Extending Day Time Naps past 35/40 minutes

[curlywurlylover666]

Hi everyone,

I am posting in the hope that I might be able to pick up some tips. I am a first time mum with a beautiful baby girl who is 10 weeks old and being FF.

Baby sleeps well at night - goes to bed between 6.30pm/7.30pm, is fed at 11.15ish and for the last week has slept through until 6.30/7.00am. She is doing amazingly well.

At night she sleeps in our room in a tutti bambini thing and has a sleephead and my hummy bear for the white noise.

In the last 3-4 weeks she has learnt to self settle - she found her hands and is able to settle herself to sleep mostly. She is put down in her cot drowsy but awake and relaxed and usually is able to nod off herself. She is great and I realise that we are very lucky.

Her daytime naps are not quite so good - as she can't seem to sleep much longer than 35/40 minutes each nap. Sometimes she wakes up happy, other times she is crying but can't get back to sleep and my attempts to resettle her don't help.

During the day, I try to observe her tired cues and put her up to her cot before she gets too tired. She lies in her cot, usually eating her hands and is quite happy. She eventually settles herself and falls asleep - it can take anything from 5 - 25 minutes but then she wakes up after 35/40 minutes. Her daytime sleep environment is replicated - ie she has the same sleepyhead and hummy bear but she is in her own room - I had the same issue when she was in our room.

Based on her night time sleep and ability to sleep at bedtime I know she can resettle herself at night when she wakes up and inbetween the sleep cycles but she doesn't appear to be able to do this during the day and wakes after such a short space of time.

She is then tired again quite quickly and back in her cot - it seems like she spends all of her time upstairs, on her own - getting herself to sleep, sleeping for 35/40 minutes before the cycle starts again. She can lie there for ages trying to get herself to sleep and I feel bad she is up there on her own. However if I keep her downstairs she gets more tired, cries and gets miserable.

Can anyone help me try to extend babies day time naps a bit more than 35/40 minutes so she gets more rested sleep periods?

Any help would be gratefull received, thank you in advance and sorry for the long post!

Daytime sleep isn’t the same as night time sleep. She’s also still in her fourth trimester so too early to be doing anything but go with the flow.

I feel bad she is up there on her own.

SIDS guidance is that she should not be sleeping in a room on her own.

Can she not nap in a pram where you can rock her gently back to sleep when she stirs? It can be very limiting if your baby will only sleep at home in their cot. I’d be aiming for maximum flexibility.

Or a bouncy chair. Or a sling.

Thank you for your reply. I am aware of the guidance regarding SIDS but I have the video monitor on and I am around to check on her - I am happy with my decision to put her in her own room during the day time.

We have the same issue if she is in the pram or car seat. We can be out walking and she will always wake up within 35/40 minutes. Sometime she will go back to sleep other times she won't. I don't mind her waking if she wakes and she is happy but often she is still tired and wakes crying and upset, clearly still needing to sleep. I do try and let her guide me the best I can and whilst I do go out and about, but I do like to try and make sure she has at least 1 daytime nap at home.

I have the video monitor on and I am around to check on her

I knew you’d say that. The recommendation is for her benefit - babies can forget to breathe whilst sleeping. If there’s an adult there it will remind them to breathe. You can’t replace that with a camera. The

She’ll also be tearing up the rule book when her 4 month sleep regression starts, so I’d just go with the flow for now.

How does a person being present remind a baby to breathe - how does this work please? Believe me I don't take decisions about the baby lightly and I am happy to learn.

How does a person being present remind a baby to breathe - how does this work please?

Their subconscious hears/feels the breathing. Have you never noticed that if you sit with your baby on your chest or shoulder and relax your breathing theirs slows as well?

I don’t have any tips but this situation sounds so similar to my DS so following for any advice! He is nowhere near as good at nighttime sleep as your LO (wakes 3-4 times a night), doesn’t self settle when he goes down and is BF, but in terms of being able to resettle himself at night when he stirs, and having short naps in the day. I would say that kind of sleep began at 10 weeks and at 16 he’s still doing it. Occasionally he’ll have a longer nap but it’s rare and being in the car or buggy doesn’t get him back off so I’ve just given up. I figure that I’m just going to go with it for now. He’s naturally extended his daytime awake time recently regardless of the short naps so your LO might gradually get better at being less grumpy. DS has pretty much had it by the end of the day though. Proper grumpster!

In terms of leaving baby in their own room - I’ve been doing it from 10 weeks as well. We have the monitor with the alarm under the mattress for reassurance. There will always be people who disagree and I’m sure you’re aware of guidelines but it’s of course your decision to do this.

Their subconscious hears/feels the breathing.

That’s so interesting! Do they have to be like, on you or next to you for this to happen? What’s the proximity required? For example if you had an open plan downstairs area and baby was asleep in the living room at one end of downstairs and you were in the kitchen at the other end?

At 10 weeks your baby should biologically still be inside you. Playing fast and low with their well-being and using gadgets instead of scientific knowledge seems odd to me, but I guess those companies don’t make billions any other way.

