Short naps

[user1497002026]

Hello

I have a 13 week old baby daughter. Since as long as I remember she has always been terrible with day naps.She always had to be held to begin with. Doesn't imediatley fall asleep in car seat or buggy (will after a while and if very tired). Has never fallen asleep in swing or bouncy chair! she used to get so overtired and scream alot. When we worked this out we started getting her to nap in her cot and she will now self settle in there if she's put down at the right time. However she always wakes after 30-40 mins no matter what wherever she sleeps. If it is in my arms she will tend to resettle herself. I've spent hours in her nursery trying to resettle her with some sucesss but these last two weeks I've given up a bit and just tried to accept the short naps. However she now seems to be reverting to being really overtired again. Should I be trying to resettle or should I just roll with a short naps and accept they will get better with age? There seems to be varying opinions?

20-45 minutes is the length of one natural sleep cycle for baby. It is totally normal that baby will only sleep 1 cycle of left to it.

The key is simply to accept this and reduce awake time between naps accordingly. A reasonable approximation would be 30m nap and 1h awake time repeated throughout the day.

Trying to resettle is a good idea, sometimes it may work and she'll stay asleep into another sleep cycle. But don't get bogged down by it. As baby first stairs, give a few minutes over to resettling and if not happening just accept the short nap and shorten awake time.