For Those With Babies With Low Sleep Quantity (<12 Hours A Day) When Did It Increase?

[kemet]

Our son is just over 4 months old and sleeps 12 hours a day in total. Paediatrician says this is fine, some babies just need shorter sleep amounts.

It's 10 hours at night (which will be with a wake & feed - so either 6+4, 7+3, 8+2, 9+1 - but always works out to 10 hours strangely) then 4 x 30 min naps (reduced down from 5 a few weeks ago, as he was struggling to fall asleep for some of the naps). Nothing makes him nap longer - occasionally being held maybe 1 time in 5 and occasionally on a long car ride. But generally half hour no matter where or how he sleeps.

Has been doing half hour naps for maybe 6 weeks plus now - and they're almost always half hour on the dot, occasionally go + or - 5 minutes.

2 hours during the day time (split into 4 x 30 min) makes it hard to get anything done - basically time to shower, eat, clean bottles and maybe do laundry.

For those of you who also had kids with a low sleep quantity, what age / when did it start to increase? Or did it even start to increase (can they just be light quantity sleepers for life)

 

[offenbarung]

@kemet Some kids are just low sleep needs. But, to answer what seems to be your actual question, your naps will lengthen around 8-10 months whenever the kiddo drops down to 2 naps is what seems to be the norm. Ours went from never longer than 36 minutes to 1-1.5 hours when we made that switch. However, my daughter has rarely slept over 12 hours for the day since she was probably around 3-4 months old. She’s 17 months old now and sleeps around 11ish hours on average. When she started taking longer naps she lost some of her nighttime sleep in the form of a later bedtime while still waking at her regular time.

 

[stephenfortenberry]

@kemet 7 months here.

In the beginning getting 10 or 11 hours total was a real struggle. Then around 5 months 12 h became our magic number and remains so to this day. 9 hours per night total plus 3 naps, 1 hour each.
At this point I know that he should start sleeping longer nights at one point but I have no belief in it.

 

[kemet]

@stephenfortenberry Thanks - appreciate the help. Did you also happen to start them on solid foods right before this?

 

[stephenfortenberry]

@kemet We started solids at 4 months as he showed readiness for it and gp gave the go ahead so slightly more than a month before. He did has a more painful bout of teething though. He showed signs of dropping a nap from 5 to four, then we had a couple of bad nights and days and after that a new tooth and his schedule was more identical from day to day.

 

[kemet]

@stephenfortenberry Thanks! We just got the go ahead from GP for solids - I was wondering if it might lead to longer naps but obviously didn't in your case!

 

[truckerjack56]

@kemet Around 5 months but I had resorted to sleep training

 

[kemet]

@truckerjack56 Thanks - appreciate the help. Did you also happen to start them on solid foods right before this? Or did they increase their sleep before you started the solids?

 

[truckerjack56]

@kemet Around the same time. My LO has always been a hungry boy though so I don’t think he’s a baseline for anything ahah

 

[dasadler]

@kemet Eight weeks. He went from 10-12 hrs up to 11-15. But we also got better at tricks to put him to sleep when he needs to sleep. Rather than rock him to drowsiness, we strap him into the Snoo with a pacifier and an electric heat pad on top. Even if he's fighting to stay awake, he'll succumb to the comfort. He goes down 30 min to an hour sooner than it would have taken to rock him to drowsiness.

 

[nggondez]

@kemet In terms of naps, we aren’t there yet at 3.5 months. It can happen anywhere after 4 months with 6 months seeming to be the average that at least 1 nap lengthens, some babies taking until that 8 month/drop to 2 naps mark.

Bubs also only does 30 minute naps. Nap 1 - 30 min, nap 2 30 min in cot, and then I babywear to get another hour out of him, nap 3 - 30 min, nap 4 - straight to baby carrier as he fights cot naps at that time of the evening so 30 min or until 5.30pm (whichever comes first) so there is enough wake time by bed.

What time are you putting bubs to bed for the night? What time does he wake up? My boy is in bed from 7-7 (give or take 30 min) and the ideal set up is that you have a 12hr day and 12hr night. As bubs get older you drop away the naps and keep the 12 hour night. Putting them to bed earlier may be a way for them to get more sleep.

 

[kemet]

@nggondez Bed time is around 7 to 830. And wake time 11 hours after this - so 6 to 730 - as he sleeps 10 hours with a 1 hour wake window for feeding and diaper change.

12-12 would be amazing but I think 10.5 hours is the most he's ever slept during a night

 

[twentyhawks]

@kemet I'm in the same boat— nearing 11 weeks here. We've been struggling to get him to take longer naps and we'd end up trying to put him back to sleep for most of the afternoon... This started 2 weeks ago. Our ped said it's okay, so I suppose I'll let him take as many 30 minute naps as he wants. It'll definitely save my mental health a bit, and my back. But so far today I have found it difficult to do stuff as you stated :/

Babe sleeps 8-10 hours of sleep at night, but has always totalled between 11-13 hours. I was worried, but according to the NSA, 11 is the lowest amount but still an acceptable amount of sleep for a newborn

 

[kemet]

@twentyhawks Our experience was that he was taking 5 x 30 min naps (2.5 hours in total) and 10 hours at night (with 1 hour wake window) up until around 11 weeks. So total sleep was 12.5 hours.

Then it became increasingly difficult to put him down for naps. So we reduced him to 4 naps.

After that he continued to just take half hour naps and sleep 10 hours. Meaning he went from 12.5 hours to 12 hours sleep and all that happened was he lost 30 min of sleep!

 

[twentyhawks]

@kemet To reduce naps, that would mean lengthening wake windows right? I'm not gunna do it at the moment, but just for reference