10h/day normal?

[user1490285009]

Hi guys, my baby sleeps fine at night 7pm-5am. No waking up. Im trying to resolve the early rising thing but I suspect it’s to tied to her poor naps during the day..

Anyways my problem is, she is not sleeping during the day. At all. No cat naps and no short naps. She’s essentially getting 10h sleep/day which I think is on the short side of sleep. She’s been like this since birth. But in the past, she would eventually get tired and succumb to a nap. Now she resists it just fine.

I’m stumped on what to do, and it’s really exhausting: I have tried everything. And I mean everything. Besides a bedtime friendly ritual I am also consistent with putting her in her crib at the same time each day. It’s not that she has sleep association and wakes up after I put her down. It’s that she will not sleep at all. Eventually, enough hours will pass that it’s time for her next pamper change and feed. Next nap time... same thing happens.

She doesn’t cry a lot or get fussy until around 5-6pm. But by then it’s time for her night sleep anyways.

Has anyone experienced this before? Any tips ideas?

From a very tired mum

That sounds hard! How old is your baby? Is she upset during the day through lack of sleep/naps?

Here’s a fairly useful guide to amount of sleep babies should have based on their age: www.emmasdiary.co.uk/baby/sleep/a-guide-to-your-babys-sleep

Have you tried strolling her in the pram to get her to snooze? Does she have a full belly before you try to put her down for a nap?

Hi MrsBriteside, thanks for the link, according to that page she should certainly be getting more sleep.

She’s five months, and she’s been like this pretty much since birth.

I breastfeed her 10min/breast before I try and put her down for a nap. If she still cries ( which happens occasionally... I’ll give her more): does that sound enough at her age? I generally feed every 3-4h. I’m not considering doing this every 2-3h perhaps.

She isn’t particularly fussy during day, she gets very cranky around 5pm and starts doing the over tired cry. Before this time she looks haggard, has eye bags etc but doesn’t cry about it. I suspect this will change as she gets older probably.

Forgot to add... taking her for a walk in a pram helps her nap. But not for long. Yesterday we went out for an hour long walk and she slept for 20-30 min of that,

Have you tried giving her a dummy?

I would try lying down on the floor with her in the living room. Let her breastfeed lying down until she's completely had her fill (rather than a limited time). Once she unlatches in a milk-coma, stay cuddled close and if she fusses pop dunny in and patting her chest gently while shushing. Have your face lying really close to her face while shushing, so your mouth is bloke to her ear. This helps because she can feel your breath and closeness while also getting the white noise from shushing. Stay doing the patting and dummy for a good 10 mins after she appears to have gone to sleep. Then ideally stay cuddled close so you can respond quickly if she fusses, but you could also try rolling away and leaving her there to sleep.

Hi Fatedestiny, I haven’t tried sort of co-sleeping with her. I’m slightly worried that will open another can of worms. The feber method worked for her bedtime, I go through her routine and put her down and she sends herself to sleep within a few mins. I’m worried she might enjoy my being there so much she will start wanting it at night too. That said I’m pretty desperate for her to get any sleep so will still give it a go today and see. Thanks for the suggestion.

The idea of my suggestion above is that it leads towards going to sleep independantly with a dummy.... with no tears whatsoever.

The dummy specifically is a way to encourage baby to go to sleep independantly (ie on own).

Your baby sleeps a similar amount of time to mine and I would be happier with the uninterrupted sleep time I think.

Hi Rubyroot, I know I’m very lucky with the night sleep :) But I still do think it’s not completely healthy for babies to get such little sleep. I think what concerns me most about my little one is that she seems unable to ‘succumb’ to sleep.

Just to update, feeding her for longer has helped a little. She goes down for about 30mins.

Why is it unhealthy?
Because someone told you this?
Try pram, carseat, sling, dummy.
All babies are different and need different amounts of sleep- that's my theory anyway.
Would love my baby to sleep more than 10 hours a day- but he won't! Can't force it.
My baby too hates succumbing to sleep, but what can you do?

Mine was like this. Only napped in the day if I was carrying/pushing/rocking. Put her in the cot and screamed blue murder. However her night sleep was great and I made sure she was well fed before she went down and she would sleep for up to 12 hours!

Only solution was for me to have early nights.

Hi Rubyroot, I went on pubmed and searched sleep and neural development or cognitive function etc..i got a lot of articles talking about the importance of getting lots of sleep. I also have a neuroscience background so all this is at the forefront of my mind.

For me personally, it’s worrying that my little one doesn’t get much sleep. I will continue this journey to figuring out how to get her to sleep more. If I find the secret I’ll be to sure to share it with mummy’s of fellow anti-sleep babies :)

Yes I’ve started to re-train her to sleep at 6 instead of 7... and I’ll soon join her

Hi!
My DS is 4 months and he's been up and down with sleep all the time but I would really rate the PP's suggestions about co-sleeping, it's a total myth that you will create bad habits, but the closeness and safeness may well change the inability to nap in the day... For the first 3 months DS would only fall asleep cuddled up to me and he's just started making his own way to sleeping independently with a dummy. I feel like he's more settled and happy without me because we had that initial co sleeping time (I definitely could be wrong but I don't see anything to be lost by trying!)

