Bedtime and napping

[tortillachip]

Hi all!
I still cannot believe I have a little girl. We tried for 5 1/2 years to get pregnant going through several different fertility treatments. Thank GOD for IVF! My daughter, Savannah Reed, was born March 12, 2010 and weighed only 4 pounds, 9 ounces. She was 5 1/2 weeks early! Now she is almost 4 months, 10 pounds, 12 ounces and is thriving. We don't really have a distinct sleep schedule, other than she likes to take several 1 hour naps during the day and at night she has a 6 hour stretch at most. I realize she's still pretty small but wanted to get your thought on bedtimes, as well as how many naps/duration during the day your baby takes.
Thanks

[EYCI]

The hardest part is that all babies are different. I've been blessed by two VERY different babies. My 3.5 year old was on a very predictable schedule by 4 months. He took a 1.5 hour morning nap, a 3 hour afternoon nap, and a 30 minute snooze around 6pm. Bedtime was 8pm and he'd sleep until 6 am (sometimes waking for a 4am feeding). He still takes a 2 hour nap during the day and sleeps 12 hours straight at night. He LOVES his sleep.

My 5 month old daughter is a different story. She is a total catnapper. Takes one or two 30-45 minute naps in the morning, and one or two 30-45 minute naps in the afternoon (Sometimes it stretches in to just one 2 hour nap). Total nap time during the day is about 3 hours of sleep. Bedtime is 7:30. She generally sleeps about 8-9 hours at night, then wakes to feed around 3:30. She will sometimes sleep until 6am (after eating at 3), but usually it is more like 5-5:30 am when she is AWAKE for the day. As her big brother puts it "I'll bet she woke up saying What's going on? What's going on? What's going on" She definately doesn't like to miss out.

As you mentioned, your DD is still small and with both of mine the night sleeping gets MUCH better around 13-14 pounds, regardless of age. It may help with your daughter to cluster feed at night before bedtime. This means feeding her every 1.5-2 hours starting around 4pm until bedtime. Also, with my daughter, her bedtime was about 10pm to start with. We would make sure to keep her busy until that time, then feed her and put her to bed when we went to bed. It was hard because we didn't have any downtime / alone time. But, then I was at least getting 5-6 hours of rest (she would wake around 3-4 am). Then we slowly started to put her to bed earlier each night, backing up her bedtime by about 30 minutes every 7-10 days or so. So now she goes down at 7:30 and still gets up around 3:30, but obviously that is a longer stretch of time. She actually slept 10 hours straight 2 nights ago!!!

As for daytime... just try to stretch the times between naps. If she gets fussy, try a change of scenery... walking around outside, playing in front of the bathroom mirror, taking a daytime bath. Anything to keep her occupied and interested. Then those 1 hour naps might stretch into longer times, needing fewer (but longer) naps during the day.

Keep up the great work MOMMA. It is the hardest job you will ever love!

[Warren Dew]

Our five month old goes to bed around 8 pm, wakes around 6 am, naps every few hours for 15-30 minutes, and nurses every few hours at night. It's not the most convenient schedule, but that's what he does.

Our 2 year old, when she was a few months old, went to bed around 11 pm, woke around 8 am, napped about 3 times a day for an hour or so each, and also woke fully to nurse a couple times a night. As she got older, she went to 2 naps, then 1, and now she only sometimes takes a nap; she also went to 1 wakeup, then zero.

[dogzrule]

There is a great book about this too, called Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child. It is a highly recommended book!

[tortillachip]

Thank you! I love the suggestions

[vilchem]

As your child stays in bed, do not insist that he sleep right away. That enjoy soft music or look at books by himself. If it takes an hour or more to fall asleep every night, it might be going to bed early. Gradually push his bed for about half an hour.

[brit1612]

My little guy (8 months) is a really good sleeper. I guess I am just lucky. He goes to bed around 8, I wake him up at 10:30 to eat, and he goes right back to bed and sleeps until I wake him up at 6:45. He has been doing this since he was about three months old. I find that waking him up for that last bottle is essential. When I have tried to skip it he always wakes up through the night. Hope this helps, but remember that every baby is very different.