Lots of families put their babies to sleep in their own rooms/ on their own. It is your choice but pp is correct about the optimum SIDS advice being that the child should be in a room with people/ parent until about six months. The only real point of a monitor is if eg you have a large house or are down the garden or something and your baby cries you will be able to heat them. If following guidelines( and I'm not saying I did or am judging in any way) you would not be requiring the monitor until the baby was sleeping alone ie over 6 months old.We bought a monitor but have n bet lived anywhere large enough or sound proof enough that a crying baby wouldn't be heard although it did come in handy sometimes when staying away from home.

Our LO was a great night sleeper but also never napped more than 45mins. Then he hit the four month sleep "regression" and his naps just started to extend by themselves. He wasn't really self settling at the time, so I don't think he was doing that for naps. I think he just started sleeping longer 🤷‍♀️

You may find this change also happens for you after the 4 month change kicks in.

My baby sleeps best during the day when in a sling. I'm able to soothe her back to sleep if / when she starts to become unsettled. I aim for one 'long' nap a day, in fact she's currently asleep in the sling right now!

She's almost 4 months and so far she's slept so well both for naps and at night. I'm dreading the regression!!

Thank you for the information about SIDS but back to the point of the post.

It's interesting to know that the naps may start to entend naturally and I wasn't aware of the 4 month sleep regression so that's something new. What happens here then? Does all sleeping patterns go out the window and gets reset or something??

I will try putting the baby in her bouncer and seeing if she will sleep in this and if I can rock her back to sleep. I do have a wrap carrier which was bought for me but you need a degree to work out how to put the thing on, so I must admit I haven't used it.

I did read elsewhere that someone used to go into the baby before they knew it was going to wake and try shushing the baby before it wakes to try and extend the nap time.

Does all sleeping patterns go out the window and gets reset or something?

Yes.

I did read elsewhere that someone used to go into the baby before they knew it was going to wake and try shushing the baby before it wakes to try and extend the nap time.

That’s called wake to sleep. Don’t think it works with very young babies. It’s more than shushing. Idea is you nudge them just enough to bring them out of deep sleep so when they go back into deep sleep they do another cycle. I don’t know anybody it’s worked for.

Crikey, I was feeling quite proud that our night time sleeping was going well. I didn't realise it was all set to change at 4 months!

So it seems going in to shush her before or as she is trying to stir is not a good idea either.

So basically I am stuck with a 35 minute nap most of the time.

Most baby sleep problems are caused by unrealistic parental expectations. ;)

Babies grow and develop faster in their first year than at any other time in their lives. It affects them, as it would you.

Wake to sleep did work for me but I didn't try until around 8 months. As pp said, long naps aren't really to be expected when their tiny as they need to be feeding little and often

So, I just wrote a huge post and then accidentally clicked on a bloody advert at the bottom of the page and lost it. Hurray! Just thought I’d get that off my chest.

Anyway, there are lots of articles about the 4 month sleep regression out there that explain how babies transition to adult like sleep patterns after this point. Some parents say they noticed little disruption during this regression, others say it was horrific. I guess it’s one of those, “all babies are different” situations. I’m just hoping we get some longer naps and less frequent night wakings afterwards.

As TittyGolightly says, I’m trying not to get too bogged down with nap expectations. I know that’s easier said than done!

I don't know if I'm feeling a little sensitive but I feel a bit defensive as though I'm doing something wrong and shouldn't be looking for ways to help baby sleep a bit longer in the day so she can get the rest she appears to need. I'm sorry if I have got the wrong end of stick like i say I might just be being too sensitive.

My expectations of the 1st 3 months were written off to be honest. I had none but I have been pleasantly surprised so far as to how my baby has slept and developed. It seems I will just have to embrace the naps she has and hope they naturally extend when they need to.

Don’t feel like you’re doing anything wrong at all OP! You’re doing what is best for your baby. At first, I started googling like mad trying to find out how to extend DS’s naps but I realised fairly quickly that’d I’d stressed about so many things in the past (feeding to sleep, frequent night wakings etc) that all ended up fixing themselves in time without me doing anything at all. So I decided that I’d try to relax and go with the flow in the hope that in time, DS would naturally extend his naps. It just makes for a happier me and hopefully a happier baby. That’s not saying that you shouldn’t try things to extend her naps if that’s what you feel is the best approach for you and your baby - you know her best and not all babies are the same. Always follow your gut

Thank you for your message, its very hard and especially being a first time mum with no experience of babies, there feels like a bit of pressure to get it right and do the right thing! I must admit that I like a routine but I'm realising babies don't have a routine. I am trying to relax a bit, but finding it a little difficult to just go with the flow as I'm not sure what the flow should be!

I think you sound great. Your baby is definitely more settled than most and will get there. Time takes care of most developmental stages; try not to worry or to preempt everything. You will know your little DC better with every day that passes and it will all get easier.

Thank you for the encouragement, it means alot.