How much sleep is too much sleep?

[redrobin]

Long time lurker, but first time poster...here goes!

I've got the opposite of most sleep problems....my dd (28 months) sleeps for around 17 hours a day! She sleeps from 7pm till 9am, then from around 1pm till 4pm in the afternoon. This afternoon nap doesn't affect her night time sleep at all, and if i try to wake her earlier, she has a berzo.

Do you think I should be worried about this? She seems to have hardly any life between sleeping and eating. I am a bit worried that she might be ill. i thought her naps would be dropping off by now, instead they seem to be getting longer.

anyone had anything similar? would like to be reassured!

(ps, sorry if you are reading this and coping with hardly any sleep. i know how that feels too)

hmm im not sure as i have a ds, 3, who only sleeps 8 hrs out of 24..

will be interested to see what responses you get!

it does sound a lot for a 2yr old though!

is she alert during the awake time that she has?
Is she developing well, hitting milestones etc
some babies/toddlers sleep a lot
has she been poorly recently - viruses can knock them out for a while, and they need more sleep than usual

Count yourself lucky - some of us are still battling sleep problems

However that doesn't sound too bad - if she was having an hour in the morning and an hour in the afternoon you probably wouldn't identify it as a problem.

But take her and get her thyroid etc. checked at the GP just in case if you are worried.

Thanks for replies. She is developing well i think, but sometimes in the afternoon after her sleep she looks quite ill - pale and with big purple shadows under her eyes, and she is a bit weedy. Think i will get her checked out...i don't know much about thyroid stuff - what would that mean?

And i also have a 7 month old so can sympathise about the lack of sleep - wish she would take a leaf out of her big sister's book!

Humm, from what you say, she's always been a 'big sleeper', right? I do think some of them are just made like that - I have friend with 3 yos who reg sleeps til 9am at weekends and then has a nap (up earlier in week due to nursery) and one with a four yo that still would like to nap a couple of hours (but is up at 6 .
Having said that, 17 hours does sound like a lot... Is she generally full of bounce when she's awake? From what I know of the thyroid thing, if that was the problem she'd prob be quite listless (may be wrong though)

Think I'd prob take her to the GP as a just in case ... but suspect s/he will just tell you to go away & count your lucky stars

(V , btw )

DS went through a stage of sleeping about 15 hours a day (12 at night and 2-3 during teh day) when he was about that age.

he had started nursery and got so tired afterwards he would zonk out for most of the afternoon.

He seemed to stop needing so much just before he turned 3, and is now mostly managing without a nap, although he gets very tired by the end of the week so sometimes I make him nap at the weekend to catch up.

As a baby he didn;t sleep as much. I put it down to growing and being very active.

thanks girls, hopefully it is just a stage - her wee brain is certainly like a sponge at the moment, must be tiring. Will get her checked out though. She is starting playgroup at the beginning of september, and i need her to get up earlier in the morning!

(maybe she just takes after me, at uni i was known as half woman, half mattress due to my love of my bed!)

so pleased to see this post as i have similar "problem" with my 18mo ds. he sleeps from 7pm til about 9 / 9.30 am, and then has a 2 hour nap after lunch. he would sleep longer if i let him, but otherwise i get nothing done all day! he has always been a good sleeper - slept thro the night from 8 weeks, but this current phase has only been going on for a few months, since he started walking - or rather running, he never walks! i wasnt expecting it to last even this long, but am enjoying it while it does. how long has this been going on for you?

btw redrobin, my son has a minor kidney problem and was seeing a paed every 3 months. when i mentioned the 'problem' at our last check-up he laughed me out of town!

aah notnigella, that's interesting - and reassuring that you asked an expert. she's always been a good sleeper, but used to do 7 till 7 and a 2 hour kip at lunchtime. she's only been doing 'extreme sleep' for about about a month, since we were on holiday. i guess we need to be grateful, although i do get annoyed at sitting inside on a (very rare) sunny day waiting for her to wake up - her poor wee sister is getting deprived of fresh air!

redrobin - my little man is the same, he has just turned 2 and sleeps from 7pm till 10am and was having 1 hour in the afternoon until last week. He is hitting all his milestones and I think he must just take after me, a lazy bum!!!!