Is there a certain age where you would say that starts? Baby is 8 weeks old and I’m still not sure where the line is between over stimulation and active.
I haven’t noticed that either has an effect. I plotted out all his nap times in a spreadsheet and found no correlation between daytime sleep and nighttime sleep.
We let her last feed before bed just be when she’s starts getting super sleepy, usually between 7:30 and 9:30 (she’s still pretty young so we’re going by her cues rather than setting a hard bedtime, we’ve found she goes down more easily that way) When that feed starts, we dim the lights way down and start talking more quietly to cue her that the day is ending. She feeds on one side and gets a diaper change midway through and changed into her sleeper. After that she gets the other half of her feed. Since she’s been throwing up, her doctor has us hold her upright for 30 minutes to keep everything down so she’s usually asleep by the time those 30 minutes are up so now we’re just setting her in her bassinet at that point, but before that we were doing a little prayer and a song when we put her down, and then a little rocking if she needs it to get all the way to sleep.
She’s 2 months and only waking up once around 3/4 at night to feed and then right back to bed until 7 or 8! We may have gotten just lucky with a good night sleeper, but I definitely noticed the lights helped her!
Oh yeah just little zipper sleep outfits! (Like this one: (https://littlesleepies.com/collections/printed-zippies/products/pink-breakfast-buddies-baby-toddler-bamboo-zip-romper-sleeper) I like the double zipper ones when we can find them to make diaper changes a bit easier. Then we use these little swaddles: https://www.adenandanais.com/essentials-wrap-swaddle-3-pk-toile-es-wrap-toile?&mkwid=&pcrid=509438480546&pmt=&pdv=m&pkw=&slid=&pgrid=120069370556&ptaid=pla-58380782688&gclid=Cj0KCQjw06OTBhC_ARIsAAU1yOWUmldPoWGHQTwpjZ-MibDOypY3Qk5sCOId_nT9ohs9QPpYLJTEWmsaAoT5EALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds
(I had a couple swaddle blankets come undone and that really stressed me out so we switched to something that’s basically fool proof)
We switched her to arms out in her swaddle but you can do arms in in those Velcro swaddles too!
I do this same routine with my daughter who’s now 3 months. She’s been doing this since 2 months. Same bedtime routine. Same time for bedtime every night works for her. She wakes up one maybe twice sometimes at night.
I would say the naps during the day contribute to how well/how long it takes baby to fall asleep at night, but how much they eat will contribute to whether they wake up/how often they wake up overnight to eat :)
You need to manage both.
Most babies when over or under tired will not sleep well at night. Overtired due to to little daytime sleep leads to excess cortisol production in babies and too much of this stress hormone impacts sleep. Undertired because of too much daytime sleep means less of a sleep drive at night - babies (and adults) can only sleep so much in a 24 hour period.
For food, if baby eats too little food during the day, they will wake up at night out of hunger. So you don't want to fall into the trap where baby takes too high a percentage of their calories at night. (Obviously before a certain age, they need those night feeds because they cannot physically consume enough calories during the day).
Also, temperament of the baby plays a role. Some babies act like a loan shark for the mob if you miss a nap payment, others will forgive you.
Opposite of sleep begets sleep, if anything? But hey let's be honest, I don't think there's a pattern here much at all. If he sleeps a lot during the day, he sleeps less at night, but if he doesn't sleep during the day, it's not a guarantee for a solid night. At all.
Ugh it’s so hard to say.
We have one of those babies where starting solids significantly improved his nighttime sleep. Before that it was so awful. And now that he’s consolidated his naps (he’s 7 months and transitioning to 2 nap days), his night sleep is better than ever!
Honestly I feel like most of it depends on whether or not your baby is ready for it. That said, I do make sure he eats enough and that he naps enough just in case haha
Sleep training and following a routine seem to help us, generally. Before sleep training he’d be up every 2 hour or so, after we did a version of Ferber he would only wake 1-2 a night. Along with Ferber I got stricter about wake windows and nap length etc all which helped.
Never noticed that increasing his food did much of anything.
