Does my 20wk old need longer daytime naps..and how do I convince him?!

[gretagrape]

Hi. My 20wk son has never been a daytime napper - he sleeps 10 hours at night and then usually 45 mins at around 8am but other than napping occasionally in the pram that's it for the day so by 6pm it's a real struggle to keep him happy until bath/bedtime.
There are two issues really:

1. He's only napped for longer than an hour twice and both times he woke up happy and smiley but when he wakes from his 45min naps (and they are always exactly 45mins) he's very grumpy but I'm finding it impossible to get him to go back to sleep again. How do you convince your baby to go back to sleep during the day? (At night he's fine, puts himself to sleep after feed and if he wakes up in the middle of the night).
2. How can I manage the time between the 4pm feed and bath/bedtime? I've tried doing lots with him to stimulate/wear him out, or doing calm things to keep it low key, or trying to get him to nap and nothing seems to work.

He's generally very happy but I just feel that towards the end of the day he is paying for not napping enough (as am I!)! Thanks x

I found that my dd started sleeping longer during the day when I put her in the cot. I spent a couple of weeks not going out much during the day due to illness etc. and started putting her down in the cot instead of her baby seat/pram/car seat and she started sleeping for a lot longer. So she basically began sleeping from 10.30 - 12pm without me changing anything except the sleeping area. When I realised she needed this I then started expecting the same so making sure she had quiet time to have a long nap (not always 1.5hours, but at least 45 mins - 1hour) around this time even if out, so covering the pram, planning drives around this time etc. I also started putting her down with the same expectation around 3 - 3.30pm and find she has a good sleep until 4pm ish which keeps her happy until tea at 5pm then bath and bedtime routine. I do find she might cry for a minute or two when I put her down but within five minutes she is always asleep so she clearly needs it (I don't do CC but I'm happy to leave her to make a few noises if it means she goes down to sleep when she clearly needs it). Not sure if that helps at all as it was mainly led by her!

Thanks - going into the cot was what got him started on sleeping through the night, but he's just not that happy in there during the day! The HV thinks it was because when I was BF'ing he would fall asleep on me during the bedtime feed then go into the cot asleep so was never put in there awake, but now that I'm bottle feeding I make sure he's awake when he goes into the cot at night, but it's not improving the daytime naps!
I think I'll try what you suggest, so if I know he's happy to fall asleep in the pram, then maybe take him out for a walk at teatime to have a nap before the bath/bed routine. I'll just have to hope that eventually he'll realise that the cot is for daytime too!
How old is your dd? My son is 4.5 months and I do the bedtime feed at around 7.15pm then once he has faffed around in the cot for 10 mins he sleeps from around 8pm - 6am. Do you think it might work for me to bring the bedtime forward? Just worried I might end up having to start my day at 5am if I do that!

My DS never slept for longer than 35 minutes at a time until he was 10 months! He used to have 4 short naps a day. My mistake when he was young was keeping him up too long between naps. He needed to have a nap about 1.5 hours after each nap at 20 weeks and I used to keep him up for 2+ hours, making him overtired.

dd is 10 months now, but she started sleeping longer about 6 months. I hope you find something that works for you! We also have her down from 7.30ish - 7.30am ish so hopefully you won't have to get up super early to make him have a nap later on - I would suggest persevering with the nap in the pram if that works and then trying again with the cot in a while and hopefully he will have broken the association with napping on you!

HVs "advise" is just her opinion. There is no evidence that this would affect sleeping long term at all.