What Am I Doing Wrong?

[anonnancy]

My nearly 6 month old is still awful at naps. I can get him down in his crib / cot ...but his naps are 30 minutes at a time. His wake window is 1.5 hours (can sometimes push to 2 hours on a good day), I have a nap routine which is:
-nappy change if needed
-put into sleeping bag
-turn on white noise
-offer dummy
-close door

I will wait in the room where he can’t see me (the room is blacked out anyway) and tend to him if he cries, sometimes I will need to pop the dummy in if he spits it out. It can take anywhere from 10 minutes to 30 minutes to get him to go to sleep... I then have 30 minutes on the dot until he wakes.

I’ve tried everything to get him to sleep longer. I’ve tried wake-to-sleep, I’ve tried putting dummy back in, I’ve tried to resettle if he wakes.... nothing has worked. He is happy when he wakes up but the day is exhausting for me constantly taking him up to the crib every 1.5 hours for a sleep. It means he is having minimum 4 naps a day... 5-6 on a bad day if we have an early wake.

He will go to bed anywhere between 6:30-7:30 depending on last nap, and he wakes around 11/12 and 2/3 for feeds and then starts to stir / want the dummy from 4am and he wakes properly anywhere between 6-7:30.

What am I doing wrong here? He is teething but this short nap business isn’t a new thing. He’s been like it since 9ish weeks. Is this just how he is? Anyone else had this issue? And how did you fix it?

I can count on one hand the amount of naps he has had that have lasted longer than an hour I am so exhausted at the end of the day I can’t be bothered to do anything! X

he is having minimum 4 naps a day... 5-6 on a bad day

You are framing that wrong. Why do you think frequent naps is a bad thing? What has given you that impression?

The way baby's sleep generally develops is that as a newborn (when sleep is passive), long naps are normal.

Then out of the forth trimester and into the 4-month sleep regression, sleep becomes an active endeavour (rather than passive) so babies start sleeping according to sleep cycles. So short naps are normal and to be expected. To counter the short naps you have short awake times (so very frequent naps) and start work on good sleep hygiene for the long term (which you are doing).

As long as baby (a) is not over tired - so is getting enough daytime sleep even though naps are short, and (b) has the good sleep hygiene in place to learn to link sleep cycles, baby's naps extend in length. Once naps are longer, then you lengthen awake time between naps. You don't lengthen awake times to stretch sleep, it happens the other way around.

Linking sleep cycles when (a) and (b) are established happens according to the normal curve of development, so some babies earlier than others. In some cases its happens at 4 months and you never see a regression. Others might need a few weeks to learn to resettle after sleep cycles, so it might be anything from 5-7 months. Others don't have (a) and/or (b) sorted and so the 4-month sleep regression continues for a long time, until they do.

So in your case anonnancy, reframe frequent naps with short awake times as a GOOD THING. Your baby needs then in order to achieve (a) and not be over tired. A good approximation for awake time is approximately double nap length. So your 90 mins that you can stretch to 2h, really wants to be 60 mins maximum if naps are 30 minutes. That 60 min awake time includes a feed and also includes settling back to sleep.

Frequent naps is what you want. It helps your baby learn to link sleep cycles by not being over tired. Aside from that, make sure baby goes to sleep where he stays asleep. And for every nap, always try to resettle. it may not work, but it will in the end and is good practice in the mean-time. But don't beat yourself up if your resettle doesn't work. To resettle, try to get to and respond to baby before waking, so you want to get the still-asleep-just-stirring phase. For my children, that used to be screwing face up, a few seconds before a noise might be made.

Then just give your baby time. Soon your 30 min naps might get to 45 mins (so you can stretch awake time to 90 mins or so). Then maybe you get 1h or 90 min naps - and so that is when you stretch awake times.

@FATEdestiny oh my goodness. You have no idea how relieved I feel reading your message. I have been beating myself up thinking I’ve got this all backwards.

You don’t know how many posts I have read on forums and the internet in general telling me my baby should be napping 3 times a day and aiming for 2.5-3.5 hours of sleep in the day. I can achieve 2.5/3 hours on average but like I say it’s split over lots of short naps. As long as I Know that’s normal and I’m not breaking my baby in some way, I am happy to carry on. Thank you! X

I'm glad you're reassured. There's no such thing as 'should' when it comes to babies, they are individuals. You're doing a great job by the sound of it.

The only thing you are doing wrong is driving yourself to insanity trying to enforce a napping regime on your child.

I get it. My eldest never napped for longer than 30 minutes at a time. I didn't enjoy my time with him for the first few months. He cried constantly, had to be held for naps etc. I gave myself anxiety reading books telling me all about how I should do X, Y and Z to fix him and get him to nap for longer in the day in the cot. Eventually, I gave up and started living my life, and he just napped around me. I plonked him in his bouncer and got used to doing everything with him staring at me!

With my youngest, I just went with the flow. If we were at home and he started getting tired, he went to his cot for a nap. Usually, he had most of his naps in the pram or in the car while I was out and about with my eldest.

I'm a bad person to give advice on sleep as my DS has always been a bad sleeper. But just to say it sounds like you're doing great - the night time in particular - DS still wakes at those types of times and he's 15 months! 6 months is still very young, I'm sure he'll settle into longer naps in time - he obviously is capable of sleeping longer chunks!

Ive appreciated reading the advice here. My baby is only 3 months but also only naps for about 30 mins (unless cosleeping). I've also read lots of stuff about length of naps etc which has stressed me out but it seems like for some babies it's quite normal.

@Fatted yes I agree with you. I think I’ve read so many things telling me what my baby SHOULD be doing ... I have unnecessarily stressed myself out rather than just accept that this is how he is and just go with the flow. As a FTM I have no idea if what I am doing is right... so I feel loads better knowing I’m not breaking my baby. Will just go with the flow and see if he improves over time!

Please don’t stress. Each baby is individual. As others have said there is no should. My baby was very much like yours at 5 months then all of sudden naps got longer and he dropped down to 2 naps really quickly. I then got worried as I was being told he should be having 3 naps but he just wouldn’t. I bought bedtime forward to compensate which worked. You just need to follow your baby’s lead. I wish I had spent less time stressing and worrying myself because now at nearly 8 months he has two 90 mins to 2 hour naps a day and only wakes once during the night. It is easy to say with hindsight but please don’t worry you are doing great.

Both my girls did this! With DD1 I drove myself crazy because of what the books said she 'should' be doing. By DD2 I just went with it! Both of them gradually increased the length of their naps from 8-9 months so by 1 they were having longer sleeps. I wouldn't have minded if they didn't though it's easier to get stuff done in a longer nap!!