Resettling during day sleeps - will only sleep for an hour at a time!

Our baby is almost 12 weeks and has no problems with night sleeps - often sleeping for 6-7 at a time.:D

But during the day she will only sleep for an hour. We've been using a dummy with her and she has it when she goes to sleep. When she wakes from her first hour of sleep and stirs i pop the dummy back in but she almost never goes back to sleep. She doesnt cry, just grizzles and chats and starts looking around the room. So for the next 20mins its a game of popping the dummy in and spitting it out again.

Does this mean she doesnt need more sleep? Her waking time is very short (30-40mins) which makes me think she's still tired...

Ann

i don't think you ment to put 12 months.

I think most babies will do this until they get the hang of putting them selfs back to sleep. My DD just turned 6 months still will only sleep for short peroids sometimes.
Only in the last 2 months she has worked out to re-settle and will sleep for 2-3 hours ( this is only 1 sleep that i can get her to sleep for like this) it does get better.

Oops thanks.

So did you end up doing the feed+play+sleep cycle with only 1hour of sleep?

Ann

Hi Luua,

From what I remember my son was much the same, he would sleep for 7 hours at night, but when he slept during the day it was only ever for an hour. He settled into about 3 sleeps at 3 months, then down to two and eventually one, but they have always only lasted for an hour! Hope this helps, and good luck!

Bec

Aneta has been sleeping through since about 8 weeks ( usually 12hours sleep ) - and she has about 4 day sleeps , no longer than 20 or 30 minutes... sometimes its a bit longer , but thats usually a one off :)
I think if they get enough sleep at night , they dont need as much during the day - but thats only my guess , seems to work for us :)

I like to make sure Jesse has one sort of longish sleep a day (tis a good routine to get into for when theyre older), and he just naps at other times. Jesse will do that too during his long day sleep but i just leave him in his cot. He'll be talking his head off and when he sounds stroppy then ill go and give him his dummy (as that usually means he's getting tired again). I just play his music and turn his mobile on and he puts himself back to sleep.
So if she's not crying, i would just leave her there.. she will more than likely settle herself (maybe with the aid of her dummy).

When Cooper was under 3 months, his sleeps in the day were anywhere from 2 to 4 hours, and when he was over 3 months, they started to shorten to around 45 mins to an hour also!! It used to concern me also, because you do wonder if they should be getting more sleep, plus you just seem to never get much done in that short period of time!!:lol: I think that when they start to sleep more in the night, generally most babies start to sleep for shorter times in the day (well, Cooper was anyway).

But now his sleeping patterns have changed. Yes most naps are still around and hour, but he has a long sleep around lunch, they last for up to 2.5 hours, so your little bub may be like this also in a few months.

He also uses the dummy for sleeping, and sometimes we go through the whole 'popping it back in' for ages. (He refuses to sleep without it :rolleyes: ) A few times I leave him in his cot with his dummy in and only occasionally he will put himself back to sleep.

You will most likely find that her sleeping patterns will change. You could try rocking her back to sleep if you think she needs more, but find out what works for the both of you.

Hope this helps.

At 12 weeks they are going through a growth spurt were they will fed and awake more.give it a week or so and he should settle down again.

Thanks for your responses guys.

I called Tresillian and they told me i need to make sure she gets 3 hours at EACH day sleep. They suggested i try and put her in the pram and rock her over a bump, put her in a sling, or hold her to make sure she gets those 3 hours. (it makes doing anything else in the day rather difficult)

It goes against what i've been reading about putting the baby to sleep in the same place each time...

Hmmmm confusing...

We started off by rocking Aneta and then holding her - she sometimes managed to sleep 2 hours while being held. It was the worse thing we got her used to , it was hot , she was " stuck " to us and sweaty , my arm lost feeling in it ( hehe ).. and nothing else could be done because if i was holding her sleeping i couldnt move.
It took us awhile to get to where we are now.. ( we rock her to sleep and then put her in her cot ).... i wish i had done this from the start - i figure she wakes when she's had enough :)
IMO each baby is different and its hard to say each one needs 3 hours - dont know how they come up with these magic numbers :)

Luua. do you mean a sleep of 3hrs uninterrupted.. wow my son will only sleep the 40 minsat a time.. sometimes may go 2hrs.. even if i drove in the car, 3hrs for him would be impossible during the day...

WOW 3 hours seems pretty excessive really. I went to a sleep school & they said 40 minutes was a sleep cycle so twice that would be great, so an hour & half. I was told a minimum of 3 hours between feeds. Having said that with Matilda I was at my wits end when I went there... with Jovie I'm much more relaxed, if she wants to feed every 2 hours, meh... I don't watch the clock with her.

sounds very normal to me. i wouldnt be concerned.
babies sleep when they need to, they are pretty smart!:)

i personally think feed/play/sleep is BS aswell - we just fed to sleep and most feeds baby would have a sleep.;)

The advice was that they need about 3 hours. So she told me if she wakes up after 40mins resettle her by rocking/patting for up to 30min. If this doesnt work try other techniques to give her about 3hrs.

Today Ella managed to get close to 3hrs but it was a struggle. There was a lot of frustrating cries as she was struggling to go back to sleep with me popping the dummy back in - but she did it. Will see if this helps her at the end of today.

I was getting concerned because she wasnt feeding well at the end of the day before the the night sleep...

Ann

Ann, it is really commen as well for them to feed more frequently before they go to sleep at night. Your supply isn't as big then, so they feed more frequently to stock up.

I really wouldn't take the three hours as gospel.....babies are all different. What is right for one won't be for another. Just do what you feel comfortable with and what you feel is right. I have heard many times that 13-15 hours is how long a baby should be asleep for in a 24 hour period. So if you look at it like that she isn't doing so badly! Good luck with it and hopefully you will get into a happy routine soon! :)

Really 13-15hrs? Hmmm yep she's definitely getting more than that. She gets 10hrs during the night!

Everyone's right - 3hrs is just a guide. She slept very well last night - 8pm to 6am, but she was difficult to settle before her big sleep.

Everyday is different for her. She's probably trying to figure out her routine and I'll go with that.

Ann

Good luck with it all anyway! Babies (and kids!) love to move their routine around when you think you have it under control! Good wishes coming your way.....