Any advice on elongating midday naps?

[Bleepers]

Just that really. My 6 month old is a fairly good sleeper, can self settle and wakes once or twice a night sleeping from 7-7. Her naps are fine in that she goes down for them and generally does 45 mins or so. However she does not seem to want to do a longer lunchtime nap (and often wakes after 35 mins). She wakes up grouchy and still tired.

Any tips on how to elongate the nap to a double sleep cycle?

Thank you x

Does she eat before she sleeps?

Yes. Solids and a breastfeed before her midday nap.

Yes. Solids and a breastfeed before her midday nap.

Is the room dark enough? If not maybe use a blackout blind. And check it's not too warm or cold in the room either

Could try moving the whole thing forward by 15 mins maybe she's overtired? Or failing that back by 15 mins, maybe she isn't tired enough?

What happens when she wakes after 35mins? Do you give her time to see if she'll resettle. Or try and shush and pat her back to sleep?

Thanks everyone.

I think the room is the right temperature. The room isn't super dark (we're locking down with my parents) it isn't too light I dont think but I might investigate that. She will often do double cycles in her first nap (but we've started waking her after 45 mins).

When she wakes, I tend to leave her for a bit and then go and comfort her but today we tried for 45 mins with no luck 🤦‍♀️

Probably not what you want to hear but for us it was just time. Suddenly started sleeping for 1.5 to 2 hours after lunch once he got to 7/7.5 months. I think it was just a developmental thing, I didn't do anything to lengthen them. And he was an awful cat napper prior to this - generally only got half hour naps at any time during the day!

I do limit his morning nap to half an hour now as I've found that if he has longer then he won't nap for a good stretch later on.

It just happened by itself at around 8 months for me too.

How many naps does she have on top off the 12hr nights? For me, by that age it was only two 45min to 1hr naps that they needed. I didn’t try and elongate them because the natural development is to go towards only one 1hr nap a day. Other parents I know did elongate the naps but then complained about their child being up at 5am and getting them up too.