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

Rubyroot, all research indicates sleep is important for babies. But we don’t have to make it scientific. Think of it intuitively, lack of sleep in. adults can worsen our health and impair cognitive function.
What might it do to a child? Insufficient sleep is no trivial matter.

I think as parents we all pick our battles a little bit. Would I be this pressed if she wasn’t my first child? Or if I had 2 other kids to focus on? Or if I was back at work? Maybe not. But I’m not in those situations, so why not spend a little time and effort helping her get much needed rest. No judgement to any parent whose circumstances and views are different.

FATEdestiny-

I am also giving the op advice; advice not to worry too much if the solutions don't work. Indeed, this was the advice given to me by doctors and HVs.

After all, these solutions are pretty basic to be honest and most people with babies that tend to fight sleep will have tried ALL of them.

If most babies adhere to the guidelines (which frankly I don't think are helpful) then why are the vast majority of mothers sleep deprived and complain of sleep deprivation? In fact why is there a board dedicated to sleep?

The routines you describe assume that a baby will adhere to such a routine and some babies just won't. My point is that people can get very stressed about trying to get baby to sleep and that can also be counterproductive.

My baby won't feed or sleep when I decide it is time, unfortunately. But, I can follow his cues and try to provide the right environment to help him sleep.

Good luck user1490285009. Try your get more like 4 or 5 short naps in per day by trying for a nap much sooner than you currently do.

Tired signs mean baby is overtired and their just-got-tired point (best and easiest time to get baby to sleep) was at least an hour earlier, before there are any outward physical signs of tiredness. It's almost like learning to predict your baby's sleep cycles so you know baby is about to become tired before baby does. It's tricky to predict this with your first child, so a good approximation would be 60-90 minutes from last waking.

Once baby is generally less exhausted, it'll be much easier to work on more long term solutions.

I had almost exactly the same problem with mine when she was little. Up until 4 months, I was also getting the lovely long stretch at night but no naps during the day resulting in an irritable baby from late afternoon. Then the 4 month sleep regression hit and she started waking every 45 minutes at night. Coupled with no sleep all day, it was absolute hell; not because I wasn't getting sleep but because she was a grumpy, overtired, irritable mess who refused to nap with all her strength.

Lots of posters in here kindly gave me tips but I can say with hindsight I wasn't consistent enough (felt like I was being at the time though). I ended up using a sleep consultant at 5.5 months and we were getting 13+ hours in 24 within 3 days. Sleeping all the way through the night didn't return until she was 13 months + but that didn't matter - I had a happy baby back who was an absolutely pleasure to be around.

User, like you, I also was extremely concerned for the impact of the lack of sleep on her brain and development. Plenty of family members told me not to stress and that she needed less than most babies etc etc but my instinct (and her irritable mood) told me otherwise. Turns out my instinct was spot on as the difference once she was sleeping was life changing. If you feel it's not right, trust your judgement.

Both my kids only ever sleep 10 hours a night with a nap of anywhere between 30 mins and 2.5 hours (youngest only - oldest doesn't nap now)

Riddles, wow the sleep consultant sounds amazing! Money well, well, well spent! I know exactly what you mean with the irritability but more than that, mine just looks different on the days she doesn’t sleep. When she does sleep she somehow looks nicer, more whole ( if that even make sense), even her hair is more sleek and shiny. When she doesn’t sleep she looks unwell, her hair gets frizzy, you can see from her face something isn’t quite right. I can tell, most other people cannot. This is also what’s been adding to my alarm.

I’m so glad I came here and everyone’s given such great advice. Sleep training is a process, so I know better than to celebrate just yet. But for the first time in forever, she’s slept 12h over night, and had 2 naps today ! A 1h nap and a 2h nap.

Good luck on your baby sleep journey. It really is so important for both baby and mummy.

I know exactly what you mean - there is such a big difference between an overtired baby and one who is well rested. Everyone else couldn't tell with mine either. They will now say to me how it's so good I used sleep consultant etc but at the time, they all thought I was stressing about nothing and being too rigid with her routine. Turns out as much as they knew about parenting and no matter how many children any of them had, they had not parented my child and my instinct was absolutely correct.

Sounds like you are making brilliant progress. My advice would be continue what you are doing and hopefully you can nail it on your own and keep some flexibility in your day too. Keep sleep consultant at the back of your mind for if it gets really bad (fingers crossed you won't reach that stage though).

Mines a toddler now and generally is a great sleeper...but I'm expecting a second and about to start it all again . Wishing for a better sleeper but am much more prepared on how to deal with things if they're not.
Good luck with your journey, hoping this is the start of much better sleep for your little one

My two used to do an hour in the morning, 2.5hours over lunch and then an hour in the afternoon. This has gradually decreased over the months and now they are 9months (7.5 corrected), they have 2/3 30min naps a day. Initially this was a nightmare and I was tearing my hair out as they were so obviously unhappy and overtired and for the life of me I couldn't work out how to get that big lunchtime nap back. However, as they've got older, it's almost as if their brains have caught up with their bodies and now they are happy little bunnies all day with these 3 short naps and then 6.30/7pm bedtime. But they sleep badly from 2am, waking and refuse to go back down unless they're in bed with me so I have to say I'm super envious that your LO sleeps pretty much through. I totally understand the tiredness and frustration of having no time to yourself during the day (mine had a week of napping at different times which was hell until I tweaked the nap times) but maybe after a while she'll begin coping better with the lack of day sleep like mine did, so it will become more manageable?
I assumed that all babies day nap but have a friend whose first born is an excellent night sleeper and at 2 years old has never napped in the day at all which blew my mind when she told me! So maybe this is the case for you too?

Riddles- thank you for the kind words of support. Many congratulations on your-soon to arrive- baby! I hope he/she is a champion sleeper! And on the off chance he/she isn’t-you’re better prepared ( flexing mummy muscle :)

Twinmum - yes she might be able to better deal with it as she gets older. But I’m also keen to keep trying to get her to sleep. I hope your llttle one’s night sleep gets better. Believe it or not I’m kinda envious of mums whose babies want to co-sleep or fall asleep in their mums arms. Mine gets really fussy whenenever I try to get her to sleep in my arms, and gets too excited if I bring her to bed.