How can I get 4.5 month old to do a lovely long lunch time nap?!

[Heatherbell1978]

DS1 won't nap for longer than 30 mins during the day. He's 20 weeks and has been napping every 1.5 hrs for 30 mins since he was about 6 wks. He goes down easily, straight to sleep with his dummy in his cot, so he's good that way but I'm desperate for him to go for fewer naps, plus he only sleeps about 2 hrs during the day which doesn't seem much and I can't help thinking that a long lunchtime nap will help him sleep better at night. I've tried to keep him up longer during the day but he has very obvious tired signs and I don't want him getting overtired.....any ideas?

DD didn't have a long lunchtime nap until she was 1, sorry. Before that she did 90 mins 9.30-11, 30 mins lunchtime and 30 mins at about 4, usually in the buggy. If memory serves, not many of the babies I knew at that time were having long lunchtime naps at 4.5 months.

The way to combat the 30/40 minute naps is, when he wakes up after 30 minutes, leave him for a bit. If he doesn't settle back to sleep, go in and rub his belly and shhhh him, and leave the room. Then go back after 5 minutes if he's still grizzling etc etc. and keep doing this.

It's unlikely he'll go back to sleep the first few days but eventually he'll get the message and will sleep for longer. Obviously, if he's totally hysterical, pick him up and comfort him. But normal cries try and see if he'll grizzle himself back to sleep.

You're right - babies do need more daytime sleep at this age and it's just a matter of getting him into the habit. All my DS's (I've had 3) started off doing the 30/40 minute naps and I did this with all of them to get them to take longer naps. And it worked with all of them! So good luck.

My DS was a total catnapper from birth only ever slept 30-40 minutes at a time. At 6 months he dropped to 2 naps (due to needing longer awake time) and the naps stretched out to an hour 15.
Now at almost 10m I often have to wake him after two hours!

I think catnapping is very normal at that age and nothing you can really do to fix it - it's just a developmental thing.

Agree with Mrsmugoo - it's a developmental thing. I tried everything to get mine to nap for more than 30 mins and nothing worked. At 7 months, pretty much overnight we started regularly seeing naps of 1-2 hours.

It's really hardwork if you've got a catnapper so you have my a sympathy. By all means try different stuff ansury may well find something that works for your DC. But try not best yourself up...it'll probably happen in time.

They tend to start by themselves eventually (though DD1 always went for late morning, not after lunch). The only way to really make them is a CC'ing type regime when they wake, which works for some but not others. Some people also find that, if you sit right by the baby, you can see them coming into a light sleep and pat/rub/shhh them over the edge into another period until they get into the habit.

You have my sympathy. It's exhausting. DS is 8 months and has just started to sleep longer, though like his biggest sister it tends to be in the morning.

I've had the same problem with DS (21 weeks tmrw) and also sleeping terribly at night. today we tried the 2-3-4 method for the first time. nap him 2 hours after he wakes up in the morning, 3 hours after he wakes from his morning nap, and bedtime 4 hours after waking from his afternoon nap. the end of the 3 and 4 hour stretches were grizzly, but he put in a 40 min am nap, a 1.5 hour midday nap and went down at 6:30. we've had to resettle him 2x, but neither of the resettles have taken more than 10 min and he's still down now at almost 10:30.

he's never napped more then 25 min in the crib before and has averaged 11-12 hours a day at best because his night sleep has been bad as well lately.

right now if he sleeps til midnight we'll have 14.5 hours of in crib sleep since midnight last night.

I hope to god we've found something that works for him.

My DD was about 1 before she started having a long afternoon nap too. Before that 30-40 min naps throughout the day. Just changed one day to 2 naps of 1.5 hours in morning and afternoon, nothing I did differently just developmental I guess.

Sorry! It does get easier