let her decide when to sleep or not?

Hi

my daughter is nearly 8 months old. The majority of the time she feeds to sleep. Until recently she was feeding to sleep for a morning and an afternoon sleep. (one sleep would be about 40 mins, the other about 1 hour and a half). Then she started sleeping one sleep, for about 2 hours. so her pattern was;

7.30am wake up for the day
11am to 1pm sleep
then no sleeps until bedtime at about 7.30pm

this was going great. I would never just put her down, I would wait till she was tired, then feed her and she would go asleep. no probems.Happy for the day.

But now I am finding she seems really tired and whingy so I go to put her down, but she won't fall asleep while feeding, but she seems very tired so I try and settle her in other ways but she gets upset and cries. So what I am wondering is, I'm I missing something!? is she just not tired, or is she around the age where they can try and stay awake even when they are very tired?

Yesterday she had less than an hour sleep all day. She went down for a sleep around 10am, woke up happy, then seemed tired in the afternoon so tried puttin her down, she protested so I ended up getting her back up. I'm I making a mistake doing this? as on a few occassions I have put her sleeping bag on, popped her in the cot and it she gets very upset and won't settle I just get her back up. I'm I sending her mix messages by saying if you don't fall asleep then its fine to just get up and play again?.

I have just put her down again now, at 11.30am, she was whingy and tired but didnt feed to sleep, she cried for about 5 minutes with me in the room and I just stroked her head to sleep. I don't want to be fighting her to sleep if shes not tired enough to sleep, but if shes just 'trying it on' then I will persist.


any advice? do I let her decide? get her up if she doesnt fall alseep after a while? or persist? If I could just let her decide and get her up everytime she doesnt fall asleep after a while I would, as I hate to see her upset. But I am just worried about it causing problems as she gets older, as a child (when she definately is tired but doesn't want to miss out).

what is a reasonable amount of daytime sleeping for an 8 month old? She goes to bed around 7.30pm and wakes up at 7.30am (with a quick feed at about 5.30am and sometimes another earlier). So she is getting a good sleep at night.

Well she is still asleep (nearly been 2 hours!) so I think she was genuinely ready for a sleep! Makes me feel not so bad that I persisted now. I wonder why shes not feeding to sleep anymore though. Maybe she is just not hungry to feed. Think I just answered my own question :lol: :doh:

I hope you still get some answers, coz I was about to start a thread exactly like this!

i'm def not an expert but i do think that a lot of people seem to find that their babies will stop feeding to sleep at some point - i think they sort of grow out of it?

while the one sleep may have been going okay, maybe she's still really needs a second nap & she's a bit overtired & that's why she's hard to settle? i find that DS is pretty tough to get to sleep if i've let him go past early tiredness (either that or he sleeps for 30 mins & that's it) but if i hit the 'right' time then he sleeps pretty well.

i've also found that DS has gone through sooo many different stages - as in where he sleeps best for naps, how he gets to sleep etc. so maybe she's just going through one of these changes?

LOL at answering your own question! I was just going to post that letting them determine when to settle down for sleep is ok sometimes but from my experience a child of that age probably isn't the best judge really. I wouldn't force the issue but you can coerce. I find that putting a resistant child into a Yin environment can be all it needs for them to change their minds. Yin = quiet, dark/dim, slow, soft. So lower your voice, lower the lights, move more slowly and play some soft music. this is what we used to do at an Early Learning Centre i used to work at.... it was amazing how many apparently non-napping kids fell asleep! And when parents were afraid that this would mean that their children wouldn't sleep as well at night we would remind them that "the more a child sleeps, the more they sleep". It's a total myth that a child won't sleep at night if they nap during the day.... especially with under 1's. Over tiredness is often the biggest factor to not settling at night at this age group.

My DD stopped feeding to sleep as a baby too, unless she was really tired at night. She would still have a bf before her naps, but it wouldn't make her drop off. Seems a shame, doesn't it - it was so easy that way! At least now anyone who told you you're developing bad habits by bfing to sleep can see that it isn't the case. Babies do grow out of it on their own.

Sounds like you're doing just fine. I would think she will need a nap or t during the day at her age and you'll have to find new ways of encouraging her to wind down now she no longer uses bfing. GL!

I think one of the cues for sleep was playing the same quiet classical music CD at the ELC where I worked. Maybe just try popping it on... even while she's up and about.