Talk to me about naps at 9wks old...

[MrsC2010]

Hi All,

Advice would be much appreciated!

DD is 9 wks old and I'm not sure what to do about her naps during the day. She will happily fall asleep on me after a feed (every couple of hours normally, sometimes every hour!) and sometimes in her bouncy chair next to me, but never for very long. How much should babies be sleeping at that age?

Should I be trying to settle her upstairs at certain times, or is the 'as and when wherever' approach fine?

Sometimes it is obvious she is tired so I will try to get her to sleep, and sometimes at noght she can take ages to settle.

At this age I started putting my DS up to sleep in his cot/moses basket so he could learn to self settle.
After I had fed him I would let him 'play' for a bit, then as soon as he yawned or rubbed his eyes I'd take him upstairs right away and pop him into bed. He usually drifted off within a couple of minutes once he was used to the idea - never cried or yelled.
I did the feed, play, sleep routine from the baby whisperer and repeated it every 3/4 hours. So for example, get up at 7, have a feed, play for 20 mins then back in bed once tired. He'd wake at 10, feed, play, bed...you get the idea.

we did/still do exactly the same thing. As soon as DD starts displaying tired signs she is off to bed. we also follow the babywhisper E.A.S.Y pattern.

At that age, DS would only sleep in a sling.

Don't worry about what you 'should' be doing - she's only tiny.

More regular naps don't usually emerge till 3-4 months. But if she's awake for more than 1.5 hours she's likely to get overtired, so try soothing to sleep at those sort of intervals if you can't tell when she's tired.