Baby wakes after 1 sleep cycle?!

[Jamontoast1]

My 16 week old only sleeps for 1 sleep cycle for her naps so she will wake up after 45 mins and be wide awake and smiling so even though I try to get her back to sleep it doesn’t work.

I feel like I need longer naps in the daytime for my own sanity!! She used to nap for longer but the last 6 weeks or so have been 45 mins on the dot.

I’ve tried shortening / lengthening her wake window (1.5hrs) but it didn’t change anything and she goes down quite easily after 1.5hrs so feel this suits her.

ANY tips welcome! Or just tell me this is the way she is and it hopefully changes one day 😂

Just the way it is I’m afraid…I have a 14 week old and it’s the same. Their sleep is changing from newborn sleep patterns to a more mature pattern. It can be frustrating I know, I do the mad dash around the house getting jobs done before he wakes.

Part of/lead up to the 4 month regression where they wake fully after one sleep cycle. I get maybe one nap every 5 days now that’s longer than an hour without intervention. Follow wake windows too. Occasionally if I wait poised next to him I can put my hand on him the second he starts stirring and help him back to sleep before he fully wakes. Ive also ready you can very gently rouse them at say 40 mins into a nap and then help them back to sleep for a new cycle although can say I’ve attempted that one yet.

My DS has just started to chat himself to sleep and suck his fingers to self soothe so hoping as time goes on he can learn to consolidate his sleep and link cycles. Hope so anyway!

Totally normal. My 3 were all the same. Longer naps come back, but not for a while I'm afraid. For my boys, this phase lasted about 6 weeks. By 5.5 months, they would still wake briefly, but could be soothed back to sleep and then would do a further 2 hours. My eldest..... 30 minutes at a time until she was over a year old. She was always a poor napper.

If she's happy, try to just roll with it. Rest when you can and remeber it won't last and it WILL get easier. My boys are 3 in 2 weeks andstill have a solid 2-3 hour nap every day. You just have to survive the catnapping phase.

That's just how your baby is I'm afraid! Mine was the same - 30-40 min naps for 9 long months and not a minute longer 😩 When he started crawling he wore himself out and started napping longer. My sister's two only napped for longer than 20 min when they were on 1 nap a day.

If your baby can self settle, that's pretty much all you can do 😁

Welcome to 4 months! This is just how it is for some babies, it’s not anything you’re doing wrong.
My first only napped for 30 mins at a time between 4 months and 9 months (when she went to 45 mins twice a day). When we dropped to one nap it became 1.5 hours.
My second figured it out a bit sooner but it wasn’t anything I did differently, he could just do it one day.
Weirdly I found knowing there was probably nothing I could do about it quite comforting as before I knew that it felt like I was failing to get “good” naps (both the babies were happy most of the time so clearly didn’t mind lots of short sleeps)

Completely normal. Could last just a few weeks, sometimes a few months. If she’s waking up happy it sounds like she’s getting all she needs.