Tell me how I can extend DS's naps...

[Annie456]

Hi,
DS is almost 9 months and he's only ever napped for 30 mins at a time! 9am, 12pm and 4.30pm. Ideally around now I'd like to aim for a couple of hours in the middle of the day (as I can't get anything done in 30 mins and feel like I'm going him a rough deal trying to do chores during his playtime)

So if you've done this, how did you do it!
Thanks
Annie

try cutting out the 9am nap and putting him down at about half ten, then he should go for 1-2 hours, then a second one mid afternoon. he's a bit young yet for only one nap a day. They do move from three to two to one and then eventually (sob) to none. He might be quite grouchy for the stretch leading up to the later morning nap but hopefully you'll reap the benefits. bear mind a sleep cycle is 45 mins so you are aiming for maybe two of those running together. I actively avoid doing anything that might disturb DD at those times. She's quite erratic though - her naps last anything from 1-3 hours!

Yeah it makes sense to delay the 9amnap but he tends to wake up at 5am so its a long time to wait...maybe I should address the early waking but from what I've read it doesn't seen to work !

hmm, can't really help you there, mine rarely sleep later than 6 am and never both at the same time. What time does he go to bed? Also, this time of year, I gaffa tape the curtains to the wall to reduce light (whilst waiting patiently for DP to put up the blackout blinds!) My nearly 3 yo has a gro-clock but doesn't get the idea of staying in his room til the sun comes up. Delay the 9am nap as much as you can without having a totally messed up puddle of whingy baby and also stretch out the gap until afternoon one. Good luck

Hiya, my dd's early waking was caused by having a nap too early in the morning or having too long a nap.

I would have thought you could cut that 4.30 nap completely and also push the morning nap to 9.30/9.45 for no more than half an hour and then see where you are. At that age dd had 20mins at 9.40 and then an hour or so at 1ish. This was fine for her anf she would go to bed at 7. It was a bit trial and error! Dd has always been on the lower end of the amount of sleep needed (some of he friends still have a 2 hr nap at 2years old) but at least it meant she slept at night.

So once a shortish morning nap is established hopefully the afternoon one will extend a bit more. Is your ds self settling or does he feed to sleep etc?

No advice as such but maybe worth noting some babies just have short naps! I drove myself crazy when DS was under a year old because he never napped for longer than 30 minutes and I tried literally everything to extend them. he was a complete nightmare to get to sleep in the first place as well but that's a whole other thread

eventually once he learnt to walk 10 days after his birthday he finally started napping for 1 & 1/2 to 2 hours at a time, pretty consistently. I'd stopped worrying about it and did nothing different; I think he was just burning off more energy. Wish I could find a way to get him to sleep at night in under 2 hours but the nap problem is at least sorted!

Hope you get it sorted but if not hopefully it will sort itself out over time

It's definitely true what nicecupofteandasitdown says. Some babies are naturally short nappers from the outset and their short naps are not necessarily anything to worry about. So much harder for the parents but honestly not at all uncommon. Books would have you believe that all babies are primed to sleep for 2 hour blocks but it ain't necessarily so.

They don't always stay short sleepers. Both of mine were short nappers and one started sleeping longer by around 10 months and my son has just started doing it now at 18 months old.

DO NOT worry about doing chores in his awake time. You have to, and he will not suffer for it one little bit.

The only thing I would say is that short naps can be a result of an inability to self-settle. How does he go to sleep in the first place?

Nicecupofteaandasitdown said pretty much what I was going to. My DD napped 45 minutes at a time three times a day up to about 9 months. Then her third nap dwindled to optional, and her morning nap phased out a few months after turning 1.

The trick for me when she got past a year was getting lunch early enough so that she wouldn't be too tired to eat, then would sleep for a longer time after lunch. Sometimes I'd be too late, and she'd fall asleep before lunch and have a late morning short nap, waking up hungry then we'd have a disjointed and slightly cranky afternoon.

I did this to try to fit into the nursery routine, but it was also lovely to have over an hour to myself during the day for the first time in over a year. narmada is right that you can do some chores with small children around, but it's so much easier when they're in bed :)

As they get older, they can stay awake longer before turning into whinging demons conking out.

At 2.8, DD will still sleep 90 minutes or more after lunch.

Thanks for all the advice.
I think I just generally feel like after months and months of feeling in controll and having good routines, that I now have no idea what he wants and feel a bit lost.

To be honest, night times are not great. I've been doing CC / CIO for a few weeks now and it just doesn't seem to be improving things. I gave to listen to him crying in the monitor for up to an hour before sleep-I know he's tired because every time I go in to reassure him he tries to fall asleep-I just feel like I should leave the room before he does sleep or he's not going to learn to self soothe. It feels pretty cruel as he starts screaming again. Once he is asleep he will generally sleep until 5 and then I get up to feel him and put him back down til 7am. Surely he shouldn't need this 5.30 feed? He's 9 months old and on the 91st centile...but I don't know how to break it.

