Comfort BF during the day due to tiredness???

[Addicted2DairyMilk]

My DD is nearly 3mo and so far so good with night sleeping (9.30pm to appox. 7am although I know this can all change with growth spurts/teething etc). I know I'm very lucky with regards to the night times. My query is about day time napping - DD breastfeeds very frequently and for only short periods of time during the day (could this be making up for no middle of the night feed?). She often falls asleep at the breast and can be very clingy because of requring frequent feeds (as in not really staying held by other people inc. DH for any period of time). She only sleeps during the day for less than 20mins at a time and as soon as I try to put her in the moses basket her eyes spring open and she wants to be up again. I'm wondering if she is comforting herself by frequently BF because of being tired as opposed to being hungry and maybe I should try to put her down for an afternoon nap and make that into a routine, or is she having enough sleep at night. Any advice will be great. TIA

Personally I would say now is a fabulous time to start working on naps. They say daytime sleep doesn't really settle till 4 months but no harm in trying now.

If you always feed to sleep, your LO might not stay asleep if you put her down from the breast. This sounds like what you've described. She's waking up at the shock of the breast being gone, and many children can't just go back to sleep. Some people do fine feeding to sleep -- my DD always woke up, so I ended up lying down on the bed with her and feeding on the side, and then I could slowly extricate myself sometimes. However, this becomes unsafe as they get more mobile. If you think you will want her to nap in her cot, you probably need to put her down awake. This may take practice. It is easier to start this now while she's little than to wait till she's older.

Regardless of how you accomplish it, most babies need long naps during the day -- morning, afternoon, and even a catnap.

My DD was always a champion sleeper at night (like yours) but daytime sleep is important -- if they aren't getting enough, they get overtired and the nights are hellish.

I knew nothing about children's sleep requirements when DD was little and I would have done things differently if I did. There are a lot of books with different strategies (Baby Whisperer, Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child, SleepEasy, No-Cry Solutions) but they are quite unified in describing the need for sleep, the developmental purpose of naps, and how much sleep children need at various ages. You will probably find some strategies better than others, but it's worth thumbing through a few books, getting an idea of how much sleep your LO needs, and making a plan that you think will work for your family.

Hi my wee one is good with naps (not so with night). I find he needs to go down about 1 hour after waking in the morning. If this doesn;t happen he is harder to settle all day. Its usually quite easy to get him down the first time tho. Also it might be an idea to wake her if she falls asleep when eating so she gets more at one go.
If you struggle to get her to stay asleep, you could maybe go for long walk or drive or just keep holding her when she falls asleep. Once she is used to napping at certain times she might get easier to settle,
BTW if i could get mine to sleep that well at night I would change nothing for fear of disturbing the nights

Thanks Teapot and goodname for your replies. DD is excellent at self settling at night but I think during the day like you say teapot I tend to put her down to nap when she's fallen asleep BF which may explain her waking instantly. So I will try to settle her for a nap whilst awake first and see what happens! Like goodname says though I am worried a little that it will affect her nighttime routine, but perhaps I will look at some of the books about sleeping. Is there any one in particular you recommend as being useful to you?

I could have written your post addicted my ds is ok at night (not as good as your dd though!) but when it comes to daytime he falls asleep on the breast and is near impossible to put down.

It would be good to see how you get with your dd, my ds is also 3mo and would love him to sleep on his own during the day.

I think the general consensus is that naps only improve nighttime sleep.

The many books on this will have sample schedules to try -- you don't need to stick to one but it would give you an idea of how much sleep is needed, how much wakefulness a baby can tolerate at various ages, etc. I found this was not necessarily intuitive to me.

I tried 4 books. I learned from each of them but haven't followed any of them exactly.

Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child by Mark Weissbluth -- he is a pediatrician, and pretty much a hardcore cry-it-out guy. I learned good information about sleep from the medical standpoint. He doesn't have a "method" or practical tips like some books have. You just shut the door and go in 12 hours later! (I didn't do this.) I'm joking, though, and his case for crying it out actually has some good points, although I didn't do it.

No Cry Nap Solution by Elizabeth Pantley I thought this would be the answer. Sadly, it didn't work for us. Again, there was some good information and I did try some tips on lengthening naps, but that was about it. Her methods take weeks to implement so it's hard to tell whether you're improving. Also, she focuses on "props" to lengthen sleep pram, car rides, swings. Ultimately (according to most books) these don't help a baby self-settle.

Baby Whisperer by Tracy Hogg -- she's kind of controversial, and I understand the people that don't like her. Her system is fairly formula-feeding-based. I bought her book because I thought it would be a middle-of-the-road method between "no-cry" and controlled crying. In our experience, BW meant uncontrolled crying! You stay with the child and help soothe it to sleep but it felt like I was just torturing DD. We faithfully implemented her methods for 4 weeks and saw significant improvement at night. Naps are harder to straighten out.

I think she has valuable information about schedules and sleep habits, and that her book would be more useful with a younger baby. (Mine was 8-9 months.)

The Sleepeasy Solution by Jennifer Waldburger and Jill Spivack -- To put it bluntly, when I got tired of torturing my whole family with Baby Whisperer, this book gave me the courage to do controlled crying. We've just started so I shouldn't comment but it's going better than anything else we've tried, and involves less crying than what we were doing.

I think it's easier to straighten out naps before habits get entrenched. I decided to just put it off when DD was 5 months and I think it ended up being harder on her to do it later.

Thanks again teapot I think I'll loan some books from the library and check out what you've advised. Today DD managed a half hour nap this morning (in her bouncy chair though not moses basket) and she had about an hour and half spread over two car journies this afternoon. So I think sleep-wise she is probably ok although they are naps that have happened by accident and she always sleeps in the car. I think I need a day at home where nothing is planned to try and create a routine where she sleeps in her moses basket. But I've decided I definitely will thanks to your advice, whereas before I wasn't sure. If I manage to be successful DesperateHousewife I'll let you know how!