How to deal with 11 week old baby 'catnapping'?

[Sleepless1096]

Hi, my 11 week old baby catnaps. I'll get her to sleep, swaddled, white noise, eyes closed... and then 20/30 minutes later she wakes up again. It's frustrating as she doesn't seem to get a decent daytime sleep ever. She sleeps ok at night (up 2-3 times to feed, but then back to sleep). When she wakes, often she isn't upset or hungry at all... she'll just lie there contentedly staring for a bit.

I don't remember this with my first, who I seem to remember had long 2-3 hour naps during the day...but wasn't great with night-time sleep.

I can't remember whether this is usual and developmentally normal at this stage, or whether I should be fighting to get DC2 to nap for longer, so any advice welcome!

Unfortunately I don’t have any advice to offer but can give you comfort to know my 11 week old son is exactly the same with his day time sleep. Getting him to sleep isn’t the issue it’s getting him to stay asleep.. he is like a clock as soon as at hits 30/45min ping eyes wide open. It’s very tedious as you feel your WHOLE day is spent getting them to sleep my son needs to be rocked to sleep so by the end of the day I am all rocked out haha. Stay strong they say cat naps don’t last forever…… fingers crossed lol.

I would be appreciative of the night time sleep and maybe just work on having some sort of a daytime routine as she’s coming up to 3 months old. If she seems content then I wouldn’t mess around with it too much but if she starts to see over tired then defo look at a routine for naps etc.

At this age it is mor to have some day or night or both sleep regression. It is a developmental leap. I'm going through this right now with my twins and it's hard. The only thing that keeps them asleep is being held. I keep going by reminding myself that it will pass. Have you tried a rocket/ swing to sooth your wee one to sleep during the day so u can get stuff done/ have a rest yourself?

Both mine only did 30 min naps for the first easily 6 months! Once they dropped to two naps (around 8ish months) that's when I noticed an increase in the length of one of the naps to around 1-1.5 hours, and the drop to 1 nap is even better as then it seems to become 1.5-2.5 hours! I think it's just developmental to have short naps at that very young age

Same

Exactly the same here… it’s exhausting

Thank you, it sounds like a phase that we've just got to endure 😊. It's tough as, with the older one, I can't really nap much during the day and he's still up during the night as well. Hopefully things will improve soon.

Hello,

My little one always cat napped until I helped her to learn to fall asleep by herself.

The reason they wake after a short time is often due to being unable to put themselves back to sleep when they transition between sleep cycles.

Once my little was able to fall asleep unaided, she then began to connect her sleep cycles seamlessly and nap for longer:

Does you LO currently rely on anything to fall asleep? Feeding? Dummy? Being rocked? Etc..

I would advise start easing her off that reliance by putting her down when drowsy and then gradually putting her down earlier and earlier until eventually she is putting herself to sleep from fully awake.

This should help her nap longer x

My baby is the same. My older child didn't do longer naps till about a year. Just try and work around it eg nap when DH home, have early nights, put baby in sling to do jobs.