Please talk to me about daytime naps

[ExistentialistCat]

I have a 5 month-old DD and am a bit confused about naps. She generally sleeps for about 3 half-hour stretches during the day, sometimes more, and fits these naps around what we're doing. She's not particularly cranky between naps and sleeps well at night. However, I've been completely thrown by someone telling me that half-hour naps "don't count" and by friends with a more routinised daytime approach telling me that I am setting up bad habits. Should I be implementing a more structured daytime nap routine? What do other people do?

I feel a bit silly for letting a few comments throw me off kilter when I wasn't particularly unhappy, so please be gentle with me!

DD is 4 months now, and currently sleeping from 8pm - 7-8am. Feeding roughly every 3-4 hours, she has sort of naturally slipped into this routine:

7-8am: Feed
9am: 1-2 hour nap
11-12pm: Feed
2pm: Half hour - hour nap
3-4pm: Feed
5pm: Half hour - hour nap
7pm: Feed
8pm: Bed

Not a great napper to be honest, wakes very easily and it's often a battle to get her to settle again. Also if we're out and about, it takes her a while to go to sleep as she's too busy looking around and wakes after 15 minutes!

She seems happy though, never a peep out of her unless she sis hungry. All I can say is go with the flow if she is content and not obviously overtired, then she is getting enough sleep. Every baby is different, do what works for you and your baby.

Hi
Your daughter sounds great and in her own good routine that suits you both. The friends who said this to you are probably jealous - I'd say ignore them and carry on as you are. Sleep is sleep in my book, and while 30mins might be annoying if you want to get something done at home, if it wasnt enough for your DD you would know about it!

Good luck. My dd is 8.5mths and its taken me a while to learn to igore everyones comments. Every baby is different.

SO glad I've just seen this post. My DD is 5 months old and has always napped for around 1/2 hour during the day and currently has around three of them. I try not to let her nap past 5 pm so she will go to bed at around 7:30pm.

Just been reading in one of the baby books that 1/2 hours naps don't count and have been getting all wound up about it

My DS is the same, he doesn't usually sleep for more than 30-40 mins each nap and sometimes only 15-20 mins. I've heard that the short catnaps don't count but once he's woken up there's not much I can do about it! I agreed with gingerbreadlatte that it's best to ignore other peoples comments. You know your baby the best so if it's working for you both the stick with what you're doing

My DD was a consistent short napper I tried many things to get her to extend naps for reasons op stated. She was always happy between naps and with hindsight I wish I'd just relaxed and let her do what came naturally to her. As soon as she hit 10 months, her naps extended of her own doing, she now (11.5 mo) does 1.5-2 hours in the am and 30-45 mins in the afternoon and I didn't do a thing!
I honestly think if the baby is content between naps, don't fret about it. Short naps are frustrating for mum tho, you get nothing done!

Agree with others - don't worry about short naps unless you DD is clearly tired when she wakes up. My DD1 only moved onto longer naps once she was walking. With DD2 and DS I put them back down for a second short nap at lunch about 40 mins after they woke from the first one as they both cleraly needed more sleep. DS is on his second stretch now although it always takes a bit of walking to get him back off again.

I have this problem -- how does your baby sleep at night? I asked the pediatrician about it. Our daughter (6 mo) has slept really well at night from a young age and now sleeps 9-11 (last night almost 12) hours per night, and I feed her once although she doesn't really wake up. Daytime naps are about 30-45 minutes. Our pediatrician says not to worry as nighttime sleep is so good.

I think the concern about short naps "not counting" applies more to babies that never sleep for long periods -- they aren't getting the benefit of deep sleep. But I think a baby that gets long periods of deep sleep at night can power nap during the day. (That being said, my daughter has been down for over an hour! Yay!)