How to get 4 month old to nap longer

[Mandraki]

4 month old baby will have a 30-40 minute nap every 2 hours, almost bang on 2 hours. I keep reading though that she should be napping for 1.5 hours!? She seems fine on this amount of sleep but if she needs more then maybe I should be trying to get her to have more?

[sthitch]

Mine is the same but she sleeps really well at night so I’m not too concerned. (Last night she slept 7pm-6am and 630am-9am) but naps in the day are hard work - she won’t take them - we also try every 2 hours or so, she will only sleep for 20mins or so. How well does your LO sleep at night?

[sassenach84]

I’m in the same boat as you ladies.

My 4 month old sleeps well at night, usually from 8.30pm until 8am with a 30min feed around 5-6am.

Her naps are always exactly 30min long and tend to be every two hours. I don’t mind their shortness and frequency so much but I struggle putting her down to nap. I started a routine a few weeks back at the first sign of tiredness and it was going well at first (as long as I was not too late in putting her down).

However, now she has learnt what the routine means and starts crying as soon as we enter the bedroom. I’m at a loss as to whether I should continue the routine and “she will get over it” or whether I should scrap it and just let her fall asleep in my arms. I was really hoping for the routine to be a gentle way of putting her to sleep in her bed as I was tired holding her through naps and never getting even those 30min breaks to myself.

Grateful for any advice or ideas!