Yesterday I tried to delay the 9am nap and he ended up missing it altogether and finally went off at 1.30 for an hour which I extended by BF but then he fell asleep again at 5pm!

Poor little man must be so confused, I know I am....sorry for the long post.

My 10 mo originally only wanted to nap in half hour snatches. Drove me half insane. I don't necessarily agree with advice to put him down later if he is tired by 9, as over-tiredness doesn't really help much.
You may or may not agree with some of these tactics but here is what worked for me:

• dummy (he didn't want it at first but just kept popping it back in and he warmed to it, and it really keeps him asleep once he is on it)
• do the sleeps in the pram and trundle trundle trundle him around for an hour and a half so he has a proper sleep (also good for ditching the baby weight!)

I did these things for all naps for a week, and then started to do naps in the cot again and hey presto he was sleeping longer, and we have now withdrawn the dummy too and he sleeps fine and long without it - now I just dump him in the cot, let him cry for 5 mins then he is asleep for 90 mins and I can get some stuff done. Youre aiming for 2 sleeps a day at this age. Most babies (as if there is any such thing as 'normal'!!) will get up around 7, nap 1 starts sometime between 9 and 10.30 for 30-120 mins, then nap 2 starts about 2.5 hours after they woke from nap 1 and also lasts from 30-120 mins. Hope that helps x

Can baby self settle, this helped us as the issue was waking at the end of a sleep cycle not knowing how to go back off alone. Another thing that helped was putting down for a short nap just two hours after waking then pushing her to just after she'd had some lunch. I took a few ideas from the baby whisperer that I liked, mainly that 'shush-pat' thing to help get back off to sleep.

I think DS had 2 naps at this age, one at around 10 and one at around 2. He used to sleep for 45 minutes at a time, occasionally 1.5 hours.

He is now 19 months and has around 2 hours at lunchtime. I couldn't imagine it ever happening when he was younger, but he has managed to get there! It just sort of happened when he was around 12 months old, we missed a few morning naps in a row for a variety of reasons, and he was fine, so there was no point in going back to that, and we just went for the 'early lunch and then a sleep' option, and he is fine.

My ds2 is ten months old. A big boy too as he's on the 99th percentile!

He has been getting up at 4.30-5am since 4 months old.

He's just started crawling and his whole sleep pattern has changed. Up at 5.30-6am, sleeps about 11am for two hours in the buggy. Then it's bed around 7pm. Awake at 11ish for 7oz, and just this week he has dropped his 3.30am feed- but only because I have introduced a dummy.

It's attached to his blankies so now the dummy and blankie soothes him.

Maybe worth a try? Their routines will change on their own.

As for the cc, it's not for me personally. With ds1 he settled quicker and was more content through the day if he knew when he cried I'd be there. For me if ds2 isn't settling I offer milk, about a minute of slow pats on the back to check for wind while he's sat on my knee, then in his bed, dummy and blankie, sshh night night, kiss, walk out.

I do the same thing every night when it's bedtime. I never have to go in more than 4 times and regularly don't have to go back in at all.but I may just be lucky?

And always minimal talking, dark room etc.

Do you think he'll sleep in the buggy? I leave him in the back garden as its secure and I stay where I can see and hear him. But I manage to get cleaning etc done while he's asleep. Ds1 loved sleeping outside in buggy too- but obviously only if it's safe for you to do.

Yes I do sometimes leave him in a buggy if we've been for a walk and he's fallen asleep but its not safe to leave him in tw garden as we have lots of foxes (even during the day) do I can only do this if I can be in the garden with him which defeats the point of me doing chores.

CC hasn't worked for us and after several weeks of trying we've decided to stop. I gave it a really good shot.

I think I'm just going to close the books and re-tune into what DS wants. Sleep patterns never stay the same for more than a fee weeks due to all the developmental changes so I'm not going to stress about it anymore. Thanks for all the advice and support.

Annie, my DS is 8.5m and only sleeps for half hour naps. I sometimes end up curlin up on sofa after lunch nap and bf so he sleeps again but doesn't happen much these days. He is also pretty bad at night and as with you cc and pick up put down doesn't seem to work. He tries to lie in your arms and sleep but as soon as he is in the cot he screams again. Am really hoping that he will sleep longer when he starts walking as had hoped it would improve when he crawled but no!
The only thing that worked in the past with changing routine was to do it while staying at soemone esles house. When we tried to get DS from basket to cot he only took to it at my mum's house and then carried on when back home - might be worth a shot?