Is my baby a freak of nature or are there other babies out there who need such little sleep?

[CrazyOVERbaby]

Hi there

My 25 week old baby is a complete mystery to me, and I'm hoping you can shed a bit of light on the situation! She suffers from quite bad separation anxiety (read previous posts!!) and the worse her anxiety gets the less she sleeps (makes sense I guess).

She currently has NO daytime sleep, and although seems a bit cranky towards lunch time and tea time, generally gets through ok. This is not for the want of trying (every day!!) but she just won't go to sleep even in my arms/pushchair/car seat etc.

Is this normal?? My first was a fab sleeper and still sleeps more than baby sis at 3 years old. I know they are all different, but my default parenting position is that babies need to sleep!

She sleeps about 11 hours on a night, but frequently wakes before settling herself back down (mercifully!) I'm putting this disturbed night time sleep down to over tiredness, but am not really sure. I've read that babies at this age need between 14-15 hours a day.

What do you all think, and what should I do? Worried that lack of sleep will harm her in some way.

Hmm, I wonder about this myself, though can't help, sorry!

My dd (9 months) sleeps for 10 - 10.5 hours at night, then generally has very short daytime naps. So on some days she only clocks up 11 hours sleep, many days just 12.

Everywhere you read that your baby "should" be taking long naps in the day and getting 14-15 hours sleep. But it is easier said than achieved, god knows! I too worry that dd is not getting enough sleep, but she seems to be developing as normal so...

FWIW it sounds like your dd is good at going to sleep and self-settling, so my instinct is that if she needed daytime sleep she would take the opportunities you are offering for her to have a nap. I'd keep providing these opportunities if I were you. Why not try instigating a nap routine and always putting her down in her cot in the dark? I did this and it worked wonders at getting my dd to settle for naps in cot... until the 9 month sleep regression (woe).

Today I got fed up with trying to settle her for her morning nap (she was fussing, standing up in cot, yelling etc), and had to just step away for a 2 minute breather before I started crying too. Guess what? In that time she fell asleep and stayed asleep for 90 mins (extremely unusual). I'm no advocate of letting them cry it out, but it seems all my intervention was stopping her sleeping. Maybe just laying the groundwork and leaving them alone is the key.

Darned if I know!

DD (now 22 months) is like this too - presumably it will stand to them when they have their own babies!!

Seriously though, she never napped much in the day (90 mins tops, when she was sick, otherwise 45 mins was good). Now totals less than 12 hours in 24 - either about 8-7 plus a 45 min nap, or 7-7 with no nap.

I think they are just the same as big people - some of them need more sleep than others, and this will probably be the same for them through life. DD's cousin, 6 months older would sleep 12 hours at night, plus 3 hours of napping in the day , always has just slept more and easier than DD.

The sooner you stop stressing about it the happier you will all be. I spent so long being stressed about DD's sleep: she sleeps as much as she needs. It's just not very convenient for me...

My ds slept very little when he was a baby. We were shattered. The only way to have him asleep during the day was taking him for long walks in his pushchair.
He gradually improved his sleep patterns, but he's never needed an 11/12 hrs sleep at night.