30 Minute Naps

[Sleepless1nScotland]

Just a quick one.

Is the general consensus that longer naps are developmental and a baby will lengthen them naturally as they are able to?

Currently being absolutely tortured by 30 min naps with my 6 month old. He won’t sleep for longer even if he’s in the pram, car, wherever. He can manage an awake time of 2-2.5 hours and we have a good routine (shortened version of bed time) before he goes down. Up till recently I was going into his room on wake up to rock him back to sleep in the hopes this would help him lengthen them himself but after trying this for 3 weeks it made no difference and it was just soul destroying.

Basically, shall I just relax, let him nap wherever and hope that he starts sorting him out themselves or is it worth persevering?

I stressed over this for weeks and weeks and tried what I could to make my little girl nap longer. Eventually just accepted that’s how it was and life got much easier and less stressful. The longer naps will come, think ours was around 9 or 10 months!

Yes my boy was always a cat napper, 30 minutes max no matter where he was, even his cot. I just made sure he had one every couple of hours so that he was getting up to 2 hours of sleep in the day which is ok for that age. It changed at about 8 months and he started napping for longer in his cot, about an hour each nap, sometimes 1.5 hours. Still only has 30 minutes when we’re out and about. He has two naps a day now, at 9 months, and sometimes 3 if he’s catnapped if we’ve been out. He gets about 2-2.5 hours sleep a day which is about right. I honestly wouldn’t worry if he seems happy and sleeps alright at night.

Thanks so much both. This is what I was hoping to hear! I can’t face the battle and tormenting myself with it anymore.

Night sleep was moving in the right direction till teething and colds and what seems like separation anxiety hit just after Christmas. I’m hoping we’ll see an improvement there soon.

I’ll try to stress about it less and enjoy him more! Thank you 😊

I could have written this. My DS is 6 months next week and won’t go longer than 30 mins. Only time he sometimes will is if I pick him up and put him straight on boob which I sometimes do if he’s not slept enough during the day

@Giraffe888 Annoying isn’t it?! I find myself doing that too but even then it won’t necessarily work for us. I have to go back to work in about 6 weeks and I thought I would have managed to get him into a decent routine by now. I guess I’m now just feeling a bit like I’ve failed and getting desperate for him to Just. Bloody. Sleep. —so that I can also get some rest.—

I’ve got a few friends the same age as my DS and their babies are the same so I think it’s really common. DS is in a routine of sleep after every 2 hours awake, feed every 2 hours and bedtime of 7pm.

I sometimes feel like it’s my fault but DS is so happy, content and pleasant that I can’t complain. Maybe 30 min naps is all he needs for now

My DS was like this when he was younger. He’s 21 months now and naps for 2 hours+ at a time. As a pp said, I stopped stressing about it and eventually things settled and he started stretching the naps. I can’t remember how old he was though. Night times are and always have been something completely different. If only he could manage more than 2 hours then!

My daughter was exactly the same from birth 20-30 minutes, no longer. She knocked them on the head completely at about 14 months and now won't nap at all, she's 2 next month. Just how some kids are! I spoke to a sleep consultant about it and some children can only manage that long through the day because apparebtly 30 mins is when a cat nap turns into a deep sleep, they either wake or keep sleeping... I think it's normal!

She's meeting and exceeding all her milestones so I don't think it's done any lasting damage!

Ok cool, this is very reassuring! I’ll just keep offering at least a couple of naps a day in his cot and get on with living our life otherwise 😂

@Giraffe888 I’m following the same sleep routine, but I definitely can’t get my lo to take a feed every two hours. He’s more like every 4 and even then he’s sometimes not that hungry. I keep wondering if he’s sleep better if I could get more into him but I think it’s time to give up stressing about it.

@emvy, I’m with you re night time sleep. You’re a hero for still managing to function 21 months in!

Is he breastfed or formula?

He’s EBF. Eating two meals of solids a day too.

My DS is EBF too, he has milk every 2 hours (has done for about 3 months) but only feeds for about 5 mins. He’s not having much solids yet, keep trying him but he’s had cold and then bronchiolitis so he’s not that bothered at the minute

Definitely try not to stress too much - about any of it! It makes things so much easier. 21 months of no more than 2 hours of sleep at a time has been exhausting but we’ve done whatever we’ve needed to do to maximise sleep and just followed DS’s lead. I’m definitely less tired now than I used to be so either you get used to it, or the length of wake ups decreases or something! I stopped counting wake ups a long time ago as well and that also helped. I hope your LO starts stretching naps soon!

I can’t thank you all enough for your advice. For the past three days (I know. Not long) I’ve stopped stressing about awake windows, nap lengths, where he takes a nap etc etc and I accidentally had him awake for three hours yesterday. After that he went down in his cot no bother and slept for 2 hours! Today we went to a class that I’d usually have missed out on because of nap time and I brought him home after three hours awake, popped him into his cot and he’s been sleeping for an hour now. That plus the fact that I got to spend some time chatting to some other mums has made me feel SO much better.

Obviously twice doesn’t mean much but it’s very nice to be sitting on my sofa for longer than ten minutes! Feels like getting a proper lunch hour at work

@emvy, we have a similar situation in the nights and I think that sometimes I’m actually still asleep during the night feeds, so that’s probably how we’re still functioning.

Oh that’s so amazing!! Hooray!! I’m so happy for you. I do think sometimes just letting go of the “shoulds” and just following your LO’s lead, you find maybe your child just doesn’t follow the typical pattern. I hope it continues for you!

My son had problems with neurology. Now everything is already normal, but at the age of 1 month, we did not know what sleep was until the doctors helped us. And while we were being treated, there were also problems with sleep. My girlfriend’s son is almost 2 years old and they are tormented, he, too, is often awake and sleeps for 30 minutes. If you were with a neurologist and everything is fine with you, then this is the specificity of your child’s body. Grows up and everything stabilizes.

I thought I’d pop back and update this in case anyone ever comes across it and wants some (potentially not useful) advice.

I started lengthening my son’s awake times from c. 2 hours to more like 3 and he instantly and reliably started taking 1.5-2 hour naps in the afternoon. We now work on a 2.5-3-4 sleep schedule and it seems to really be working for us. Sometimes he’ll take a quick ten mins in the late afternoon but usually he wakes around 7am, takes a 45-60min nap at 9, then goes down at 1ish for 1.5 to 2 hours then bed at 4 hours after he wakes up from his last nap.

Up till 6 months he desperately needed to be asleep about 1.5 hours of awake time but things very quickly changed and I think I just hadn’t realised.

@Sleepless1nscotland how old was he when this changed? My DS is almost 6.5 months. Even if he has a longer awake spell he’ll still only sleep for 30 mins

Hi Giraffe, he was more or less exactly 6.5 months. For us it was absolutely an awake time thing, possibly combined with me tiring him out at baby classes etc. I do find that if we’ve just had a morning in the house he won’t sleep as long for his afternoon nap. I hope you see an improvement soon! Those 30 min naps are torture.