Daytime Naps- do you let them go, or wake?

KM0715 · June 2014

I've heard two schools of thought- one being that naps longer than ~2 hours "rob" from nighttime sleep, and the other being that sleep begets sleep and if they're sleeping it's bc they need it.

If your LO is taking a monster daytime nap, do you ever wake? If so, after how long

hlm184 · June 2014

SS - Naps, what naps?

ETA: He's been "napping" on me, so he gets woken up when my bladder says so.

littlesocks · June 2014

This has happened maybe once but I will wake my DD if she sleeps longer than 2 1/2 AND its after 6:00pm.
Otherwise I don't know if I'd let her continue sleeping. It makes a difference with what time of day it is.

Jenn06L80 · June 2014

I wake if it is longer than 3.5 hours during the day. And I try to limit any long naps to be done before 4PM. The girls have been sleeping from 10-5 and I worry if they take 3 hour naps in the evening they won't sleep as good at night.

janellemj928 · June 2014

I will wake her if she's been asleep for more than 3 hours, but that rarely happens. She's normally awake for 1.5 hours and then down for 1.5-2 hours making her feedings about 3 hours apart. From experience with her I know if she sleeps too long during the day she gets overly hungry and it's hard to get her to eat again (but somehow during the nights this same logic doesn't apply...).

macynsnoop · June 2014

I put ss, I wake him if we are going somewhere. Even then I try to be gentle about it. It doesn't seem to matter whether he does 1 30 min nap or several 4 hour ones, he is always an ass by 5pm.

snowbound · June 2014

Yes, no, maybe? I'm clueless so I don't really know. Sometimes I do and sometimes I don't. I, however, don't let LO nap after 5/5:30 in hopes of getting longer stretches of sleep.

maelic · June 2014

None of my girl's naps have ever affected her night sleep. She naps for foreverrrrrr or not at all, depends on the day, and she still goes down around 8, wakes at 2 am and then again around 6:30.

cjpell0 · June 2014

I wake if he's gone more than 3.5 hours between feedings regardless of how long the nap was. But this rarely happens and he more often than not wakes up almost 3 hours between feedings on the dot. He'll be 12 weeks on Sunday

smashton14th · June 2014

My DS does not take long naps ever so i put SS. His longest nap is 30 minutes long.

nursewinnie · June 2014

I wake her after 3 hours, which rarely happens. I also try to keep her awake after her usual 530/6 pm feeding. We do bath time at 730 and another bottle around 8 after bath. She's usually asleep for the night around 830/9pm. When we follow this routine she sleeps until 4. So we get roughly 7-8 hours of sleep since we have to wake up at 4am to get DH to work anyways. On weekends when we let her sleep she will sleep until 630 sometimes. Once I let her go back to sleep after her 6pm bottle and then woke her up at 9 to eat and she woke up at 11pm and wouldn't go back to sleep until 2am. I decided we won't be doing that again.

MissHSoonToBeMrsS · June 2014

I don't necessarily wake him up, but I'll start being a little louder if I'm cleaning so he kind of wakes up on his own.

fourthnlast · June 2014

SS- because she naps 30-45 minutes. Longer if on me, but even then maybe two hours. Maybe.

joyfullyfound · June 2014

My experience has been that sleep begets sleep with babies this age. At some point, however, it is possible for long naps to interfere with night time sleep... When DD was around 1.5 yrs old we started waking her from naps that were running too far into the afternoon (anything after 3:30 pm made her impossible to put down for the evening).

MamaFantastic · June 2014

i wake for two reasons:

i need to leave and baby has to come with me. in these moments, i try to do a successful sleeping transfer into the car seat, but it usually doesn't work out. sometimes it does, though!

if she has been sleeping an extraordinarily long time for a day nap... anything over 4 hours, basically. she regularly takes a solid 3 or 3.5 hour nap each morning for her first nap, but if it gets to 4 hours, i'll usually do a gradual wakeup by opening her door, opening the shades, starting to talk more loudly or make other general noises, and let her wake up on her own to the more stimulating environment. if she's still fast asleep after i tickle her face, talk loudly, etc, i'll just straight up unswaddle her, pick her up and start to change her diaper that always does the trick.

strawberrytree · June 2014

2 hours is the longest he's ever napped, and I thought that was pretty good! I never wake him and wouldn't if he slept longer.

edoliesmom · June 2014

SS because she sleeps anywhere from 30 minutes to a couple hour during the day. The 2-hour ones are rare though. I don't bother waking her since they're pretty short.

