Lunchtime nap is a disaster :-(

[Jumperoo222]

Hi all Im trying to pinpoint where I'm going wrong and it's driving me up the wall.
5month old daughter is not getting enough daytime sleep. Typical day
6.30
8.45 first nap 45 mins
12.00 second nap...wakes after 45 mins...I then try and let her resettle and she does but then wakes after 5 mins and cries and then sort of resettled and then wakes... this repeats indefinitely until i either try and feed her and get her back to sleep or shhh pat or anything but usually ends up her getting upset, me getting upset and me getting her out of bed.
1600 third nap 45 mins
7pm bedtime
Nights have been good the last 2 days - dream feed at 10.30 and then a feed at 12.30 and 3.30.

I know its not the end of the world but I want the best for her and I know she should be enjoying a nice restorative lunchtime nap of 2hrs...how can I try and achieve this? Its really frustrating us both. Any tips so so welcome xx

Where is she sleeping?
Do you use white noise?
Has this just started during the heatwave?

She's not read the manual. If 45 mins is all she needs just now that's all she needs.

They're 'meant' to go to bed at 8ish at that age - 11 was an early night for mine!!! But it worked so I refused to worry about it.

Shes sleeping in the cot with a white noise machine. She's done a long lunchtime nap twice about 2 weeks ago and she was just so much happier all afternoon so I'm keen to help her get that more often :-)

Unfo not just started in the heatwave its been going on a couple of weeks now..

"should"

As pp says she hasn't read the manual. I'm not sure my 11 month old has ever done a 2 hour nap unless in the pram.

My DD is 6 months and does three 45 min naps. I think not all babies do long naps or at least not at this age!

OK thanks guys! I just wasn't sure if I was doing something wrong or should be trying everything to achieve this 2 hrs bliss...its all very confusing

Yes mine did 45 min naps until about a year old.

Mine were 18 months before they slept long than 30-45 mins during a nap.

Sleep cycles at that age are 45 minutes. From light sleep to rem, deep sleep and back out again etc.

At that age they simply aren't able to link sleep cycles together. It sucks but 6 months for us was a turning point and our DS was slowly starting to sleep longer!

Stick with it, it's not you, it's baby dna which is so frustrating for daytime naps! I remember it well

We didn't get to 2 hour naps until 7 months and I hated all the baby schedule stuff that used to say 'by now, your baby should be having 120 minutes over lunch, leaving you time to relax'. No they bloody well don't!!

5month old daughter is not getting enough daytime sleep

I agree, she isn't.

The answer is not to assume she can do a 2h nap, when she can't. The answer is to reduce awake time so that there are more naps per day. She then gets more sleep and isn't over tired.

As a general rule Wake Windows (between waking from one nap and being asleep on the next one) wants to be:

• Double previous nap length
• plus or minus 15 minutes

("Plus" only on days when baby is happy and non-clingy)

• Not more than 2h until baby reliably sleeping longer than 90 min

So 45 min naps = 90 min wake window.

I'd start settling to sleep at around 1h15m from last waking up.

I didn't get a 2 hour nap out of DC1 till he went down to 1 nap at 15 months.

I have a 5 month old and we typically do the lunchtime nap in the bouncer. Any sign of stirring and bounce bounce bounce. He’ll typically do 1.5 hours like that but in the cot he’ll only do 1 sleep cycle of 45 minutes. With my eldest we cracked cot naps at about 7 months. Also if you’re doing 3 feeds overnight including the dreamfeed, I’d probably be focusing on the opposite- fitting in more daytime feeds to hopefully get longer stretches overnight but that’s just me. My point is don’t worry about it, your baby doesn’t have to have a 2 hour nap!

Thanks for sharing! If the baby wakes early like 6am would you just add another nap in after 2hrs 15 or do you reckon better to stick to nap times? Clueless 1st time mum here..

@Jumperoo222

Thanks for sharing! If the baby wakes early like 6am would you just add another nap in after 2hrs 15 or do you reckon better to stick to nap times? Clueless 1st time mum here..

