Do you wake your child from his/her nap or in the morning?

When Tristan was a baby he was not a good sleeper; he really struggled to tie his sleep cycles together and would wake every 45 minutes whether it was his naps or at nighttime and it was rough!
He then got much better at linking his sleep cycles and eventually, around 11 months old, he started to sleep through the night.

Let’s just define ‘sleep through the night’, for me that meant he went to sleep around 7pm and woke once in the night, usually around 4/5am for his dummy, then back to sleep till around 6/6:30am. This didn’t happen every night but it slowly started to become the norm.
His day time naps were also getting better around this time. It all coincided with him learning to walk.

Ok so now that we’ve said all that lets discuss the topic – waking kid from naps & any sleeping. I chose never to wake Tristan from his naps or in the morning. Why? Well there are a few reasons so I thought I’d share them with you. At the end of the day we as moms choose to do what’s best for our kids & for us. We also figure out what works for all of us and that’s different for each child. So, these are just my reasons but maybe they can help you.

He is obviously tired & needs his day time nap and will wake when his body has had enough sleep. Some days he’ll sleep for close on 3 hours in the day and then we’ll just shift his bedtime a little later. But if I wake him from his nap he’s grumpy and teary for the rest of the afternoon and that’s not fun for anyone! At school I only allow him to sleep for 1,5 hours.

Once again, I leave Tristan to wake naturally in the morning. I’m a firm believer that our bodies do what they need to do to look after us. He often wakes around 5am and comes to my room and I’ll either walk him back to his bed and put him back to bed or he’ll climb in with me but at the end of the day he goes back to sleep until he’s ready to wake. Most mornings it’s around 6:30am but some days he’ll sleep till 7/7:30am and that’s fine. We’re never late for school even if he wakes at 7:30 – we just hustle on those mornings (but they are few & far between).

So, no, I don’t ever wake Tristan from his sleep and that works for us. Having said that, there are a few, very random occasions when I do wake him. For example if he falls asleep in the car our way to somewhere, I will wake him when we get to our destination.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on whether you wake your child.
Bye for now!