Am I being mean to my 4 month old?

[Atticus500]

I’ve read A LOT about sleep and “best practice” for babies since becoming a first time parent, and consequently spend all my time trying to do everything right. I know this is exhausting and stressful but I do at the very least need a routine and some semblance of a schedule so it seems to work for me. However, DD, who is 19 weeks, looks constantly shattered. I’ve got her on a 3 nap schedule with 1 hour naps every 2.5 hours throughout the day and bed at 7.30pm. She wakes for a bottle once or twice, and often sleeps through completely and always has to be woken at 7am. I feel really mean - am I depriving her of sleep? 3 hours of day sleep seems like maybe too little for her age? But then again, I’m keen for her to sleep well at night. Any thoughts? (I should add - she’s a big baby in the 99th centile and is currently taking 40oz and purées every day)

Oh I do wish people would stop piling on here. I'm sure the OP has gotten the point and just continuing to say the same thing isn't going to help her further.

@Atticus500 I hope you're okay and don't take this thread as personal criticism. I remember those early days and it is sooo hard trying to figure out what the "right" thing to do is! You are clearly a caring mum wanting to do the best for your baby.

Learn to trust your mum-gut (appreciate that can be easier said than done). But trust me, it's there and it's real.

I had routines with all my babies but they was not 100% rigid.
At 4 months I would think a 1 nap in morning, long nap at lunch then 1 nap before tea
My youngest could sleep for England and it never affected his night time sleep and he slept through from being 6 months old. He sleep 7pm to 730/8 am now at 3 years old and occasionally has a 1-2 hour nap. I don’t wake him in the morning until he needs to be up to go out etc (but obvs wouldn’t leave him to sleep till mid morning etc
4 months is still very young, have a google of the Baby Whisperer books by Tracey Hogg, I used her routines as a base line but each child is unique so you need to take your babies cues

I’d give it up and go with the flow. It sounds quite rigid and stressful for both of you! The only time I wake my baby from a nap is if he’s decided to have one within a couple hours of bedtime, I will make sure he’s awake for the last 2 hours before he’s due to go to bed.

I had a routine for both of my DDs from 2 weeks old.
At 4 months, I did this:
7am wake and milk
9-10am nap
10.30am milk
12.30-2.30pm nap
2.30pm milk
4.30 - 5pm nap
6pm half feed
6.30pm bath
7pm half feed
7.30pm bed
10pm dreamfeed
Then they slept through til 7am.
So in total they had 5 milk feeds, totalling around 900ml to 1 litre of milk, 3.5 hrs daytime sleep and 11-12 hours of night sleep

I struggled so hard with my 6 month old DS's daytime naps, but the other war around. He hardly ever naps for longer than 45 minutes, maybe once a week he'll nap for about an hour and a half. His bedtime is around 6:30 and he wakes between 6:30 and 7. I used to try desperately to extend his naps, doing anything humanly possible, and crying my eyes out if it didn't work. About a month ago I gave up. He now gets 2 or 3 opportunities to nap throughout the day, and I only wake him if he's still napping at 5pm, just so he'll actually go to bed in the evening.

What im getting at here is try to relax a bit (easier said than done as a search of my previous posts will show!) I agree that a rough schedule is helpful, but be a bit flexible with it. And also be kind to yourself, you're not being cruel, you're a new mum trying to your best. You love your baby and your learning with them every day. But most books are full of crap.

Google the intuitive baby sleep programme. Don't necessarily need to buy it, just read their ethos. It makes a lot of sense!

Also, babies are pretty resilient - my little one hardly ever napped between 4 and 10 weeks because I was completely clueless. He's absolutely fine 🙂