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Sleep

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Not enough hours in the day

1 reply

tiredtiredmomma · 02/04/2023 22:58

DD (almost 11m) averages 12.5 hours in a 24 hour period. Just judging by her behaviour, mood and general abilities, there is a noticeable decline from waking from her first nap and onwards, and I'm concerned she isn't getting enough total sleep as a result. I'll try to condense the details.

2 naps - recently they've naturally dropped in length and now total around 2 hours per day, down from 3. We've tried allowing the longer one both in the afternoon and in the morning, no difference either way.

Night sleep is chronically disturbed due to tummy problems. GP is aware and she is medicated but it doesn't stop her getting uncomfortable throughout the night and often needing resettling. Some nights are better than others, and obviously this impacts how tired she starts the day the following day.

This leads onto probably the biggest issue - "wake windows" have no consistency. Some days she begins showing sleep cues in as little as 1 hour after waking, sometimes she can be at 3.5 hours awake and she just keeps going. I've tried sticking to fixed periods of time and it didn't breed any consistency. Whilst I'm more inclined to go with her cues, sometimes it will still take 45 minutes to actually get her to settle even though she's literally just been yawning and rubbing her eyes.

I've considered if she's approaching ready to drop to one nap but she still seems quite young and I can't forsee her being able to tolerate 5 hours.

The HV advised not letting her sleep past 3:30 but having been trying for the last couple of weeks, it's absolutely impossible for her to have completed 2 naps by that time.

I really don't know how else to help her 😕

OP posts:
GinnyBee · 02/04/2023 23:08

Mine dropped to one nap at 10 months. He started the transition at 8 months and by 10 was fully consistently only taking one nap!

There’s a huge range of how much sleep babies need in 24 hours. The difference for individual babies can be 8 hours and both still be in the normal range! But since you say she’s cranky then maybe she does need more sleep 🤷🏼‍♀️

Mine has never had a much sleep as the recommended average, but still fits (just) in the normal range, just at the very low end of normal. And sometimes he also whinges and rubs his face a lot earlier than I’d expect and I’ve learned that it can just be boredom. Change of scenery or new activity usually helps unless he’s truly actually tired.

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