Please help with naps/how to extend naps

[lavenderlilaclily]

I’m struggling with my 7.5 month old’s naps (well, I’m struggling with all his sleep tbh!).

He takes short naps of 30-40 min, sometimes shorter. He went through a short phase of finally extending naps to about 1.5 hrs, but has since regressed and is back to short naps only. this is whether he’s in his cot, pram, anywhere.
He’s on 3 naps a day, but he is consistently refusing his final nap. Today for example he he fell asleep easily (fed to asleep) but woke up 5 min later and has been wide awake and won’t go back down. It’s exhausting (for both him and me). It also means he’s awake for way longer than he should be and is so angry in the evening.

I’ve read it’s a sign he should go down to 2 naps but I can’t see how that’s possible because 1) his first nap is so early, as he gets super tired and grumpy 2 hrs after waking and keeping him awake longer is a nightmare and 2) his naps are so short.

the solution I think lies in lengthening the naps but I’ve got no idea how to do this - help!

I wish I had any advice, but I've had rwo exactly like this and I have never managed to extend a nap at all. The older grew into longer naps; the younger is a month older than yours and is still exactly the same! I know it's awful. But it will pass. Just feels like a long time in coming!

Should say, my girl is now down to two 30m naps per day, because she started refusing rhe third. Yes, she's exhausted and grumpy all the time. No, I don't know what to do about it!

Best tips I got was feed before sleep. Pink/white noise. Same environment as bedtime. Nice and dark. Let them be fully awake in cot and let them self soothe. Feeding to sleep means they expect that every sleep cycle they wake.

I do think age has a lot to play with it though. As my lo got older she did longer. Also I picked one place she was going to sleep. I went with pram for day time until that stopped working so I put her in her cot. Yes it's a pain when out needing to be back at a certain time but she sleeps well. I pick my battles.

We also did CC at 6 months which improved her sleep through all naps and such.

@numberthirtytwowindsorgardens ah I’m glad I’m not alone in a way, but solidarity - it’s hard! Especially not having any time to oneself. We also had a 5.30 wake up today 😣

@ChittyBang1987 thank you for the advice. I do think trying to get him to stop breastfeeding to sleep would be very helpful - I just don’t have the energy to start the process, but I know we need to get to it! I’ve read a no cry sleep book and have been gearing up to start the gentle method. I have managed, with latching him off regularly, to dramatically reduce the amount of time it takes to feed him back to sleep at night which has been helpful but it doesn’t solve the nap problems or the wakes themselves.

i can’t really imagine my son ever soothing when awake in his cot. I know it must happen eventually but at the moment the second he’s awake he is UP - he is sitting, crawling around, pulling himself up, doing all sorts of acrobatics. The second he wakes up, even in the middle of the night, he is up sitting, even if he goes back to sleep 5 min later with my help. I cannot get him to lie down!

I've just reread my post and it was so unhelpful! I'm sorry! I just didn't want you to feel alone - I remember with my son feeling that I was the only person whose kid didn't sleep and it was all my fault. (It may well have been, but I never learned how to fix it!)

Mine is currently sulking on me having woken up after 20m. The joys!