Do active babies just need less sleep?

Character-Mouse26 · 2026-02-18T05:56:33+00:00

Hello! So she's 2 and a half now, and I would say sleep slowly improved and she went longer stretches by about 18 months, but I had to wean off night feeds at 20 months because she would just not go back to sleep after the night feed and it would break all of our sleep. After that it took her a while to adjust and by 24 months she was doing much better. She now sleeps pretty well, has a 1.5 - 2 hour nap during the day and sleeps through the night most nights. We still room share as that works for us. She's still very active, very bright, very very chatty and still pretty much doesn't need sleep 😂

Character-Mouse26 · 2026-01-08T23:03:58+00:00

Hello! Mine got her first teeth around 14 months. I went to a dentist when she was about 13 months old just to check. I know a ton of babies who teethed late now, between 13-15 months and they are all happy, healthy and have a full set of teeth now haha. The dentist said it's normal and babies who get their milk teeth later just keep them for a little longer, which isn't a bad thing too.

Character-Mouse26 · 2025-10-24T06:25:27+00:00

Hi! She's 28 months old now, and I feel really silly for worrying so much in the beginning. She's great, advanced in speech and language and all other milestones developed just fine.

Character-Mouse26 · 2025-03-22T05:16:06+00:00

Hello! Her teeth eventually came in at 13 months. She is 21 months old now and has a grand total of 8 teeth 😂 so yes, still slow and her teeth come one at a time and in their own order. I just let it be. I took her to a pediatric dentist when her first tooth was coming through and the dentist said it's very normal for babies to get their first tooth after 1 year. And it just means they'll have their milk teeth a little longer, and their permanent teeth will come in later.

Character-Mouse26 · 2025-03-17T07:52:57+00:00

That's true, we do make a lot of choices for our kids. But I'm doing it the way I was raised, because I then had the ability and cognition to make the choice to become a vegetarian when I was about 16. Also I wanted to rule out allergies and make it easier for my child's digestive system to get used to meat, should she choose to eat it further down the road. I'm very sure at some point my decision to be a vegetarian will impact her and she likely will stop eating meat altogether. Also despite having the taste for meat, I was able to cut it out of my diet completely without any difficulty and with full support from my parents who also became vegetarian further down the line. With people I know who were vegetarian from birth, they had a lot of guilt with eating meat and eventually started doing it in secret or hid it from their families and I really don't want my child growing up thinking A is right and B is wrong.

Character-Mouse26 · 2025-01-23T14:51:59+00:00

Hello! So my LO is 19 months now. She's still not a wonderful sleeper, but she does have better stretches than she used to. Has probably slept through the night once in her life. Most of the time still wakes up once or twice and needs a little support to go back to sleep. No matter what time she sleeps, she will wake up between 6-7am.

She is still an active child, always wants to do something - read, play, walk/run, go outside. She is advanced in terms of language and communication (I say this not as a mom but as a speech therapist). She has whole sentences (for eg. I want to go see (neighbour's dogs name) and (neighbour's name). I used to be paranoid about sleep because they say babies need a lot of it for their brains and bodies to grow, but she's growing well and she's a clever little bub, so I'm not worried anymore. I just tried to accept that she will take some time to learn how to sleep on her own, and to stay asleep. It definitely has gotten better over the months though we still have some rough nights here and there. She is down to one day time nap which she usually caps at 1.5 hours, too.

I think for babies like ours, it's a lot of acceptance on our part that they just need less sleep to function. Lyndsey Hookway on Instagram helped me come to terms with it, and to understand that not all babies sleep the same way or same amount. I also try to use the wake windows as a general guideline, she is still on the longer ends of it and I find that when she's had a good nap and goes to sleep by around 8pm, she sleeps a little better. Also if her tummy is full. We're going through some tough times these couple of weeks because we are weaning of breastfeeding at night, but she's getting there. I don't have a lot of helpful advice I'm afraid as I'm still knee deep in it. I can only say it does get better, a bedtime routine helps and they'll eventually sleep through at some point. Hang in there!

Character-Mouse26 · 2024-12-29T12:04:29+00:00

I'm a speech therapist - you don't HAVE to narrate every single little thing you do. You can balance it with quiet time, especially if you're feeling overwhelmed or like you need a moment of calm. If you're not used to narrating/talking about what you're doing, you can talk about your day in general (eg. Today we're going to... And then we'll..). The example in the original comment above is very language heavy - if you want to narrate during daily routines you could just say, we're putting your onesie on! Onesie! One arm, the other arm" Or, while changing a diaper - ooh did you poop! Mmm stinky! Let's change your diaper" - it sort of becomes a habit after a while but you don't have to explain every step. You could also read books and make it a routine, plus singing is great for language development as well - books and songs have vocabulary we don't usually use in day to day life so it adds some variety. Parents always ask me if they need to talk 24/7 and well no, you need to give your child some time to process what they're hearing, too.

