Awake time for 7 month old

[Sardines18]

I have posted before about my son's poor night sleeping. He wakes hourly/ 2 hourly from 6pm to 6am. I realise this is due to the breastfeed to sleep association and I'm slowly trying to make gradual changes to change this.

His napping during the day is all over the place too! He can sometimes nap for 2 hours then sometimes only 30 mins.
After being awake for 2 hours after waking up in the morning he will often have a 1/1.5 hour nap. Then he will get tired after an hour awake time, is this because he is overtired from waking so frequently during the night? It seems through the day he needs to nap after only 60min to 90 min awake time, is this normal for a 7 month old? I'm just worried that he gets tired so quickly!

I wonder whether he feels tired from a broken sleep in the night. Sorry I haven't got any advice but wanted to say you are not alone. My 7.5 month old ds also wakes up frequently at night and sometimes wants a nap an hour after waking.

There's loads of threads around at the moment about babies in the 6-10 month bracket with inconsistent nap lengths.

In your case, it's not really a case of "what should a 7 month old be sleeping?" Because a large proportion of 7 month olds would be sleeping through, just waking once or so, or waking but not being fed over night. You'll get others of the same age given free boob access all night who sleep solidly, but lightly all night. And everything in between.

So it's more a case of understanding what your 7 month old could/should be doing, rather than comparing to all 7 month old.

It seems through the day he needs to nap after only 60min to 90 min awake time

That sounds perfectly reasonable for your 7 month old. There is nothing wrong in it.

I don't believe in keeping a tired baby awake. I think more sleep is better sleep however that happens. If I was regularly seeing tired signs 60-90m of being awake, I'd start nap time at about 50 minutes awake. I would always air on the earlier/more sleep side than stretching awake times.

I let baby dictate stretching awake times, not me. My youngest wasn't going more than 2 hours between naps until she was nearly 2 years old. She would manage a bit longer awake just before bedtime, but all the way through the first two years she was on 90-120m awake time maximum.

Air? Err!

Thanks for the advice Fate.
After a difficult weekend I'm trying the 50 min awake time. Is there such a thing as too long a nap?

Here is what happened yesterday:

7am woke up
9am nap
9.30 woke
11am nap
11:45 woke
1:30 nap
3 woke
4.30 nap
5 woke
6.30 bed
10.30 wake up (4 hour stretch is the longest he has done in months)
Then hourly wakes up until
4.30 wake up
5.30 back to sleep after lots of tired crying
6.30 wake up

Now today has gone
8am nap
8.30 wake
9.45 nap
11am still sleeping...

I have read posts where I think you might have suggested a day or two of just as much sleep as possible? Im thinking I need to do this as my baby is definitely very grumpy and sleep deprived. Is this 'sleep dept' term true?

If you have no time constraints on you saying baby needs to be awake at X time or asleep at Z time, then I'd let baby sleep as much as they want/need.

You may find the awake time after the long nap stretches. But don't stretch it too far or you'll just go back to over tired.

My DD used to do 2 hour naps, but still only wanted 2 hours maximum awake between naps. Often only 90 minutes.

I am a firm believer that more sleep is always better.

Thanks Fate. He is currently down for a nap after 90 mins awake. Think I have stupidly been comparing him to other babies his age going for much longer awake time instead of just helping him get to sleep as often as he needs.

Going to try this for the next fews days as I have no time constraints really, more just being selfish.

He only has rubbish naps on the go so feel quite restricted on what I can get out to do in a day with such a short window but I know this won't last forever so should make the most of having a lot of time to read etc!