30-45 mins day naps

[londonsquirrel]

DS is 6 months old and he only naps for 30-45 mins during the day. He is more or less okay at night. I know such babies exist and I wanted to ask you for a piece of mumsnet wisdom.

DS has been napping like this since at least 3mo. He is napping 3-4 times a day with 2hrs of active time in between, now it is often 30 min naps rather than 45. He used to do 45 mins before, but not so much now. I read about cycle blending and tried to lengthen the naps, but he went from 45 mins to 30 mins instead. So I decided to let it be like that.

I have read that these babies still end up with one long mid-day nap at about 1yo. Do they drop naps like other babies do? Or they somehow shorten the active time? Anyone remembers how it happens?
I am raising this question because there is something strange happening with the bed-time routine: he just has another 30 mins nap and then goes on for about two hours and it drives me crazy leaving us without any grown-up time.

Mine was exactly like this. At around 6 months he was happy enough being awake for 3 hours so he only napped twice a day - maybe related, maybe not - but it was at this time he started sleeping an hour and a quarter twice a day instead of 3 short catnaps.

Once he started crawling and got mobile the naps lengthened even more and now at almost 13 months he is sleeping 12:30-2:30.

My DD (also 6 months) transitioned from short, frequent naps like your son is doing now, to longer and less frequent naps at 5 months. The age is irrelevant, you asked about the process ready for when your son transitions.

My DD used to have about 45 minutes sleep in every 2 hours. Then quite suddenly she started sleeping for much longer in her first nap of the day - say 90 minutes. This meant she was less tired when she woke and so cope with longer awake time. Then again she was more tired than usual when she went to sleep, so again slept for longer.

I used to do 2 hourly EASY (Eat 15m - Awake 60m - Sleep 45m - You). During the transition she would - feed - 2h awake awake - feed - 2h asleep- sleep - feed - 2h awake - feed - 2h sleep, and so on. So feeding order changed too.

Now she has settled to two 2 hour naps a day at 9.30am and 1.00pm, then a 30-45 minute powernap around 5.30pm.

In time I expect that the morning nap will get later and later, drop the late afternoon powernap, then the morning nap will get so late that the afternoon nap is brought forward (to about 11am ish) and merge with the morning nap to make one lunchtime nap. That will all gradually happen over the next 6 months ish.

Mrsmugoo, Fate, thanks for your answers.
Did you do anything about the time your DC were awake? Ie try to make it 3 hrs instead of two? Or they just started to nap for longer, but the time they were awake remained the same.
Also, a question about routine: DS does not always wake up at the same time it is sometimes 7 and sometimes it its 8. The time he is awake is not always exactly 2 hrs it might be 1,5 hrs in the morning and sometimes it is 2,5 hrs. Most of the time it is 2hrs, but experiences during the day definitely affect him. All of these differences end up into irregular bed time. How do you deal with it? He is best going to sleep at 8pm. But if he woke up from his last nap at 5pm it's risky to wait until 8pm -- he is going to be overtired and cranky. Any experience with this sort of problem?

Mine did this, have you tried going in just before they're due to wake up (mine was always a 45 min sleep cycle) and giving a gentle nudge? I read on some forum that this wakes them enough that they settle into another sleep cycle. Worked for me!

Puppy123, I tried to blend the cycles, but he ended up sleeping for 30 mins instead of 45, which he did before. He doesn't fall back to sleep after 45 mins neither at home not in a pram. I decided it's not too bad it's predictable :)

Mine was like this. By 1 he was doing 2 one hour-ish naps a day then by 18 months one two hour nap. He's always been rubbish at night though. These days he occasionally sleeps 11h at night but usually 9/10 -needs less sleep than his peers!

Did you do anything about the time your DC were awake? Ie try to make it 3 hrs instead of two? Or they just started to nap for longer, but the time they were awake remained the same.

When the transition to longer naps happened, it was just a case of my DD starting to sleep longer for her naps. The awake time stayed the same.