Short naps

[Irishrover89]

Hello all!
My 4.5 month old can’t seem to nap longer than 30-40 mins in her cot. In the pram she will do longer naps when moving. Any tips? Means we end up doing 4 nap days a lot and would like to get down to 3! She sleeps in her cot in a dark room with white noise on. Thanks in advance!

Same problem here but I still have baby sleeping in the same room as me for all his naps so when he rouses I just make sure I’m on hand to rock him back to sleep before putting him down again or just letting him have the rest on me. I only do this because he is cranky if he doesn’t have longer naps and it seems the 40 minutes isn’t enough for him! Is there a specific reason you want to go down to three naps?

Will yours go over for a second stint if you rock over again after waking? Mine sometimes will but more often that not won’t. My issue with 4 naps is very often the 4th will be too close to bed but my not doing it then the wake window before bed will be too long? So thinking if she would do 3 longer naps it might help!

Ah yeah we were having a similar problem with the last nap being too near bedtime as well so these longer naps are working out better for that reason so completely get you! Yes more often than not he will go back down but I’m not gonna lie..I let him have a lot of naps on me though, so it’s easy to stand up and rock without any sudden sensations of being picked up. When I do put him down for his nap, I’ll pick him up as soon as his eyes open around that 40 minute mark...I just do it gently and let him have the remainder of the nap on me. Not sure how this will pan out in later months when I’m back at work and someone else needs to get him to sleep but for now, it works out better in terms of him having better sleep and being happier in between so I just go with it.

If you don’t fancy doing that, I wonder if one of those rockit things could be an option if you popped them in their pushchair in the house whilst napping so it could keep that sensation of movement?

@Ggg1234 so I’ve just tried this with a nap this morn and worked quite well thanks! She woke after 35 or so mins and I just let her sleep on me for a further 25, so that was something! Hopefully by the time you’re back to work the naps will have got a bit better- fingers crossed! It’s just so exhausted I’ve become sleep obsessed!!

Aw glad to hear it worked! I bet others wouldn’t recommend it really as there seems to be a push for babies to be independent quick I feel!! It makes two of us being sleep obsessed, I’m worried when we come out of lockdown because I plan every outing around napping and feeding currently, so I don’t know how I will go to classes or anything with set times!