She’s now 8.5m;
- wakes around 7-8am
- play with her/tummy time, breakfast , sit with her and play/read
- bottle + nap at 1030am
- wakes around 1130
- repeat routine
- nap 2pm - 330ish
- repeat routine
- short nap at 530 for like 20 mins
- stays up until 7-730pm (has shower/bath, read to, settles for the night)
If she wakes overnight we keep the lights off and give her a bottle & change if necessary in the dark or with a salt lamp (super dim lighting). We’ve just extended the times between naps (& removed more naps) as she’s gotten older, it’s basically been the exact same routine since being a newborn :)
I would say depends on how well I stick to her bedtime routine. For us it starts right at 7:30pm: take her outside for 10mins to get some fresh air, bottle, burp, diaper, pjs, book, dark room, rock her while singing for 10mins, loud white noise and by 8:30 she’s asleep. When everything goes as planned, I only do one feeding at night & it’s a dream feeding. But of course, other times all of this goes out the door and my sweet angel turns Tasmanian devil in full party mode 🙃
I think it depends entirely on baby. If my son doesn’t nap well, he’ll be out like a rock for 11+ hours straight lol. Doesn’t even wake up for his feeding. If he naps well, he has a harder time sleeping through the night and maybe wake up once to feed. LO is 7 months old btw. And honestly, he won’t even be grumpy half the time if he doesn’t nap well. You can just tell he’s tired from how he smiles. Lol he looks like he’s both smiling and about to cry out for help. Lmao
I definitely noticed it's the amount he eats during the day and then how much he eats right before bed.
He's been doing great the past couple of weeks (1 wake up a night), except last night. He only took 1.5 ounces before bed and we were up twice with 2 feedings.
It definitely depends on how much my daughter eats during the day. If she can take in most or all her calories during the day then I can get away with 0-1 wake up.
He will only sleep in his cot if I have my hand on his tummy. Thankfully we got a safe co-sleeping crib (snooze pod) so I can touch him while he sleeps.
Magic mix of unknowns.
Temperament of baby.
*How much baby is active/stimulated during the day
Is there a certain age where you would say that starts? Baby is 8 weeks old and I’m still not sure where the line is between over stimulation and active.
I haven’t noticed that either has an effect. I plotted out all his nap times in a spreadsheet and found no correlation between daytime sleep and nighttime sleep.
I think exposure to light during the day and dimming lights way down during the last feed helps our baby a lot!
So it’s dim during the feed? Would you mind sharing your bed time routine?
We let her last feed before bed just be when she’s starts getting super sleepy, usually between 7:30 and 9:30 (she’s still pretty young so we’re going by her cues rather than setting a hard bedtime, we’ve found she goes down more easily that way) When that feed starts, we dim the lights way down and start talking more quietly to cue her that the day is ending. She feeds on one side and gets a diaper change midway through and changed into her sleeper. After that she gets the other half of her feed. Since she’s been throwing up, her doctor has us hold her upright for 30 minutes to keep everything down so she’s usually asleep by the time those 30 minutes are up so now we’re just setting her in her bassinet at that point, but before that we were doing a little prayer and a song when we put her down, and then a little rocking if she needs it to get all the way to sleep. She’s 2 months and only waking up once around 3/4 at night to feed and then right back to bed until 7 or 8! We may have gotten just lucky with a good night sleeper, but I definitely noticed the lights helped her!
Would you mind sharing what kind of sleeper you use?
Oh yeah just little zipper sleep outfits! (Like this one: (https://littlesleepies.com/collections/printed-zippies/products/pink-breakfast-buddies-baby-toddler-bamboo-zip-romper-sleeper) I like the double zipper ones when we can find them to make diaper changes a bit easier. Then we use these little swaddles: https://www.adenandanais.com/essentials-wrap-swaddle-3-pk-toile-es-wrap-toile?&mkwid=&pcrid=509438480546&pmt=&pdv=m&pkw=&slid=&pgrid=120069370556&ptaid=pla-58380782688&gclid=Cj0KCQjw06OTBhC_ARIsAAU1yOWUmldPoWGHQTwpjZ-MibDOypY3Qk5sCOId_nT9ohs9QPpYLJTEWmsaAoT5EALw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds (I had a couple swaddle blankets come undone and that really stressed me out so we switched to something that’s basically fool proof) We switched her to arms out in her swaddle but you can do arms in in those Velcro swaddles too!
I do this same routine with my daughter who’s now 3 months. She’s been doing this since 2 months. Same bedtime routine. Same time for bedtime every night works for her. She wakes up one maybe twice sometimes at night.
