How many hours should she sleep at night?

Question

Our daughter is 2 and a half months old. She usually goes to be at 10:30pm and gets up once of twice during the night and then usually gets up for the day between 8-8:30am. She is usually getting about 9 hours of sleep a night.
My question is... is this normal? All the books make it sound like they should be going to bed at 7pm and getting up for the day at 8am. I am just wondering if she is sleeping enough at night?
Any thoughts?

Answer 1

Your baby is only 2 1/2 months old. Child care books consider a full nights sleep at that age to be 5 to 6 hours. Too add to that: Are you breastfeeding or formula feeding. If you are breastfeeding, your daughter may just be too hungry to make it through the whole night without eating. Breastmilk is so perfect that it's digested very quickly. That's why breastfed babies seem to eat more often than formula fed. If you formula feed your baby still might need to eat during the night. My kids didn't sleep through the night until about 8 weeks. Some people don't like to hear it or think it's mean, but I am a firm believer in scheduling children's eating, sleeping, playing. Your baby is still at a very good (young) age to get her on a schedule. My number one rule that I always followed with my kids was that at about 3 months I never used the bottle or breast to get them to sleep. That way when they woke up in the middle of the night they didn't expect or need another bottle to get back to sleep. If you do breast feed then it might not be possible to do that. You could feed her and then put her back to bed awake. Another thing that I did was at around 3 months I would put them in their crib awake so they could teach themselves to go to sleep. They are now 4 and 3 and wonderful sleepers. They go to bed without a struggle. I got all my "ideas" from the book "The Baby Whisperer" by Tracey Hogg. I highly recommend this book to any mom new or experienced. It truly saved my sanity. Good Luck.

Answer 2

If you are happy with 9 hours at night right now then that is great! If we relied on the book to tell us if out child is happy or not we would all be waiting a very long time. I find in my experience that 9 hours at 21/2 months is a great stretch of time. It will get longer the key is as she changes the sleep schedule you adjust too. If you want her sleeping longer at night then you start putting her down 15 mins earlier for a few days and then back it up 15 more mins. However, this may mean she wakes up earlier. I found in my early months with all 3 of my children that they went to bed at 9ish...woke up to feed and then were back asleep until the morning. we were up from 7-9 then down form 9-11 up form 11-2 and then down from 2-4. We were awake when daddy got home form work, we were cat napping while mom and dad ate dinner and then we were up until bedtime. By the time our 3rd child arrived we loved this schedule as she was awake after we put the others to bed, it gave us some mommy, daddy, baby time. Now at 22 months out youngest sleeps form 8 to 8 and has a 2 hour nap in the middle of the day from 1-3. when she wakes her brothers are 30 mins from getting off the bus and the afternoon of fun begins. It gets easier the more you trust yourself. Do not let others make you second guess yourself. You are the parent and you know what is best...not some book (Unless your child came with a manual?) Good Luck

Answer 3

Sleeping habits aren't generally well established until 3-4 months of age. Many 3 month olds do not nap at all. So it isn't too abnormal for them to only sleep 9ish at night and nap during the day:

Armstrong KL, Quinn RA & Dadds MR. The sleep patterns of normal children.
Medical Journal of Australia 1994 Aug 1;161(3):202-6.

"There is a wide range of normal childhood sleep behavior.
Circadian rhythm is not well established until four months of age.
Daytime sleep becomes less regular with increasing age, the most marked reduction in length occurs around 3 months of age. However, a surprising 11% under 3 months of age don't have a daytime sleep every day.
Frequent night waking that disturbs parents is common from 4-12 months (12.7% disturb their parents 3 or more times every night).
Night time settling requires more parental input from 18 months.
Nearly a third of parents have a significant problem with their child's sleep behavior.
Sleeping through the night: 71.4% did this on at least one occasion by 3 months of age, but many of these relapse into more frequent waking in the 4 to 12 month period. It is not until after 24 months that regular night waking (requiring attention) becomes much less common. "

http://www.kellymom.com/parenting/sleep/sleepstudies.html

Answer 4

She is too young to be assuming she should be sleeping through the night. Lots of babies dont master that until well after one year of age.

www.babywhisperer.com is a good resource for sleep questions. I didnt love the book because it was too "strict", but used the website often for ideas.

My daughter is now a year, and started sleeping through the night (7 to 7:30) at 10 months of age. She was up every TWO hours before that. It was a really rough road, but it wont last forever. Make sure you are allowing her to nap during the day within reason, but not to overdo it or its harder to keep her asleep at night.

Good Luck!

Answer 5

8

Answer 6

At that age I would think she slept enough unless you were keeping her up by playing with her. Even at that though they will cry and you will want to leave them alone and let them sleep. I would count more by the hours she sleeps in a day rather than at night. My daughter is 11 months and sleeps about 10 hours each night but barely naps during the day. With your daughter she should be sleeping most of the day anyway. I wouldn't go by the books I would go by your child. The books say my daughter should sleep 12 hours at night and take at least a 1 hour nap. YEAH RIGHT!! It's a fight to get her to sleep at night. If she doesn't seem fussy or drowsy don't worry about it. She will let you know when she's tired. As far as her going to bed at 7 I think that's best for a working parent or someone that gets up early. If I worked 2nd shift I would want to see her so I would let her adjust to my schedule. On fridays she stays up until she wants to go to sleep. Days when I go to work or church she goes to bed around 8. She likes to hang out so I let her and we enjoy her company. When she's ready to go to bed she lets me know. For a child that has to be up every morning yes they need to be asleep at a decent hour.

Answer 7

Every baby is different, and will start sleeping through the night when they are ready. My daughter did it at 4 weeks, my son was 22 months! Remember, it doesn't matter what the books say, the baby hasn't read the book and wouldn't care anyway! You're doing really well if your little one is sleeping this well so soon, but it may change - they go through growth spurts, or if she gets a cold and starts waking at night it can take awhile for her to go back to sleeping through the night.

Answer 8

um ...if shes going to bed at 10:30 and not getting up for the day until 8:30 with a wake up during the night...she is getting nine hrs. Shes sounding perfect to me. relax and enjoy the nights sleep!

Answer 9

they say little kids till one need up to 15 hour and after one they need 13 hours of sleep

Answer 10

thats a fine amount of sleep , but if your worring then try a change of routine , like a nap at 1.00pm for an hour