Low sleep needs baby / toddler? Anyone else?!

[dcmum25]

Our little girl is 6.5 months and only averages 12 hours across the whole day. Tends to be 10 hours at night and 2 hours worth of day naps.

She does sleep through at night, we do one dream feed but she doesn't wake so I appreciate I am lucky in that regard. I'm worried she'll drop even more hours off night time as she gets older.

Any toddler mums who had low sleep needs baby? What is their sleep like now?

I can't help but feel envious of mums who are getting so much more time during the day and at night, I'm a very high sleep needs mum which doesn't help...

She falls asleep completely independently for bedtime and naps and we've tried absolutely everything so not expecting any advice just some solidarity. Anyone else in the same boat?!

That doesn’t sound very low sleep to me to be honest. Some of mine were down to one nap very soon after the slept through the night.

1h30 is probably more realistic for day naps, we tend to get 3 x 30 mins - have tried condensing into two naps instead but she just did 2 x 30 mins instead!

@Itschristmaas If your little one did 10 hours at night, did they continue to do 10 hours as they got older?

Yes they did. So if I put them to bed at 8 they would wake 6.30 ish.
I just started to go to bed a bit earlier. Now they are teens it’s a nightmare sleep wise.

I wouldn’t consider that to be low sleep needs, I’m afraid! I certainly wouldn’t look to be rocking the boat by trying to ‘fix’ what isn’t broken. She falls asleep independently which is marvellous and 10 hours at night is pretty good, I’d say.

@Itschristmaas yeah, we tend to do 8pm to 6am (every now and then she'll do 5.45 which is just a tad too early...). As long as she doesn't start cutting the night sleep I'll be happy! Haha yeah, luckily we've got a few years before the joys of teenage hood.

That’s normal sleep imo? 12hrs a day

As a comparison my low sleep baby at 6months would sleep 9pm-5.30am with waking every 1-2hrs all night. So maybe 7hrs max actual broken sleep. Then 2 naps daytime, usually only in sling or pram with movement for 20-45mins

5 years on he still doenst sleep great. But doenst wake to feed, or nap ever. So he now gets around 9pm-6am with 1-2 wakings

@Caspianberg thanks! I must just be surrounded by very high sleep need babies who are doing 12/13 hours overnight plus 3 hours of day naps!

I think the guide for this age is 12-16 hours so we're just in there!

Was mainly interested to see whether she would keep cutting her night sleep.

Sounds normal to me! Oldest did about 10.5 hours a night but never napped unless we were on a long car journey, just didn’t need it. He’s 6 and on about 9 hours now and manages fine. Little one needs a lot more

Mine never slept 12 hours overnight until they were teens! They only started 7pm
bedtime once they dropped their naps. Meanwhile, my neighbour’s baby who was only a couple of weeks older than my first was doing 13 hours nights, 45 mins in the morning and a 2hr afternoon nap. We had very different maternity leave experiences!

That's definitely not low sleep needs, it's completely average. Please take this as some perspective to stop complaining - my 13 month old has never napped independently, rarely naps more than 30 mins and wakes at least twice a night, sometimes for an hour at a time. She does often go down for 12 hours but she is awake at least an hour of that, and little day sleep. Use childcare if you need a break. Most kids do sleep longer overnight as they go to 1 nap.

Thanks all!

Was mainly just after some other views as all the babies we know sleep at least 2 hours more so 11.5/12 is on the lower end as a comparison for us (and the unhealthy baby apps keep telling me to aim for longer...!) but glad to know it's pretty average.

Yes my DC3 who is 13m always been low sleep needs. As he's my 3rd too the difference between him and my older two has always been so stark. He has always been a terrible sleeper overnight too though (by far the worst of my three). His sleep varies but a fairly usual night would be 9-10hrs (broken into about 4 chunks with wake periods in between). Then 1-2 naps a day totalling anywhere between 30 minutes and 1.5hrs.

You might find she sleeps more when she's more active. I assume at 6.5 months she's not really getting her steps in!