6 month old cat naps

[Inlander]

Hello. DD is 6 months old and only does 20-30 min cat naps. She usually does 3 cat naps a day totalling now more than 1.5hrs.

I have tried extending her sleep by going for a walk, driving in the car, sticking her on the boob. The boob may buy me 20 mins extra but that’s it. She won’t nap for longer than 30 mins in the pram or car.

She will usually fall asleep by herself with me patting and shhh next to her but she will even wake up even if I’m next to her. I will sometimes leave her if she wakes and is chilled out but will get her if she cries.

Any tips on what I can do? She’s clearly tired (rubs her eyes, has red eyes etc) but seems to want to stay awake.

Her wake windows range between 2-3hrs but today we were out in the car she had a 20 min nap an hour after her last 20 min nap. She was such a good napper before the 4 month regression!

My son consolidated his naps around 6 months and was doing glorious 2 hour stretches at lunch but she is not showing any signs of doing this!

Should add she still wakes 3–4 times a night but coffee is helping me with this at the moment

I think sometimes it is developmental. I know baby books say baby should nap for an hour plus by six months but not all babies are ready for that. I think at six months we were still on 3 or 4 cat naps a day. It was a pain in the ass. She only started reliably napping longer in the pram at 8-9months, and for contact naps only from 11months old would she sleep for an hour.

Sadly some get this later than others. DD1 did 28 minute naps until she started dropping her last nap around 18 months. Self settled from around 7 months, so not a sleep association problem.

DD2 is 5.5 months and just on the verge of going from 4 x 20-30 minute naps to 3 x naps of that duration. Doesn’t sleep brilliantly at night either.

Maybe I just create bad sleepers!

Thanks for the responses! She woke up after 20 mins from her afternoon nap so I left her as she wasn’t crying and after a bit of chatter for 30 mins she went back to sleep for another 30 mins so maybe this is the way forward…

My LO was exactly the same and I was tearing my hair out wondering what I could do to extend her naps. It could have been coincidence but as soon as she went from her Snuzpod to her cotbed, we started to have a 60-90 minute at least once a day. Now I wonder if all that time she just wasn’t so comfortable in her snuzpod and needed a better mattress!