Are your children’s vaccines up to date?

Set a reminder

Please or to access all these features

Sleep

Join our Sleep forum for tips on creating a sleep routine for your baby or toddler. Need more advice on your childs development? Sign up to our Ages and Stages newsletter here.

What nap pattern should we have? 15w?

3 replies

HopelesslyHopeful87 · 28/02/2018 18:35

Dd is 15 weeks old and isn't terrible at night but I feel we're on a downward slope. This past week she seems to be sleeping from 7.30 til midnight with no issues and then after that she's unsettled and wanting her dummy back every hour from then til 7am.

She currently naps twice a day and we struggle to fit that third nap in and I feel she might improve if we could sort that out. Perhaps I'm clutching at straws but I want to try. I read on here they should have three naps a day at this age.

She feeds every three hours in the day so I find a nap routine hard to fit in as she can't always get a long one else she is too hungry. Then we have the issue where we get to 5.30pm and she crashes out.

Mostly we start her day at 7am but she's never very hungry then and mostly only takes 2-3oz so by 9.30 she's hungry again so I feed a bit early and she usually reliably naps until 10.30-11. She's then awake until 1pm, has that feed and then naps til about 2.30. If we have the school run she might stay asleep then until we're back at half 3.

Then the tricky bit comes because she then is ready for a nap between 4.30 and 5.30 but I need to be cooking dinner etc and can't rock to sleep at that point. She'll then crash out on my lap at dinner time but then it's bath and bed and she'll cry all through her bath as she's over tired.

How do I cram that third nap in somewhere? Will it really help her nights? I am aware we are probably creeping up to the 4m regression. She's only just had her 12w jabs as she was in hospital when they were due and we had to delay them.

I feel like I'm constantly second guessing myself even though this is my third and I'm always wondering if things should be different which then causes me anxiety when in actual fact I might just need to relax and let her do what she needs to do.

We also have the issue that she doesn't really suck her dummy. It mostly hangs in her mouth and she flicks it with her tongue. How do I get her to take it properly? She can suck it and occasionally does do but not for an extended period of time.

Sorry that's so long thanks for reading.

OP posts:
Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
123456kent · 28/02/2018 20:04

My dd is 19 weeks old. From what I can gather the 4 month regression takes it all out your hands anyway, but my rules up until now (regression slowly creeping up on us) have been a nap every 1.5 hours, sometimes stretching to 1.45 and absolute maximum 2 hours, never any more. If she has a cat nap (which she does often) then this can mean way more than 3 naps a day. I can’t control the length of her naps but I can control how long she is awake for. I believe this has contributed to her sleeping well at night, waking only when hungry.
It’s way easier for me though as she’s my first, so when she needs her last nap of the day at dinner prep time to carry her through until bedtime, dinner waits. That obviously wouldnt work if I had other children to feed!
But I’d say that yes 2 naps a day aren’t enough, in my very humble opinion!!
Have no idea how you / I deal with the regression though...

HopelesslyHopeful87 · 01/03/2018 09:22

Thanks for your reply.

I'm going to work on not letting her be awake too long between naps and see if I can squeeze a third in there somewhere.

Can anyone shed any lighton the dummy problem?

OP posts:
HopelesslyHopeful87 · 01/03/2018 20:03

We managed 3 naps today so I shall see if it has any effect on tonight.

OP posts:
New posts on this thread. Refresh page
Please create an account

To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.

This thread is closed and is no longer accepting replies. Click here to start a new thread.