Does my baby sleep too much?

[Pupsters]

My baby is 5 months old (was born 5 weeks early). His wake windows are very short and gets grizzly after between 1hr15 mins and 1hr45 of being awake.

He tends to have 3-5 naps a day, depending on the length of them.

He tends to sleep for 30-60 mins in the morning, followed by another hour or so, then a 2 hour nap, then another 30-60 mins. I tend to wake him up after 2 hours but I’m wondering if I should just let him sleep for as long as he would like?

He then goes down for bed at 8pm and wakes every 2-3 hours to be fed, waking for the day between 6-7.

I have no problems with this, I’m just curious as to whether I should cap his naps? Let him sleep as long as he’d like? Thanks!

If you want to improve the night sleep then you will need him to nap less in the day. At that age they need about 14-15 hours total in a 24 hour period so if you want 11-12 hours overnight then you’re probably looking at 3 hours max of naps. You also need them to be awake and feeding often enough to get the bulk of their calories needs during the day so they can then manage longer stretches at night. But if you have no issue with his current schedule then no need to do anything differently. It’s really up to you!

Thanks so much! That’s helpful. He would honestly sleep the day away if I let him! I will try capping his naps to see if it makes any difference to his night time sleep. I’m not so concerned with him waking up every couple of hours in the night but it definitely would be nice for even a 4 hour stretch!

In total, it seems your baby is getting 4-5 hours of daytime sleep plus 10-11 hours of overnight sleep. Average sleep needs for 4-12 months is 12-16 hours in a 24 hour period so I don't think it seems unusual. I think some babies may be more inclined to sleep more in the day and have a shorter night, or vice versa.

You may find that trying to keep him awake a bit longer especially in the last wake window before bedtime could improve nighttime sleep. And this would likely lead to 3 naps per day rather than 4, perhaps with a slightly earlier bedtime for a time. But there's really no guarantee with these things.

I definitely would not leave a baby to sleep more than 2 hours in one go in the daytime, personally. Not that I've ever had that issue!

Thank you! The last wake window is the one we struggle with most if I’m honest, he gets sooo upset if we keep him awake for too long and he’s usually such a content baby. I think it could be because I cap his last nap at around 35-45 minutes…

Will play around with his naps over the weekend and see how it goes!