naps and night sleeps

[mkoontz]

So, after doing the usual new parent thing and reading every baby book I could find, they all said that the better a baby naps at daytime, the better baby will sleep at night.

So I'm doing a survey to see if this is true or not. How do your babies do with sleep.

Aveena sleeps good at night - going down about 8pm and gets up at about 6.30am. She wakes for feeds every three hours during the night, but recently has been having one long sleep of five or so hours.

But her daytime naps (as you all know) have been a bit more, shall I say unstructured. Basically she gets tired after being up for about 1 1/2 hour and then naps for about 20-35mins.

So I'm wondering if I should bother trying to do anything about her napping during the day. I wouldn't want to upset the night time sleep, but it would be great if she had more sleep during the day.

Of course some days I just think "this is her and I should just go with it". I guess I'm just curious about whether there is a correlation between the two types of sleeps or not.

[Geofizz]

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Some kids need more structure than others. Some don't really need the structure until they're a bit older.

My kids are a study in contrasts. DD would nap whenever for 10-90 minutes at a time. It was totally unpredictable, and no matter what we did, we couldn't really get her "better" naps. Her sleep at night from birth to 6 months or so was ok -- 2-3 hours at a time, and night wakings were pretty calm oriented mostly to feeding her.

DS needs more structure. I can't get around it. If it's been awake in the morning for 92 minutes, he'll start screaming because he needs his first morning nap 90 minutes after waking. At night, we're blessed with 5-8 hour stretches, and when he wakes, he is absolutely distraught, more asking to just get back to sleep than to linger over a meal.

In the case of our daughter, there was nothing we could do to improve the naps. In the case of our son, he's forcing us onto a schedule and we have to follow it or we all suffer.

[mkoontz]

Yeah, I know, but I'm just interested if they are right. I don't think there is anything I can do to change her. And maybe the 'sleepier' babies sleep better at naps and nights so it's all disposition. But it's kind of interesting is it not?

[darkpear]

Amalie definitely sleeps better at night if she gets a nap - as long as it's not too late. There's nothing on earth that will get her to nap if she doesn't want to though. Mostly I just try to wear her out and keep my fingers crossed.

Moira is just starting to sleep less and distinguish between day and night, I think. A few days ago she was totally flipped around and was up literally ALL NIGHT. That sucked, so I've been making an effort to keep her awake more during the day, and she's sleeping better at night. She's only just come out of the sleeping-nearly-all-the-time phase though (which lasted all of a week with Amalie), so it's hard to say.

[IncaMama]

i have definitely noticed that is the case with Ava. on her catnap days i know it'll be a catnap night. when she sleeps like a rock all day long i know she'll be out like a light until dawn.

with DS he was all over the map. now that he's nearly 3 we struggle with bedtime if he's had a nap bc he's just not tired yet.

[Minoh]

It's been hard to tell with Simon. He's always ready for a nap within 1.5hrs of being awake. Sometimes those naps, especially lately, last for only 30min. If he's obviously tired I try to extend the nap but sometimes it doesn't work.

I can't really say that he sleeps better at night when his naps are longer, though. He used to sleep quite well at night (until his 3m growth spurt), but it didn't seem to matter if it was a catnap day or one with longer naps. These days all of his nights are pretty much the same and they always suck!

In any case, I've been reading all of those books, too, and I wish I was more relaxed about the whole sleep issue. I find I'm really starting to protect the times that Simon's sleeping, and I feel like I can't really go anywhere for fear that he'll not get enough sleep. We've also moved his bedtime earlier, to around 8:30pm, and I don't know if that's helping or making things worse.

Oh well, I guess that's what being a new mom is all about!

[mamanurse]

My babe sleeps like a rock at night. She doesn't wake to feed anymore in the night. We put her down somewhere btw 7&8 and then she wakes up between 6&7. However, she barely naps at all. We're lucky if she takes a short nap in the morning and a short nap in the evening. She is EXTREMELY grouchy starting around 4 in the afternoon until she falls asleep. In addition, she is attached to my breast nearly all day and especiallly in the evening before bed. I guess I should count my blessings, but two longerish naps in the day with a good chunk of sleep at night would be ideal for her and us.

[IncaMama]

case in point: yesterday was a catnap day for ava. and last night was a catnap night. for BOTH of my kids!!! AAAAGH!!!