7 months - extending naps in the cot

[Sparrow234]

Hi,

Hoping people may have some suggestions for me. DS is 7 months and if BF. Up until a week ago we co-slept at night and he napped on me / in my arms for all naps.
I wanted to change this as I would like some time off / to get things done and would like my evenings with DH back.

I feed to sleep and then put him in his cot. He wakes when he gets put in his cot and quickly settles back to sleep if I pop my hand on him or stroke his hair. I then leave.

Night time has gone brilliantly and he is sleeping well now only waking for his normal feeds until around 2am and then he only does short sleeps.

In the day time he will settle well in the cot as described but only sleeps for 30 mins max. I imagine this is just his sleep cycle coming to an end but he won’t re settle.

He’s getting a bit over tired in the day and isn’t as happy as content as normal so I’d like to help him get back to his normal naps.

For other info -

His usual nap schedule was roughly

1.5hr nap around 2-3hrs after morning wake up.

1.5hr nap early afternoon

30 min cat nap (sometimes) around 1530-1600.

Goes down about 1930 for the night and does 11-12hrs with 2-3 feeds.

White noise - loves this and he has a white noise teddy playing whenever he is asleep / in his cot.

He sleeps on his front by his own choice (can reliably roll both ways).

I’m not willing to sleep train - I don’t agree with it personally and it’s not my style of parenting.

So two questions really -

Is this something that will gradually get better as he gets used to the new sleeping arrangements? How long is a reasonable adjustment period?

Is there anything I can do to help extend the naps?

I’m reasonably happy with the progress he’s made and it seems like this transition is making progress in most aspects.

Oh to add - he’s a dummy refuser! He doesn’t have a comforter but I have tried lots but he’s just not bothered. He can suck his thumb if you wants / needs to but he seems to have mostly grown out of this in the last couple of months.

My 8mo is similar. To be honest I've found the only thing that works is to rock him in his buggy and when he starts stirring I go up and gently rock him to re-settle. I will take this as a win, however, as his older brother refused to nap except on me until he was 1yo!

From what I've read of other people's experiences, without any type of sleep training I would say you're taking the risk of him not sleeping well until he is 1,2,3,4 maybe 5...you can't put a timeframe on it. Some people get lucky & baby sleeps through on their own accord from 10 weeks others have children still bouncing off the walls passed midnight aged 3. Sleep training can be an extremely quick way of helping your baby learn how to get a great nights sleep & naps. But each to their own :)

Night time doesn’t appear to be such a problem - each night he’s been settling better and better. He now only has his normal wake ups until 2am. I don’t have any issue feeding him in the night, he’s still little and I’m not back at work for a while yet, it’s more the short day time naps that are the issue.

I think it all links on to each other, after sleeping training my daughter she starting napping 1.5 - 3 hours at a time and sleeping through the night. Sleep promotes sleep.
I remember watching a video tho and the lady said if you time how long baby naps for so say its 27 mins then you go in at 22 mins and do whatever it was you did to put them to sleep, so stroke his hair etc...you may need to do this for a week or so but its meant to be a way of getting them to link sleep cycles. That was off twinninguk on instagram