Short daytime naps

[Hywel]

My 7 month old wakes from her daytime naps after only having 45min, she is still tired but struggles to go back to sleep. This means that she is having up to 4 naps a day. Up until 3 weeks ago, she had to be swaddled to fall asleep as she was so flappy, hands flying everwhere!! She now has the ability to go to sleep without being swaddled but wakes after 45mins(she use to have up to 2 hours at each nap - bliss!!)She sleeps well at night, but I can't seem to crack the day thing - can anyone help?

[compo]

Do you leave her for a bit when she wakes up to re-settle herself?

[Hywel]

I've tried both leaving her and rushing in.If I leave her she starts banging her dummy against the side of the cot and babbling to herself. If I rush in she will fall asleep in my arms but will wake the moment her head touchs the cot.

[2happy]

Hywel, big sympathy. ds v similar. Would sleep fine in my arms, but I have to go back to work (boo) and he can't very well keep doing it at childminders. Started to try and teach him to go to sleep in cot in daytime (am lucky that he's ok at night). Tried EVERYTHING. DUmmy, picking up, leaving to cry (broke my heart), rocking, shushing, swaddling, no swaddling, putting down awake/sleepy/asleep. Bad news is it took 6 weeks to see any improvement, and he's still v variable, often only managing 45mins at a time but sometimes managed 2 hours. Don't have a magic answer, but want you to know you have my sympathy, and also that ds has improved so persevere.

[MuddlingThru]

I was hoping to see a 'magic' answer to this. I swaddle ds both at night and for naps. He is fine to fall asleep on his own without the swaddle but if he isn't swaddled for a nap he has only ever managed 30 mins max (with swaddle usually 1 1/2 hours). I was planning to give up the swaddle after Christmas when he will be 6.5months. I was hoping by then he would have better control of his arms so not wake himself at the end of a sleep cycle and also be in a pattern of sleeping longer. It is so much more convenient when he sleeps longer, it means that sleep and eat are roughly in sync which makes going out so much easier as you know you won't need to be interrupted by either.

[mogwai]

I'm learning from mumsnet that the length of naps varies greatly. My five month old has three naps. One nap lasts an hour and the other two last about 30 minutes. At first, she would cry every time we put her in her cot. Now she only cries when we put her down for the late afternoon nap, but even this is improving (settles after about 10 mins)

I thank my lucky stars for any break from her. I also read somewhere that wakeful babies are developmentally faster, so perhaps there's a benefit?