30 min naps (yet again!)

[mrshope]

Lovely Mnetters,
Firstly apologies - I've written this before but I need your help again. You all made me feel a lot better last time. DS is now 7 months and we are still battling 30mins naps. I feel like I have read every sleep book,every mumsnet thread on this but I still haven't cracked it!
I know he can sleep for longer and he definitely needs to. I feel like it must be my routine... I try to only keep him awake for 2hrs maximum 2 and half. A couple of weeks ago he started doing HR naps randomly but has stopped again.
He sleeps well at night - often 11 hrs but he must be the only 7 month old still having 4 x 30 min naps ð???

Help me! Where am I going wrong? We have a nice nap routine and he goes into his cot awake and generally is asleep within 10mins. Is he overtired/undertired?

Feel like I am letting the little man down

[Cooper11111]

Hey!! Usually I'm an advocate of long naps but honestly if he is sleeping 11 hours at night then please don't beat yourself up about it! When I did sleep training (my little one didn't sleep at night either), the trainer made me do
Emergency napping- so as soon as he started to stir after 30 mins I would wip him in the car seat and drive until he was in the next cycle. I'd have the car seat outside his bedroom door. Took about a week but he nailed it and got used to the prolonged sleep and just did it himself.

Hope that helps!

[icklekid]

Ds often wakes after 30mins but if I go straight in I can quickly get him back to sleep for at least another 30mins but I'm guessing you have tried this?

[mrshope]

DS was a horrific sleeper at night until I did some gentle sleep training so I try and be as consistent as possible.
Ickle kid I used to do exactly that - after 30mins I would be able to rock him back to sleep but then not be able to put him down and I think this was confusing him. I've tried leaving him when he wakes after 30mins but he never goes back to sleep himself.

I know how lucky I am now with night sleep. And that it can change quickly as well so am keeping everything crossed that he keeps sleeping as until he was 6 months it was horrific.

I just hate that he always seems a bit tired. He is (now) a happy boy but it is hard to take him to things as I am never sure when he will need a nap as he doesn't have a consistent wake up time and no consistent nap schedule. So I feel like he misses out on playgroups/swimming/baby sensory etc as I have found I can't commit to going to things as he will often end up needing a nap.

I also know (when I'm thinking rationally) that this isn't the end of the world. But all my friends seem to have babies on a nice routine and they have a nice 1.5-2hr nap in the middle of the day!

[mrshope]

Obviously I said he's normally asleep in 10mins and now he's been in there for 25mins chortling away

[BotBotticelli]

Hello! I probably posted before. My DS did this (4 x 30 min naps) every day at heinously irregular times until he was about 8 months old.

I tried every trick in the book to "fix it" but nothing worked. What happened in the end was: he grew out of it.

At around 8mona few things happened that helped:

• he started crawling and was therefore MUCH more knackered to his naps started naturally extending.
  
• so his first nap of the day stretched out towards an hour (say 8.30-9.30am on a day he woke up at 6.30am).
  
• This longer morning nap meant he had more energy in the late morning and could stay away longer, crawling around everywhere. He would stay awake until around 12 noon. So I would give him an early lunch and put him down at noon.
  
• this noon nap started stretching out towards 90 mins or sometimes even 2 hours if we had been to an activity in the morning.
  
• then he would have a little 20 minute cat nap late afternoon on the way back from wherever we went in the afternoon (4.30osh) to tide him through till bedtime.
  

This just evolved naturally for us. Stop thinking that there's something "wrong" cos your baby has short naps. Some just do at this age.

Incidentally, around 9mo my DS dropped the late afternoon cat nap (of his own accord) and settled into a nice pattern of 45 mins in the morning and 90 mins after lunch.

And then at around 13mo he dropped the morning nap and just settled into a classic "Gina" routine of one 2-hour nap after lunch each day.

He stuck with this for a blissful year! And now is just stating to drop the nap altogether age 2.3.

So my basic message would be: try to relax about this: in my experience it's completely normal behaviour for a 7mo and in 5 months time he will be doing something totally different.

Crawling and then walking made a real difference to my little boys daytime sleep: prior to that I just don't think he was physically tired enough to sleep longer (no matter how mentally overwrought and grumpy he was!).

