Can I really wake him up?

[JLeigh29]

A friend passed on some info she got from a sleep school about helping her daughter with nap time - it's a '3 nap routine', with a 30-40 min nap, then a 1.5-2 hr nap, then another 30-40 min nap. It says to wake up bub if the first nap is longer than an hour, to help promote a longer nap in the middle of the day.

DS has just started having a longer nap in the morning, then two shorter ones later in the day, sometimes only one though. Before it was all shorter ones. My question is, can I really wake him after 40 mins and will this encourage him to sleep longer later? And how do you wake a sleeping baby?

Just interested to know others experiences, not necessarily wanting to try this.... TIA

[Olive]

if it aint broke dont fix it!

is his sleeping pattern as issue for you?

[YoYo]

I think if they are sleeping in a dark room, you just open the curtains, let the light in and just faff around in the room to wake them up....

I wouldnt know if waking them promotes longer sleep elsewhere though....maybe in a book!?

I don't wake my sleeping baby....I just enjoy she's actually asleep!

[OceanPrincess]

My DS is 12wks and he often sleeps in the morning til 9am or later. This goes against all the suggested patterns and routines that say wake him up at 7am.

I so do not want to do that for several reasons: if he's sleeping he obviously needs to and the other one is that it gives me a chance to spend some time with my DD one on one.

As olive said - if it's an issue for you, do something about it. But if it's not, don't stress!

[Mak]

I have lived by the motto - Never wake a sleeping baby! Mainly cos mine never do for long, lol!
If you were to try and wake up tho I would open the curtains and make some noise around the door etc so it is a bit more gentle than being hoicked out of bed and woken. xxx

[MummaSue]

My little one has her longer nap in the morning at the moment, then 2 shorter ones in the day - sometimes just one shorter one.

I wouldn't wake her but that's just me. I'd worry that she'd become too overtired later and then never sleep.

I'm letting her dictate to me what sleep she needs because she knows best at the moment!!

Sue xxx

[Arimeh]

Nah I wouldn't. I've found that kids eventually put themselves into a sleeping routine so I'm not going to mess with what their body will work out for them.

Seems a bit cruel to me actually - I hate people waking me up if I'm sleeping.. LOL

[CinderToriella]

if it aint broke dont fix it!

is his sleeping pattern as issue for you?

Exactly!

[JLeigh29]

Exactly MammaSue!

It's not really an issue, except that he does get overtired later in the day with just one or two 40 min naps to last him from 10:30am til 7:30pm. And that I am missing my mums group cos he's sleeping through it!

Has anyone actually tried this before?

[~Hestia~]

DS always had one big sleep and two little sleeps at your DS' age. The time of the big sleep varied depending on the day, I just let him do his own thing. I think he mainly had his big sleep in the morning though.
That being said, if I needed to get somewhere I would wake him up. I'd do this by simply going into the room and just making a bit of noise, usually by opening drawers etc. He'd start stirring and kinda wake up on his own if that makes sense.

[misty]

I try to never wake my sleeping kids or babies, unless I have no choice. If I do have to wake them for whatever reason (it's getting close to dinner time and thus bed time, or we need to go out somewhere, etc) then I try to do it gently by opening the door and increasing the light in the room.

Just do whatever suits your kids best, there is no point worrying about installing a sleep routine if your bub doesn't have any sleep problems.

[JLeigh29]

CheezelMonster - Thanks. That's what I am doing atm, just waking him early if I need to be somewhere. I am happy for him to sleep whenever he wants to. I just thought it was strange for a sleep clinic of all places to be promoting waking a baby and just assuming they'd be savvy enough to go "ah well, I'll just have my big sleep later in the day", lol!

Anyway, it ain't an issue atm cos he won't go down at all right now....

[*Efjay*]

sounds like the makings of an over tired baby to me..

[ss_storm]

I agree with the others, I'd be hesitant to wake him if he is sleeping, unless you have to go somewhere! I hate waking DD up, not that I ever really have to, but she wakes up cranky, and so would I if I was being woken from a good sleep! She was also a cat napper and never had a long sleep, so I doubt that method would have worked for us, just would have resulted in a cranky, overtired baby at the end of the day!
Up until this week she was having one sleep/day which lasted 1 1/2 - 2 hours, but now she is lucky to sleep for over an hour. I'm doing this a bit but I figure she sleeps as much as she needs to, so long as she isn't cranky..
They will eventually figure it all out. My aunty asked me the other day if I'd taken any tips from the 'Baby Whisperer', I googled it and to me it seems like one of those stickler for routines methods...so to answer her question, uh no..we'll do our own thing and I'm sure one day she will actually sleep!