How do I get my baby to nap for longer in her cot?

[Cathster]

The last few days I've had some success with getting my 6 mo to nap in her cot. She goes down fairly easily with white noise, dummy and gentle forehead stroking.

However every time without fail she wakes crying after 20 minutes. Sometimes dummy will send her off again but mostly she will then only settle if I pick her up and rock her back to sleep, defies the purpose of getting her napping in her cot really!

Tried just dummy and soothing her while she's still in cot but she just gets more and more wound up until she's hysterical.

Any advice would be really appreciated! Now I've had a glimpse of life with her napping in her cot I would love to not have to regress back to our old ways after 20 minutes of peace - or am I expecting too much of her?

I just logged on to basically ask the same questio. DD is 7.5 months and has been taking 20-40 minute naps since about 6 months. I put her down in her cot as I always have but she usually screams if I leave and I have to really get her settled and sleeping before I go.
I have 2 other kids, all 3 are under 4 and I honestly feel like crying every day when she does this - it's driving me insane. I don't think I had this issue for this long with the others.

Do you think separation anxiety is an issue with yours Cathster?

Any advice on how to get ds to nap in the cot at all? Never happened yet at 8.5months....

I don't think separation anxiety has hit yet Stella. She sleeps really poorly at night too, I know she must have bad sleep associations but can't quite figure out what they are yet - possibly dummy.

Nottalotta, once DD starts to whinge after she's been awake a while (she's lasting about 2.5/3 hours awake) I put her down in her cot, in her gro bag, curtains drawn, white noise and dummy. She whinges for a while and I have to stand over her and stroke her head and keep putting the dummy in, but eventually after about 5 minutes she does go off.

She's just slept for 30 minutes in her cot which is 10 minutes progress...,, be interesting to see if anyone has any tips on extending this?

My DD (coming up to 5 mo) is the same- 20-30 min naps all the time whether in her cot or in the pram walking (on me or in the sling she wakes around the same time but goes back to sleep again quickly). I have, very occasionally, been able to extend it and I've found once she gets past about 40 mins it turns into a nap of about 1 hour 40 mins. But extending very rarely happens! The last time it happened I was with her around the 20 min mark and I had my hand on her head and my husband and I were talking softly to each other in the same room. I have no idea if this is what helped but we have tried to replicate it since without any luck. They just don't get rejuvenated with 20-30 min naps do they! Become tired again very quickly and the saga of trying to get them to nap starts all over again!

Black out blind.

White noise/background music worked here. My dd was a horrible napper so sympathies

My 7 month old Dd is the same. Spend ages trying to get her to nap and she sleeps for twenty minutes. I think a baby's sleep cycle is 20 minutes. She won't go back off though. She used to sleep for hours each nap.