12wk old, naps need organizing...or do they?

[countbartles]

Hello all, my first time posting on here...
My DS is 12 weeks, and so far NOT a good sleeper. It takes an incredible amount of work to get him down for day time naps(always involving a lot of BF-ing as soon as drowsy signs start), and night sleeps usually go 2 hours 3 hours then 1 hour then 1 hour and up for the day between 6 and 7am. I've just this week brought his bedtime forward to 8.30. I wake him at 10.30 for a boob and then he's back down to sleep. My question is, at what stage do babie start consolidating their naps in to a 9.30am, 1pm, and 3.30pm (for eg.), and how can i help this happen? Surely if he's been up since 6 with a bad nights sleep he should nap before 9.30, but then again if the naps started becoming more regimented then maybe his night sleep would improve?
I hope this is making sense...I'm finding the whole sleep thing so difficult! How the hell are you meant to know what the right thing is?
Any tips would be hugely appreciated...

Hello, I am no help on whne they strat to consolidate sleeps. But my DS (16 weeks) will generally want to go back to sleep about 1-1.5 hours after waking up. That's always the shortest one and as they day goes on he manages about 2 hours and will often stay awake from about 4pm until a 7pm bedtime. But sometimes he'll have a short 20 min nap if things have been a bit crap.

He really isn't a great napper in the day, but we rack up about 2.5 hours of naps spread over 3-4 session. I struggle to get him to sleep longer than 40 mins TBH.

I read somewhere that they should be sleeping for about 15 hours in a 24 hours period. At the mo, my DS does about 13 at night and then as above.

All babies are different. But I found that we turned a corner re:sleeping by not letting him go more that 2 hours between sleeps. And as the weeks have gone on, I feel more confident to stretch him out as the day progresses. And to reiterate, we really don't have cracked yet!

Good luck!

DD at 14 weeks has adopted the 2,3,4 rule which apparently is quite common. She naps 2 hours after waking (9.30ish for DD) then nap 3 hours after waking (1-2ish) then 4 hours later goes to bed. (7:30ish) Supposedly alot of babies will adopt this general pattern at some point. At 10 weeks I realised I never put her down for naps she always just slept wherever she was as i BF her to sleep but once I heard about the 2,3,4 rule I realised that was her rough pattern and thought I would help it along!

I started putting her in her cot 2 hours after waking - for the first week or so she just played and cried to be honest but now she goes to sleep straight away! I think teaching her to self soothe was the first battle as she could then stay in her cot until she did sleep (sometimes took a while!) but she got the hang of it. I always put her in her cot awake- within 5 mins I would know if she was tired enough to sleep. If she cried I would pick her up after a few mins- didn't talk to her but held her til she stopped crying then put her back then repeat as necessary! I kept doing that til she fell asleep (sometimes 5 times) If she doesnt cry I think the gro bag helps as she can't kick around as easily which keeps her awake. (DD is very active!) It did take a bit of persistence to get her used to it but now I always play her the baby einsteins Mozart CD then she knows it's sleep time.

I'm certainly no expert but before about 12 weeks I don't think DD really tired herself out enough to sleep that much but now she rolls, chats and sits up (supported) she seems to need to sleep more so I'm sure your turn is coming! Her night sleep has improved since her naps are more regular too.

HTH - just my experience (so far!) good luck!

ROSDUK I'd not come accross that 2-3-4 rule, but I'll see if it applies to DS over the week. If they start yawning etc before the expected time though, do you ignore the 'routine/bedime' and put them down imediately?
My next project is to definately bite the bullet and start putting him down awake...I know it is so important that he develops self soothing skills, but there's always that niggling worry that he just won't ever accept it and we'll end up a few weeks down the line even more over-tired than we already are!

Just to add on the self-settling, I'm afraid that I also got DS doing it at about 8 weeks? It wasn't as painful as you'd think (honest!) and just takes A LOT of patience. My DH is much stronger than me...but I learnt to differentiate between shouting and crying. Most if the time it's shouting TBH. And I always set myself a time limit when I leave him. So start off small (say 5 mins) and as you get more confidence, you'll be able to leave them a bit longer before going in.

I found the baby whisperer v.good on settling DS. DH will always shhh/pat him when he's home. Oh and if poss, get someone else (DP/DH?) to settle whenever possible. My DS always just smells the milk with me!

Yeah if she starts getting tired at different times I always go by what she wants but it seems fairly regular now anyway. I also agree with starting off small because it was difficult at first when she started crying.

:)