Do you wake a baby?

[CarlyRose80]

If baby has a bad nights sleep do you let them sleep as much as they like during the day to catch up or are you just making for another bad night by doing so? What if you have a baby that would sleep endlessly, do you at some point have to have a cut of point for napping?

With my DS now 7 years old I didn't need to. The only way naps impacted night time sleep was if he hasn't had enough sleep rather than to much.

Have you noticed if it makes any difference?

My youngest would happily have slept for a 6 hr stretch during the day but around 3 weeks old it dawned on me she was only sleeping 2 or 3 hours at a time at night. I started waking her during the day after 2 or 3 hours and she started sleeping better at night. She was sleeping 9pm till 6am by 5 or 6 weeks old. My other two never slept through till much older. It's hard though as if you've had a bad night it's so tempting just to let them sleep so you can have some peace.

Same as Goandplay... DD sleeps better if she has enough sleep in the day - still, and she's nearly 3!

We have to wake her in the morning though if she's not awake on a work day.

How old is the baby in question?

I used to feed dd every three hours in the day and sometimes that involved lifting her while sleeping. I wouldnt keep her awake as I found it didnt affect night time and just made her harder to get to sleep.in the daytime.

Good point. I'd assumed newish baby but if baby is older then overtiredness can cause them to wake in the night or struggle to settle. Dd3 is now 25mths and a nightmare if she is overtired. If she doesn't sleep 7 til 7 then she will grump all day and be up half the night the next night. She has dropped her daytime nap now unless poorly

He's 14 weeks. Some nights he's ok, and will do 8-7 with 2 feeds and maybe one wake up for dummy. But other nights we are up all the time. He doesn't cry he's just restless and needs tucking back in. Last night was almost every hour. My main problem is he has a big nap at 5pm and would sleep for 3 hours if I let him, should I let him? It just worries me that he will thinks it night time and then not sleep at night, not that that would be any different at the moment lol

Is there any way he would entertain a bath at 5pm...eek out a bit.more time, then bottle/boob and down to bed at 6pm?

My DS, 13weeks, sleeps a LOT! Today, he slept until 12pm (feeding throughout the night) from 11pm last night. He 'wakes' every 2-3 hours but feeds without opening his eyes.

I personally find that the better he sleeps throughout the day, the better he sleeps at night. As I say, he takes 2-3 oz every 2-3 hours but I think he's a sleepy wee boy.

Oh look, he's just gone back to sleep

Lol. Well he's been up an hour and a half after having a 2 hour nap which I woke him from to feed him and he's now gone back to sleep. I'm just gonna let him sleep as much as he wants and see what happens. It just concerns me that if I put him to bed at 6 will he think its morning at 4am? Or if I let him have his huge sleep at 5 and he wakes when he wakes will he not sleep at night, although he's not anyway lol. Why's it soo hard?

We're still getting used to these brand newbies, that's why it's hard.

I sometimes think my DS 'must' sleep too much but if he's happy, I'm happy and until I have to go back to work, I'm just not going to stress it and just keep following his lead.

Yeah I think that's what I will do. If he's tired let him sleep. Nights can't be any worse lol

Hi Carly. I would only allow a very short nap late afternoon to help refresh him and get him through until 7 pm, or whenever bedtime is. I realised that with mine, although they got very tired in late afternoon, if I let them have more than 15/20 mins at that time of day, their night time sleep would be totally up the spout! Maybe have a go of waking after 15 mins and see if that does the trick!

Like singsong, at that age I used to do a very short nap at about 5.30/6ish to keep DD going until her 8ish bedtime, otherwise we would have had to do a 6.30 bedtime, and that would have meant a 6am wake up....

I'd get her to sleep on me, then wake her up. Obviously she wasn't entirely happy with this so I used to then take her for a walk in her pram - strangely she would stay awake then and enjoyed the twenty minutes of fresh air, which calmed her down and kept her happy until bedtime.

Thanks. I can imagine it will be a nightmare if I only let him have 15/20 mins. I know he will just scream the place down but it's worth trying. I really don't know which way to go, guess I can try all advice and see what works best.