Oh and don't worry about your also "missing out" on classes and groups and things...until about 18months old the sole purpose of such groups is the get the mum out the house!! Your baby doesn't need to do baby sensory! It's a marketing ploy!

[mrshope]

Thanks Bot
It is what people said last time I asked (when he was around 5months) that he would outgrow it but most people said around 6 months it would change!
So glad (although wish i could change something!) it was older for you as well.
Tbh it's probably that I wish I could get out more or that I could arrange things - as it can be super lonely if you can't plan to see people!

Sadly DS is a long way off crawling so I have this fun for a while then

[beckworth]

Can you try doing something else at the 30 min mark other than rocking, something that leaves him in the cot or wherever he started? Eg patting, ssshing? I'm having gradual (one step forward two back it sometimes seems...) success with that with my 30 min napper. One day last week it took 10 mins between sleep transitions! but today has been better (touch wood).

On the other hand I will happily swap you my gradual nap improvement for your nighttime sleep. My 5 1/2 mo old is going backwards at night, we've regressed to 2hrly wake ups, and unlike before he isn't going straight back to sleep when I go in :-( I'm taking comfort from the fact you say you saw an improvement at 6 months, but like you I feel like the improvement has supposedly been just around the corner for months now :(

[beckworth]

Also, re taking him to things, I assume you are avoiding doing this as you want him to sleep every 2hrs or so but can't predict when that will be? I had the same dilemma and in the end just started taking him. I assumed he'd be horrifically grumpy if he went 3 or even 4 hrs due to bad timing, but actually, the activity of whatever I took him to warded this off and I've found as long as I whisk him away at the end he'll basically just pass out when I get him home. Not something for every day but for the odd time his nap schedule doesn't work out, I found it wasn't the end of the world. Obviously depends on the temperament of your little one, but I guess I'm saying maybe give it a go if you haven't already, I agree not getting out can be very lonely.

[beckworth]

Just re-read and saw you did some gentle sleep training at 6 months. Can I ask what worked for you?

[mrshope]

Hi beckworth,

I can't share everything we did as we used a sleep consultant who is writing a book so we are sworn to secrecy. However think she won't mind the following general advice - which I worked on before working with her...
Our LO was swaddled and that was our issue so we had to transition him off that.
Firstly work out if your LO has any sleep props - (things that help them sleep that they can't do themselves eg feeding to sleep, rocking, held etc)
Try and reduce this ( no cry sleep solution has some good tips) so eg rock less.
We then worked really hard at a consistent (and I mean to the word) nap and bedtime routine - only difference between nap and bed is bath.
There were some tears but slowly he learnt to self settle. He has a blankie now as a little sleep prop - and he plays with this before going to sleep.

PM if you want more details - not sure how coherent that is! Xxx

[mrshope]

Hi beckworth,

I can't share everything we did as we used a sleep consultant who is writing a book so we are sworn to secrecy. However think she won't mind the following general advice - which I worked on before working with her...
Our LO was swaddled and that was our issue so we had to transition him off that.
Firstly work out if your LO has any sleep props - (things that help them sleep that they can't do themselves eg feeding to sleep, rocking, held etc)
Try and reduce this ( no cry sleep solution has some good tips) so eg rock less.
We then worked really hard at a consistent (and I mean to the word) nap and bedtime routine - only difference between nap and bed is bath.
There were some tears but slowly he learnt to self settle. He has a blankie now as a little sleep prop - and he plays with this before going to sleep.

PM if you want more details - not sure how coherent that is! Xxx

[beckworth]

Thanks mrshope, we're doing pretty much all that :( The only thing I know is a problem is that we're using a dummy, but to be fair the issue the last few days is that putting the dummy back in hasn't resettled him, so I'm not even sure that's the problem I thought it was. Oh well, he's just starting another leap and I think he's teething so fingers crossed that break through really is just around the corner!

[mrshope]

Ah yes the blooming wonder weeks.
I really found DS got a lot better at 6 months. But by no means is he angel baby!!!

