Okay, I seem to have been cursed with another crappy sleeper and need some help.
DD2 is nearly 8 weeks old, and really seems to fight sleep. She needs a lot of parenting to get to sleep and stay asleep - both for naps and night-time. I'm hoping that by setting a sleep routine of sorts that I can help her to sleep more easily, as I've noticed that on the days she naps fairly well she also sleeps better at night, but I just don't know what's normal for a baby this age.
She seems to have settled for a fairly early bedtime - between 7-8pm. She was going about 3 hours for that first stretch, then waking progressively more frequently as the night went on. I'd really like to encourage her to only wake every 3 hours or so at night - I don't think that's terribly unreasonable. She seems to wake up squirming a lot - I swaddle her and wonder if that's the problem, but then she does the same thing when I don't swaddle her...
Naps are all over the place. I try to watch for sleepy cues etc. but it seems a lot of the time she'll go from awake and alert to screaming her head off because she's over-tired in the blink of an eye. Plus, I have a toddler, so we need to get out of the house at least once a day, so I can't always be home, nor can I spend ages trying to get her to sleep when we are home. The only pretty reliable way to get her to nap is wearing her while we're out, but it only works while we're out and I'm actively walking/moving the whole time - which obviously I can't do all the time either...
Ideally I'd like to set up a reasonable sleep routine to help her to 'learn' when and how to settle to sleep. I'm not going to try to force her to sleep when she's not sleepy or anything like that, but since she really fights sleep and I miss her sleepy cues, we need to try something. (Just a disclaimer, in case anyone thinks I'm trying to do a rigid schedule - I'm not!)
So what is a normal sleep pattern for a baby this age? 2 naps, 3, 4? How long and how far apart? Night-time sleep? (I'm less concerned about the night-time sleep right now, as I'm hoping that if I can get the daytime naps going well that that will improve naturally.) And any suggestions on how I can gently encourage her to nap better during the day? TIA
DD2 is nearly 8 weeks old, and really seems to fight sleep. She needs a lot of parenting to get to sleep and stay asleep - both for naps and night-time. I'm hoping that by setting a sleep routine of sorts that I can help her to sleep more easily, as I've noticed that on the days she naps fairly well she also sleeps better at night, but I just don't know what's normal for a baby this age.
She seems to have settled for a fairly early bedtime - between 7-8pm. She was going about 3 hours for that first stretch, then waking progressively more frequently as the night went on. I'd really like to encourage her to only wake every 3 hours or so at night - I don't think that's terribly unreasonable. She seems to wake up squirming a lot - I swaddle her and wonder if that's the problem, but then she does the same thing when I don't swaddle her...
Naps are all over the place. I try to watch for sleepy cues etc. but it seems a lot of the time she'll go from awake and alert to screaming her head off because she's over-tired in the blink of an eye. Plus, I have a toddler, so we need to get out of the house at least once a day, so I can't always be home, nor can I spend ages trying to get her to sleep when we are home. The only pretty reliable way to get her to nap is wearing her while we're out, but it only works while we're out and I'm actively walking/moving the whole time - which obviously I can't do all the time either...
Ideally I'd like to set up a reasonable sleep routine to help her to 'learn' when and how to settle to sleep. I'm not going to try to force her to sleep when she's not sleepy or anything like that, but since she really fights sleep and I miss her sleepy cues, we need to try something. (Just a disclaimer, in case anyone thinks I'm trying to do a rigid schedule - I'm not!)
So what is a normal sleep pattern for a baby this age? 2 naps, 3, 4? How long and how far apart? Night-time sleep? (I'm less concerned about the night-time sleep right now, as I'm hoping that if I can get the daytime naps going well that that will improve naturally.) And any suggestions on how I can gently encourage her to nap better during the day? TIA
