How do I get 6 month old to nap for longer?

[mouseface1978]

Do any experienced parents have any advice on encouraging baby to sleep longer in the day?

Currently LO does this or this (ish):

7.15 wake up/bf
8.30 nap (40 min)
10.30 feed
11.30 nap (30 mins)
12 food/bf
2pm nap (30 mins)
3.30pm bf
4pm nap (30 mins)
6.15pm bed routine/bf
7pm sleep

Night - variable - 1-2 wake ups 11pm/4am for feed

I would like to try and consolidate the lunchtime nap as it is do hard to go out and do anything when trying to protect nap time.

I have tried to let her cry for 10 mins, pat and shh, reassure to get back to sleep but nothing seems to work.

Do I just go with this at the moment and hope it settles down? Is there any thing I can do?

Thanks so much for any advice :)

[Orangedaisy]

I am by no means expert but try cutting 1130 nap and maybe try 1230 instead? Might combine with 2pm one if you're lucky. Won't be long before early evening nap goes I expect.

[FATEdestiny]

At 6 months old its really not about cutting or restricting sleep - this is likely to result in less sleep. It is more about extending naps, encouraging baby to sleep through one sleep cycle and into the next.

As soon as you've extended one nap into another sleep cycle (maybe even extend through several sleep cycles be resettling), the next short nap isn't needed and so by the time you go for what would have been the third nap (now the second), baby is a lot more tired and so you can try again for extending the na. It becomes self-perpetuating.

So to extend the nap leaving baby to cry is possibly the worse thing to do - it just acts to wake baby up more. Key is to getting to baby super fast, at the very first stirs before baby has even reached the conscious point.

I have always used a bouncy chair for short naps precisely because they are so great for extending naps (then move naps into the cot once longer sleeps are established). So if you could still use a bouncy chair for naps, then a slight, gentle bounce often takes baby through the cycle and into the next.

I would also reinsert dummy at this point, to allow for suckling back to sleep.

You could try shushing and patting if that's how you get baby to sleep in the first place. Or move naps into the pram to allow for them to be extended (by rocking the pram).

[Lacey2015]

I'd also agree cutting down sleep does not work.. Will make a very cranky baby!!! My Dd would only nap for 45 minutes 4 times a day at this age. I tried everything! Eventually she just started napping longer. However as your DD sleeps well ON, have you tried a nap at 9am instead of 830am? Slowly push the nap by 5-10 minutes every couple of days. Then another nap about 2-2.5 hours after that so around 12? May work!?