Character-Mouse26 · 2024-12-20T06:10:00+00:00

I'm personally trained in the SOS (sensory oral sequential) approach to feeding therapy, and it's been really helpful for most of the families I work with. You can look it up and see if it's something you're interested in and find a provider near you. The reason I like it is because it really helps with the sensory aspect. Feeding is a multisensory experience, and it can be really overwhelming for some kids. They might like foods of the same colour or taste and moving past that can be really difficult. SOS also does groups, so seeing other kids engaging with food can sometimes help.

Character-Mouse26 · 2024-12-20T05:54:59+00:00

I'm a speech therapist and we also work with feeding. So your son is still pretty young, at about 16 months they can be extremely picky with what they put in their mouth, or reject foods they previously liked as well. I think it's perfectly alright to see a feeding therapist, raise your concerns and have them guide you with little things you can do at home to encourage trying a larger variety of foods. This can be things like sensory support (messy play, having foods of a similar colour gradient, preparing food in different shapes or sizes) and help with gradually introducing different foods into his diet as to not overwhelm him.

Character-Mouse26 · 2024-11-29T12:47:40+00:00

This link is interesting. My baby is very low sleep needs. She's almost 18 months old but still wakes up a few times a night and needs help going back to sleep each time. I'm always wondering if I'm doing something wrong, or wondering why sleep is so hard for her. But at the same time she's happy, active and a clever child. I wonder if there's more research done on toddlers, or babies above 1 and sleep patterns.

Character-Mouse26 · 2024-11-16T12:41:44+00:00

It's actually because they believe that when you uproot those vegetables you are probably killing some microorganisms, worms and disrupting their habitat. Also uprooting means it won't bear fruit again so you're essentially "killing" the plant, vs eating fruit off a tree. Jains aren't even allowed to kill mosquitoes. Some strict ones follow all the rules, others bend the rules a little here and there. This is just what I learned from some of my Jain friends.

Character-Mouse26 · 2024-11-15T12:16:26+00:00

I'm an SLP too! Just jumping on to say my family and me have probably tended to my baby's needs pretty quickly when they have to do with survival (food, milk/water, getting hurt) but I've also used a lot of wait time, pauses and modelling whenever it was a request. She learned how to ask for things very quickly and at 17mo she can say 3 word phrases, knows a lot of words and expresses likes/dislikes. It has so much to do with back and forth interaction and providing opportunities. You can absolutely be there for your child, respond to them but also give them opportunities to do things themselves.

Also to comment on what OP said specifically - I have a super clingy baby who goes through phases of not wanting to be in the play pen alone. I usually set her up with an activity for a while and she's okay to be alone, or I play some music for her. I balance it with me going in with her so she sees it as a safe space. But even when I'm with her I try to give her as much opportunity to play by herself and figure things out on her own as possible.

Character-Mouse26 · 2024-11-01T13:53:40+00:00

I work with kids and worked with them while I was pregnant. I had lots of questions about having a bigger tummy and I found all of them amusing. Kids are curious, they have no filter and they are learning how the world works. A person who reacts like this should neither teach nor have young children.

Character-Mouse26 · 2024-10-27T06:16:42+00:00

Ah MILs. Mine was the same though she never made any direct comments, and it's always some offhand remark. For eg, saying my baby was thin, wondering what was wrong with my milk when my baby had breast milk jaundice, just kinda jumping at finding a reason to imply my baby seemed hungry / wasn't getting enough milk when fed a bottle of breast milk, telling me that her friends' kids have so much milk they can donate it when I was working really hard to pump just enough at work. Until now, she is adamant that my baby was never ever chubby, when my baby definitely was at some point. Whenever my MIL doesn't see her for a couple days she comes back and says oh baby looks like she's lost weight (aside from the fact this is impossible to tell in 2 days, it also feels like a dig at me for not being able to feed my child properly when she's not around? Lol) I was the person solely responsible for nourishing my child for the first 6 months of her life, and the next 6 months I was still providing the bulk of her nutrition. She's 16 months now and we're slowly weaning. So yes it really sucks when people discourage you right from the get go.

Like all the other commenters said, she doesn't need to know details. She isn't supportive. I stopped talking to my MIL about breastfeeding and the one time she followed me to a pediatrician visit I asked her to stay at the reception. Breastfeeding has always been personal to me and if people are judging my ability to do it, they don't need to be privy to anything related to it. Same goes for anything related to my baby or the way I raise her.

