waking them up from naps???

[kaynay]

so our 7 week old since birth has been on easy...we try and try and some days are better than others but each and every single day one of his naps is long I mean long...2-3 hours...and if I wake him he hardly eats still sleeps on me no matter what I do change nappy, hold up, etc...he just has to have that long nap once a day...and if I feed him he doesnt eat with vigor although if I wait til he wakes he really eats good (bf)...at the 2 hr mark I go in, open curtains make noise and wait for him to wake but actually waking him up does no good and in fact makes him really cranky for that A time ...my question is ...do I really need to wake him and never let him sleep more than 2 hours in the day like BW says???

we do 3 hr feeds, one side mostly, he goes down for night at 7 has a stretch til 1030 where he gets a pacy then stays down til 1130 or 12 til he eats then he eats again between 3 and 4 which seems normal although we dont have the long 6 hour stetch I dont think the one long nap gets in the way of his night cuz he just wakes gets breast and goes right back down always since birth--I am trying to stretch feeds in the night as I said above....we tried df but again does no good he is just not into being woken up to eat and we have tried trust me!...that time of day he has a long nap his feed might go past anywhere from 15-60 min but we do still cluster feed and the rest of the day the naps are no more than 1 hour...

what is the bw rule about never letting them sleep more than 2 hrs in a day...sleep is brain development and I hate disturbing him but cant help to wonder if just if he slept less that one nap if he would sleep longer at night? he is not awake at night just eats and goes back down...

anyone let their lo sleep long one nap a day??? I am a prop BW TRUST ME...I need and want a routine...that one long doesnt throw us off too much he always falls back into similar range of eating and sleeping each day , goes down independently and mostly at least for this one long nap stays down independently...

what do you think? what have you done?

[~Sara~]

I think with BW, there's a lot of flexibility in that your days aren't so much a timed schedule, but a routine that's normally done in similarly timed chunks.  That said, if some times he sleeps for 2h15 minutes one day, or 1h50 minutes the next; as long as he's happy, thriving, doing well, I think you're responding well to his needs!

My son is now 5.5 mo, and one of his naps tends to be longer than the other (pm nap).  All babies are different, and they don't necessarily fit in the "mold."

It sounds like he's sleeping well at night, so I think if you feel like he's a happy little boy, then you're good to go!

If you'd feel better with posting your routine, we can see if anything is going on.

HTH!  Let's see what some other moms have to say, too

[*Jo*]

well the reason we say not to let them sleep longer than two hours at a time is that we are teaching them the difference between night and day, day sleep is short and night sleep is long, the longer the better if you know what i mean!!!! so it just tells their bodies that "ok this is daytime so i dont sleep too long, i sleep long periods at night" they are born with a 24 hour clock that says a day is just a 24 hour day, they dont know the difference between the two.

As sara said if you wanna post your routine we can have a looksie!