Welcome to Monday Mornings with Dr. Mona where each week I answer your questions.

To leave a message call 954-526-2641 and I may pick your question for a future episode.

Let's get to our first caller.

Hi Dr. Mona, my question is about wake windows for infants.

How worried should we be if our baby doesn't meet the wake window?

For example, my five-month-old and his wake windows are about an hour and 45 minutes to two hours

and it was just right under the limit of two to three. So I was just wondering how much

talk we should put into this. Is it something that I need to be concerned about or is every baby

just different? Thanks. Two comments off the bat. Yes, you're right that two to three hours is the

wake window for your child who's five months and yes, every child is unique and different.

So sometimes these numbers can be a little confusing and I'm going to get into that a little bit.

So if you ask our parents about wake windows, they will likely laugh and for good reason,

I think we do sometimes overthink parenting sleep and eating in our, you know,

modern parenting, our generation of parenting because of all the information we have.

But that being said, I do think wake windows have benefit in helping troubleshoot.

So I would not even bring up wake windows if things are going well for the family.

If baby is not overtired, if baby is thriving, if baby is sleeping, there are not any early

wakings, basically if the family is happy. So if the family is happy and doesn't want anything fixed

and doesn't feel like anything needs to be fixed, I'm not going to even discuss wake windows with them.

Now if the family wants things fixed, perhaps the child is overtired by the end of the day,

like in the late afternoon before bedtime or having early wakings, then wake windows are really useful.

I think wake windows are helpful up until the child drops to one nap.

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