How much daytime sleep?

[Daffodilly]

DD is 8 weeks old and we are aiming to follow the BW EASY routine. She feeds about every 3 hours and naps reasonably well in the day. Currently she does an 45-60 min nap early/mid morning, then a longer sleep midday (sometime she'll go 2 hours - and might go longer if I let her, but I wake her to feed), then shorter 30-45 mins during each 3 hour cycle in the afternoon (these are often a battle to get her to settle and can take so long that it is hardly worth it before starting bedtime).

We do a feed, bath, feed, bed routine starting at about 6PM each evening. I'd say we have a 50% hit rate of her going down. Otherwise she ends up with us until 10 or 11PM when I feed her and try to settle her again.

I'm just not sure how much sleep I should be aiming for to avoid her being over tired in the evening and hard to settle (my theory) or ending up awake all night as she has slept too much (DH theory)! It seems a delicate balance.

Last night was a disaster. She wouldn't settle at 7:30PM despite clearly being tired. After an hour we gave up and took her down with us where she happily played in her chair while we ate, but then got more and more tired and restless as the evening wore on (still wouldn't sleep though). I fed her again at 11PM and she went down fine at midnight. Slept until 5AM (hurrah) but then woke for a feed and wouldn't settle again (surely she would be tired after only 5 hours sleep in a 12 hour period - I know I was!)

Any advice or perspective welcome!!! Or maybe I am just expecting too much?

I think your theory is correct and she is overtired but as you'll see from the many threads, actually getting them to sleep is another matter. In the evening I don't bring my DD (17 weeks) downstairs once she's had her bath, instead we go into her bedroom, keep it quiet, feed, sit and cuddle and unwind, all in a dimly lit room. Sometimes for an hour. Once asleep, she will invariablly wake up about 30 - 45 minutes later and will be awake on and off for 20 minutes then settles back until 11ish.

I do think a proper wind down is important in the evening to help them go from the excitment of the day to a restful sleep. Of course this is all very well in theory I know and my contributions on many of these threads will tell you that I haven't got it right either but from watching my lo I could see that she was so worked up and I was trying to get her to sleep without relaxing her properly first. If you think about it, as adults we put ourselves through a process of unwinding to enable us to sleep. We have to do that for them too as they can't do it themselves so following an evening routine really helps.

She is still really young though and I don't think any pattern had started to emerge for my lo until about week 13/14. I would imagine she would be ready to sleep about 1.15 - 1.30h after being awake at that age but I'm no expert. Look for the signs and get to sleep as soon as you see them. In my experience don't get too hung up on trying to get her to fit a routine yet. It makes you more anxious when it doesn't work.

In my experience the more sleep they have during the day the better they sleep at night. My three all had a long nap during the day and other short naps too, all slept brilliantly. I also don't think there is anything wrong with feeding them to sleep, I did this when they were little and did have any problems with them relying on it as they got a bit older. 8 weeks is still v young.

Thanks for your replies. That all makes a lot of sense. I think maybe I should spend more time winding her down for bed. DH does the bath which he makes into a lot of fun but is probably quite stimulating for her. I then do the last feed and settle which I often try to rush as I am keen to get down and eat (usually starving at that point) and have a bit of an evening with DH and an early night in preparation for the late shift! I am starting a baby massage course next week so perhaps adding that to her bed time routine will help the calming preparation.

She will fall asleep if I cuddle her for long enough but I feel wary of creating a habit where she has to be cuddled to sleep. Perhaps I shouldn't be so concerned about that just yet though.

I agree, at 8 weeks she needs lots of cuddles and so do you. Don't be frightened of enjoying your baby. You'll never regret cuddling them too much! DH will still be there in a few weeks when your DD has matured a bit and settles into more of a pattern. Sounds like you're doing a fantastic job.

Hi!
Our DD Eden is almost 10 weeks old. we have been trying to set her into a routine the best we can. we feed, bathe & feed & then set her down to bed at 7pm. After almost falling asleep in our arms whilst feeding, as soon as we set her down in her cot, she wakes. She will lie awake for a while & then start crying. a dummy will placate her for no longer than 5 minutes before she's crying again. We've tried leaving her to cry for 10-12 minutes, but there's no stopping her. She will not settle for daytime naps either. the only way she will fall asleep at a decent time is in our arms. As much as we love cuddling her, we do not want her to get into the habit of being cuddled to sleep. Should we be leaving her to cry? If it goes past the 10-12 minutes, what then?
Due to her poor sleep paterns, she is now extremly overtired. How do we overcome this?Should we let her sleep more in the day?
Any suggestions?

Sorry! new to the forum & mistakenly posted a reply instead of a new thread...