Are long contact naps sabotaging nighttime sleep?
A good night in the Snoo for our 12-week old is a 4 hr stretch followed by a 2-hr, and then a 1-hr, at which point dad does an early morning stroller walk so that I can sleep another couple of hrs. Some nights are far more chaotic than this.
During the day, he regularly naps for 2 hours at a time in my lap. I try to cap at 2/2.5 hrs for fear of it messing with nighttime sleep but I’m starting to wonder if that is even too long. I also try to do at least one Snoo nap a day, which is never longer than 40 mins (I know this is developmentally normal).
I really love our contact naps. I’m taking online courses so I have a lot of couch time to spare. He’s a super clingy boy who loves to sleep on me, and since he can’t do that all night it’s nice to give that to him during the day.
Somehow, I’m coping with the lack of sleep fine. The system is working. But in 2.5 months I’ll be back at work and I would really like to be down to 1 wake up a night by then (or fewer but trying to be realistic).
So do I proactively stop contact napping now in preparation for going back to work, even though we both enjoy those naps currently? Or do I soak it up for as long as possible and risk it being a harder habit to break come September? I hate that being a working mom creates these decisions!