Should I limit baby’s naps?

[Dillybear]

Hello everyone. My DD is six months old and her sleep has never been brilliant. I have had to work very hard on sleep with her, and now things are much better than they were. For the past few months she was getting maybe 9 hours’ sleep a night as she couldn’t settle herself. However, now, she has learnt to self settle to sleep, and often does. She is getting more like 10.5-11 hours’ sleep overnight between 7.15-7am when I wake her up. If she’s a little over tired sometimes she gets upset so I need to go in and put my hand on her to reassure her and she goes right to sleep, which is great.

She still wakes 2-3 times overnight wanting a feed. She sometimes wakes up but goes back to sleep herself, so when she starts to fuss I know she wants me. I am sure the feeds are about comfort and reassurance rather than hunger, but I’m okay with that for now, as I can generally just pop her back down and she goes back to sleep without any issues. Wakings are usually around 15 minutes in total now (for her, not me 😒).

Her naps are also good. She has three naps lasting 45 minutes, 2 hours, and then 25 minutes at the end of the day. In total I tend to aim for around 3 hours’ daytime sleep, but often it’s more like 3 hours 15/20 minutes. The thing I’m not sure about is that recently, even though she’s getting more sleep overnight, and during the day, she seems so tired. She is rubbing her eyes a lot and just seems exhausted. Very often I wake her from her first nap and her lunchtime nap, and I feel so guilty about doing that. I’m not sure if I should just let her sleep as long as she wants in the day? The reason I’ve been waking her is that I feel it’s a very fine balance between day and nighttime sleep with her, and I worry that too much daytime sleep makes her much more restless and the she wakes much more overnight. Does anyone who knows more than I do have any advice?? Thank you in advance.

Sorry, the main thing I should have said is that I think her nighttime sleep is better when she sleeps a little less during the day, and she seems to be more restless/wake more frequently when she has more daytime sleep, though this might just be a coincidence.

My daughter had two 2h naps from 5 months. Gina Ford encourages the shorter morning nap (as a means to extend the lunchtime nap and get 12h overnight), that's where this idea of limiting morning nap comes from. But IME two long daytime naps and and more like 11h night makes for a better rested baby.

The ideal would be 7am wake (2h awake) 9-11 nap (3h awake) 2-4 nap (4h awake) 8pm bedtime - giving 8pm-7am overnight sleep. However due to the school run (older siblings) we did 9-11am and 1-3pm naps.

When on 3-nap days, had 2h awake windows to add a teatime nap, so naps at 9-11am, 1-3pm and 5-6pm, again with an 8pm-7am night. Dropped this 3rd nap by 7 months or so.

Thanks for your reply @FATEdestiny - so useful as always. I know she wouldn’t manage such long awake times yet, so need to stick to three naps at least. She can barely do 2.5 hours awake yet. Interestingly, she has always seemed to need the slightly longer awake times for her age, but her awake times don’t seem to have lengthened in the last month.

I used to always put her down at 6.45 for sleep at 7pm, and she would go to sleep happily. However I have tried a few nights of putting her down later, aiming for sleep at 7.30. When I do that she seems to sleep better overnight. In both instances I wake her at 7am. However, bedtimes are often a battle when I keep her up those extra few minutes, and twice she hasn’t fallen asleep until around 8pm. I feel so horrible when she’s basically screamed herself to sleep. Obviously I go and comfort her, and she will fall asleep when I put my hand on her chest and give her a kiss and shhh, but when she’s been really overtired she will wake up a couple of times before it finally ‘sticks’. I want to keep this later bedtime because I we both get better sleep overnight, but I hate the thought that she has been so distressed at bedtime and I really don’t want her to associate going to sleep with being upset. When I put her down earlier she goes to sleep better but seems to wake more frequently overnight.

Any ideas? I have been thinking of just letting her sleep as long as she naturally does in the day and seeing if that means that she is better rested at bedtime and goes down slightly later but happier. I was wondering if she isn’t getting the full benefit of her naps if I am waking her mid sleep cycle? I have also been thinking of trying a longer wake window between her lunch nap and the afternoon nap, to try and reduce the wake window between the afternoon nap and bedtime. Do either of those ideas sound any good?