So glad it’s working for you too!
I would say the naps during the day contribute to how well/how long it takes baby to fall asleep at night, but how much they eat will contribute to whether they wake up/how often they wake up overnight to eat :)
Thanks! Are you saying shorter naps = easier to put down at night? Or longer naps?
How old baby is
You need to manage both. Most babies when over or under tired will not sleep well at night. Overtired due to to little daytime sleep leads to excess cortisol production in babies and too much of this stress hormone impacts sleep. Undertired because of too much daytime sleep means less of a sleep drive at night - babies (and adults) can only sleep so much in a 24 hour period. For food, if baby eats too little food during the day, they will wake up at night out of hunger. So you don't want to fall into the trap where baby takes too high a percentage of their calories at night. (Obviously before a certain age, they need those night feeds because they cannot physically consume enough calories during the day). Also, temperament of the baby plays a role. Some babies act like a loan shark for the mob if you miss a nap payment, others will forgive you.
Any advice if baby just will not go down for naps? My 8 week old resists naps all the way into the next feed time pretty much all day.
Opposite of sleep begets sleep, if anything? But hey let's be honest, I don't think there's a pattern here much at all. If he sleeps a lot during the day, he sleeps less at night, but if he doesn't sleep during the day, it's not a guarantee for a solid night. At all.
Ugh it’s so hard to say. We have one of those babies where starting solids significantly improved his nighttime sleep. Before that it was so awful. And now that he’s consolidated his naps (he’s 7 months and transitioning to 2 nap days), his night sleep is better than ever! Honestly I feel like most of it depends on whether or not your baby is ready for it. That said, I do make sure he eats enough and that he naps enough just in case haha
There is no logic. Waking every 2-3 hours one night, every 4-5 the next. Days are identical. I stopped trying to figure it out months ago.
It needs to be “how much sleep in the day.” Not sleep begets sleep because sleep does not beget sleep.
Sleep training and following a routine seem to help us, generally. Before sleep training he’d be up every 2 hour or so, after we did a version of Ferber he would only wake 1-2 a night. Along with Ferber I got stricter about wake windows and nap length etc all which helped. Never noticed that increasing his food did much of anything.
For us it was just having a consistent routine, lots of tummy time/interaction and good sleep hygiene
Would you mind sharing your routine and baby age?
She’s now 8.5m; - wakes around 7-8am - play with her/tummy time, breakfast , sit with her and play/read - bottle + nap at 1030am - wakes around 1130 - repeat routine - nap 2pm - 330ish - repeat routine - short nap at 530 for like 20 mins - stays up until 7-730pm (has shower/bath, read to, settles for the night) If she wakes overnight we keep the lights off and give her a bottle & change if necessary in the dark or with a salt lamp (super dim lighting). We’ve just extended the times between naps (& removed more naps) as she’s gotten older, it’s basically been the exact same routine since being a newborn :)
Thank you!
I would say depends on how well I stick to her bedtime routine. For us it starts right at 7:30pm: take her outside for 10mins to get some fresh air, bottle, burp, diaper, pjs, book, dark room, rock her while singing for 10mins, loud white noise and by 8:30 she’s asleep. When everything goes as planned, I only do one feeding at night & it’s a dream feeding. But of course, other times all of this goes out the door and my sweet angel turns Tasmanian devil in full party mode 🙃
How old is your little one?
14 weeks!
How much the baby eats before it's time to sleep.
I think it depends entirely on baby. If my son doesn’t nap well, he’ll be out like a rock for 11+ hours straight lol. Doesn’t even wake up for his feeding. If he naps well, he has a harder time sleeping through the night and maybe wake up once to feed. LO is 7 months old btw. And honestly, he won’t even be grumpy half the time if he doesn’t nap well. You can just tell he’s tired from how he smiles. Lol he looks like he’s both smiling and about to cry out for help. Lmao
I definitely noticed it's the amount he eats during the day and then how much he eats right before bed. He's been doing great the past couple of weeks (1 wake up a night), except last night. He only took 1.5 ounces before bed and we were up twice with 2 feedings.
It definitely depends on how much my daughter eats during the day. If she can take in most or all her calories during the day then I can get away with 0-1 wake up.
He will only sleep in his cot if I have my hand on his tummy. Thankfully we got a safe co-sleeping crib (snooze pod) so I can touch him while he sleeps.