Turning catnaps into real naps

[Loops81]

Does anyone have any good tips for stretching out naps? My 7 week-old has started napping for only half an hour at a time (whether she's in the buggy, in my lap, bouncer, cot, whatever) and it's driving me crazy. She then gets tired again after an hour awake. She sleeps pretty well at night (can do a 5-6 hour stretch) so I thought she might nap for longer if I put her in her cot, closed curtains etc - but no such luck. The sling is the only exception but that's not always practical. She's not waking ravenously hungry or anything. I'm sure it's just a phase but I'd like to encourage longer sleeps.

Continual movement is good for extending naps. I used to foot bounce the bouncy chair.

In the mean time, 30-44 minutes awake time between naps. Don't worry, there's nothing wrong in this happening, it's a developmental phase. Do try to extend naps but dont don't fret if you can't, just keep naps very frequent to avoid over tiredness.

I was never able to extend naps - my little one is 9 month old and rarely naps longer than 30 mins, I think some of them are just like that! As above, keep trying but don’t worry if you don’t manage it.

My ds is 4 months now and was like this at 7 weeks.. he had atleast 4 naps a day and it drove me mad. I've persisted in shush patting to get some naps in cot. At around 14 weeks I started trying to pat him back to sleep on the 2nd nap of the day. I can get him back for a bit but it's generally a light sleep. But for the last 2 weeks I have found a technique which has extended the middle day nap to atleast 2 hours. At around 11.45, I pat him to sleep, and when he wakes at 30 min, I pat him back to a light sleep which lasts for about 20 minutes and then when he starts to wake again I strategically get my boob into his mouth (he is in the snuzpod next to my bed) and feed him into a deeper sleep. It involves uncomfortable positioning (for me!) and staying with him for about 30 minutes during the middle of the nap, but i have managed to sneak away after feeding him. I'm a bit worried that he will now always expect a feed mid nap and I'll be buggered when he moves into the cot so it's probably a bad habit, but I don't care as he is now so much happier in the afternoon!

Mine were like this. If all else fails the naps start to lengthen naturally around 6 to 8 month mark. Probably not what you want to hear though!

It's developmental for many babies and there is not much you can do. By all means try and get the baby back to sleep but don't drive yourself crazy if it doesn't work. Just keep naps regular.

Both of mine slept for precisely 30 min and were having 5-6 naps a day. The first started doing longer stretches by herself at 8 months, and the other around 7 months with a lot of help and then on her own by 10 months.

Apparently they start to increase naps from 6 months but as you'll see from the above every baby is different!