do you ever wake your child up?

[strangerthanfiction]

I was just thinking that dd, 22 months, is virtually never woken by us in the mornings or after naps unless we really have to go somewhere in the afternoon and she's slept beyond 2 hours. In the morning she's always the first up and for naps I generally let her sleep as long as she wants to.

Well in the morning - definitely not. Usually dd (aged 2) beats us to it, and frankly if she has a lie in, so do we! Although occasionally on work days I get up first and then I think she's in light sleep so I unwittingly end up disturbing her.

I do wake her up from naps if she sleeps more than 2 hours in the afternoon, or if she's ended up having a really late nap and there's a danger she won't go down again at 7pm. Sometimes we wake her up for stuff - e.g. to attend her own birthday party!! And yesterday the childminder woke her after an hour to go with the other kids to see some performance in the park.

So I guess in the daytime it happens fairly often.

Thanks pidge. How old is yours?

Durr ... you said in your message. Sorry!

I wish DD would sleep in in the mornings. After lunch we do sometimes wake her if she has slept a long time, or had a late nap so she will still go to sleep again at 7. and If I need to go out somewhere important we do wake her then too.

Oh yes, we wake ours up! Utterly shocked my mum and mil 'What? You wake a sleeping baby?!'

Its much better and less important now that ds is neraly 4, but when he was younger if we let him sleep in in the morning the whole day went to pot. And if he napped later than 3.30ish in the afternoon then it seemed to turn into a night-time sleep and he would be a real ratbag for the rest of the day after being woken. Dd was never such a keen sleeper, and she got over the late start or late finish probelm much earlier, by about 1yo.

Now we rarely have to wake them in the morning, and I generally let them sleep as long as they like in the afteronnon (provided I haven't put them down later than, say 2pm) unless we have to go somewhere.

I was wondering because my dd usually sleeps 7.30-6.30 at night, then has anything between 1-3 hours after lunch, rarely sleeping til as late as 3pm. But if I'm out with her she only cat naps in the pram, maybe 45 mins after lunch and then seems to sleep a bit later the next morning. So I was wondering whether to restrict her afternoon nap.

Well 7.30 to 6.30 is pretty good going really. But you could try shortening her nap to no longer than 2 hours to see if it makes a difference. Personally I wouldn't shorten it any further as generally I think the more they sleep the happier they are, and I never found that a shorter nap in the afternoon had much impact on my dd's morning wake time. She too will generally only sleep about 45mins - 1 hour in the pushchair if we're out and about.

Thanks pidge, that's what I think generally, the more they sleep the more they sleep as the cliche goes!

I am very confused as to what to do with my 6 mo ds. I usd to give him 45 mins- 1hr in am then 2 hrs in afternoon and maybe a 15min about 5ish.
Then a friend says she does the opposite 2 hrs in am and a short nap in the afternoon.
So I tried that. But I don't know what he prefers or what would make him go through the nght as he does sometimes and then sometimes gets me up twice for a feed. No regular pattern that I can see.
I don't understand why a baby would need 2 hrs sleep in the morning if they're just after a long sleep at night - but maybe I'm reading too much into it.
I would just let him sleep when he wanted - but at the moment I'm not sure he's sleeping because he's tired - more just because it's so hot.
What sleep routines does everyone else follow?

My children are 6 and 5 and I can honestly say we have never had to set an alarm clock in our house since they were born. They are always up before 7 (doesn't matter what time they go to bed).
When they were younger and had a daytime nap I did try and restrict it to say 2 hours as I knew it would affect the time they would go to bed in the evening.

If they don't need to be up for anything in the morning then i don't wake them.

When Ds (20mths) has his afternoon nap i never let him sleep past 3pm unless i know he is going to be up late.