30 minute naps, does he need sleep training or will age fix this?

[August21yellowbaby]

My 5 month old only naps for 30 minutes, almost like clockwork, he wakes quite a few times in the night as well. But with his naps im just wondering if I need to help him with longer naps or if as he gets abit older he will just naturally nap better? Even if he's out in the car or in the pram he will still wake after 30 minutes

Mine did this and naturally lengthened naps at about 7m. If it's not causing problems, I'd probably ride it out.

Have a search for how to lengthen naps on mumsnet. I did the whole perch by my lo until she starts stirring and then pop my hand on chest to carry them into next cycle. Sometimes worked sometimes didn't. Then about 5.5months to 6 months she got the hang of it. Whether me teaching her to link cycles worked or she developed on her own I don't know 🤷‍♀️

Sorry to say mine still hasn’t grown out of this by 11 months. She does now sleep longer in pram or car (think this started happening around 6 months) but cot naps still generally half an hour. I stressed myself silly about it but since sleep training for nights, they seem to have little impact on her night sleep - which was always my main worry. In fact she seems to sleep better at night after two half hour naps all day, against all the “sleep begets sleep” advice I bought into at the beginning. It just seems to be all she needs and I’ve stopped fighting it. Hope it changes for you as it’s nice to have a break but I’ve just tried to embrace the freedom it gives me not to be tied to having to be at home for hours.

We helped our first back to sleep, he wasn’t waking up happy so obviously wanted to sleep longer but couldn’t after the regression.

Ours did 45 minutes like clockwork, we would stay with him and pat him bum from about 40-43 minutes and then through to 50 ish minutes and then slow the pace and eventually stop. In the beginning he would wake up and then take a few minutes going back to sleep. Then as time went on he realised it was ok to wake a little then go back to sleep, he started doing it on his own then with no help.

Day time and night time sleep improved drastically from that point.

5 months is too early for sleep training anyway, but DD was the same, never managed more than one sleep cycle when napping for months. We did sleep train a little later (7/8 months) to get her out of contact napping, and eventually she lengthened naps by herself at around 9/10 months. She’s never been a fantastic napper - I can count on one hand the number of 1.5h+ ones she’s done and she’s 18m now - but I think that’s just her!

My first child was like this. He slept through at night so I just left him to it because I didn't want to disrupt his sleep at night. He did eventually go onto have longer naps as he got older and started moving. But we didn't do anything to make that happen.

We did sleep training at 6 months because DS’s night time sleep was really bad. Sleep training transformed his night sleep but didn’t change the 30 minute naps.

He only started having a longer nap at about 8 months when he went from 3 naps to 2.
So I don’t think there’s much you can do personally.

Both of mine were like this. Mostly 20 minutes, occasionally 40. I worried about it for the first one but just had to ride it out. Agree with pp though in that it might be worth trying any techniques anyone suggests just in case. Eg. Be around when they're about to wake so you can maybe feed them to sleep (like dream feed) so lull them back.