer one (sometimes) over lunch and a catnap at about 4pm.

Enjoy her, sounds like she's doing great!

It is probably up to you whether you go for routine or not. At 8 weeks we didn't have set nap times at all. If she got grizzly and it was more than 2.5 hours since she had woken up, I used to put her in the sling or little reclining chair for a kip. Some days she would sleep a lot, some not much, depending on what was going on around her. I guess I aimed for at least 3 hours total of daytime sleeps- but then we didn't start bedtime until about 11pm!

8 weeks is still early. but with my 2 i aimed for

0.5-1 hours at 9am
2-3 hours can start anywhere between 11am-1pm.
0.5hr in afternoon. no later than 5pm.

this fitted in with 7-7 night sleep. waking at 10pm for dream feed.