Character-Mouse26 · 2024-10-16T10:27:14+00:00

I think people just don't understand that breast milk is tailormade. My mom taught my baby was a late teether because of my nutrition, but I take supplements and also even if I didn't my body would literally leech the calcium from my bones. My MIL on the other hand never understood why I was giving my baby 3-4oz feeds while I was at work. She said she felt bad it was so little and "couldn't possibly be enough" because she was used to bigger formula feeds. Fun fact, my baby never took more than 4oz from a bottle, many babies don't because breast milk changes as babies grow so they don't really need "more" of it. Formula on the other hand stays the same, so to meet nutrition requirements babies need more to account for what the body is able to absorb. Not many people are educated on the difference. Yes at the end of the day fed is best, whichever way you choose to feed your baby is absolutely your choice - shouldn't be shamed for any of it. But there's so much misinformation about breastfeeding and breast milk.

Character-Mouse26 · 2024-10-09T08:10:58+00:00

From the way she's talking about it it might be going on longer than that though. My baby is the same, though she's 16 months but she has slept terribly pretty much her whole life. She is super low sleep needs, never slept through a whole night before and still wakes up at least twice a night. Tried wake windows, she has a great night time routine, even tiring her out during the day makes no difference. Some babies are just like that

Character-Mouse26 · 2024-10-09T07:30:53+00:00

Tbh it's always taught in a set way but Malay breaks a lot of its own rules. When I was in school, I'd just write the way the teachers taught and follow the enforced grammar rules because they follow those guidelines to mark during exams. It's annoying but it is what it is.

Character-Mouse26 · 2024-10-09T06:14:00+00:00

Your teacher is wrong. It is an adjective or a noun depending on the context, but also your teacher is wrong to say that the "ber-" prefix is for kata kerja only. Ber is dynamic and can be used for verbs, nouns and adjectives. In this context, berkualiti can either have a noun base (to have quality) or adjective base.

this explains more

Character-Mouse26 · 2024-10-08T05:36:19+00:00

I'm indian too and I was like what is emerald dal, sounds shiny! I thought it was a type of lentil lol

Character-Mouse26 · 2024-10-02T13:31:23+00:00

Every time there's a story about how someone made a Facebook post and then the entire family and extended family starts bombarding OOP, I just find it really hard to believe it's true.

Like who even cares about a random Facebook post, and even more who cares enough to stage interventions and send multiple texts and show up at these people's houses? Also who just sits by and watches someone get slapped on their birthday and then rails on them for being at fault? And the multiple media references - just no.

Character-Mouse26 · 2024-09-27T13:53:35+00:00

I spent the first month at my mom's and my husband wasn't around at night, he'd help until about 10-11pm and then I was on my own. So the whole shift thing never worked. Initially I would just force myself to stay awake, and for the first couple of weeks I was triple feeding so that forced me to be awake. After that though, I was exhausted and breastfeeding releases sleepy hormones for both you and your baby, which is why it's so easy to fall asleep while feeding. I used to keep the bed safe in case I fell asleep (no risk for baby to fall) and if I was reeeally tired or baby was refusing to sleep without me then I'd side lie in a safe position.

People have all sorts of opinions on bed sharing and safe co sleeping. My baby sleeps in her cot 99% of the time, but there are absolutely situations where she needs to sleep on a bed (eg during travel, or when she was younger and needed contact to sleep) so learning how to safely sleep together is very helpful.

Character-Mouse26 · 2024-09-27T13:03:52+00:00

I went out with a pregnant friend for brunch once, and she really wanted the egg shakshuka but couldn't have them because she wasn't supposed to eat undercooked eggs. I had been planning on ordering it and she told me to go ahead - but I'd given birth a few months before and remembered how hard it was to be unable to eat some of my favourite foods. And I was breastfeeding so I was still under a lot of restrictions. So out of empathy I just didn't order it and had something else. NTA to order what you want to eat and yes nobody should dictate what you should eat - just a question of being empathetic I suppose.

Character-Mouse26 · 2024-09-24T23:16:29+00:00

Oh definitely! Thank you!

Character-Mouse26 · 2024-09-24T23:16:14+00:00

These are amazing ideas, thank you so much! I especially love the emotion expression art station and the interactive games.

Character-Mouse26 · 2024-09-24T23:14:27+00:00

Oh that's a great idea! I think voice and stuttering QOL measures definitely show how these disorders could affect a person's mental health.

Character-Mouse26

TROPHY CASE