Connecting sleep cycles in the day

[Daniellen7456]

Hello,

Hoping for some advice for my 7.5 month old son. He is currently having a lot of difficulty with naps. He seems unable to link cycles and his naps are very short - Sometimes only 25 mins but up to 45. He wakes up crying and I can tell he is still tired. He falls asleep independently in his cot as I put him down awake but drowsy. Sometimes he has a bit of whine before his naps but never more than 5 mins. How do I help him to elongate the nap?
He is able to do it at night and normally does 7-6 in his cot. Right now his naps are about 3 hours after wake up and he does 3 a day. Any advice appreciated!!

My 8 month old DD was the same so I transitioned her to 2 naps a day and now she does 1 30-45 minute (sometimes an hour) nap in the morning and a 1.5-2.5 hour nap in the afternoon. It took about a week to get her used to it (and she was quite grumpy) but now she’s doing 1 long nap a day consistently.

@Vicky1989x thanks so much for this. I have been trying to do the transition down to 2 naps. What did you do if DD got very overtired during the day as the naps he is currently taking are so short that his wake windows will be very long. Also right now we do bedtime at 7pm did you move yours earlier during the transition?

@Daniellen7456 It was hard, but luckily she isn’t too bad when she’s overtired and I can keep her distracted. It’s usually late afternoon when she was the worst but as soon as I start bedtime routine she calms down cause she knows she’s going bed soon. I loosely follow wake windows but usually put her down for naps at set times so first nap is between 9 and 9:30 and second nap is between 1 and 1:30, sometimes she’ll wake after 30 minutes but if I get to her quick enough and put her dummy in she goes back to sleep until about 3pm then I start bedtime routine about 6-6:15 and she goes sleep about 7. If she wakes before 3pm then I’ll bring bedtime earlier. I’d say it took about a week for her to adjust but it was worth it in the end!