Should I wake a sleeping baby?

[Ruth21]

DD (nearly 7 weeks) regularly has long naps in the day. Yesterday she slept from 1.30pm to 5pm, for example. She has now (it's just gone noon) been asleep since 9.30 am. She is relatively easy to get to sleep in the daytime, but in the evenings it takes a lot of work to get her to sleep at all, and she tends to wake up when put down in her basket after pretty brief periods. She goes to sleep at night reasonably well, but that, I'm sure, is because she is sleeping in our bed.

It seems perverse to wake her up in the day, but maybe I should be doing it anyway. Might it help her be more settled in the evenings/ at night? Part of me is worried she is not learning to differentiate day and night. The other part is very happy to have time to get things done (or else fritter away on mumsnet ...) during the day.

What do mumsnetters think? How much 'should' a 7-week-old be sleeping during the day?

ruth
i would wake her in the day. it'll will be harder for you to get her to settle into one long night sleep as time goes on. if you start now, it'll will be easier in the long run.
I am a routine person, did it with my dd sucessfully and my days are a dream i have to say.shes a regular as clockwork with her naps and bedtime.

your dd obviously isnt hungry so she is sleeping through feed times but that will change,
does she settle in her cot during the day and if she does i would start settling her at night in there too.

its not really perverse to wake them up, they dont know what "day and night" is but have to adjust to it for the mummies and daddies sake!!!!

there is no need to automatically start waking her up but slowly reduce her day naps, it'll be more work for you in the day but hopefully long nights of sleep in a couple of weeks.

there are plenty of threads on routine on mumsnet with alot of people advocating routine.

ps
in the early they do sleep alot and need it so dont rush it either.

What length of nap do you think I should be aiming for? (She just woke up at about 12.15 btw--so 2 h 45 min this am.)

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At only 7 weeks I shouldnt worry about her sleep patterns She is sooooo young and needs to sleep most of the time. I agree with Twiglett; she will fall into a pattern when she is ready! Make sure you keep day and night seperately as Twiglett said, no playing or chatting at night and keep it dark, chatting,noise and light in the day. I'm not a Gina Ford person by the way either though I guess it works for some.

OK, going to stick my oar in now

DD was the same as yours - she would have a long nap during the day (3 or 4 hours) and would be awake a lot in the evenings. I couldn't remember when DSs started sleeping in the evenings so I wasn't sure what to do either. So, I just left her to it! She's now almost 12 weeks and over the last 4 days she has finally twigged evenings and started sleeping through them. She still does a long nap but is awake longer between naps during the day.

I think its up to you how you want to work it. I'm not anti-routine, I just like to let it develop at its own pace. I don't think it would do any harm to wake your DD up, but I don't think you really need to.

Day - bright, noisy, things going on, go outside sometimes

Evening - Not so bright, more relaxed, not so much movement

Night - Dark and still

Thats the 'rhythm' of our house, so DD is more alert now and has picked up on the differences that were already there - I don't need to do anything special to show her.

Hope this helps, but please remember this is just my POV!

I'm sure we will talk further on this but fwiw, in the past few days I've been trying to encourage ds2 to be awake for a bit longer during the day and have been waking him up if he's sleeping longer than, say, 2.5 hrs. He seems to be sleeping better in the evenings and at night (could be just his age though and coincidence). But I've definitely noticed that my behaviour influences how much he is awake - if I'm out and about he will happily sleep much of the day, if I'm at home and can actively stimulate him/wake him when he seems to be stirring then he sleeps much less in the day.
I think Ms Ford says they 'should' be sleeping around 4.5 hrs in the day (7-7) at this age, if you're interested!! Ultimately it is of course up to you - but you could try reducing her day sleep a little for a few days and see if it helps...

Well, yesterday dd had one of her most active afternoons yet, despite us being out. She sat looking around her in a cafe for a good long time without getting grumpy, which is very unusual. She was also very good in the eveningwe managed to get her settled in her basket by around 8.45 and she was still asleep when we went to bed at midnight. So maybe she is 'getting it' on her own without me intervening too much in her natural napping patterns. I already do most of what is advocated here anywayexcept that in the evenings I don't try to get her to sleep in the bedroom as she usually wakes up so much, and takes so long to get back to sleep, that it feels like my whole evening has been taken up with her sleep when I have done that.

Of course when one problem resolves itselfor seems to, don't want to count my chickensanother arises: she was sleeping on her tummy yesterday evening. This is another reason why she doesn't go in the bedroom in the evening. I feel tummy sleeping is OK during the day/evening when she's in the same room with other people who are awake, but I didn't want to leave her like that at night. So I brought her up to our room in her basket, turned her onto her back, and within ten minutes she had woken herself up. She was hungry by then anyway, but I still think she'd have slept longer on her tummy.