All a muddle

[CornishDoll82]

My 7 month old has taken to only doing a 30 minute nap when I put her down at 12ish. She's often done shortish naps but usually they were at least 45 mins. When I put her down she'd been awake 2 3/4 hours and was visibly tired and yawning.

Her morning nap varies from 45mins to 1.5 hours but this doesn't seem to make much difference to length of lunchtime one. She is also waking up early at 5:30 (tips on tackling that appreciated to!) but sleeps through night from 7:15 ish

I wouldn't worry but have heard the lunchtime sleep should be the longer sleep as most restorative. Also she's only sleeping 12-13 hours in total which I don't think is enough?

Any tips - should I be further restricting the morning nap?

[CityDweller]

Could try putting down for morning nap later?

[CornishDoll82]

She's waking up at 5:30 though. I stretched it till 8 today and she was very tired

[FATEdestiny]

If she's sleeping usually sleeping from, say, 7.30am-8.30am then I would say that by 12.00pm she is over-tired. At that age mine would have gone 2 hours awake between naps at a maximum, probably more like 1h30-1h45 awake time if nap length was less than 2h.

Is she then having a 12.00-12.30 nap and being awake right through until 7.15pm? That's a massive length of time for a baby to be awake.

If you cant re-settle back to sleep at lunchtime (I assume you have been trying?) I would try for a later afternoon nap at around 2pm-3pm.

[CornishDoll82]

Her first nap was at 8-9:30 and then again at 12 so only 2.5 hours awake time. I've experimented and less than this its a battle to get her down and she screams. She went down really calmly at 12 and got herself to sleep.

I did try to get her back to sleep after her short lunch nap but she was wide awake

You think such a short awake time? I read at this age it's a few hours and friends of mine were surprised when I said I tried to stick to 2 hours

[FATEdestiny]

I read at this age...

Really it's not about age, it's more about where a baby is in terms of sleep development.

A baby regularly having two 2 hour naps in the daytime and 12 hours uninterrupted sleep at night will easily go 4 hours awake time, longer of necessary, whether 7 months old or 17 months old.

A baby sticking with 45 minute naps may struggle past 2h awake time whether they are 4 months old or 24 months old. And so on...

One of my children (not repeated with my other children) was a fantastic sleeper. He was down to a single 3h lunchtime nap and 13h uninterrupted nights at an obscenely early age, so was having 4-6 hour chunks of awake time from 4 months old. He just progressed through sleep development stages quickly, his younger and older siblings didn't.

Point is, it's not about your DD being 7 months old, it is about how much sleep your DD is currently getting. If baby isn't getting enough sleep and naps aren't extending despite trying (although I would keep trying), then the only other option for more sleep is to reduce awake time and increase the number of naps. The age of the baby doesn't make any difference to this need.

[CornishDoll82]

Thanks Fate. She sleeps so well at night, why she doesn't deign to in the day is a mystery!

[CornishDoll82]

Well today she had her normal morning nap at 8am (wake up 6) but I had to wake her after 35 mins for a doctors appointment.

I then put her down again at 11:15 where she chatted to herself then went to sleep for 11:30 and slept for an hour and a half!

So I guess the trick is to keep the morning nap short and leave around 2.5/2.75 hours between naps!