Monday, November 3, 2008

To wake or not to wake...


I'm actually working on a real entry (I swear) but I have a pressing question: Should you ever wake a sleeping baby?

Here's the thing - last night the boy slept for 13 1/2 hours. I'll give you a minute to re-read that since it couldn't possibly be true, but I swears it is. At 5:30 am I heard him stirring so I made his bottle, brushed my teeth, fed the cats, and made tea before realizing that he wasn't waking up. So I put the bottle away and went back to sleep. At 6:30 I woke up, convinced he'd be awake any second, reheated the bottle - and then realized that he still wasn't waking up. At 7:30 I took a shower, drank my (now cold) tea and convinced myself that something was gravely wrong with my child. Then he woke up.

He took a 3 hour nap this morning and he's going on hour two for nap #2. I AM NOT COMPLAINING. (We all know I'm not complaining) but I'm afraid he thinks that this is the Big Sleep versus tiny nap. We're edging on 5 pm, peeps. What time is he going to go to bed tonight?! I'm tempted to go wake him but the immortal parenting mantra (NEVER WAKE A SLEEPING BABY) has kept me from committing. And yes, I fully realize that this is about the best problem a mother could have.

6 comments:

Missy said...

When it gets to be 5 and the afternoon nap is still on then I say wakey wakey. Wonder if your little guy is in a growth spurt. That breeds sleep sometimes.

Ali said...

I suspect yes. I've noticed a sharp uptick in hiccups. (And I did get him up at 5.)

EBPitcher said...

I'm no expert, but I do it all the time. I try to limit his naps to 3 hours total (he's currently on 2 naps a day). I do this mainly because we went through a spell where if he slept too much during the day, he would wake up for a couple hours at night. Not good! Now that we've gotten over the latest hump in sleeping, he's sleeping near 10+ hours at night again. YeeHaw!

Ali said...

No night sleep is my total fear, EBP! Glad I wasn't crazy for worrying that he was napping too much. (I do think Missy's right about the growth spurt.) Hooray for 10+ hours! If only it were us!

Woman with a Hatchet said...

I second the growth spurt theory.

The twins are still not sleeping through the night. Mostly it's just Logan. He says he's too small and NEEDS that food.

As for waking, we wake the twins all the time to go to assorted Caitlin events. It really rather sucks, but you don't have much choice. When it's time to pick up the kid, you go and pick up the kid. Otherwise, we let sleeping babies lie.

Anonymous said...

My squirrel definitely gets sleepy when he's busy growing, or feeling a little under the weather. I figure, if he's sleepy, he should sleep. He's a two-napper, but one day he did 3 marathon naps because he just could NOT keep it together longer than an hour after he woke up in the morning and 2 hours after the morning nap. It was weird and I was sure he wasn't going to sleep that night, but he did. The only time I wake him is when the afternoon nap is going to 4:30 or 5--I don't want him to be awake until 8 or 9 at night (mama likes her baby-free time with the hubs!). A late nap could work to your advantage, though. If you're trying to get your boy to go to sleep later/wake up later, let him nap as long as he wants to on his last nap of the day.