45 minutes naps - how to make them longer???

[MuddlingThru]

9 times out of 10 ds wakes from his naps after 45 minutes. However it is clear from his mood after this that he needed longer. Sometimes it is possible to re-settle him but nearly always hard work because of course he has had just enough sleep to not want to go back to sleep. I then feel like I spend a big chunk of my day in his room trying to get him to back to sleep. I know that they naturally have a 45 minute sleep cycle and he is obviously just not making the transition across to the next cycle. Is there anything you can do to get over this? Or is it something that they just grow out and if so when?

How old is he?

how old is he?

How long does he sleep at night?

He is 14 weeks old.

Generally goes to bed about 7ish, feed at 11, wakes to feed about 4ish, wakes again between 6 and 7am.

Surely I am not the only to experience this?

I experienced this with ds for a long time. I just resettled him whenever I could by lying down with him to breastfeed again (usually quite easily done and another excuse to lie down ). Eventually he learnt to settle himself without calling out to me, and had two naps, a long one and a shorter one, instead of the 3 he had needed before then. It is frustrating but this stage will pass. To be honest I think your ds is doing very well at night times, so try not to get too stressed about daytime naps.

I'm not gonna be very uplifting I'm afraid... DD always had 45 min naps, no matter how tired she seemed to be still She settled out of it at about 8 months (I think... its all blended into a haze now), but then had dropped naps completely by 18 months!

She was a star at nights though - we did a dream feed at about 11-12, and she dropped the 4am one fairly early so was sleeping through the night well... Hopefully yours will do that too!

DS 16 weeks old usually only has45 min naps though normally sleeps exactly the same as yours at night. The last 2 nights has slept through and has not had so much sleep in the day before though was v grizzely by bedtime. He wont resettle very often so have decided that as he is sleeping well at night to just go with the flow he has 3short naps a day. I suppose it depends whats important to you, time in the day or good sleep at night! Dont know if that helps but definately know the 45 min nap thing!

If you want longer naps (IMO) you have to make sure the baby goes to sleep unaided (ie without feeding/cuddling to sleep -- otherwise, he will come to depend on that prop to settle himself). You also need to make the room where he is sleeping is dark and quiet. You sound very sure of the fact that he needs more sleep than 45 mins, so you're halfway there.

If you can tick all the boxes, it's really a matter of not rushing into the baby's room as soon as he stirs. If he cries, is it a sleepy noise, rather than a fullon furious one? Can you reassure him briefly and quietly if he issounding off, and then leave again, to give him the chance to settle back to sleep?

Somewhere around 4-6 months my two started to sleep much more heavily. That's when daytime naps really 'stick' and the 45-min thing becomes less obvious.

If I recall correctly, mine was the same until about 8 months when the naps started getting longer - slept through the night at 18 months. I never found a way of increasing the 45-minute time although OCCASIONALLY if we were co-sleeping at nap time I could breastfeed her back to sleep and get another 45 minutes of out her.

bakedpotato - I was already thinking along the same lines as you. He is put down in his room (almost dark) and is not fed to sleep. Previously pat/shushed to sleep, but working on keeping this to a minimum and leaving the room when he is still awake but with heavy bouncing eyelids. I don't rush in, I usually hear 10 mins of wriggling, grunting etc and then he will launch into a full cry at which point I obviously do go to him.

From the other feedback I guess this, like so much with babies, 'is just a phase' which in time they will grow out of. Hopefully by doing the above he will just grow out of it a little bit quicker. Although any other suggestions gratefully received.

Someone had suggested that I go into his room ahead of when he wakes so that when he stirs I can pat him through the transition back to sleep.

At the first nap this morning he was already awake when I went in at 30mins, I patted for about 15 mins, he then slept for about 30mins more, again I patted for 15 mins and he slept for about 10 mins more. So down for about 1h40.

For the 2nd nap, went in after 30 mins and patted him through transition, he then made it through an hour on his own, heard him start up and thought no way am I going to be able to get him to go any longer but as I type this he has been asleep for about 10 mins taking this nap to a total of nearly 2 hrs so far.

So the good news is that it is possible to extend the naps. The bad news is it involves a lot of time sitting in his nursery.

I am in 2 minds as to whether I am setting him up to need me to get back to sleep. However when I was leaving him to settle himself he very rarely did. At least this way I am hopefully creating the pattern of longer sleeps and in time he will naturally do this himself.

I do at least feel reassured that my assessment that he needed more sleep was accurate as he surely would not be so easily patted back to sleep if he was really ready to be awake?

The sitting in the nursery thing worked for me. I'd sneak in about 30 mins into nap; settle her when she woke and then sneak out. It takes a while for it to stick. She was always (and still is) good at night, but the short naps in the day were a nightmare. Like many other posters, dd 'outgrew' short naps at about 7-8 months when she went very very quickly for four short naps a day to two long ones. She now (at almost 17mo) has one long nap. It does get better.