Am I being cruel?

[Mung]

DD is 3 months old and sleeps quite well at night. In the day she is doing a very short routine. Basically, she feeds, stays awake for about 45 minutes and then sleeps for about 45 minutes. This is even the case after a good night sleep. I am just going with it (have 22 month old too - and trying to keep life as stress free as possible), but she does seem very tired after the sleep at 12/1ish. Am I being cruel by not working harder at getting her back to sleep for longer at that nap? Or, will she just sort herself out?

you could disturb her a little before she would normally wake in that sleep cycle and resettle her, she may then settle for a second cycle.

45 mins is the average sleep cycle and some babies need help to go into the second cycle.

You may only need to do the disturb to resettle a few times before she does it herself.

MNP, you mean wake her up? My main problem is that my toddler is usually hot on my tail, so nothing is calm. How would you suggest disturbing her?

Mung, I found with DS2 that he didn't really settle into having more than 45 mins sleep in one go until he was about 14/16 weeks, then he did it for himself, and has done ever since (10 months now). He did have a dummy in the early days before that, and he would go back off if we gave him the dummy - he was very sucky. Once he found his own fingers (still sucks them to go to sleep), he could settle himself. But it really was about 4 months that it sorted itself out more. Once he found his fingers, we didn't give him the dummy any more - I was so paranoid about him getting dependent on it but he didn't.

Unlike MNP, I would never have disturbed him before the 45 general wake time, as I'd be afraid he wouldn't settle back off, and I'd end up with an even more cranky baby!!

Good luck.

Mine started going for longer than 45mins only after 6 months when introduced soids. Now does two 1.5hoour sleeps rather than 4 45min ones.

Thats my worry too HenriettaHippo, at least with 45 minutes she is relatively happy. I just feel that she is having lots of little sleeps and I am always putting her to bed. She settles fine when I put her to bed and she manages to do it at night too, so perhaps I'll just wait a bit longer before worrying too much.

When i have done it before, i just jiggled the baby so she moved, stretched and then patted/ made soothing sounds soshe settled again.

It can be nerve wracking but can pay dividends.