Day time naps help!

[Ggg1234]

My baby boy is nearly five months old and with a bit of encouragement is in a routine of having 3 naps a day (going off wake windows of roughly 2 hours). Regardless of where he is napping, he wakes up after 45 minutes and this has proven to not be enough as he is really cranky. To tackle this what I’ve been doing is just having him sleep on me and when he starts to rouse, rocking him back to sleep so he has another stretch of sleep or if I’ve put him down I’ll pick him up and do the same.

I know now is the time for regression and sleep cycles changing but my question is when will his naps naturally consolidate?? I believe around the six month mark is where they have two longer naps but I can’t imagine this happening without my intervention! He is useless at self soothing btw - tried to see if he will put him back to sleep and he just gets increasingly worked up and then is fully wake and definitely will not go back to sleep!

You almost always need to intervene in order to extend a daytime nap, so resettles are normal. You're issue here is that the resettle is done in your arms, which will ultimately become a rod for your back (Unless you're happy for naps to be on you long term).

It would be better to have naps in something that moves. I favour the bouncy chair for this, but a pushchair works too. The idea is that you give that gentle movement to resettle but without moving baby from the sleep position. Then over time less and less interaction is needed for the settling period until none is needed at all. Then, once no resettle is needed, I would love daytime naps to a static cot.

@FATEdestiny never thought of it like that, that’s a really useful tip thank you!

Agree with @FATEdestiny that initially in order to get long naps you will pretty much always need to resettle after a sleep cycle, which is around 45 mins. However, I definitely don't agree that all naps should be in a pushchair until they learn to link sleep cycles, in fact I think the complete opposite. I would keep naps in the cot, then when baby needs resettling, try cuddling or rocking them back to sleep and placing them back in their cot. If you do all naps in the pram you are then in the territory that baby needs to be rocked to sleep every time, whereas you actually want them to learn to settle them-self to sleep, and then eventually they'll learn to resettle them-self mid nap and that'll be it.

You could try a side settle so that you aren’t having to lift him out his cot. I’ve always found once my one is out of his cot, I cannot get him back in and the rest of the nap is on me.

If he wakes I get him on his side, shush and pat his bum until asleep and then gently roll him onto his back

Thank you all for your replies

@Gwegowygwiggs I also see what you’re saying when it comes to resettling...it’s hard when there are so many different views on the best way to do things!

@Rockieroad this could be an interesting one to try...did you find this took some time for him to get used to or did you happen to just do it and it worked one day and has stuck since? I tend to put my boy down to start and get a few things done and then when he rouses I just let him have the rest on me and have a sit down. I don’t really mind and have nowhere to be atm but am worried when I go back to work when he will be 11 months, I’m going to be putting my MIL out because of bad habits I’ve created!

Question for everyone is does this need for resettling naturally go away or is it something that I must encourage now for when he’s older?

@Ggg1234 it was recommended to me as a way to get baby down for a nap in their cot instead of falling asleep on me then transferring. Apparently the sensation mimics your heart beat from when they were in the womb.

It worked well for initial settling (although DS was already very sleepy). I found with the resettles to begin with I had to continue the patting to get the full nap. Did sit there thinking I was probably crazy for doing it but after a week or so I could leave him to it after a resettle and now he does the full 2 hour nap which is a godsend. I hope it works for you!