How true is it that good sleep breeds good sleep?

[maybethedayafter]

My baby, who has refused to nap for the past few days, has had a 3 hour nap this morning, albeit when I hold her but still. Does this bode well for tonight? Or is she likely to still be awake at midnight?

What age? Under 2 then definitely good I predict

14 weeks, 7 weeks corrected.

I hope you're right!

I'm a ftm So no expert but from what I've learnt so far from my ten week old, the better she sleeps in the day for naps, the better she is at night

YES!
My Dd is 17 months now, and for the last month or so, she's been in a weird early-morning wake up funk she was waking between 5 and 5:30am every day - nap time isn't until 11:30 (if she naps any earlier than that, then she would refuse an afternoon nap, and then be a nightmare at bed time!). Someone told me to try putting her to bed earlier at night, and I was totally against it because I thought she would wake even earlier. But then she had a major "I'm tired" meltdown at about 6pm one evening, so I took her upstairs, quick bath, had some milk and she was asleep by 6:30pm. I shit you not, she didn't make a sound until 7am the next day Then I stuck with the usual daily routine of a nap 11:30am-1:15pm, but moved bedtime to 6:30 instead of 7, and she's been sleeping much better! She's easier to settle too Good luck OP!!

My seven month old DD usually sleeps around 3 and a half hours in the day split into two naps with an occasional third 20/30 minute late afternoon if her long one was early. Usually up at 6.30 for a bottle then back to bed for an hour or an hour and a half. For some reason I consider this to be a nap rather than going back to bed. She then gets up for brekkie at about 8.30. Depending on our day's activities she'll nap about 11.30-1.30 then up for lunch. She sometimes drops off at about 4 for half an hour then tea at 5, we have bath time at 6, bed at 6.45... She is a great sleeper... Sleeping usually 7-6 with an occasional wake up for her dummy. I find she definitely sleeps better if she's had good quality naps in the day. She's usually much easier to actually settle too as she's not over tired. Crazy hey but if she's had crap sleep in the day I'm more concerned she'll have crap sleep at night rather than the other way round. Let us know how it goes! Xxx

It's strange isn't it, it's the opposite of what you'd expect.

On that day (Wednesday) she napped brilliantly, she didn't really sleep any better at night but she didn't sleep any worse either. But yesterday (Thursday) she napped really well in the morning but then was awake from 3pm until about 9.30 (she was completely shattered in the end) and she slept really badly last night.

I do think there's something in it. Just need to get the daytime naps right!

It made no difference whatsoever with either of my two - there was/is no relation between their daytime and night time sleep.

DS is now 5, and could nap well, then sleep well or badly, and nap badly, then sleep well or badly.

DD was generally a better sleeper at night, but her sleep goes crazy during growth spurts and teething (so fairly constantly since four months old), and again, napping seems to make no difference.

With DS he finally settled at two years old and from then on has been a brilliant night-sleeper. No daytime naps, puts himself to sleep easily, and sleeps through even when sick.

Still waiting with DD . . .

I find the opposite - if he sleeps well in the day the night sleep is crap. Tbf at the moment it's pretty crap regardless, but at least when he only has 3 45 min naps his 3/4 night wake ups are fairly short (half hourish). On Saturday we do Turtletots but this tires him out, so he has 2 45 mib naps and a 1.5 hour one...
However...when he's had that nap every Saturday night without fail he is wide awake between 2 and 4 and up for the day at 5. It's horrendous. He only seems to need 11.5 hours sleep in 24, so increased day sleep means lots of long wakeful periods in the night. All babies are different.