8 month afternoon nap can't get beyond half an hour

[elkern]

I have done the no cry sleep solution followed a bit of 'light' controlled crying and nights and morning naps (at 9.30am for 1 hour) are working pretty well. at 2.30pm the baby is really tired and goes to sleep quickly. but she wakes after half an hour and refuses to go back to sleep. i have tried up to an hour of controlled crying for the last 3 days, before giving up each time. she is then very tired all afternoon. am i trying to force her to sleep too much? should i ditch it in the afternoon or persevere?

I think she is overtired and needs to go to sleep before 2.30pm. At that age, my daughter was still struggling to last beyond two hours between sleeps. I would put her down at about 1pm and see if that helps.

My 7.5 mo DS has an hour in the morning, about 40 mins around midday (after lunch, basically). Then about 30/40 mins at about 3 or 4.

She's probably too tired by 2.30pm - 4 hours is still quite a long time when they're this age. Think they should still be getting between 2-3 hours of naps, although I don't know when is best to start dropping naps.

I think the gap between naps is too long too. A good rule of thumb is 2 hours from waking to first nap, 3 hours from waking to second nap, 4 hours from waking to bedtime (though actually my ds tended to do 3-3-4).

lovely, thanks all! she has always been terrible at sleeping in the day - even at a couple of months old sometimes she was going all day without sleeping, so have had to build up to 2 solid naps rather than the other way around! on the upside, nights aren't too bad. will definitely try the earlier nap and see what happens...