Longer day time naps?!

[ToonLass]

My DD is 16 weeks and has finally started sleeping well during the night - getting up just once or twice for a bf between 7 and 7.

However, her day time naps are not so great, usually having 4-5 30 min kips.She seems constantly and tired and cranky and really struggles when tired - I usually feed or rock her to sleep although generally never goes to sleep without crying first.
The only way I can get her to sleep lol get is if I'm there bouncing/rocking her into the next sleep cycle which isn't always practical!!

Any tips?

I've tried putting her down 'sleepy but awake' but she just gets herself into such a state

Shorter naps are not all that unusual at the age.

If your DD can sleep through her sleep cycles at night then there is no physical reason why she couldn't do this during daytime naps if she needed to.

With my 20 week DD, I just re-insert her dummy upon first stirring to allow for a few comfort sucks and this encourages her back to sleep if she is still tired.

She won't take a dummy (have tried many different kinds!) so it's difficult to try get her to go back to sleep unless I'm there to bounce/Rock her into the next cycle. I'm be happy enough with her short naps if she wasn't so clearly still tired after them. She's worse than me when she's sleepy

DS2 is 14wks and has just started having 30min naps when he used to go longer. This is in the sling though, if I can ever get him to sleep in Moses he'll happily sleep 2/3 hrs so must be something about the sling. I can almost time him to the minute and PING his eyes open. He ends up having 3-5 naps a day this way.

DS1 used to sleep for 45mins naps until he was 7mo when he suddenly started sleeping 1.5hr twice a day and we dropped to 2 naps a day.

It may pass. It may be because she's in an overtired cycle? Can you spend a few days focussing on getting her to sleep through onto the next cycle? Maybe she'll then get over the hump and start to do it on her own.

I know of two friends whose babies wake after 30min during day. I think it's very common, could be a developmental thing and she'll grow out of it.

DS2 is 14 wks and a cat napper, driving me bonkers! DS1 was the same but didn't get too worked up when overtired, this baby cries when he's been awake for 90minutes and after his 30min naps yet wakes after 30mins unless he's in the sling. He gets completely overtired and then it becomes a downward spiral as it's harder to get him to sleep & to stay asleep even in the sling and he then takes ages to settle at night. So I feel your pain, what keeps me going is that I've been through it with ds1 and he did grow out of it and now has a lovely long nap every day. The sling is the only thing I've found worked with either boy, if you're able to rock her back to sleep I'd make a big effort to do that in the hope that she'll then get used to longer naps. I Think self-settling is overrated as a guarantee of them resettling, ds2 was self-settling and having long naps until 8wks and then suddenly started cat napping even when he's self-settled. Ds1 never self-settled for naps and would always be in the sling then one day at 9 months I put him in his cot just because I was so annoyed I needed a time out - he went to sleep without me in the room without a peep and slept for an hour, never had a nap in the sling after that day! So just keep saying 'this too shall pass'.

DD didn't nap longer than 30 mins in the day until she was 8 months old! Then she had half an hour in the morning and an hour and 15 mins after lunch. Now at 15 months she has one nap of an hour and a half. I tried everything. I even bought the dreaded Gina Ford book. Nothing worked.