No correlation between good naps and night sleep?!

[LCF2021]

When DS was a baby (now nearly 3) I really noticed that if he had bad naps nights would typically be worse. He wasn’t a great sleeper until 12 months anyway but from 7 months on he’d generally wake once or twice.

DD (almost 8 months) naps brilliantly. Usually 1.5-1.75hrs in the morning and 1.5-2hrs in the afternoon. However, she wakes and always has done frequently. We went through 2 months of hourly wakes between 3.5-5.5 months. Decided to sleep train at 6 months but that didn’t result in her sleeping through, it mainly helped her settle at bedtime and extend her naps. She’s typically in bed at 7ish, wakes at 11.30pm where she won’t settle so I give the dummy (I know this is reinforcing the wake), awake at 2.30am for a BF, awake at 5ish for another settle, then again at 6ish. It doesn’t matter if she’s napped for 3.5 hours or 2 hours in total all day.
Are my only options here to just wait it out and hope it improves or persevere with sleep training methods all night?

Babies aren’t meant to sleep through. They’re biologically designed to wake in the night as a SIDS preventer. It’s also developmentally normal.

Night wakes are natural and normal until well past 1 year old most babies are over the age of 2 before they stop waking in the night.

You just need to readjust your expectations around the reality of baby sleep. This is a great article on that:

sarahockwell-smith.com/2017/07/24/the-rollercoaster-of-real-baby-sleep/

All this nonsense you’ve been reading about “reinforcing the wake” with the dummy and trying to sleep train (you can’t train sleep, it’s developmental) is exactly that… nonsense.

Hi @Bananabutter, thanks so much for replying.

I should stress that I’m really not expecting her to sleep through, that would be glorious but very rare for a baby of her age. I’m more than happy to give her a BF in the night when she wakes but at her age she doesn’t need 3 feeds a night, given she has milk feeds and 3 meals a day. I’d really just like to get more than 2.5 hours sleep at a time which I don’t feel is unrealistic.

Can you pop a load of dummies in the cot in the hopes that lo will find dummy themselves and go back off to sleep? My lo could find dummies at that age.

I just wonder if lo wants dummy at 1130pm, maybe they want it all the time? It helps them self soothe independently.

Also, I be tempted to up the daytime calories to help not feed at night. I know lo doesn't have many feeds in night; it's just how I did it. I know it wouldn't suit everyone; it suited me at the time.

No judgement, are you feeding lo jars or food food?

Hi @ChittyBang1987, good plan. She can plug her dummy in herself but they often end up on the floor or under the cot as she flings herself around so much during sleep.
She eats proper food and I do a combo of spoon feeding and BLW. Some days she eats tons but others she’s not bothered, just like all of us really, her appetite fluctuates but she has 5 BFs in the day.

Hahaha, yes, my lo is the same. I find loads under her cot. I do have about 15 dummies in her cot at night spread around and make sure some are at either end about 4 each end as she had a cot that's blocked and no gaps and I hope for the best

OK. Sounds great 👍 as more calories in that food

Oh OP, that sounds tough, and you're right to want more chunks of sleep - it's entirely realistic. If you're confident that your DD is getting enough food in the day, can you try and use the dummy to do the 2.30am wake instead of a feed? That might help to discourage wake-ups (coupled with the PPs suggestion of littering the cot with dummies). Night weaning at 8 months is entirely possible and might help - as with 'sleep training', you can do this as gently or harsh as you want (you could slowly cut down the length of the feed and do it slow, or just stop it entirely and resettle with dummy - depends on how many tears you can handle).

Oh, and amount of day sleep never makes any difference to my DD's night sleep either (she's now 1)

@canyoutoleratethis Thank you! My DH keeps going on about how she doesn’t need a night feed anymore but I genuinely don’t mind doing one, a quick 10 min wake up for a feed if it meant a slightly later start in the morning suits me fine but waking every 2-3 hours after midnight is painful. It’s tricky this time around too as I’m always conscious of her waking DS although he does still sleep with white noise on so hopefully it’s unlikely.

I'm with pp. If you are sure lo is getting enough to eat in day I would night wean, you may find they pick up food intake in day of you do nightwean.

Yeah, my 1-year-old can sleep 3 hours in the day with me. Still bed about 730pm sleep by 8 pm. Still wakes at about 6am now 😆 🤣 it's a new thing waking at 6am to 615am used to be nearer 7am. If she sleeps 1.5 hours at nursery, still the same bedtime still wakes up about 615am.

Fingers crossed for clocks going forward that it brings everything forward.

We used a thing called a sleepytot/ sleepy tot, which is an animal toy which has Velcro attachments for multiple fdummies. We found it mostly useless, but others have sworn by it. Might help?
Otherwise I would advise you forgo trying to find a pattern in how one set of sleep/napping and waking ties into others. It is likely a waste of time as tbh we, and others we know, never found one, just desperate grasping at post hoc evidence to suggest there might be some way of controlling DCs sleeping patterns. It’s years of hell but do the crime, do the time.
One thing that did help was after weaning I (male) would be the one to go in to resettle. Not having boobs seemed to make it a more straightforward proposition. That was a couple of years of 4-5 hours of sleep a night, a few extra grey hairs, but what can you do?

Thanks @Palmfrond. We didn’t end up night weaning with my first until 11 months and I remember sending my husband in to help with resettling and that definitely worked. I’m hoping I can talk him into doing it again this time round!

@ChittyBang1987 We’re also dealing with some new earlier starts. My almost 3 year old used to sleep until 7.30/8am(!) every day and still nap for 2 hours but recently he’s resisted his nap and started waking at 6am so we’re saying goodbye to the nap which is a dreadfully sad time!!

Oh yes, it's time to say goodbye to the nap for you. My lo still had 2 naps at home. Though we have done one on occasion, and nursery does one, much more exciting than Mummy. There is no sight of refusal of sleep yet for us, but know it's getting to that point for us, my kid would sleep all day if I let her

@LCF2021

Hi *@Bananabutter*, thanks so much for replying.

I should stress that I’m really not expecting her to sleep through, that would be glorious but very rare for a baby of her age. I’m more than happy to give her a BF in the night when she wakes but at her age she doesn’t need 3 feeds a night, given she has milk feeds and 3 meals a day. I’d really just like to get more than 2.5 hours sleep at a time which I don’t feel is unrealistic.

Just because she doesn’t need a feed for hunger, doesn’t mean she doesn’t need one. Comfort is just as important a need that should be met xx