Napping for more than 2 hours at a time in the day - should we wake her?

[newbiemum22]

We've been having a few problems with napping in the day with our little girl (7 weeks old). We've been trying to follow the 3 hour EASY routine but sometimes she goes a bit shorter and sometimes a bit longer - she is starting to go a bit longer in the day now and getting towards 3.5 / 4 hours - should I change the routine?

I've noticed now that sometimes (like today) she is napping longer than 2 hours and I remember that the book says they should nap for longer than 2 hours at a time - so should I wake her?

If she does move onto the 4 hour routine I'm unsure how this will work because the E and A time makes up 1 hour most before she starts yawning and I put her down. Then that leaves 3 hours, of which no longer than 2 should be sleeping - what happens with the last hour? Normally if I wake her she tends to think she is going to be fed and then I'm back to the 3 hour routine and maybe overfeeding...!

Hope this makes sense! What should we do?!

[deckchariot]

Congrats on the great napping!!!  I would have been insanely jealous to have 2+hr naps when my dd was 7 weeks!  How is she sleeping at night?  You want to make sure she doesn't start confusing day and night.  If she's sleeping well at night, I wouldn't be too concerned about the long naps.  I know there's a lot of split advice on this one.  7 weeks seems way too young to move to a 4 hr EASY.  Is she bf or formula fed?  If she's bf, it's almost certainly too early for her to last 4 hrs between feeds.  When my dd was that young, I made sure I fed her every 3 hrs during the day, so I did wake her.  But I wasn't militant about it, so if it was 3 hr 15, that was ok by me.  She really could only handle 45 min of A time (which included feeding and wind down), so that meant she could actually get a 2 hr 15 min nap in and still feed every 3 hrs.

With a 4 hr EASY, bubs really need to be able to manage 2 hrs of A time, and she's quite a bit away from that yet.  I really wouldn't  push her to that.  If she's bf, you don't really need to worry about overfeeding - bf babies only eat what they want.  Their tummies are so tiny and they digest bm so quickly that they really do need to eat frequently.

hth
michelle

[newbiemum22]

Hi Michelle

Recently she has been sleeping really well at night - luckily - we start the bedtime routine at 6 and finish by 7.30 (bath, book, feed, mobile etc).

She sleeps from 7.30 and I have to wake her at 11pm for the dream feed - I left her once and she slept through till 1am! Our night looks something like this;

E 6pm
A 6pm - 7pm
E 7.15pm
S 7.30pm - 11pm
Y as above
E 11pm with no A
S 11pm - 3am
E 3am - 3.20am
S 3.30am - 5.45am
E 6am
A 6.15am - 7am ish
S 7am - 9.30am

We are formula feeding her.

Do you think we should wake her at each 3 hour mark?

Thanks
Marie

[becky1969]

I think you may be hitting that 8 week growth spurt, which could explain the longer daytime naps.  Your nights look great! Unless they are having trouble gaining/growing, then you let them sleep as long as they like at night, and as they grow it should get longer and longer between feeds.

My son was a great daytime sleepr, and my rule about waking from naps was ONLY if it started robbing from night-time sleep. So far, you look fine. But if you see her start to have trouble falling asleep or she begins to wake more frequently, then you will probably want to keep the daytime sleeps to 2 hours.  The last thing you want is day/night confusion! That's a bugger to fix, and no fun to live thru! 

WTG mommy!!! (p.s. even though you have a GREAT napper, don't be surprised if you start seeing her take 30-45 minute naps at 12 weeks. That's totally normal, and just requires a little sleep training to fix. C'mon back if that happens!  ).

[newbiemum22]

Thanks Becky

This week she has been really good with her morning naps (most days) but by the time it gets to her early afternoon feed she doesn't nap well after this and usually wakes after 1 hour crying (small cry then hard loud cry, choking etc) and I can't figure out why  - any ideas? This is the same as her late afternoon nap and I struggle to get her to sleep before we start the bedtime routine.

I've tried feeding her (she takes about 2/3 of her normal amount), other days I've tried shh/pat and she kept on crying, also just picking her up, talking to her, moving where her sleep chair is, hand on tummy, etc but nothing really seems to work. Sometimes she does go back to sleep and I manage to put her back down but most of the time it seems to be the only way to get through it is to take her out for a walk or in the car - I'd do this but I'd prefer to try and understand why she was crying! Any ideas? 

[deckchariot]

what is she doing when she's crying - eyes open or closed? Is she pulling her legs up to her chest?  Is she thrashing about in the crib?  oh, it looks like she's sleeping in a sleep chair?  Is there a reason she's not in a crib or a bassinette?  Does she need to be upright to sleep?  Have you considered reflux?

[becky1969]

PP asks some good questions.  The choking thing makes me think of reflux as well. My son had silnet reflux, which means he didn't spit up, just had the awful burning in his esophagus.

could you show your daytime routine as well?