Baby naps

[RaeRaeMama]

When do your babies nap? Do you schedule naps?

FTM by baby is 14 weeks and up until now I've just let her sleep when she wants during the day. I breastfeed her and she has fed VERY frequently, things have started to ease of a little in the last 1-2 weeks and she will be happy to go an hour sometimes during the day without feeding (no more than an hour though)

But it's got me wondering about whether she sleeps enough?

At night we get into bed together at 8pm (I have a next to me crib) and I feed her to sleep, she usually falls asleep between 8:30 and 9pm - we then get a 4 hour chunk (the majority of the time) after that it's hit in miss, sometimes she'll wake every two hours feed and then go back down. Other times it's every hour.

Just interested to know what other mums do

By that age my babies seemed happiest with one nap a day, around the middle of the day.

@Orangebug I think you may have read that as 14 months not 14 weeks.

@Orangebug she said 14 weeks not months so DC most deffo won’t be on one nap a day.

Your LO seems to be feeding a lot op. She should be going 3/4 hour stretches now. I know their all different but every hour at just over 3 month is a lot.

Oh sorry yes I did!

In that case I think they were having three naps - one about 1.5-2 hours after waking, another after lunch and then a short one in the afternoon.

I can't remember for the life of me now (and it hasn't been that long!) but I found reading about "windows of wakefulness" quite useful. When they're that tiny, instead of thinking about naps at set times, it focuses on how long they can on average, comfortably stay awake.

So for a baby that age it might be 2hrs (for example).So instead thinking of a nap at 9am, it would by 2 hrs from whenever they woke up. So 9 if they woke at 7. But might need to be 8.30 if they woke at 6.30 and so on throughout the day. And as they age, their "window" gets longer.

15 week old baby here and I don’t schedule naps but try to have a flexible routine - this is following the experience of having a DD like yours who fed incredibly frequently, was always hungry and not a good napper to begin with. Is there a reason she feeds so frequently? It can be really difficult!

My DS is feeding more every 2-3 hours (some feeds are comfort though) and I go by wake time of about 1.5 hours and 3/4 naps a day. So say he wakes at 7, first nap needs to be at 8.30 - 10, then over lunch 11-30 - 1, then afternoon, and sometimes even a fourth nap late afternoon if the naps have been short and i can fit one in. It’s still very much dependent on when he wakes up and nap length though which I find so variable at this age - so just trying to go with the flow! My main focus is always trying to prevent that build up of overtiredness and most days - touch wood - it seems ok.

Oh and as well as focusing on wake windows I’ve tried to look out for DS sleepy cues - as wake times do vary depending on how long the previous nap was etc. And babies don’t follow books and charts! Luckily he is a yawner/eye rubber so usually I can tell, unlike his DD who hid it well!

I don't know if the previous poster saw you're breastfeeding but that amount of feeding and frequency is totally normal for a BF baby.

BF babies feed on demand and not on a schedule as your milk changes to meet their needs at different times of day, your milk supply is highest and most nutritious at night so of course baby clusters in the evening to promote supply and wakes frequently.

DS didn't have w 'schedule' until around 6 / 7 months when he started to settle into three naps a day at roughly equal awake times but even then I'd let him sleep when tired mostly.

By 9/10 months he was pretty predictable.

He's almost 18 months now and only naps once and is very consistent.

Sounds like everything is normal. Keep following your baby's needs and you'll be fine.

My LO is almost four months, also breast fed. I have no schedule for feeding, it's on demand. I would guess approx every two hours in the day? Sometimes more often. I don't keep track just feed whenever I think she wants. Overnight she is good, wakes for feed every four hours so usually just up twice.

For daytime naps it's more of a struggle! As she gets older seems a bit harder to get her to nap. If she's awake too long she is often grizzly - screaming. I track wake windows and wouldn't let her go more than ninety min awake. Also watch for her tired cues (which sometimes appear after on thirty min or so if she catnaps rather than proper naps). As soon as I see the signs I try and get her asleep (bouncing, feed to sleep, pram walk or drive). Whether she falls asleep or stays asleep for long enough is a different story! Usually aim for four hours + of sleep a day over 4 naps. It's hard work at the moment!

I have a 15 wk old who’s mix fed. For the last week or two he’s been consistently doing 4 naps a day, we don’t have a “schedule” as such but have learnt patterns. Eg a half hour nap will mean he’ll want his next one within an hour-an hour and a half after waking up. Longer naps mean he may do 2 hours happily.
He normally naps between half an hour up to 2 hours, tend to get longer throughout the day.
Learnt to try not to let him nap past 6pm and he goes down at 8pm (ish).
Im not saying your baby is feeding too regularly, but I will just say my son fed that much until we had his tongue tie fixed then within a matter of weeks he had bigger gaps as he was feeding properly (again, not saying your baby isn’t feeding properly). But if you suspect that or aren’t confident on latch then it might just be worth getting someone to check it 😊 I’m a FTM too and had no idea what TT even was until I researched it myself, it’s often missed