I know parents never get enough sleep, but how much sleep should a baby be getting? Should you ever try to control the amount? Like wake them up if you think they're sleeping too much or should they just sleep as much as they want to?

My daughter's days and nights were mixed up. She was awake all night and slept all day. My husband and I would take shifts. He would have a little more time in the morning after he had gotten ready for work. He would take the baby in the kitchen and let me sleep a little bit longer. I would take her after he left and wake her up for breakfast. Let her go back to sleep until around 11a.m. and wake her up for lunch. If the weather was good we would go visit the neighbors around the block. I would try to keep her awake for about 3-4 hours and then let her sleep until dinner. We would go through the family time between her, dad and I after dinner and keep her awake until around 11p.m. It was hard going but she eventually got into a routine.

The first night she slept all night through I freaked! I thought something was wrong with her. She had finally gotten her sleep cycle turned around.

DCMerkle

The more the better! LOL! But I found a great article in American Baby (http://www.americanbaby.com/ab/story.jhtml?storyid=/templatedata/ab/story/data/58.xml) that breaks down how much sleep babies need by age.

We let our children sleep whenever and however long they want. The record for them being to sleep the most is 9 hours.

My daughter is 7 months old and she sleeps an easily 10 hours at night and about 4 hours or so during the day. I was told that babies around six months should be sleeping around 14 to 14 1/2 hours (give or take depending on the baby). And they should be able to stay awake for at least 2 to 2 1/2 hours at a time. But of course every child is different. We let her sleep as much as she wants, otherwise she gets really cranky (not a fun thing).

I normally let my baby sleep whenever he wants. He sleeps through the night unless he's sick or in a new environment. I sometimes wake him if he's sleeping too late into the afternoon as this will aftfect his night time bedtime schedule.

I think this is one of those things that really depends on the baby. My 3 year old was one of those babies that didn't need much sleep, and she was happy. My second, now 13 months, needed more, but had a hard time getting enough. It's most important, I think, to let them sleep when they want to, as long as they want to, and to watch them for signs of being too tired during the day and needing more sleep.

Though I do wake my 3 year old if her nap goes too long these days.

My girl is a little past baby stage at 1.5yr but she does about 10-11 hours at night and 00 or 1 or 2 during the day naps. That seems like so much but most naps are 1 hour if Im really lucky, only hit the 2 mark twice. :D