20-30 minute naps

[Bojangles33]

My DS is 12 weeks old and last week went from happily napping for 1.5-2 hours to never napping longer than 20-30 minutes at a time. I'm losing the will to live! If he was waking up happy then I think I could accept that but he just gets more over tired and grumpy throughout the day and it's hard to get feeds in him then because he falls asleep before he's finished.

At night he will have a bottle then go into crib awake and settle himself to sleep. He will sleep until about 4am, wake for a feed and go back down until 7 (I have experimented with starting a dream feed but seems to wake around 6 and feeding then interferes with "morning" feed).

For naps I am putting him in his crib and will generally settle himself quickly for first nap of the day but wakes after 20-30 minutes and it's downhill from there then. I've tried putting him down ~45 mins after waking up to ~1.5 hours after waking and nothing makes a difference. Is this just a phase? Can I do anything? I feel like he isn't getting much quality awake time because he's just tired and grumpy. When he is awake I'm scared of doing too much with him making him over tired but then he struggles to go back to sleep so I end up just leaving him lying in his crib and I feel bad for that as well!

Any advice on whether this too will just pass or if there is something else I should be doing?!

This is totally normal.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/sarahockwell-smith.com/2017/11/01/in-defence-of-cat-naps/amp/

Thanks for the link. He does seem tired and unsettled though so I'm not convinced they're that restorative.

Have you tried holding him for naps instead of putting him down? At 12 weeks mine would sleep much longer on my chest snuggled up.

Yeah I tried cosleeping or just holding him for one of his naps, figured if he could get one good one in he'd be better but still the same. I suspect this may be one of those things I just have to embrace until it passes... if he's giving up naps I'm giving up housework though!

Your baby's night time routine sounds blissful and the self settling for naps is also amazing. Celebrate this!

We had the same. Our DD was doing naps of 2-3 hours and then bam at 13 weeks she decided it was only cat naps of 30 minutes. It's part of the four month sleep regression, and can last weeks to months. We are 17 weeks and still going... it's also made her night time sleeping dreadful, but that's another story...

Same happened to me at 12 weeks. Wonderful long naps to short ones! I held him for some and bit a bit of rocking when he stirred to send him back to sleep. Eventually I ended up patting him in his crib when he woke and slowly over time he did extend his naps . Sometimes it didn’t work but sometimes it did. It took a while but eventuallt he was doing 2.5 hour naps in afternoon!
We have however now hit the 10 month regression and he’s back to 30-1hr naps after doing them well for months and months!!!