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!

We had a very similar thing with our DC. I did everything to try and extend it, but nothing really worked. Eventually it sorted itself, but be warned it took until about 9 months so lots of short naps in the meantime. In the end I just learnt to live with short naps, and instead offered lots of short naps (probably 4 or 5 a day). So it sounds like you are doing the best thing by offering her another nap as soon as she seems tired, even if she has not been awake long.

It is so frustrating when they still seem tired on waking though, so I totally understand your concern. I felt like she was constantly slightly grumpy in the afternoons from not getting a long enough sleep even though she had so many short naps. But it did sort itself out eventually, so I guess you might just have to be patient.

But please don't feel like you are doing anything wrong - the first few months of motherhood are full of worries about things like this and it is completely natural to want to find ways to fix things! I spent so long feeling everything was wrong, no matter which way I tried to do it! I am sure you are doing the best you can though.

Thank you for your reply, it helps alot. Yes, my baby is perfectly happy in the mornings and lunchtime but from 2pm onwards she edge's on the grumpy side and is very hard to settle for her nap. We are very lucky if I can get her to sleep at all after 4pm and she needs a short sleep to get her through to bedtime. This often ends up with her bedtime being brought forwards by an hour earlier than I would ideally like.

Patience isn't one of my strong points but I have found enormous amounts of it since giving birth

My little girl is 11 weeks today and has been in her own room and her own cot overnight since she was 9 weeks old. She sleeps about 10hrs straight each night and we are also very lucky.
We too have baby monitor (camera + 2 way communication) and I just wanted to let you know that you're not the only mum who has decided to put your little on in their own room early.
The SIDS guidance is true, however, babies 'forgetting to breathe' isn't as the brain physically doesn't allow the body to 'forget to breathe'. Brain kicks in and makes the breathing happen.
Just didn't want you to feel like you're being shamed for anything - to each their own and we all know what's best and most appropriate for our babies xx

Thank you, it means alot to know I'm not the only one who has put baby in their own room. She is still in with us at night time but the daytime sleeps she is going in her own room and big cot. Your little one is doing very well too x

It might be worth persevering with the wrap - there are useful YouTube tutorials. You'll be getting it on in seconds with a bit of practise! My baby never napped longer and deeper than when she was in the wrap.

The SIDS guidance is true, however, babies 'forgetting to breathe' isn't as the brain physically doesn't allow the body to 'forget to breathe'. Brain kicks in and makes the breathing happen.

Please explain sleep apnoea then.

I will dig out the wrap and see if I can get it on. The other thing that puts me off wearing baby is she is heavy, she's 10weeks old, weighs 13lb and is incredibly long. I am only 5ft myself and she's almost as tall as me!!

Yes, as PP said, look at YouTube for videos on how to put on the wrap. And check the safety guidance for all slings. Basically, you should be able to see the baby's face to check their airway is clear and you should be able to kids the top of their head. Obviously when bending in any way, be extra careful to make sure baby is secure. A Google search should find proper safety guidance easily as I'm sure I've missed out a few.

My baby is over 14lbs and also quite long. As the wrap spreads the weight evenly, I don't notice how heavy she is at all. I love my sling, I love the closeness and my ability to use two hands!!

I’ve had two 30 min catnappers and came to the conclusion that there’s not much you can do. I just concentrated on getting them to sleep the easiest way possible (you’re lucky your baby will self settle) and in making sure they had lots of naps. So both of mine were having 5 to 6 x 30 min naps a day.

By all means try to get her back to sleep for a few minutes. Perhaps if you go in and wait before she’s due to wake up you might be able to resettle her as soon as she starts to rouse.

From what I read 30 min naps are developmentally normal for many small babies. DD1 suddenly started sleeping longer at 8 months without me doing anything differently. DD2 also started sleeping longer around that time but I had to resettle her into a second sleep cycle.

With regard to the SIDS guidelines, I understand the reasoning that babies’ sleep is regulated by their hearing adults breathing. But surely not every parent stays near enough to their baby during daytime naps for that to work? Most parents I know use precious nap time to race around tidying up or grabbing something to eat or drink or go to the bathroom. It’s also a difficult rule to apply for subsequent children. DD2 had to nap in our bedroom to stop DD1 waking her up. I had a 21 month gap and DD2 never would have slept if I’d kept her in the same room as me and her sister.