Short naps

[SS1987]

Any advice would be great.

My DD will absolutely not nap for any longer that 30-40 minutes. If I pick her up after 30 mins I can rock back to sleep but then I must sit with her in my arms to get a longer nap. I see lots of people say their 4 month old has a 2 hour nap over lunch time but I can’t see this ever being possible. She wakes up so tired and cranky.
Should I just continue with the short naps or should I be trying to extend them?
Also wakes up 40 minutes after putting to bed but is a bit easier to settle then. Sleep of a night isn’t the best, she’s wriggles and wakes up but I can settle by putting my hand on chest/face.

Completely biologically normal! Either they’ve got a unicorn baby or they’re exaggerating. My little girl at that age would only take 30 minute naps unless she was held then she would sleep for hours! I think around 6 months she started taking longer naps

@mamatinny thanks! Makes me feel a bit better. Can I just ask did your little girl start having longer naps or did you have to sleep train for this to happen as the internet has led me to believe?

Nope! Never sleep trained she just started doing it herself :)

Mines 7 months and still wakes after 30 minutes without fail. It drives me barmy. Rarely he will sleep for 45 minutes before waking. Like you, I rock/shush/whatever back into the next sleep cycle. If I leave him he just wakes up completely and is then grumpy and tired but not tired enough to go back to sleep. Boo! Hoping for any pro tips you may be offered. We have tried soothing into the next sleep cycle but it doesn't work, he wakes up fully unless in arms.

Mine would only sleep in my arms for naps, in which case he would sleep for a couple of hours. Otherwise less than 30 minutes. So I get some snacks next to me, the remote control and my phone and enjoy the peace 😁

At 10 months DD STILL has to be bounced and cuddled back to sleep after 30 minutes. Will only nap on me or her Dad. But self-settles at night in her cot and sleeps 13-14 hours straight!

Peach has she always been able to self-settle at night? Because mine's a horror overnight too. Waaaaah!

We trained her into it with patting and shushing - took quite a few weeks and only really "stuck" once she could replace her own dummy. It was so worth it though. We put her down wide awake, she chats to herself until she's tired then turns over and goes to sleep. Brilliant. But will she do it for naps? No way.

My just 6 month has 3x 30 minute naps as well as a long sleep at lunchtime (1.5/2 hrs) shes only just started having this long sleep

Thanks peach.

Mine 8 month old was like this for the last 3 months napping a max of 40 mins. The last week or so he has started napping 1-2 hours in the morning and then sometimes a short afternoon nap and sometimes another 1 - 2 hours. I did a sort of sleep training which got him sleeping better at night but this didn’t seem to immediately help as I did this a month ago. The other thing I did was put up a blackout blind in his bedroom - this did coincide with the increased nap length so maybe what did it or maybe coincidence! I bought a temperory one with suckers off amazon for £20 so could be worth a try if you think light is getting in.

Mine was the same from 2 months! And it used to take me an hour and half to settle her just for a 40 minute nap 😩 nightmare. I had to teach her to self settle and once I’d done this I then had to teach her to go BACK to sleep too as just self settling at the start of naps and bedtime wasn’t enough lol. She still wakes up after 30-40minutes but knows to get herself back to sleep now without me

My DD only ever napped for 15-45 minutes, until she was about 6 months, and even that was in my arms! Some people just get lucky I think!

6 months it got better and she would finally sleep on her own for about an hour at a time, 8/9 months it became 1 hour morning and 1 hour afternoon and now she's 15 months and sleeps 2 hours over lunchtime. they all get there in the end x

Redmamapapa how long is she awake in between naps? I'm still struggling for longer naps and nights are so so bad

Sorry *RedPandamama

It's definitely not luck. I put a lot of hard work into my 10 month old's routine and making sure he slept a good amount at lunch time.

I taught him to self settle, and then worked on a proper nap routine.

07:00 wake

09:30 - 09:50 morning nap

12:30-14:00 / 14:30 lunch nap

18:30 / 19:00 bedtime

Everyday the same apart from when we need to bend slightly

To add, I find it very annoying that all the threads on baby sleep have people saying those that have good sleepers must be lucky! That's just not the case. Babies need to be nudged into what's good for them!

@pizzapineapple sounds like the routine I'm trying with my lo but she can't link cycles at all. Completely overtired and nights are horrific. I agree about it being 'luck'. My friends have commented to follow babies lead but if it were up to my baby she wouldn't sleep at all!

@Sobiaf Can they self settle? Can't nap train before they can self settle

Is there any other issues that could be interrupting her sleep, like reflux etc?

My eldest never napped for longer than 30 minutes if I didn't hold him. He had silent reflux and once we got this under control at about 4-5 months he started napping longer.

It is trial and error about what works for your baby though and personally I didn't find people telling you everything you were doing wrong helpful! After nearly giving myself a nervous breakdown over my eldest not napping in the day, I just learned to work around him and got on with my life and everyone was much happier. He always slept well at night though, so I didn't really want to muck him up by making him sleep more in the day!!

@Fatted what were the symptoms of silent reflux?