Nap/Sleeping Question

kat.in.the.hat

So M's "schedule" (and I use that term loosely) has been wake up sometime between 5 and 7, eat, two hours after her wake up, she goes down for about a two two and a half hour nap.  When she wakes up, she eats, we play, and I try to feed her again before she goes down for her afternoon nap, roughly three hours after she's woken up from her morning one.  Four hours after she wakes up from her afternoon nap, we try to start getting her ready for bed.  So, on a good day, she's up at six, asleep from eight to ten, up from ten to one, asleep from one to three, up from three to seven, asleep from seven to eleven, midnight to three(ish) and four(ish) to when she wakes up for the day.  She's been getting about twelve hours of sleep a day with this routine - thirteen hours on a good day.

My baby week by week book says they should be sleeping about fifteen hours a day, napping three times a day, and each nap is about an hour to ninenty minutes.  It says they'll sleep about ten hours at night and up to seven hours straight at night (hear me laughing sarcastically at that one.)

My question is, do you think I should start waking her up from her naps earlier and try to squeeze in an extra late afternoon nap?  Because right now, the only difference in her day and night sleep is that she goes back to sleep sooner at night than during the day - the duration isn't that different.  I just thought she'd be on a more predictable schedule by now, and she isn't.  The only constant to her sleeping is the time that she's awake between the naps, but her wake up times and how long she sleeps is different every day.

She's nine and half weeks old now - should she be more predictable?  And September moms - how much are your babies sleeping?

KKMMex

Toss the books and watch your baby's cues.  She'll tell you when she's sleepy and needs to rest.  Sounds like you're doing a great job getting her to nap regularly during the day, and at her age I'm not too surprised she's still waking up 2x at night.  As she gets older and also as she weighs more, those nighttime stretches will get longer.  You may find that by 3 to 4 months old, she's only getting you up once a night.

No, I wouldn't wake her from her naps.  Sounds like she takes longer naps and that's why she has two instead of three.  At nine weeks old she's still going to be a little predictable because she's still a very young baby. 

My older daughter needed less sleep and was more of a 12-hour a day sleeper even as an infant.  My younger daughter is definitely a 15-hour a day sleeper.  Babies are so different, one from the next.  What's important is that you learn to recognize her sleep cues and follow them so that she has the opportunity to sleep when she needs to, and for as long as she needs to.  HTH!

TexasSmith

KKMMex:

Toss the books and watch your baby's cues.

Bingo. My theory is to never wake a sleeping baby.

houstonkdw

Both children didn't get to a really set "schedule" till 3 months or so.  By then, they were taking three naps a day (all were about 2 hours in length).  Their day looked something like this.

4:30 am - Bottle and back to sleep

8:00 am - Wake for the day and bottle

9:30-11:30 - Morning nap

11:30 - Bottle

2:00-4:00 - Afternoon nap

4:00 - Bottle

5:30-6:30 - Evening cat nap

7:30 - Bottle

8:00 ish - Bedtime

 

Around 5/6 months, both dropped that evening cat nap and bedtime moved to up to 7:00.  Then naps were 9-11 and 2-4.  The morning nap moved to 9:00 when they would actually STTN and not wake till 7:00 for the first bottle. 

I think you are doing great.  Hang in there. 

aprilprincess

TexasSmith:

KKMMex:

Toss the books and watch your baby's cues.

Bingo. My theory is to never wake a sleeping baby.

Ditto. It's sounds like you're doing great. Babies are brilliant, they eat when they're hungry, sleep when they're tired, if we were that smart we'd be so much healthier.

nvp05

Ditto the others. It sounds like she's doing great. Rena didn't really have a predictable schedule until after 4 months or so. And even now her naps can be at different times once in awhile. I also have the Week by Week book and Rena never slept as much as they said for the first few months. And now she sleeps more than she should according to the book. So I don't worry about it now and I just go with her cues.

alisa1228

aprilprincess:

TexasSmith:

KKMMex:

Toss the books and watch your baby's cues.

Bingo. My theory is to never wake a sleeping baby.

Ditto. It's sounds like you're doing great. Babies are brilliant, they eat when they're hungry, sleep when they're tired, if we were that smart we'd be so much healthier.

i agree.

maddy never was, and still is not much of a sleeper... we just follow her cues.

rayskit10

i agree with the others. these "sleep guidelines" are just that- guidelines. not all equations work for all babies.

additionally, it's still a little early for her to have a real pattern. NCCS says they start to really develop a pattern around the 3 mos mark. you should just watch her cues and you'll see it come together. let me know if you're interested in reading the NCCS. you can borrow mine. you're right in the perfect window for the book's plan

kat.in.the.hat

Thanks for all the advice/support y'all.  I realized after reading the responses and thinking about it, it's not that I have a problem with her not having a schedule, I have a problem with me not having a schedule.  I just didn't anticipate it would be this hard on me mentally not to be able to plan on anything or count on anything being the same from day to day.  Just more of those control issues I have to work on giving up ...