Short naps - last plea for help

[Sleeplesssister]

I've really totally had it with the fact that my DD (now 7 months) always wakes from a nap after 30 mins. Been like this for 4 months and its driving me nuts. When I last posted someone said their DC grew out of it at 6 months - no sign of that for us. Any advice pls, its making her seriously grumpy throughout the day, we manage 3 x 30 naps at 9, 12 and 3:30ish respectively. Teething troubles aside, she is very good at night and generally now goes from 7pm until 6:30am (don't hate me, has taken a looong time and many tears to get our nights sorted). She is bf and I don't feed to sleep, she does not use a dummy.

Please, anyone, words of advice? Dread taking her to baby groups because she is so cranky.

Maybe this will work:

My friend's DD didn't grow out of this either, and she cured the problem - she noticed that her DD would sleep longer if they were out ie in the pram/buggy, so she started putting DD down for naps in the pram and jiggling it whenever she looked like she was stirring (ie at 30min). Usually, DD would go back to sleep for another 30min cycle.

The theory was that by getting DD used to napping longer at least SOMEWHERE, the habit would be broken. She then worked on getting her DD back in the cot for naps.

Just an idea. I feel for you as DS did this for ages too, but did grow out of it. Congratulations on the brilliant night-time sleeping though!

No advice on extending naps as I have never managed it with dd! I wasted a lot of frustration and, yes, tears on this issue. Now at 12mo she will sometimes sleep for an hour or more, more often the usual 40ish minutes.

The good news it that she can make it for longer without a crap nap these days, and she dropped the third nap at around 10m. Dropping the third nap made my life much easier.

She's also much more flexible- so sometimes she has two naps, sometimes one. Often we'll go to a morning playgroup, she'll drop off on the way home, and I'll leave her in the pram, rocking her back to sleep when we wakes after 30 mins. I normally get an hour out of her that way.

I've stopped stressing and it feels so much better. Today, for instance, she woke at 5am- I know- so I gave her a nap at 9am (45 mins) and rocked her to sleep in her pram for another one after lunch. She's been asleep for an hour-ish.

Tomorrow at her childminder's she'll probably have an hour and that's it.

I've discovered that it has very little impact on her night time sleep.

Tbh as your lo is doing so well at night (at 7mo! That's amazing!), I wouldn't bother trying to make her naps longer. She clearly can self settle, or she wouldn't be sleeping all night long, does not have props to get her to sleep etc. So you have done everything "right" (though I hate the idea of right and wrong when it comes to stuff like this), and if she's still not taking long naps that's maybe just the way she is.

Honestly? I really think some babies are catnappers. Others may be along to disagree and offer actual advice!

So it looks like the "stick them in the pram and jiggle them when they wake" plan could be a goer!

I agree - some babies are just catnappers. My DS2 is. We recently went through a couple of weeks of him napping longer and it broke his night sleep - started waking at 1am, 3am rather than going through to 5am as he was before.

You could try white noise - I've just taken the aerial out of an old analogue radio and put it on fairly loud in his room when I first put him down for a nap.

You could also try the trick where you go up 5 minutes before they're due to wake, and creep in at the slightest peep to settle again (dummy/rock/pat/shh - whatever works for your lo) - do this for 3 days, not the 4th. If your lo wakes after a short nap again, repeat but do it for 6 days. This worked with my DS1 and he started doing lovely 2 hour naps regularly.

Thanks everyone - unfortunately the waking after 30 mins also seems to apply when she is out and about in the pram - I've tried walking for an hour or so in the afternoon to see if she will extend, no joy. I hear her wake up after 30 mins and then she starts scratching on the side of the pram hood until I let her see what's going on! Also tried leaving her for 10 mins, then checking, then leaving, we did that for 2 weeks every day then I'd had enough.

Just so envious of those babies that have 1 or 2 hour naps and seem so well rested afterwards. Might try the creeping in after 25 mins trick, tried it once but she is such a light sleeper that as soon as I opened the door she was awake and bright as a button (for about 30 mins, then cranky because she needed more sleep). ShushBaby, I know that you are right about not stressing about it, there is a part of me that just wants to understand what the difference is btwn day and night - how come once we cracked the nights the days don't then also fall into place. Made loads of mistakes with DD - went through dummy dependency (lots of wake ups looking for it), only sleeping on me or DH, and feeding to sleep, and have managed to correct all of that, but the nap solution eludes me.

We had this and it was at about 5 months it started to change, but I did try a few things. Now we normally get one of her three naps longer than the usual 32 mins, but not if she's poorly!

I tried the creeping in and resettling, 'wake to sleep' (prodding at about 22 mins to make her stir) and turning the mobile back on and leaving. Also I don't go in unless she cries out now. Just chattering I leave her. I found at first shed wake at 32mins but if she didn't get cross and cry out she'd go back to sleep after about 15 mins sometimes.

Sorry this is garbled, am feeding DD now, but just wanted to share in case there was anything that helps as I know how frustrating it can be.

Good luck.

Thanks jennimoo, since I posted I have had some limited success - at lunchtime when she wakes after 30 mins I tend to leave her, chattering away, for 20 mins or so. She now occasionally goes back to sleep (once or twice a week tops), so that's progress. V. frustrating indeed!

please share how you cracked the nights! My dd is 18wo and has a dummy and is addicted to the swaddle! She wakes every 2-3hrs and has NEVER slept longer than 3.5hrs.
I take the dummy out just before she is fully asleep and she doesn't mind this but can't see how she would get to 'sleepy' without it? Without the swaddle she wakes every 40ish mins ALL NIGHT and pulls the dummy out (flinging it across the room).

For naps I put her (swaddled with dummy) in her cot after every 1.5hrs up and try to get in the room quick if she stirs before an hour. She will often do 1.5hrs in the morning or lunchtime but afternoons are impossible. I find it much better if the room is pitch-black and if there is noise in the house, I use white-noise on the ipod.

Hi gummymum, the bad news is that my DD only started to sleep through at 5 months. before then we had a couple of wake-ups every night. You'll find loads of advice on MN about ditching the dummy, we made the decision at 4 months to ditch the dummy because DD kept waking looking for it, so we went cold turkey. Other babies I know manage perfectly well without total dummy addiction, so not saying that is necessarily the problem. Are you tanking her up before bedtime? I used to feed to sleep and then slowly started putting her down more and more awake. I'm no expert on the swaddle though, we went into a sleeping bag at about 3 months because DD kept flinging her arms out. I should add, at the risk of getting flamed, that I am a GF follower, in loose terms anyway, worked for us, doing a dreamfeed at 10:30pm. In terms of naps, until my DD was 7 months or so I always did the afternoon nap on the move, in the pram, even when it was raining!