midday nap problem

[LizzyS12]

Baby is 3 months old. Has her 2nd nap 12 to 2.15pm each day but the last 3 days baby has woken up crying after 45 mins & I am struggling to get her back to sleep in her moses basket.

Any help & support would be appreciated.

[mrsmugoo]

45 minutes is one sleep cycle and is a very normal length of time for a 3 month old to nap. I guess you've just been lucky thus far.

[PenguinsandtheTantrumofDoom]

Many babies will only nap for 45 minutes.

I'm a little surprised she's done such a regular nap so far TBH!

[omama]

My baby did lovely long naps til 3 months then started waking up at the 45 min mark. Its developmental & unfortunately not much you can do about it til the phase passes. Some people find swaddling or wake to sleep helps, for others its a case of wait it out & give more frequent naps to prevent overtiredness.

DD is 5 months this week & is just starting to do a few longer naps of 1-1.5hrs (sometimes). Hurrah!!

[LizzyS12]

Thanks Omama.

What is wake to sleep?

[mrsmugoo]

Wake to sleep is a technique where if your LO habitually wakes up too early at a specific time or after a regular amount of minutes you slightly disturb them, without fully waking them in order to get them to fall back into a brand new sleep cycle.

It's never worked for me and you need nerves of steel to try it!