6 month old won’t nap longer than half hour in the day?! Please help!

[Wishedfor2021]

Hi everyone!

Looking for some advice on day time naps please. My baby boy turned 6 months old a week ago. He’s always been okay at night time, and used to be brilliant at day time naps too, but for about a month or so now we’ve been struggling with getting him to nap longer than 30 minutes. I go off 2 hour wake windows, always do white noise machine/blinds down/cuddly toy/rock & sing/shush to sleep when we’re at home, doesn’t make a difference if I put him down in his cot or the crib in our room he still won’t sleep past 30 minutes. The older he’s getting the longer he takes to fall asleep in his pram and I end up pushing him round for an hour just for him to wake up as soon as we’re home. I’ve tried gently disturbing him about 20 minutes into the nap and it doesn’t make a difference.

It’s getting me down so much, I feel like my day is currently taken over by all these mini naps as he’s needing to go down 4+ times a day, and it always ends up that he wants a nap so close to his bed time so it never feels like our day has ran smoothly. Can anybody give me some advice to try or know where I might be going wrong or roughly how long I can expect this to go on for?!? Currently sat next to him whilst he’s sleeping, he woke up at 30 minutes and I picked up him rocked him back to sleep so he was obviously still tired but I can’t do every nap time like this, my house is a mess as it is and I can’t remember the last time I cooked a proper meal

Thank you in advance!

Is this your first child? Because I think what needs to change here are your expectations.

30 minute maps are normal for the stage. You just needs lots of them (ie shorter awake time) to avoid baby getting over tired. 2h awake is too long. I'd be wanting around 1h-1h15 minute wake windows. Work out wake windows by this approximation:

WW is double nap length + or - 15 minutes
Not more than 2h unless napping 90min plus

Always try and resettle at the end of every nap. It won't work much initially but occasionally it will. The more you practice linking sleep cycles, the quicker they get it.

It’s really normal at this age. Longer naps don’t generally happen until 1 year +

Trying extending his wake windows. It sounds like he's not tired enough so is therefore catnapping.

I know the advice may say a certain awake time, but all babies are different. Even an extra 15/30 mins awake time could help.

My DS had 2 30 minute naps a day at 6 months. He dropped his naps completely at 13 months. Just the way he was and still doesn’t need lots of sleep at 13 years!

I could have written your post OP when I had my first baby. It was so annoying to spend more time trying to get her to sleep than she spent actually sleeping!
But here again with the second and as @FATEdestiny says, my expectations are much lower. It’s tough as you just want the naps to be longer but for now, they are short and I know they’ll lengthen as baby gets older.
Perhaps focus on what you can get done in that half an hour (rather than what you can’t). For me, that would be a cuppa, biscuit and something on Netflix

Thanks for the replies everyone.

I wouldn’t exactly say it’s me having high expectations, I’m literally just going off what every single 6 month nap routine available on the internet says and what other mums I know have told me..

I should have made it more clear, I’m not forcing him to stay awake for 2 hours, this is around the time he starts to show signs he’s tired but sometimes he wants to stay awake longer. There’s no way I could put him down after just 1 hour awake, he wouldn't be tired enough.

If we’re in the car, he will sleep 1+ hours so I don’t think it’s because he only wants half hour naps. It’s only been in the past month, before that he’d have at least one long nap in his cot. I’ll have a play with his wake windows and see if it makes a difference, I stretched him to 2 hours 15 mins awake this morning and he managed to sleep an extra 10 minutes so fingers crossed 🤞🏻

My dd is the same age as yours and also only has short naps. She still occasionally does 4 naps a day but then bedtime gets too late..I use huckleberry app and it seems for her, 1.45hrs-2hrs before first nap, but longer is needed for 2nd and 3rd nap.