Time to Wake Up Time to Wake Up Baby

Your child is sleeping so soundly!  Maybe too soundly??  Anxiety starts to kicking in, should you wake your baby if she's sleeping as well long?  Should I wake my infant to preserve a schedule?

It'south that feeling of uncertainty that feels terrible!

Permit me share with you lot how I coach a client on these types of scenarios.

Hither are three questions to ponder when y'all are jittery with angst and unsure what to exercise about this long nap or morning time "sleep in".

ane. How old is your baby? Are you in those start few weeks of life and concerned about weight proceeds?  Or is this a toddler who took forever to autumn comatose and now is having a late nap?   The answer is dissimilar for both.

2. Practise you lot have proof that letting them sleep will be detrimental to your schedule?  For example, will letting the last nap run belatedly interfere with bedtiming?

three.  Do you lot accept really have a fixed schedule?

Your child's historic period is a factor

Newborns:  Your baby is a newborn a couple of months old

• Y'all want to go lots of calories in during the daytime to aid with longer stretches of sleep at night time
• During the day, don't let her get more than 4-4.v hours between feeds,
• Wake your child up if she's sleeping longer than iv hours between feeds during the day
• Y'all desire to stack the calories during the twenty-four hours so she tin slumber longer at night
• At night time, if she's gaining weight well, I would non wake her up and let your kid naturally wake upward for a feed
  

Babies on 2-4 naps, ages 4 months to 14 months

Your kid is betwixt the ages of 4 months and ~14 months, when she starts to transition to 1 nap.

• At this age it is rare that your child is on a "fixed schedule" where 9 am is nap time
• During this period in that location are many changes in sleep
• v months dropping from four-3 naps
• seven-ten months dropping from 3-2 naps
• ix-11 months plenty of teething and motor development
• Your child will slumber as she needs it
• I would not wake my child up from a nap unless I have proof that letting her sleep is interfering with more consolidated night fourth dimension sleep
• An case would be that my half dozen calendar month old had a third nap at four:thirty pm, that ran long and she didn't wake until 6 pm.  That means bedtime isn't going to exist until virtually 8:xxx pm.  That's a belatedly bedtime. This tardily nap volition end up cutting into dark fourth dimension sleep so I would probable wake her up after 45 minutes of sleeping.
• These scenarios are usually very rare
• Babies on ii naps
• When your child is consistently on 2 naps, unremarkably the 2nd nap is the longer nap and the first nap is 45 minutes to 1.v hours.
• If the showtime nap is on the long end, say 1.5 hours and so struggles for the second nap – either falling asleep or only sleeping for 30 minutes, and so you lot'll desire to wake your child from the 1st nap after one hour and then that he/she is ready for the 2nd nap and it volition final longer.
• The afternoon nap should naturally exist longer and has her ameliorate rested with a substantial nap earlier bedtime.

Toddlers on 1 nap:

• Then important to protect that 1 nap
• At this age, car naps can be painful
• If she falls asleep for simply xxx minutes she won't transfer from the car to the crib and it's incommunicable to get her to nap once again for the day
• Y'all're left with a tired cranky toddler who won't nap
• Protect your 1 nap
• In full general, I wouldn't allow your toddler nap past 4 or 5 pm
• If your toddler had a rough 24-hour interval and didn't fall asleep until 3 pm instead of the usual 1 pm, I would wake her up at 4:30pm
• There is some variation betwixt 4:30 and 5:00 pm based on when her bedtime normally is
• For example, if yous have a toddler who goes to bed at 8 pm, gets up at 7 pm, her nap volition be later in the day compared to a toddler who sleeps 7 pm to 6 am.
• Thus that 4 pm or 5 pm cut off varies co-ordinate to the kid.

Tips on waking your toddler up

• Be gentle
• Open the curtains, gently rouse her and and so leave the room
• Provide the opportunity for her to "come up to" without someone hovering over her
• Echo gently rousing and leaving the room

Let's take a little walk through the months and await at all the change happening with bedtimes.