I see what you are saying, but I have read 12-14 hours is ideal- therefore, I think you are not far off the mark with 10.

I am sure it will get better with time.

www.nhs.uk/live-well/sleep-and-tiredness/how-much-sleep-do-kids-need/

3 months
● daytime: 4 to 5 hours
● night-time: 10to 11 hours

6 months
● daytime:3 hours
● night-time: 11hours

I think you need to keep trying with the naps. Breastfeeding for longer, walking with the pram whatever. Even 2 half hour naps would be good then build on that. My DD who is 10 months now went through a stage at 5 months of only napping for 30 mins st a time but now sleeps 3-4 hours most days (2 naps). Don’t worry about bad habits and all that but good to keep giving her the opportunity to nap if you know what I mean.

Gannetseatfish, myotheruser..

Yes I get what you mean. The sleep has priority over the ‘good or bad habits’ it might take to achieve it.

She does nod of 30mims in pram whenever we’re out. And 30mins once a day since I tried pp ( fatesdestiny) advice on longer feeds.
So some improvement and some things to work on. Thanks so much for all the advice btw. Even those 30min are helpful.

Any advice on how to stretch this out to longer naps? Is it quite typical for kids at this stage to resist naps?

I think it can be they are becoming so much more aware of their surroundings at 5 months. I’m a committed cosleeper as my two are rubbish at night time sleep so you could try that for daytime naps as pp suggested. In terms of extending the time I think you just have to keep at it until she gets used to it. Even if it’s 30 minutes down time she should become accustomed to the idea. Some people do end up walking every day to achieve naps but that’s not ideal. Also agree that the evidence suggest that daytime naps are very important for cognitive development so worth keeping trying. Also my DD often displays no signs of tiredness but I just try her after 2/3 hours awake and she’ll iften nod off at the boob so I would go by awake times if she’s not asking for naps. But please don’t worry too much, her night time sleep is fantastic and I’m sure she’ll come round to the idea eventually.

www.parentingscience.com/baby-sleep-requirements.html
www.parentingscience.com/baby-sleep-patterns.html

Thanks FATEdestiny- we can all trawl the internet for evidence supporting our claims.

rubyroot, I was giving NHS guidelines. That's what doctors and health visitors would all be recommending. It's hardly trawling the internet looking for obscure evidence you 'support claims'. It's figures HCP recommend!

Sorry your child doesn't sleep the amount recommended by the NHS rubyroot. That's no reason not to give others the recommendations on sleep prodvided by our health service

Any advice on how to stretch this out to longer naps?

The first thing to do OP, is to avoid your baby getting over tired. Good sleep promotes better sleep (and annoyingly poor sleep spirals and ends up leading to continually worse sleep).

So firstly work on the basis of "any sleep, any how" until baby us no longer over tired. The more sleep he had, the easier it is to get to sleep and stay asleep.

So if naps are short, keep then frequent. Very frequent. 30 minute naps are not a problem, but reduce awake time between naps. I'd suggest 90 mins awake maximum, and that includes the time it takes to get baby to sleep. So I'd aim for getting baby back to sleep after 1h awake, which allows for up to 30min settling time.

I'd keep feeds frequent too. At this stage I would have 1 feed and one nap in every 2h block of time through the day. So wake, note the time, feed, have an hour wake time and then in the following half hour get baby back to sleep. Wake and repeat over and over again.

Movement helps nap fighters. As does being allowed you comfort suck. I'd recommend naps with a dummy in a bouncy chair (foot bounce baby in it relentlessly while you sit on the sofa with a cuppa and tv). Pushchair walks work in a similar way, but you're then tied to always needing you go out. Or feeding to sleep if you have an issue with dummies (which is ludicrous, dummies are AMAZING for independant sleep).

As baby stops bring so sleep deprived and starts routinely getting plentiful sleep, then you can start thinking about more sustainable cot naps and extending nap length. These are not likely you be successful while dealing with an exhausted over tired baby though, so solve that first.

Guess you didn't read my links which challenge such figures then?

Baby temperament also affects sleep- all babies do not sleep the same amount.

No, I didn't and I'm not sure why you have the stroppy tone Ruby? These are the NHS recommendations. That's it. They are. There is no dispute that these are the figures on sleep that the NHS recommend.

I get that your child doesn't sleep for the NHS recommended amount if time. I get that you don't see this as a problem. The OP wants to improve her child's sleep and that's a perfectly reasonable thing to ask about and receive suggestions to improve.

While noting your basic point that all children are different, your defensive tone is unhelpful rubyroot

Thanks for the suggestions Fatedestiny, I’ll put them to practice. As I’ve mentioned your tip on longer feeding has helped get me the 30min naps, which now has become 2 naps daily. I’ll continue to encourage them to be frequent and consistent. Makes lot of sense when you say to bring baby up to speed with frequent naps before stressing about longer naps etc.

Gannetseatfish, I agree she seems more alert than ever before. I guess it’s an exciting new world, and she hasn’t learned to pace herself. For now my focus will certainly be to get her napping these 30mins frequently.

Thanks for your help and encouragmemt guys. I really was pulling my hair out. But I feel a bit more optimistic now that there are things I can try/ work towards.