Please tell me about your 7 or 8 month old's sleep

[shirleycat1]

Since he started sleeping through in the night, DS's daytime sleep is completely up in the air. I find it so hard to judge when he's tired, apart from when he's absolutely shattered and grumpy and past the point of when he should have slept, so I'm struggling to know when to put him down to get a good quality sleep from him.

So I was just hoping anyone could share with me: when does you LO nap? How long for? How many times a day? How long can they stay up for between naps?

I know they are all so different but I don't know anyone with kids his age to chat to about it.

Thanks...

hi Shirleycat, I just came on here to browse as DD's daytime naps are still a major problem for me at nearly 9mo. However, I also have 3 night wakings to contend with, so different problem to yours, but am trying to sort naps out to encourage better sleep at night if she's more rested in the day.

As you say, they're all different, but I find DD can go 3 hours before starting to be sleepy - sometimes 4, so I aim for a nap around 10.30am, then 2.30pm. - She generally will only sleep for between 20-45mins in the cot, but much more if we're out and about. - I can't work on it much more as have a 2yo DS as well, but can you try going out with the pram or car for a week or so to get him to nap at the same times? I'd aim roughly for a mid morning and mid afternoon nap if you can, anything from 2.5-3.5 hours after waking. don't know if that helps at all, but maybe this will bump for somebody with some words of wisdom to come along!

hi there, strangely enough, my 7 month old now seems to sleeps more regular times during the day, i still wait until he shows signs, but they do tend to be at around the same time each day. he will be awake for 2.5 -3.5 hours in between. he has a sleep at around 8.30 or 9.30am for an hour, then at lunchtime, then at around 5pm for an hour, then bed at 7pm, up at 6am.

My DS 8.5mth has always has some kind of sleep issue. He's never been a massive daytime sleeper at most get 1hr in am 1 hr in aft, then bedtime is 7.30-7.30 with one or more wakings!!

Thank you for sharing.

I worked really hard, but very gently, on getting DS to sleep through and it's great that he is doing now. But before he was sleeping through so well in the night his naps were always 45mins - 1 1/2 hours. Now I'm lucky if I get 30 mins out of him, So he's currently having three 30 min naps a day.

It's OK, I know it could be much worse. But 30 mins doesn't really seem long enough for him to fully recharge his batteries, so he gets tired quite quickly. Also 30 mins isn't enough for me to have a break from baby and get some stuff done around the house. In 30 mins you can sit and have a brew and do the crossword, or do the washing up, but not both.

I should stop reading books. Usually they say stuff like baby should be sleeping 1 1/2 hours in morning and 1 1/2 hours in afternoon. I know books are full of shit and so it's nice to hear from other mums, so I know I'm not the only one all alone with a short napper. I guess I just needed a bit of reassurance.

Also can I just also quickly ask, when they are showing signs of sleepiness, do you put them down straight away. People always go on about "missing the window" and have a nightmare overtired baby. How important do you think it is to do quickly? I am just thinking I might try and leave him a bit longer awake. I do find judging his tiredness pretty hard.

Cheers...

Well done on the sleeping through - wish mine would!

My 9mo ds is also quite rubbish at napping although he varies considerably from day to day. He usually wakes up between 8am-9am, then tends to get tired quite quickly and I find is usually ready for a nap around 10am or 11am. He doesn't usually sleep for more than 30mins though. In the afternoon he usually sleeps for longer, maybe an hour or so, sometimes as much as 2 hours. It really does vary a lot though!

It is very hard to work out when they're tired before they get to the too tired stage. As I know that DS gets tired by mid morning/mid afternoon generally I just try putting him down in his cot once he's had a feed (still bf every 2 hrs!) at approx the right time and if he's tired he'll go to sleep within 10mins or so and if he's not then he'll soon let me know about it! In which case I get him up and we play some more and I try again a bit later. If we're out then he'll generally just fall asleep in the buggy/car seat when he's tired.

hth

I know how you feel about the books, DD is DC2 and I vowed I wasn't going to pick any books up this time, but it's so tempting just to peek and think hmm, she should be having 2 long naps morning and afternoon. Some babies just don't do it, and the proof for you is that he's sleeping through the night, so you're definitely getting it right! When I had DS and was overwhelmed with all the differing advice I'd get I used to ask myself "What would a cave woman do now" - definitely not pop out of the cave look at the sun and think "hmm, you need to sleep until the sun is over there, so I'll leave you until you go back to sleep".

As for sleepy signs, DD rarely shows any until she's knackered - I find that she will only go for her nap if she's well and truly tired, - but there again, I'm still stuck in a feeding to sleep rut, so as soon as she sees the boob she's off practically! (so there's my solution, she needs to learn to self settle, but the BF works! - lazy 2nd time mummy here)