If a 5mo has a 2+ hour day sleep, do you wake them up?

LOL no this isn't a rhetorical question!

My CHN said between 1-2hrs sleep 2-3 times a day is best for day sleeps. Sounds good to me except Jazz doesn't often listen to the CHN recommendations PMSL.

At the moment our days are like this... Wake 5-6am. Awake for 2-3 hours. Goes to sleep usually around 8am-ish. I have been waking her after 2 hours. Awake by 10am. Sleep around 12.30-1pm-ish. Sleeps until 2pm-2.30pm (she usually only sleeps 90 minutes at lunch time). And then all hell breaks loose. She WONT sleep again, despite the fact that by 4.30pm she is tired. by 5.30pm she is cranky as anything... then the witching hour(s) until her bedtime routine at 7pm. If I try her bedtime routine earlier, she is up to play at 11pm, and I'm not a night person AT ALL (can handle waking at 4am, but I can't stay awake past 10pm). She is a shocking night sleeper (doesn't often need to get UP but wakes and won't be settled by anything other than booby at least 3 times a night). Sometimes she has a afternoon sleep, but will only stay asleep for 30 minutes, and cranky as soon as she wakes up!

Ok. So. Heres my question. Do I let her go for as long as she will sleep for her morning sleep? If I do that I'm 99% sure it'll drop to 2 day sleeps, which isn't any different to now anyway, except she MAY not be as tired.

OR, should she she only sleep 2hr max... so do we persist with 3 day sleeps?

TBH, I'm a big fan of letting babies sleep for as long as they want. My 16-month-old usually has a 3-4 hour nap in the morning (she's been asleep since 9.30am) about 2 hours after she gets up. And she sometimes has an afternoon nap too 1.5 hours before she goes to bed which I'm sure no-one would recommend but works for her.

So I'd be tempted to let her have a longer morning nap if she wants to and then see what happens from there.

BTW, I found that going from 3 naps to 2 was a lot better for me as it gave me more chance to get out of the house. Otherwise, by the time I'd given her lunch she was ready for bed again and I don't really like taking her out when she's sleepy/asleep.

She sounds like DS only her sleeps are longer. DS didnt much sleep in the day after about 5 months without pain on both sides :( so when he did I would let him go.
The night time routine sounds failry similar though.
Guidleines are just that, they;re there as a baseline of sorts.
If you think shes happy, healthy, eating enough etc then thats fine :)

DS was definitely still having 3 'sleeps' at that age, prob wwent to 2 at about 6-7 months, but again they're different.

I'd let her sleep and see how you go.

Do you think she could be overtired? My DS is about the same age and can't stay up for longer than 1 1/2hrs. He doesn't often sleep for more than 2hrs at a time during the day and it's usually only 90mins, but still will go to bed every 1-1 1/2hrs like clockwork. He will also not be settled by anything but booby at night, up to 4 times a night and is fed to sleep too. I don't mind that's fine for me, and I think it's still pretty normal. Thier tummies are still only tiny and during the day they feed every 3-4hrs so why would they not do similar at night?

let sleeping babies lie

DS was a 4 hour day napper and still is at the age of 2 !! DD can sleep for a bout 3 hrs if shes in her hammock .. and then is pretty random with cat naps ..

so follow your instincs and judge what you feel .. i dont think many of us would like to be woken from a nap , same goes with babes !!!

Hi Leash
I would tend to not wake her up after 2 hours, especially if she's not that great a sleeper.
DS was and still is to a degree never a good sleeper, I'd let him go until he woke up of his own accord, which usually was only 1 to 1 1/2 hours anyway.
Do what you feel is right, guidelines are only there to "guide" you, you know Jazz better than anyone!