[nyldn]

mrshope - how did you get him off the swaddle??
Our DS is a terrible 30 min napper as well, AND sleeps terribly at night. He is swaddled since Christmas as the sleep was terrible and I just needed to do SOMETHING. He has now developed eczema and I'm scared to try him sleeping unswaddled for fear of what he will do to himself with the scratching at his head and ears. We've been to the Dr and are hopefully headed in the right direction to clear the eczema so we can work on his sleep associations - the swaddle and bouncing.
We're also thinking about using a consultant - would you mind sharing who you used? 11 hours at night would make me feel like a normal person again! I got 4.5 hours of sleep last night - and that was fairly average.

[Heatherbell1978]

DS1 is 6 months and we're still at 30 min naps. Two days last week he did 90- mins at lunch time and I though 'this is it' and then he's been 30 mins again ever since...

He has never slept longer than a 5 hour stint at night though, the norm is 3 hours so that's not a great combo, basically I haven't slept since August....so I would be ecstatic with my 30 min naps if I got 11 hours at night!!

[mrshope]

Nyldn - try the swaddle up from love to dream on Amazon
Worked as a great intermediary product. Rather than just going cold turkey. DS was always fighting out of his swaddle and then waking himself up.

Once I weaned DS and stopped bfeeding he started sleeping a lot better. And got rid of swaddle. But we basically did all of that at once. So hard to say what had the biggest impact!!

[nyldn]

I'll look that up!
he's just 6 mo and I've just started weaning this past weekend. he took down a whole small banana today, so I'm hoping (stupid, I know) that this means some possible freedom feeding-wise soon and maybe better sleep.
so I need to ditch the swaddle, the bouncing and get this kid to accept a bottle and I'll feel like a whole and sane person again!

[nyldn]

heatherbell, it sounds like we're in the exact same situation and my DS was an august baby too! I feel for you, it's been a rough road.

[mrshope]

I know how you feel ladies. Food and getting rid of the swaddle really helped me.
DS was horrific until 6 months - longest sleep ever was 3hrs. I was at breaking point.
It will get better.
I sound greedy about the 30mins naps. I just feel like I'm still getting it wrong somehow.

Will reread Bot's post.

[beckworth]

We got on well with the love to dream swaddle as well when he started fighting out of his swaddle, had to get rid of it when he started rolling. I miss the swaddle - I'm sure part of the bad sleeping is that he's a super fidget and can't get through the sleep transitions because he can't stop flailing around. Naively hoping once he can move himself properly into whatever position he wants (can currently only roll on way) that it will get better....

[Deduct37]

Hello, not very reassuring but my little girl is almost 13 months and still has rubbish 30 minute naps. We have tried everything but she won't always have longer. Some days she still has 3 naps (odd days 4). She sleeps ok at night but on the days where she's hardly had any sleep (2 x 30 mins) she gets up anytime from 5 the following morning. We've tried a consistent routine but is difficult when she wakes at different times in the mornings. She is more then capable of sleeping longer and there's never a pattern when these naps will occur. I've made a log for many months in the hope of seeing something pop out but this has been unsuccessful. She is on the move constantly but this hasn't made any difference to e length of her sleeps. I really don't know what the solution is but if you find something that works then please share

[jazzandh]

Not read the full thread but I would go for undertired at this point. What happens if you push him out a bit -10 mins or so?

The length of time it takes them to drop off is not always a reliable indicator ime. DS2 will fall asleep within 5 minutes of being in bed (even now at 4 after a sneaky carnap) but if he is undertired he will then wake early or in the night etc.....

It is the hardest one to call in my opinion!!

DS1 always short napped I battled against the 30 minute naps and I always thought he was overtired......in retrospect and with what I have experienced with DS2 I suspect he wasn't actually tired enough!!

[jazzandh]

Actually, I would also say that DS2 slept better once he was on his front. He wanted to sleep face down (DS1 made no difference).

But if your Ds is sleeping ok at night - that sounds unlikely.

[mrshope]

Thanks! My DH thinks we should try keeping him up longer but I am scarred from the overtired screeching he would do as a tiny baby...
Maybe one to try when I'm feeling brave/don't have anything to do that day!

Annoyingly he still doesn't roll on to his front from his back and I agree with pp - I think he will sleep better when he can as he flails around still.

Arghhhhhhh he sleep ok at nights we do have 5/5.30 wake ups quite a bit - is that an overtired sign?

Thanks for all the help!