anyones 8 week old stay awake most of day?

[kateeliz]

My 8.5 week old only has little cat naps after feeds during that day. He is breastfeed apart from a bottle of formula at night. He wakes for one feed during night but otherwise sleeps well, but during the day he is lucky to sleep for 30 minutes at a time.

Is it too early to get him into a sleep routine during day? what do i do? currently he just sleeps out in the living room during day.

Hi Kate

My DD was the same, only slept for 20-30 minutes at at time during the day for months. I remember taking her swimming for the first time at 12 weeks and her sleeping for a whole hour afterwards, which just felt amazing, having a whole hour to myself!

DD is now 8 months old, and napping for 40 mins to 2 hours at a time, this has been a gradual increase over time.

When I tried to get her into a routine with longer naps it backfired completely on me and she ended up awake for hours and hours at a time and so unhappily tired. Since then my motto has been "never wake a sleeping baby". The other thing about routines is that babies tend to fall into their own little routines about 3 months, when everything becomes more predictable and so much easier, so it might be worth hanging on in there for a few weeks to see what happens naturally

i agree with madlab. ds is 11 mo and took a while to get a nap routine going. i tried to impose one and it went hideously wrong! if lo is sleeping well at night, yo uare doing a fantastic job.

another one here that took a while

ds2 only ever cat napped, now he's 6 months he'll have 3 regular naps for over an hour, sometimes two!!

Hi Kateeliz - my DD was the same and still is to some extent at 10m but she does do an hour or so most days but only once now and thats it for me time! Some just don't need the sleep especially if your DS is sleeping well at night.

I would recommend introducing naps in his cot sooner rather than later. I found that when I did that she started going longer. Don't worry about a routine as such but when you think he is tired feed him in the bedroom and put him in the cot if he drifts off, it might take a few days for him to figure it out but at least you can get on with things downstairs without waking him up.

HTH

Thanks for those messages. Nice to know its not unusual and that he will get sleeping longer soon. He slept for 8.5 hours last night so I'm loving that, and he is happy during the day so i guess he just doesnt need the extra sleep in the day yet.

I've started putting him in his room today Ruth2007, good advice, so far he just yells out for me and talks to himself but will keep it up and see what happens. cheers!

Hi Kateeliz - it sounds as though you and your ds are doing great if he is sleeping well at night. He sounds very similar to my ds who up to week 7 would only catnap during the day but would sleep well at night. I found it quite hard as it leaves you so little free time during the day just to the do the most basic housework.
What I did was to start to note down when he slept and how long for and a routine (albeit not a strict one) did emerge. The other important thing I did was the BW EASY steps where by you make sure you feed and then have a good period of awakeness (about 90 mins at a time) and then put down for a sleep without feeding again. This really transformed things for me and now he has 3 naps a day of 1 hour mid morning, 2 to 2 1/2 hours at lunchtime and 1 hour late afternoon (he is 11 weeks now). I have found that he still sleeps well at night - if anything it has got better since I got him into more of a routine.
I normally put him in his cot for daytime naps unless I plan on going out. Infact, as he sleeps well in the car, when I was first settling him into the routine I would go out and about during the longer lunchtime nap to make sure he got used to sleeping for longer.
It isn't always perfect but it has made my life a lot easier as gives you some predictability and a bit of precious time to yourself. Good luck.

my 8 week old is exactly the same, cat naps all day then sleeps brilliantly at night. I am just thankful that i can get a good nights sleep! If i need to get things done in the day i'll put him in a sling and let him doze in there.

hey Nairny, thanks for that, where can i find more information on that BW EASY thing? I've never heard of it, I'm not from the UK so maybe thats why? cheers.

Hi Kateeliz,
The BW EASY step is the Baby Whisperer book by Tracey Hogg. EASY stands for Eat, Activity, Sleep, Your time - which she says you should do in that order. I used to always try and breastfeed my ds to sleep so had the Eat and Activity the wrong way round. She explains how to look out for signs of tiredness so that you know when to put them down for a sleep. It is well worth a read if you can get your hands on a copy. I was quite amazed when it first worked for me but it has made life a lot easier and doesn't insist on a strict routine so you still have flexibility to go out and about when you need to.
Let me know if you can't get hold of the book and I will try and explain the key points

Have a look at this thread...

wakeful baby