naps far too short!

[Shellbell]

Hi everyone, I realise that this topic has been discussed before, but am very confused and need advice please!
My son is just over 3 mths old and has recently cut his naps in half. For example this morning he had a 20 minute nap (no-where near enough for him) a bottle at 10, and was back in bed by 11. At 20 past he made a few noises so I left him realising he was trying to get himself to sleep. But dead on quarter to he wakes up. This has been going on the last week or so. I always leave him a few moments as his cries are sleepy and I like to give him the opportunity to try and get himself back to sleep.However this does not happen and he wakes himself up so much that he can't get himself back to sleep. I'm at a loss what to do. I've read that if I go in a few moments before he surfaces into a light sleep and comfort him this will make him go back to sleep before he fully awakes but i'm worried that if I continually do this I will have to start doing this during the night (He's just started sleeping from 7.30 till between 5 and 6am) and I don't want to regress at this stage. PLEASE HELP!!!!

[Harrie]

My daughter started her daytime naps perfectly, she would sleep from 12pm till 2pm. She did go through a stage of waking after an hour and I would just leave her to go back to sleep. However she was a bit older. Something is stopping him from settling, maybe he is teething, try calpol before naptime maybe in case aching gums are waking him.

[starlover]

is he tired the rest of the time?
My son is the same age and has also started to cut down on his daytime naps... but as a result sleeps more at night, which can only be a good thing!
he is pretty content the rest of the time, so i assume that he is having enough sleep....

[futurity]

DS2 is the same age (14 weeks tomorrow) and does the same thing. My first son did the same thing from 8 weeks until about 15 weeks when he was weaned (this was when weaning was recommended at 4 months).
I generally work through it by aiming for one long nap a day around lunch time so he has a short nap in the morning and then goes down around 11.30-12 depending on the nursery run for DS1. When he wakes after 40 mins (which he does like clockwork) I give him a moment to resettle (which he did two times last week) and then I go in and shhh him and put my hand on his chest to reasurre him. It takes about 5 minutes for him to stop screaming..then he yawns lots..then he shuts his eyes. I then have to judge when it is safe to leave the room but if I get it right I don't need to go in again as the next time he comes into light sleep he knows what to do and goes back to sleep again. This has not effected the night sleep (yet!) and I feel that it may even help him learn to resettle as he was able to resettle the other night when he normally wakes at 6 and went through to 7.30
I read that they learn at about 5 months anyway how to resettle themselves so I am counting down the days until he gets there as the overtired screaming is not fun!

[Shellbell]

Hi everyone, thanks for your advice. He's very grumpy if he doesn't get enough sleep. I've taken to going into the nursery a few minutes before he wakes up and shushing him back to sleep which appears to be working well so far. I had to take action because his night-time sleep was starting to become affected and I felt like we were going around in circles.
I'd considered teething pain and so was applying gel to no avail. I think I've just had to come to terms that he is not yet able to put himself back to sleep when having naps and so needs a little help from me. He seems to have no trouble during the might (something I thank my lucky stars for)

[Shellbell]

There was me tempting fate. Put him to bed at 7.30 he's still awake at now (9ish) help!!!!!

[bandbsmum]

Just wanted to try and give some ray of hope. My dd (6.5 months) suddenly starting having just 20-30 min naps at around 3 months, she also starting waking more at night. I have to admit the short naps didn't bother me too much as she was always happy, just meant I couldn't get much done in that time. But when she reached 6 months I started cc with her. Hardly ever had to leave her more than 10 mins before she fell asleep, usually less than 5 in the day. It's taken a couple of weeks, she's still waking for a couple of feeds in the night, but usually goes straight back off again, and even though she was happy to go to sleep on her own in the day was still waking after 30 mins, until last Friday, when she slept for 1 hour in the morning & 30 mins in afternoon, Saturday it was 1.5 hours in the morning and 30 mins in afternoon, yesterday, she just slept in buggy & car seat while out, but I've just got her up after sleeping for 2 hours this morning! So there is light at the end of the tunnel!