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long sleep in morning or lunchtime?

4 replies

Tumtitum · 27/05/2016 11:45

Hello, posted quite a few times about my DD's sleep so apologies if you are getting sick of me!! :) we have been trying to get into a vague routine and now she is getting good at napping in her cot or in the sling if we are out and about. She generally wakes after. 30-45 mins and sometimes I can resettle her but most of the time I can't! I often put her in the sling and go out to get a longer nap if she seems to really need it. I aim for a nap in the morning, lunchtime and afternoon. If she has only had tiny naps I try to stick in a 4th a couple of hours before bedtime (6.30 bath, asleep by 7.30 generally...) Night sleep is variable but she is generally easy to settle and wakes for the day between 6.30&7.30.
My question is... I am trying to lengthen her naps but which should I focus on? It seems easiest for her first nap of the day, which she seemed to used to need about an hour after getting up but I'm trying to stretch this to 1.5/2 hours to see if that lengthens things naturally... But should I really be trying to get a long lunchtime nap? Selfishly this sees me tied to the house for most of the day as there's not enough time to go out and back in the morning or the afternoon.
I know lots of people have advised me to read my baby and see what she thinks she needs. The problem is she thinks she doesn't need any sleep at all, so I have to force sleep upon her so I may as well now when to force a long sleep iyswim!! :) thanks in advance for any replies!

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Are your children’s vaccines up to date?
mrsmugoo · 27/05/2016 11:57

In my experience, naps lengthen by themselves as you drop them, I.e they naturally just consolidate their sleep into larger chunks.

I had a serious catnapper until 6 months when we dropped to two naps and they magically just extended to an hour and a quarter each. I did nothing different.

If you're still taking 4 naps in the day then shorter sleeps of 45 mins would be completely normal. Try not to overthink it.

idontlikealdi · 27/05/2016 12:17

How old is she?

Tumtitum · 27/05/2016 12:32

15 weeks. 45 mins is a good nap ;) 30 mins is the usual!

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FifiFerusha · 27/05/2016 13:47

Agree with Muggo. My DS always took short naps up until the age of about 8 months. I went over my head worrying about and trying methods to extend them but actually it really really really is true that they nap longer when the time is ready. Mine will nap an hour to an hour and a half now. Since he started crawling really. At 15 weeks. I would go with it and not worry too much about which nap should be longer etc...until they reach probably the same age as my DS( ha, 10 months just)

Seriously. I am only saying this because not long ago, I was just like you. Trust me, trust me x x

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