will he ever have a long nap?

[jaffa19]

DS is 6.5mo.

Used to nap 3-4x 45 mins - with a real fight.

Now he is finally able to self settle, but will now only sleep for 20 mins at a time! Longer if in the buggy, but rarely more than 45 mins.

I keep hearing that the long lunch time nap will change my life, but how the hell do I make him sleep longer! Please tell me it will just happen one day...

He definitely needs more sleep - he's difficult and exhausted by the end of the day. He's finally sleeping well at night - 7-6 with one or two quick feeds.

Thanks!

It will happen one day!

I don't think you can make them sleep longer, believe me I tried. However, we've just got to the stage of 1 long (2 hours ish) lunchtime nap and it does change your life. Nothing I did made any difference but he has got there on his own eventually. You may or may not want to hear that it took until DS was 14 mo!

(to be fair, he got quite good at the 2 nap thing, 45-90 mins each, once he started crawling, but pooling them together makes for a much more flexible day...)

Don't sweat it. My DD,7 mo, still does 3 x 45 mins each day. I wish she would do one long one, and I have tried and tried, including some CC. I try to look on the bright side that each nap is less important since she has several, so I never let it stop me going out in morning/afternoon/for lunch...if she naps in her buggy, great, if not, it's only a few hours till the next one.

Thanks for the replies...

I'm less worked up about naps now that he can settle - at least I no longer have the dread of each nap requiring half an hour of rocking and crying... And I don't mind that there's several of them - I just wish I had more than half an hour to get things done at any one time!

I had thought about lite CC too - but the problem is he doesn't really cry when he wakes up, he chatters for a bit and plays, and doesn't start crying for about half an hour. It would take such a long time to get him back to sleep that it doesn't really seem worth it.

I thought maybe once he was on three meals a day he might start to nap for at least 45mins - 1hr at least once a day - fingers crossed! ON the bright side he'll fall asleep as soon as we leave the house in the buggy, so at least I can get out and about!

Jaffa, but that's great - why not just leave him in his cot for half an hour after he wakes up if he's not distressed. Is he old enough to sit / turn over. Put a couple of toys in for him. Then you get an hour to do something else.

try 'wake to sleep'. Joggle him a little just enough so his eyes flick open a little (you may have to experiment to find the right amount of wake needed for your LÖ) ten minutes before he usually wakes. So if he always sleeps for 45 mins, do it at 35. You may have a little trial and error at first but it does work eventually. Do it for every nap for 5 days and fingers crossed on the 6th day he might sleep through by himself.

oh, and also, my sympathy. DD is a crap napper (although much better with this technique) and i know how tiring it can be. Good luck!

Ooh I might try that one. I've heard about it for early waking, hadn't really considered it for naps. Terrified I'll wake him completely at 20 mins and that would be a nightmare!

I have left him in his cot to play on occasion, but half the problem is that I just can't relax knowing he's not asleep - I do think he needs the extra sleep as he gets so tired so quickly!