Please tell me the tricks to get 45 minute nappers to stay asleep for longer!

[stickersarecurrency]

She's 10 weeks, was a reasonable napper until this week, and she's gradually got really difficult, wakes after 45 minutes every time (not at night), and is now overtired and grumpy and unsettleable. Driving me nuts, and I also have a 3 year old to take care of.

She ideally has 2 x 2 hour naps plus another 45 minute one somewhere - now she's managing 90 minutes on a good day and it's the pits :(

For a while, I had to sleep with ds for him to sleep longer than 45 min, so I feel your pain. When your 3 yr old goes down for a nap could you sleep with your baby for one nap a day to make sure she gets at least one longer nap in a day? My ds sleeps well now alone but it took til he was 6 or 7 months to feel fine going back to sleep on his own if he woke and I was not there next to him. Think h finally feels safe enough now. I also heard a few people om here mention warming the crib. Maybe that may help?

When my 3 year old naps? [hollow laugh]

I've tried putting her in her grobag because she sleeps well at night in it (next to me, so you're probably right about her needing to be close). She also wants to sleep latched on. DS did this but he was generally a terrible sleeper from about 2 weeks old and we just had to live with it. She's been ok until now.

Thank you, I'll try to negotiate with DS re a nap or even a DVD.

Am having the same problem with my 15 week old - also started around 10 weeks i think!

Fidning Shh pat works with some sucess or rocking back to sleep after he stirs after first sleep cycle. It's pretty exhausting trying though so i'm not sure whether to just embrace the catnaps...

My DD was a 45 minute (quite literally to the second!) napper and I too would try to get her sleep longer. However, nothing worked. I seem to remember at this age she would sometimes have 4/5 naps to get through the day which was frustrating. But I wish now that I'd just gone with it rather than let it worry me so much. I was obsessed with her having a 2 hour lunch time nap but she never did!
When she was about 9 months though this all changed and she started to drop naps and then sleep for longer. By 12 months she was having one in the morning followed by a longer one after lunch. Now, at 22 months she has one nap for about 90 minutes.
With her, it just happened and she did it on her own!
Sorry I haven't got any tricks to share but just wanted to let you know that cat nappers can change!!
Good luck x

Haven't read the other posts but I would say, black out blinds, white noise (so tumble dryer/ rain/ radio in between stations/ washing machine etc)

Thanks. I wouldn't mind but DS was the same but got wildly overtired and screamed the house down every evening as a result, so want to avoid the same with her. If she's happy with short naps then that would be fine but she's a grizzly monster when tired!

DS was the same - got into a nice nap routine around 6-8 weeks. Then at 11/12 weeks it turned into 45 min naps. Until around 6 months they occasionally were longer and now at 13 months he has a long lunchtime nap with a short morning one. I used to try and try to get him to nap for longer when he was younger - looking back, wouldn't have bothered as it rarely worked!

Mine sleeps in 42 minute windows, to the minute. I didn't think it was a problem until I started reading about it! He has 5-6 of these mini naps a day and only rarely, maybe once a week, does he manage any longer. Doesn't seem to cause him any problems.

My DD had 45-min naps max for months. It was annoying because I always wanted her to sleep longer. But, TBH, she was getting the sleep she needed because she was contented enough when awake and although overnight sleep involved a lot of waking up, I don't think that had anything to do with how long her naps lasted for.

When her naps went down to 30 mins, boy did I miss those 45-minuters!

Now (at 10 months) the only way she'll nap for longer than half an hour or so is in a moving buggy.

I really wouldn't kill yourself trying to get longer naps, but put her down to sleep more often, if you can. As I recall, my DD only went for about an hour before needing a nap at that age....

Good luck!

mine never slept for more than 30 minutes during the day, now 18 months and sleeps for 12 hours at night but only has one 30 minute nap during the day, I've learnt thats just how he is.

Will she sleep in her buggy during the day? Ds wakes after about 45mins and is grotty if he doesn't go back to sleep. If he is in his buggy i can rock him for a minute and he doses back off.

It's been a while since I read the baby whisperer, but doesn't waking at 45mins mean they were over-tired when you put them to sleep? Have you tried putting her down earlier? Do you have a "wind down" routine for naps?
Something on here might help?

Some other things I vaguely remember (oh how I'm looking fwd to this again with #2!)

will she sleep in the pram? DD would sleep for 1.5hrs in the pram when she was tiny (and up all night with colic), so I used to do a long walk every day so she always got at least one good long nap a day.

Do you have a blackout blind? The sun comes in DD's room first thing in the morning so we have a blackout blind, and curtains with blackout lining! When she was younger we also used to have the gro blackout blind up too!

Have you tried white noise? I downloaded an album from iTunes ("Natural White Noise for Babies") but only ever used the "waterfall" track as it sounded least like water (so not wee-inducing) & was the least annoying (we sometimes used it at night-time too).
Had iPod & speakers under her cot, and just put it on repeat! Had to sometimes turn it up REALLY LOUD, and I did worry it was going to drive me insane at one point, but we prob only used it for a couple of months. She is 2 now & still naps for a couple of hours every afternoon - long may it last!

HTH