From 0-four months, your babe is sleeping on and off throughout the day and night and isn't fifty-fifty awake for more than about i-1.75 hours at a time.  You have no set schedule.  What you accept is a flexible routine of eating, sleeping,  and pooping.  I would only e'er wake a babe during the day if he has been napping more than than 3-4 hours and is sleeping through a feed.  I want to make sure that he is getting regular feeds during the twenty-four hour period, to set him upwardly for success at night fourth dimension.  This is a rare miracle.

At 5 months, your infant will be in the 4-3 nap transition where some days she'll accept four naps, and other days iii naps.  The number of naps all depends on the length of her naps and how long she tin can comfortably stay awake between naps before becoming fussy.  At 5 months, your child needs 3-4 hours of total daily nap hours.

Whenever y'all are in a nap transition, your bedtime fluctuates to adapt the final nap.  I would never wake a baby up during this period because at that place is no set up bedtime.  Bedtime fluctuates based on when the concluding nap is.  Its is very common to take a thirty-40 minute cat nap around four:30 or 5:00 pm at this historic period.

At 6 months, your baby will consistently be on 3 naps and crave 2-three hours of total daily nap hours.  There is a window here, that could last 1-two months, where your bedtime is relatively consistent.

In one case you are into seven-10 months, you'll be going through the three-two nap transition where your infant drops down to 2 naps.  Again, when you are dropping a nap, your bedtime volition exist bumped upward a chip earlier because you are losing some daytime sleep and don't want her to be overtired past bedtime.

From ~ x- xiv months, your baby will be on ii day time naps.  Quondam betwixt 14-eighteen months, your baby volition drop downward to i daily nap.  Again, bedtime fluctuates.

"Should I wake my babe to preserve a schedule?"

Hither's my key rule:  I don't wake up a infant to preserve a schedule unless I have proof that letting them sleep too long during the mean solar day has disrupted nighttime sleep.

Normally, this is a rare phenomenon.

I accept only advised a handful of clients to wake a sleeping baby, afterward we have monitored and logged, the child's daily nap hours and found they were surpassing their daily suggested nap hours AND it was causing either a late bedtime or an early morn wake up, both of which are cut into the full suggested 11-12 hours of nighttime sleep.

In these cases, these children are stealing sleep from the night time and using it during the daytime.

Some other theory is that you lot should wake your kid upwards every day at the same fourth dimension.  I have plant that virtually kids more often than not wake upward with the sun somewhere between 6 and 7 am.

This waking your child up and keeping them on a fixed schedule is a "BabyWise" miracle.

There are positive things to take from everything we read, but in general, I notice BabyWise can set a gal up for failure.

These fixed schedules don't account for long naps on days following rough nights, or short naps due to teething, or affliction.

Fixed schedules can leave a Mom feeling like a failure or very anxious when the schedule goes sideways…as life does.

In the rare case that these late morning wakings are happening by 6 months of historic period. It is usually considering the kid is feeding frequently through the night, and normally has a slumber crutch of nursing back to sleep.

I don't similar to wake a sleeping baby considering if they are sleeping, they demand it!

Who knows what biological procedure their petty bodies are working on in that restorative sleep session.

Possibly they are fighting a cold, working on language development or processing the activities of the day.

I would only want to interrupt that if I have evidence that it will have a negative upshot on other sleep patterns in their life.

Let the sleeping baby lie but a tardily napping toddler should be woken up.

My thoughts,

Sarah

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Always wonder how much sleep your baby needs and when? Worried you're not getting nap hours in? Download my gratuitous slumber timing and quantity chart and run into how much sleep they should exist getting for their age.

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Read Next:

• 10 and 11 Month Old Sleep: Sample Schedule
• When Can My Baby Sleep Through The Night?
• The One Matter Your Babe Needs to Sleep Through the Night

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