RedDawnsRevenge · June 2014

I wake her up if it's after 3pm

AcaAwkward · June 2014

MamaFantastic said:
i wake for two reasons:

i need to leave and baby has to come with me. in these moments, i try to do a successful sleeping transfer into the car seat, but it usually doesn't work out. sometimes it does, though!

if she has been sleeping an extraordinarily long time for a day nap... anything over 4 hours, basically. she regularly takes a solid 3 or 3.5 hour nap each morning for her first nap, but if it gets to 4 hours, i'll usually do a gradual wakeup by opening her door, opening the shades, starting to talk more loudly or make other general noises, and let her wake up on her own to the more stimulating environment. if she's still fast asleep after i tickle her face, talk loudly, etc, i'll just straight up unswaddle her, pick her up and start to change her diaper that always does the trick.

This, verbatim. DS's mid-afternoon nap (after DD goes down for hers) is usually a beast -- I hold him for the first hour or so and then transfer to the swing so I can eat and get things done. If he's been out for a really long time (3.5+ hours), I stop the swing, turn off the white booze, and let DD be as loud as she wants to.

rtv3 · June 2014

AcaAwkward said:

MamaFantastic said:
i wake for two reasons:

i need to leave and baby has to come with me. in these moments, i try to do a successful sleeping transfer into the car seat, but it usually doesn't work out. sometimes it does, though!

if she has been sleeping an extraordinarily long time for a day nap... anything over 4 hours, basically. she regularly takes a solid 3 or 3.5 hour nap each morning for her first nap, but if it gets to 4 hours, i'll usually do a gradual wakeup by opening her door, opening the shades, starting to talk more loudly or make other general noises, and let her wake up on her own to the more stimulating environment. if she's still fast asleep after i tickle her face, talk loudly, etc, i'll just straight up unswaddle her, pick her up and start to change her diaper that always does the trick.
This, verbatim. DS's mid-afternoon nap (after DD goes down for hers) is usually a beast -- I hold him for the first hour or so and then transfer to the swing so I can eat and get things done. If he's been out for a really long time (3.5+ hours), I stop the swing, turn off the white booze, and let DD be as loud as she wants to.

Dying over "turn off the white booze" :P

I wake only if she goes longer than 3.5 because if I don't she wakes up super hangry.

AmberLiz99 · June 2014

Only if it's after 6 and she already had a nap that afternoon. Her bedtime is 7

NatalieBier · June 2014

During the day , I will wake if it's longer than 3-4 hours. Often, I will just let my two year old play trains near her and that works. Ha! Also, between 4:40 and 10 pm she takes only a 30 min nap

WifeofaComposer · June 2014

SS - I try to let him sleep during the day as much as he needs to, and he always sleeps well at night now. The only time I have to interrupt his nap is when we have to drive to the bus stop to pick up my big kid after school (our bus stop is a 7 minute drive from our house). I hate doing that, but it is what it is.

KatieGummow · June 2014

maelic said:
None of my girl's naps have ever affected her night sleep. She naps for foreverrrrrr or not at all, depends on the day, and she still goes down around 8, wakes at 2 am and then again around 6:30.

My boys exactly. We do pick them up around 6:30- 7 and will play with them if they wake up (so they don't go back to sleep), then do bath/bottle/bed, and regardless of how much/little they slept they will sleep from 8-2 and then 2:30-5, then 5:30-7--give or take an hour--.

baileymama3 · June 2014

Mine is 6 weeks and if he's sleepy there is no keeping him up! If he's sleeping, I just let him!

hordol · June 2014

I have found that no matter how he naps during the day (whether he sleeps all damn day or never sleeps) that his nighttime sleep is never affected. I will wake if it's getting close to 4 hours though just to feed and then let him go right back to sleep if he wants. I don't like to let him go too long between feedings because I like to aim for at least 8 a day.

Bluebird2318 · June 2014

I don't wake at this age. I figure if they're sleeping it's because that's what their body needs at the time. An overtired baby can actually have a more difficult time falling asleep.

ETA: The only exception is what @MaiTaiBeth said. I don't purposely wake, but sometimes I will attempt to change a diaper and take the risk that it might wake the baby in order to avoid a rash.

Xxlilies · June 2014

The length of my LO 's naps during the day don't effect him sleeping at night but I do wake him if he sleeps longer than three hours so he can eat . He's very lazy sometimes and will sleep long stretches in the day occasionally and miss 2 feedings . This rarely happens though. He usually sleeps around 2 hours and I just leave him be regardless of if it's close to bedtime

Daytime Naps- do you let them go, or wake?

Daytime Naps- do you let them go, or wake? 263 votes

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