Short nap help

[PaulinePetrovaPosey]

DD is 8 months, and since about 4 months she's only napped for 20 minutes at a time. She has 3 or 4 naps a day and doesn't seem overtired, and sleeps well at night.

But I'm cracking up with her short naps - I'm only duty' literally all day as in her tiny naps I have to run around like a maniac doing housework.

And although she doesn't seem overtired it can't be doing her any good.

I've tried various methods to lengthen naps and nothing at all has worked. My SIL reckons that naps will naturally lengthen as she gets older and I'm desperate for this to happen - any idea of it will??

How is baby going to sleep for naps and bedtime?

Also - no reason to be running around like a maniac doing housework. The only job that needs doing while baby is asleep is ironing. All the rest, find ways to manage your life to do this while baby is awake.

thank you! Cooking is tricky with a sling though, and ironing stopped happening months ago.

We sleep trained at 6 months so we have a good routine before bed and naps (book, sleeping bag, sleepy cue and into bed awake). 90% of the time she rolls around a bit then goes to sleep without crying (which is lovely). At night she self settles if she stirs (we have one feed still) but during the day it seems that the minute she twitches, she's wide awake and stays that way.

I've got to question why baby is having her awake time in a sling at 8 months - floor time is really important to allow for all the gross motor skill development that happens at this age. Then you can cook / hoover / whatever else you want to do while baby is having a kick around on the floor. But that's entirely an aside issue...

Regarding naps, linking sleep cycles often develops out of habit. So to start off with you sit with baby for the nap and spend a good 15 minutes resettling baby before they wake.

This wants to be done in the place where baby is asleep, so if baby is asleep in the pushchair then a back and forth rock of the pushchair would work. If baby is in the cot then patting is usually the way forward.

The key is to get to baby before waking from a nap. Ideally you want the point when just moving from deep sleep into light sleep, and settle back into deep sleep before actually waking up. The 'tell' for this shift might be a slight movement - change in position or scrunching face up. But any noise or eyes open means you've missed the chance since baby is now awake.

Many parents find it easier to do the resettling 10 minutes before baby is predicted to wake, rather than waiting for the 'tell' to show she is coming out deep sleep. Given your already short naps, it therefore would be better for you to just stay with baby and keep the settling method going right through the first half hour, to get through the first sleep cycle and into the next.

Once you develop the habit of longer naps with lots of resettling, then reduce the amount of resettling between cycles. So move from 10 mins resettling to 5 minutes to just a minute, to a quick pat if baby shuffles around but otherwise leave baby to link cycles on their own.

Hardly any of her awake time is in the sling, but our kitchen is too tiny for her to be on the floor when I'm doing anything in there unfortunately.

Thanks for the tip, it's similar to something we've tried before though.

If anyone has any experience of naps lengthening (or not!) as kids get older I'd be interested!

Maybe you sleep trained too early and baby needs to be comforted into a deeper sleep before putting them down. If you held him for the first 20 mins and then put him down after he'd crossed the 20 minute bridge he's obviously struggling with. I'm no expert but that's what I would do

Arghhh so so sorry!! I meant she x

My little boy was a 30 minute napper (you could set your watch by him) until 9 months, then his naps at home lengthened - They stayed short at nursery though until he was 11 months old then they lengthened at nursery too.
He's 16 months now and now down to 1 x 1.5-2 hour nap