If baby woke at 6am, I would be starting first nap at 7.15am (latest, earlier if crying or clingy) with the aim to actually fall asleep between 7.15-7.45am.

Then continue like this, with wake windows somewhere around 90 minutes.

Thanks @fatedestiny ...everything I've read says 2hrs -2.15 for a 5 monther...how come you recommend less? When do you change to longer? Thanks for taking the time to reply! :-)

You don't go by age, you go by stage. Just like all children develop their motor skills at different ages, they will similarly sleep related developments at different ages.

2-2h15 awake window is what you want when you are getting at least one nap that's consistantly at least 90 minutes. Now there will be a decent number of 5 month olds who are getting 90 min naps. There will equally be a decent number of 7 month old still getting 45 minute naps all the time. They are different ages but the same stage.

You'll note above when working out wake windows I said "Not more than 2h until baby reliably sleeping longer than 90 min". That's where the change comes. Until you are getting regular naps of 2 or more sleep cycles (90m plus) without a resettle, you're still at the stage where you work from wake windows being double nap length.

Naps lengthen alongside baby's natural development. So while you can help baby learn to link cycles (going to sleep where staying asleep, and always help to resettle at end of each sleep cycle), you can't fundamentally make baby develop faster than their biology allows.

The age for this change is 5-7 months old for the average baby. It might be 3mo for some babies and it might be 9mo for others.

I agree with shorter wake windows and more naps. There's no way my baby could have stayed awake 2 hours at 5 or even 6 months (obviously some can manage it but mine couldn't) - she's on 2ish hours now and just turned 7 months (she was 3 weeks early though). Her first wake window is always shorter, about 1.5 hours and they usually get longer as the day progresses so that her last one is more like 2.5 hours. She can link sleep cycles so naps anywhere between 10 mins and 2+ hours. If she does a short nap, or "power boob nap" as I like to call them, then she will have a shorter wake window afterwards. Maybe experiment a bit with wake windows to see what works for your baby.

@Jumperoo222 My DS took quite a while to get into a good nap routine (probably got into a decent loose routine around 6 months). If I were you I would completely ignore absolutely everything you’ve read 🙈 Try and spend a couple of days just paying close attention to baby rather than the clock.

Let her wake when she naturally wakes in the morning then start settling her down for her first nap whenever she very first starts showing signs of being tired (eg, my DS rubs his eyes when he first starts getting sleepy). Again, let her naturally wake then follow the same again 😊 I did this for 3/4 days and kept track of it on “baby tracker” app and actually, DS was pretty much in his own little routine - it was nothing like what it “should” be - but it worked for him so we went with it 😊 me trying to force what he “should” be doing was doing more harm than good! Made me feel much better once I let myself just follow his cues and ignore the guidelines!

It’s so easy to read all these things that your baby “should” be doing and worry that you’re doing something wrong! In reality, they’re not robots and all behave completely differently!

I think she's just a wee bit young! I don't think I got the 2 hours consistently out of any of mine until at least over 1. I'm sure you're doing just fine 🙂

I tried the Huckleberry app when DD was that age, it helped massively to get her into a good nap routine and give me an idea when would be a good time to get her down for a nap. Takes the hassle out of trying to work out sleep windows!

Awake windows were total bollocks for us!! From 5 months we did one nap at 11ish and that moved us from 3 terrible quality naps to one really decent sleep. So I think it's all trial and error to see what suits you and baby

Thanks so much for all the replies! I guess I'm looking for an answer that probably doesn't exist but it's good to try!
On another note...baby waking up so early last few days. Do you think this could be the heat wave? She's also just learnt to roll over so loved to practice that at 5.25am this morning and then wouldn't go back to sleep....

Mine only ever did 45 min naps when he had 3 naps a day. He’s only recently started doing 2hr nap at lunch, and that’s since I dropped all other naps so he only naps once. He’s 14 months. Sometimes he only naps once for 1 hr as well.