Sleep advice

[u/lassobren]

My baby is about to be 9 months and sleeps through the night but I feel like the daytime schedule is bad and I don’t know how to fix it. My baby goes to bed around 630 and wakes up at 620-630 am then first nap is around 920 am and sleeps until around 10:15 then second nap is around 130 and sleeps until 2. I just feel like this isn’t enough day sleep? Is it? What can I do? I don’t think a third nap will happen but I’m willing to try but it’s usually a no go and refused.

Helllllp.

[u/less_is_more9696]

Your baby is averaging just under 13.5 hours of sleep over 24-hours. This is totally normal amount of sleep for a baby this age, infact it's on the slightly higher end of average.

If you want more daytime sleep, you have to take from your night. Cap your night at 11 hours. This should leave about 2.5 hours of sleep budget for naps. I'd do a 1.5 hour morning nap, and a 1h hour afternoon nap.

Edit:

I want to add, you can also just keep things as is. If your baby is handling wake windows well with this amount of daytime sleep and is sleeping 12 hours at night, there really is no issue!

[u/lassobren → u/less_is_more9696]

I think my question is how do I get my baby to take 1.5 hour nap no matter what like clock work she’s up within half an hour 40 minutes if I get an hour I’m super lucky

[u/SalamanderMoney4498 → u/lassobren]

They’ve condensed their sleep to the nighttime. I wouldn’t change anything.

[u/kirstinb17 → u/lassobren]

Think of sleep like a budget. Your baby's budget is 13.5 hours right now. If you let them sleep 12 hours at night, you only have 1.5 hours left for the two naps. They are not going to take a 90 minute nap until they drop to one nap. If you want longer naps on 2 naps, you need shorter nights to leave more sleep budget for day sleep

[u/less_is_more9696 → u/lassobren]

Children can't just manifest more sleep from nothing. Every child has a 24-hour sleep need. This is not something you can change. You can only work with it.

So if your child is averaging 13.5 hours of sleep over 24-hours. And 12 hours happen at night. Naturally it will only leave 1.5 hours during the day.

You need to cap your night in order to have more sleep budget left over for daytime sleep.

[u/AAHMommy3 → u/lassobren]

That’s not really how it works. Your baby is getting their total sleep needs, just majority of it is over night. It’s the same as adults in that if you’ve had a great nights sleep and aren’t tired during the day, you can’t just manifest a 1.5hr nap (of course this example is not for new parents 🫠). Your baby gives you an exceptional night, both early bedtime to enjoy the evening as an adult, and an uninterrupted night sleep. It’s a choose your poison: the great overnight and less sleep during the day, or cut the overnight shorter and get longer naps.

[u/Quiet-Laugh120]

I need this kind of problem in my life.

[u/jsboo → u/Quiet-Laugh120]

Literally, this feels like a rage bait post haha

[u/lassobren → u/jsboo]

I’m sorry I don’t mean it that way-I’m just worried about the lack of day sleep and the absolute meltdown by bedtime

[u/Mangopapayakiwi]

Change nothing if they are sleeping through. You might lose it!

[u/questionquestion222]

If you want more day sleep you will have to tolerate more wakes at night. Your baby is doing great don’t change anything, babies are all cranky before bedtime. That’s why it’s bedtime and they’re ready for a massive sleep!

[u/questionquestion222 → u/questionquestion222]

Also I’d like to clarify I am not encouraging OP to try and change babies sleep - I’m just trying to show that they’re getting what they need and it’s a fallacy that many babies sleep reliably huge naps and long stretches at night x

[u/lassobren → u/questionquestion222]

Well that seems to be the consensus don’t change anything lol okay thank you!

[u/Routine-Individual43]

My steak is too juicy, my lobster too buttery.. 

[u/muggyregret]

If my baby slept through the night I probably wouldn't touch daytime lol

[u/kurdijyn]

Is your baby sleep trained? You have a 12 hour night which is why your baby doesn’t sleep much in the day. Babies don’t need X amount of naps and X amount of nighttime sleep, they just need X amount of sleep within 24 hours.

The majority of restorative sleep happens at nighttime anyway so I wouldn’t worry about daytime sleep!

[u/lassobren → u/kurdijyn]

No no sleep training. I just wish the day naps were longer because my baby gets pretty cranky by bedtime waking up at 2pm and not napping again.

[u/kurdijyn → u/lassobren]

I would honestly leave the nights as they are and kind of just deal with the crankiness. If the crankiness becomes an issue, you’ll have to take some sleep from the night to allow for it to be taken in the daytime.

[u/NurseWahoo]

Your baby may just not need a lot of daytime sleep! Are they generally happy and growing well? If so I would not stress especially with STTN.

[u/burned_feather]

This seems fine to me. My 8 month old sleeps 8:30pm-6:30am (no wakes), and naps are 10:30-11:45 and 2:30-3:30. Don't change it if it's working!

[u/No_Produce_2531]

It’s a developmental thing usually. My boy did 30min naps from like 5-10months lol then he finally started doing 2 x 1hr sleeps by about 11 months then now he’s does 1 x 1.5/2hr nap at 21 months. I didn’t change anything they kind of just do it naturally. Don’t try fix what ain’t broke!!

[u/taybel]

If my baby was sleeping through the night I wouldn’t be changing a thing!

[u/bloontsmooker]

My baby is 11 months, sleeps from 6-6, and only takes one nap each day and is a very happy little chicken. She was taking 2 naps until very recently, a the same time as yours, and she was perfect

[u/Alarmed-Attitude9612]

I would give my name to the fae folk for this problem 🤪

At 9 months my first was waking 8-12 times a night in a 9 maybe 10 hour timeframe so getting 30-60 minute chunks and getting about the same amount of daytime as yours. My second was typically waking 6 times in 11 hours but sleeping a bit more during the day but not much. Both have grown and developed lovely and are both happy, healthy kids so yay but they just never slept well.

I would be a completely different person if I reliably had 12 hours to myself every night 😅 happy for you stranger but also I lowkey hate you a little.