how much sleep during the day for a 7 month old?

[putthekettleon]

DD2 is 7 months and still not sleeping through the night. Sometimes she wakes every 2 hours and I'm exhausted!

During the day she will often sleep for 3 hours in the morning followed by an hour or 2 in the afternoon. Yesterday we didn't go out and she hardly slept at all (she usually falls asleep in the pushchair). Then she slept from 10pm to 6am, her longest ever!

So I'm thinking perhaps I should cut down her daytime sleeps. How long do you think a 7 month old should sleep in the day? With DD1 I always thought you should never wake a sleeping baby, but then she would only nap for 40 mins at a time, even in the pushchair.

Help?!

Hi- my DD sleeps about 3 hours in the day over two naps (2 hours then 1) or sometimes 3 naps of about an hour each. She has the first nap after 2 hours and the second after 3. If she has three naps its every 2 hours roughly she goes to bed. She generally sleeps in her cot and we do a wind down routine then she's left to settle herself which generally works.
She's in bed around 7.30/8 and goes through to 7 ish so about 11 hours (with at least 2 feeds, 11 and 3 and sometimes lots of inbetween wakings :()...
I read somewhere this is about average - I gues theyre all different but 5 hours in the day seems quite a lot...
Also I dont let DD sleep after 5 pm or she wont settle for bedtime...

x

My dd is also 7 months. She used to have 2 hours in the morning and 2 hours in the afternoon, but started waking in the middle of the night for a couple of hours and just playing in her cot. I tried to cut out the afternoon sleep, but she seems to need it so I now let her have 2 hours in the morning (at about 10:30) and an hour in the afternoon (at around 4:00) She then has dinner at 5:00 - 5:30, bath at 7:00, bottle at 7:30 and bed at 8:00. She self settles and usually sleeps until around 7:00am.

It's trial and error as you're walking a fine line between too much sleep and too little sleep. My DD won't settle if she's overtired and wakes earlier the next day. They're all different so you just have to make small changes until something works.

I would suggest you try putting her down in the day in her cot for a nap. This might get her used to falling asleep by herself and when she wakes in the night, she will be able to go back to sleep on her own. I found it easier to do in the day as I wasn't tired myself. I know it's not for everyone, but I started doing a mini version of cc when my DD was around 5 months. I used to wait until I knew she was tired, put her down and time 5 minutes, go back in and tuck her in, put dummy in, pat her - even pick her up until she calmed - then left her again for 5 minutes and did the same again. I didn't enjoy it, but it took around 20 minutes at first, then went down to 10 minutes and it wasn't long before she fell asleep as soon as she was put down. It took about 5 days in all. She now goes down awake and falls asleep within about 10 minutes on her own, happily. As I said, it's not for everyone though.

Good luck anyway, she'll get there in the end, whatever you choose to do.

My daughter is 7 months and has recently gone from three naps to two.

She still has one from apprx 11am-12, then maybe around 3-4pm, but has dropped the one she would have before bath time.

She has always slept really well through the night so I guess this is right for her.

Maybe try to cut down her daytime naps a bit?

thanks all, the problem is, being a second child she seems to spend half her life in the buggy or car being dragged along to DD1's preschool or toddler activities! So every morning she tends to fall asleep in the pushchair around 9 or 10 and can easily sleep for 3 hours, and it's so tempting to leave her to sleep so I can get on with things.

In the afternoon she gets grizzly if she's overtired so if we're not going out I usually feed her to sleep in my bed and then leave her there or put her in the sling.

The consensus seems to be that 3 hours max throughout the day is enough, so maybe I'll aim for that and start waking her up in the mornings after 2 hours.

My dd is seven months, she has 30 mins in the morning 2 hours at lunch and 30 mins in the afternoon (more if she hasn't slept well at lunch time etc) and she sleeps 12-13 hours at night. She sleeps in her cot at her naps and always has, but I don't really think it matters if they nap in their buggy? As long as they sleep and you get some time to yourself!