Do you stress out about your baby's sleeping habits?

[leahida]

Sometimes I feel like one of the only mamas I know who is not putting her babe on some kind of a sleep schedule.

DS sleeps essentially from 9 or 10 pm to 8 am, with maybe one or two night wakings, max. It's all pretty manageable, really. I do really feel sorry for mamas who are having sleep issues with their babes so this is not meant to rub salt in the wounds!!!

He does not have set nap times but just naps when he is tired. He pretty predictably has a morning nap, but not always a long nap in the afternoon. Sometimes he gets wound up and cries if his morning nap is interrupted for some reason, but usually he just sleeps when he needs to. He usually needs rocking or holding to get to sleep, but I don't mind, I like it!

Other moms I know plan their lives around their baby's nap times and then I feel weird for not being that vigilant about naps. Should I be worrying about regular nap times and such? My thinking is, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

[darkpear]

I stressed some but not much with Amalie... with Moira I am just glad she sleeps

[Spark]

Darkpear - That's so funny! That's how I was with my oldest and middle child.

With Joie, I have Cicely still aking naps. She's only two. So, I do usually try to get Joie to sleep sometime during Cicely's 2 1/2 - 3 hour nap. It's more by happy accident really. I swaddle her to sleep at night (her movements wake her up otherwise) and I swaddle her during Cicely's naptime (when she's ready to sleep). For all the other naps she's unswaddled. I think it helps to communicate SLEEP LONG. Itt works for us because it gives me time to hang out with Jude or get some work done.

If I didn't have older kids I doubt i would care about schedule as much . it seems like with the addition of every child, rules and structure have to be amped up a notch.

[IncaMama]

i don't stress about ava's sleep really, but i *do* stress about rowan's. LOL!!

[leahida]

Yeah, I bet it would make a big difference if you had two or more kiddos...

[kofduke]

Originally Posted by michelemiller

i don't stress about ava's sleep really, but i *do* stress about rowan's. LOL!!

Me, too.

Luke usually sleeps in the wrap for his a.m. nap, and we all lie down together for an hour or so in the afternoon.

[oliversmum2000]

sophie sleeps whenever really

when she gets upset and unsettled i go and feed her in her armchair in her room if shes tired she falls asleep and i put her to bed if not she has a nice feed and cuddle and we get on withother stuff

sadly the last 2 nights she has been mrs party and woken up several times wanting to talk about the meaning of life but hopefully she will start sleeping again, i can cope with waking to feed but insisting on dancing and talking for ages after!

and then she gets up at about 6.30am and is back to sleep a couple of hours later while i have to run around after the boys - no fair!!

[aisraeltax]

ive been wondering about this too b/c E does not have a real schedule at all. of course my older 2 do not take naps so i dont have anything to structure him around. sometimes he will nap a few times a day for 15 minutes each, sometimes he will take a 1-2 hour nap. most nights he will go to sleep around 11pm but some nights he's asleep around 9pm. seems he really likes to nap around 5pm, when i need to get ready for dinner. the house is kind of crazy at that hour, so its not a real good time for his naps but i dont know what to do about it. right now i let him do whatever he wants to do. nights like last night were crazy b/c he slept for a few minutes...i snuck onto the computer..he woke up around 1ish and wanted to discuss everythign under the moon and provide the whole house with his chipmunk sounds (how cute is that). by 2am i was really tired. he flailed all night and today i am super tired. i dont swaddle him b/c it seems that no matter what i put around him, he gets out of.
this weekend he had really long naps, which of course makes dh think thats an every day occurrence, so i must just be sitting on my arse all day, huh???
i wish i had some sort of a schedule, but i really dont know how to start one with him. i think getting ME on a schedule will prob. get HIM on one, instead of the other way around.

[mariposita]

Originally Posted by oliversmum2000

sadly the last 2 nights she has been mrs party and woken up several times wanting to talk about the meaning of life but hopefully she will start sleeping again, i can cope with waking to feed but insisting on dancing and talking for ages after!

have you snuck into my bedroom??? seriously, little reed has decided he doesn't need to sleep at night. he's in a great mood, just totally awake. ugh. not fun when you're tired.

anyhow i've been really lax about sleeping stuff, but am going to start being much more regular. i re-read no cry sleep solution and i think it'll help with some of the sleep issues we're having. we have no schedule - day or night. he takes cat naps only. he only sleeps on top of me so i can't put him down for the night. and we're having frequent nightwakings. so yeah, we're going to become a little bit less relaxed about it all start working on improvements.

funny thing is, this is SOOOOO much better than carter's sleep at this age.

[persephone3]

alice doesn't really have a schedule, either. she usually goes to bed between 9 and midnight, and sleeps until 8-10 am, waking 1-3 times in the night. luckily for me, she just wants to eat and goes right back to sleep.

as for naps, she takes catnaps. one afternoon this weekend she slept for 4 hours! i couldn't believe it. it's so not like her. but i'd love for her to start taking a long afternoon nap.

i feel the same way that someone else mentioned - it seems other moms schedule their lives around that afternoon nap, and i wonder if i should somehow be encouraging that kind of nap. (although, having said that, i'm not sure what i could do.)

what else... oh yeah, i'm afraid i've become too lax about SIDS. sometimes i put alice to sleep on her tummy, if she seems more comfortable that way. and sometimes i put a blanket over her legs if it's chilly. she doesn't move around a whole lot in her sleep, and it's just a light blanket. since she can roll over and push up, i don't really see how it could harm her. but then again, isn't that what SIDS is? unexplainable infant death? maybe it was the blanket, maybe not. maybe it was sleeping on the stomach, maybe not. who knows? :

[darkpear]

I guess I should elaborate some I don't have to stress with Moira because she's pretty much put herself on a schedule... it's really obvious when she wants to go to bed and nothing else will do. Amalie is on a schedule/routine now and that's been much better for all of us than letting her set her own hours.

