baby sleeping TOO much??

[belindarose]

It's my mum's fault that I'm stupidly worrying about this. Please feel free to tell me I'm being an idiot. Our 8 week old baby has always been a good sleeper and from 6 weeks has slept all night - from around 9pm to somewhere between 5 and 7am. After a BF, she then sleeps again till 2nd breakfast about 3 hours later. During the day, she then has short periods of being awake and happy/ playful before sleeping again until she wakes to feed. She fits in 6 feeds a day, occasionally 7 if she decides on a 2nd lunch.
She seems to have settled on 50th centile although was a large baby and on 95th at birth.
Very smiley and 'chatty' when awake (just not awake much!). Anyway, my mum seems to think she sleeps too much. Any thoughts?

Typically a 8 weeker will sleep for 15hrs in every 24hrs some more some less. Look here

She's sleeping a lot more than that though. 18 hours I should think (at least).

My DS2 slept this much at eight weeks - not all the time but several days in a week he'd do up to 18 hours a day.

Is your HV concerned about the drop in centiles? If she isn't then I'm sure it's fine.

You'll be looking back on these times wistfully when she's a manic, tantruming toddler on overdrive 12 hours a day!

HV and GP not worried about drop in centiles. I know, I should be very grateful for such a good sleeper, and I am really. She learned to suck her thumb a couple of weeks ago and seems to just want to do that and sleep.

dont worry - people have said the same to me

mine are asleep 90% of their babyhood

nothing wrong with any of them

Ha ha! She hasn't slept at all today!! Well, no more than quick naps of up to 30 minutes at a time, and even for those I've had to soothe her to sleep.

My DD slept an awful lot until she was about 3 months old (although she was just under 4 weeks early). I had a lot of similar comments - people kept saying that she won't sleep that much soon! She's now 6 months old and still needs about 16 hours in 24.

Every baby is different, so my advise is to be led by your baby!! I started trying to impose a routine on my DD about a month ago with the 'recommended sleep' and it resulted in her being overtired, whingy and even having night terrors (which are horrendous). I'm now letting her sleep as much as she wants and she's now so much happier. Until she starts not sleeping at night I will let her sleep as much as she wants.

Believe me, she will soon tell you when she wants more awake time