Mia wakes about 6-7am every morning..she has a feed and is back asleep by about 8. This is the time when i let her sleep as long as she wants and usually its till 11am. She feeds again and is back down bout 12-12:30 then sleeps till about 1:30-2 (so a little sleep like Jazz) feeds again and it back down about 3:30 (naps in and out mayb 30 mins total sleep) gets up at 5.. bath, feed (and i wont go any further coz this is when our arsnic hour(s) start!

so my advice to you is dont wake her in the morning.. let that be her big sleep then shes got all day to wear herself down for night time. Ive always been told the better they sleep during the day, the better they sleep at night. this has been very true for me.

Ok, I'll let her sleep :) I was thinking that but wasn't sure :dunno: sometimes I feel like its all guesswork with babise!!!! We'll see how she goes tomorrow, she's due to go down for her lunchtime sleep soon.

Kel, she has just gone from 90 minutes to over two hours awake in the last 4 weeks, I think she is just getting more stamina to be awake longer. She used to catnap as well, 20-40m at a time, but we worked through that to get it down to some solid 1hr+ sleeps, thank goodness though I was EXHAUSTED with no down time!

Holly, LOL well what my MIL said to me is SOOOOOOOO not true (the less the sleep during the day the more they sleep at night), so I can only hope that the more she sleeps during the day the more she'll sleep at night is true!

I let Brock sleep as long as he likes. Make the most of it while she will have a long sleep because it may not last. Brock is now 6 months old and has always had long sleeps during the day and suddenly they are much shorter. When he does have a long sleep I just leave him to it,.

DS was all sleep and no play up antil roughly 5.5 months. As a newborn he would be up, fed, changed and asleep again within 30-25mins and he fed four hourly.
It moved out to no longer than an hour awake time until 4 months and then 1 1/2 - 2 hours.

He now, at 10 months still sleeps 2-3 hours most sleeps and only a 54 minute nap before dinner.

Jazz is breastfed on demand, yeah? So if that works for her let her sleep by demand too! You are doing a fantastic job Leash, no need to doubt yourself!

what your MIL said .. soooooo not true .id DS does not nap in the daytime .. we will wake through out the night time ... and is super cranky for it !!!

I really hate those blanket statements about what babies should be doing - how many hours they should sleep, how much they eat, what they should weigh. Both my boys have been so different in all those areas that I now realise you can't generalise like that. Every baby will have different needs to every other baby.

As for you question, definitely let her sleep. My 2yo DS still sleeps for anywhere from 2 1/2 hours to 4 1/2 hours for his day sleep. And whether it is longer or shorter, is still really tired again by 6pm. Follow your instinct hun, and remember - if it ain't broke, don't fix it!

Definitely let her sleep!

My girls will sleep from an hour to 3.5 hours. It depends on what we've been doing, growth spurts (especially for DD#2), the weather etc. I'm a big believer in letting them sleep for as long as they can. DD#1 has a pretty good schedule that we tend to stick to (although its changing a bit these days with her I think heading down the road of only one day sleep), but DD#2 I put to bed when she's tired, rather than looking at the clock. They go through so much development in the first 12 months - sometimes she can be ready to go back to bed an hour after she got up in the morning, and sometimes not for 4 hours.

Hi Leasha

Taras at a similar age, I only let her have 1 long sleep a day really thats when both the girls are sleeping so I get a rest too.

Tara's current routine she chose herself as I demand feed her is:

6.30am wake, feed and play
8.30am sleep for 2 hours max, usually she sleeps for 1 hour.
10.30am wake, feed and play
12.30pm sleep for 2 1/2 hours with Julia in the same room sleeping
3pm wake, feed, play
4.30pm catnap
5.30pm bottle, bath or shower then bed for the night
7pm sleep for the night.

I tend to put Tara to bed at her first tired sign which for her is rubbing her eyes, if I miss that its her jerky movements.

Bel
xxx

I have always let my girls sleep, regardless of how long it is. Generally, Emily will sleep 2 hours in the morning and 3 hours at lunch/afternoon. Then 12 hours at night. And when she's going through a growth spurt, or if she's sick, then she'll sleep longer.