[DesireeH]

we dont have a schedule here either. She usually doesnt get many naps during the day cause Jevin wakes her up IF she does fall asleep! GRR. LOL As a tradeoff though she sleeps 8 hours at night without waking. LOL The other day it was some miracle cause Jevin crashed out on the couch and Daph actually got a real nap! LOL

[darkpear]

Originally Posted by DesireeH

we dont have a schedule here either. She usually doesnt get many naps during the day cause Jevin wakes her up IF she does fall asleep! GRR. LOL As a tradeoff though she sleeps 8 hours at night without waking. LOL The other day it was some miracle cause Jevin crashed out on the couch and Daph actually got a real nap! LOL

Gawd, I hear that. When both of my kids nap at once (Amalie hasn't napped reliably since I weaned her at about 2.5, not that she was all that great about it before) I feel like throwing a party

[allnaturalmama]

With my kiddos, I've found that up to the first year, they can be pretty flexible about nap times and catching up on missed sleep. Once they hit that one-year mark, for some reason, they turn into little monsters if they don't hit the sack right after lunch.

I've never found the need to schedule my life around my infant's naps, but we'd better be home for the big guys to get sleep (my 5-y-o still takes a 2-hr nap at least a coupla days a week, and my 3-y-o every day!). If we miss that nap, we pay for it big time during the sprint from dinner to bath to bed!

[DesireeH]

Gawd, I hear that. When both of my kids nap at once (Amalie hasn't napped reliably since I weaned her at about 2.5, not that she was all that great about it before) I feel like throwing a party

HAHAHAHA

My 3 y/o hardly ever takes a nap anymore unless he falls asleep when I'm driving or by miracle just on the couch or something. LOL

[hottmama]

My 3 yr. old doesn't nap or have a schedule, although he usually goes to sleep around 8:30-9pm and wakes around 9am.
Luka naps when he's tired- sometimes only 1-2x a day, sometimes several times a day. He wakes up 1-3 times a night to nurse, unless he is having a growth spurt or issues (like last night- I think he's teething). He naps wherever we are- he sleeps best in the sling or car. At home, he sleeps on my lap or in the sling mostly- occasionally I can lay him down on the bed.
I don't stress out about his nighttime sleep but I do think he needs to nap more- 1-2x (SHORT naps) a day is NOT enough for him and he gets cranky. Sometimes I take Julian to the park to play just so Luka will nap in the sling.

[kir]

The sleep situation is a mess here. I don't mind too much, since I don't have to go to work, but we have no reliable schedule. From 4 weeks till about 12 weeks, it was great. They would wake in the morning, have a massage and a bath by about 10am, then they would sleep really nicely for a few hours. Then, that just stopped! The best I can do these days is try to nurse the other girl to sleep if one happens to doze off. But the length of naps, etc., is totally unpredictable. It's a bit overwhelming.

[Minoh]

It's so interesting to read about other Dec babies' sleep because it's so different for everyone!

Simon's night sleep still sucks . For the last two months, he's been waking sooo much at night and nothing seems to make a difference. It's actually gotten a bit worse this week and now he's up about every 1.5 hrs all night long. I guess the only good thing about it now is that since I've been able to get my crazy milk supply under control, he's not as gassy and falls asleep pretty quickly (and so do I).

His naps have turned into catnaps more consistently lately, too. I don't know why, but I can time that he's awake in exactly 30min after falling asleep. This is true at night too. I nurse him to sleep in bed and he almost always wakes after 30min for the first nightwaking. This is a little frustrating because I can't fall asleep as I know he'll be up so soon.

In terms of stressing about it, I'm *trying* hard not too these days . The times I really do get stressed is when Simon's been up for more than two hours, which is usually his max awake time, without a nap in sight. I know that he'll have a little melt down if he doesn't sleep soon and I get very anxious until I can get him to sleep.

[atozmama]

Originally Posted by Spark

If I didn't have older kids I doubt i would care about schedule as much . it seems like with the addition of every child, rules and structure have to be amped up a notch.

I agree with Spak here. We are not very structured family, but it has increased with each child and the addition of school schudels. Though with Sam I am hard pressed to answer thse questions at well baby checks - how many naps and how often and long does he nurse. He just kind goes with the flow and sleeps or nurses when he needs to.

I agree with the OP, if it ain't broke don't fix it. Babies grow and devlop so much thier sleep habits are constantly changing. Just because you have to nurse your child to sleep now at 4 - 5 months doesn't mean you will always.

[wawoof]

The thing that drives me nuts about Galen's sleep schedule is that he goes to bed earlish (around 7 or 8), sleeps "through the night" (5 hrs) til 1am or so, then is up every hour or two the rest of the night. DH and I are both night people so we're just getting to bed when G starts waking up. Ugh!