Length of naps

[FuchsiaG]

Hello,

I’m confused about the length of naps and time between my baby should be having. He’s almost 6 weeks old and in his first few weeks I stupidly hadn’t realised how much he was meant to nap throughout the day and I was constantly trying to stimulate him and show him things. Naturally this resulted in an overtired baby and I felt awful when I realised.

For the past 2 weeks I’ve been getting him down for naps throughout the day and I read that at this age they shouldn’t really be awake for more than an hour at a time otherwise they can become overtired. My question is, does this still apply if they have had an extra long nap? For example, yesterday he napped for 2.5 hours on the afternoon, should he still only be awake for an hour (approx) once he wakes up? Or should he be awake longer because it was a long nap? I’m feeling extremely naive about all this.

Thanks for any advice :)

I found that regardless of the length of the nap, the awake time stayed roughly the same. My baby is a few months older than yours but only does 2-2.5h between naps, whether the nap was 30 mins or 2h (chance would be a fine thing).

They do sleep loads and loads at that age so don't worry about it as long as his weight etc are on track. You will find some naps are long, others short but the awake time generally stays the same until they start dropping naps at a later stage.

At 6 weeks most baby sleep a lot. I really wouldn’t worry about nap schedules or lengths or anything else at this age. Just let them sleep whenever they want. I didn’t see any proper kind of sleep pattern/routine until my baby was 3/4 months old. Now she is 6 months old and will nap after being awake for 2.5 hours exactly. But I just followed her lead and watched for her ‘sleepy signs’ yawning etc. But in answer to your question awake time will probably not change regardless of the nap length. I find with my daughter it’s not nap length that changes how long she is awake for but how stimulated she is. Eg. If we have been to a baby class she might fall asleep before the 2.5 hours of normal awake time

Thanks both :) I’m not worried about schedules as such, I just don’t want him to get into the overtired state again. This afternoon he napped for 3.5 hours (waking at 16:30) and I’ve struggled to get him to nap again. He’s just slept for 20 minutes and that has taken me almost 2 hours to get him to nod off. I didn’t know if it was such a struggle due to his long afternoon nap. He is difficult to settle generally , especially on an evening, as he has silent reflux :(

You are literally me. Hi!
I find sleep begets sleep. I would say you struggled because he became overtired in those 2 hrs. Believe me I feel your pain. All these people talk about baby just 'nodding off' - mine doesn't do that!

@missisippilessly mine dies too ever just nod off :( often it takes so long and then he startles himself awake within minutes and the entire thing starts again. We’ve just started swaddling which has helped a little.

*doesnt ever

For us the sling is almost a foolproof way of getting him to sleep. But keeping up with ensuring he has enough sleep is exhausting!

I can only get him in the sling for a few minutes and then he cries and just started rooting to feed. I dont think i have him in right as his head doesnt seem well supported. I’m going to a sling library tomorrow for advice. I’d be thrilled if he’d settle in a sling, I’m exhausted carrying him and trying to do everything one handed!

My baby is 16 weeks and at about your stage I was really over thinking it and also ended up with an over tired baby! Someone showed me a chart (I THINK I posted on here and someone attached it) but it really changed my life 😂
I was thinking she wasn't getting enough stimulation and was trying to keep her awake to make her tired and it made it so much worse! She now naps pretty much every 2 hours on the dot, occasionally between 1.5-2hours if like at the minute she has a cold and is just more sleepy than usual. And I just let her nap as long as she needs and no matter how long the nap she generally still sticks to a nap every 2 hours after waking.
As soon as I notice any tiredness (eye rubbing, yawning) I get her to nap.
She's going down much better at night and I'm not constantly stressing that she's sleeping too much

I forgot to add that my baby will only sleep if she is rocked to nod off but she has a dummy and as soon as she's fast asleep I put her down on her beanbag