30 minute nap hell

[Liverpoolgirl50]

I have a 5.5 month old daughter who cannot sleep longer than 30 minutes unless she’s on me. She falls asleep independently in her cot, but no matter what she wakes 30 minutes on the dot. I’ve tried walking with her in the pram and also just rocking it indoors - 30 minutes, I’ve tried wake to sleep and she stirs and then still wakes after 30 minutes (even when I’ve put her dummy back in/patted her etc).

If I contact nap she does wake after 30 minutes but I can rock her back to sleep. We do this twice a day as she is a total grump otherwise, but it’s not ideal.

She’s exhausted, I’m getting nothing done :( any tips?

I know this probably isn't what you want to hear but at this age it's completely normal

Babies can't link sleep cycles before 6-7 months and a sleep cycle normally lasts 30-40 mins.

Both mine never napped for more than 38 minutes before 6 months. I could honestly set a timer by them both. It used to annoy the hell out of me as was never enough time to get anything done and my youngest wanted to be on me for it.

It will get better!!

I know this is divisive but at 6-7 months I used the disappearing chair method to sleep train with lots of bum pats, shush, singing and white noise. It took a while but they both then went on to have 2 hour naps and still sleep well now.

Sending solidarity!!

I'm afraid I have to agree with the response above, it was the same with our DS until at least 7-8 months.
However, we did get the last laugh as once he started napping for longer, he did it consistently and has always been a good sleeper since (now almost 11), unlike a lot of our NCT group whose babies slept like logs when tiny but then had sleep regression once they were toddlers.

Hijacking as we are having the same issue with my 7.5 month old DD, we follow huckleberry wake windows of 2-2.5 hours but as she is only napping for 30 minutes at a time (if she’s in the cot) she’s having up to 4 naps a day, and getting more tired as the day goes on. She will nap for longer if she’s in the pram or car, but I can’t commit to walking or driving for an hour at a time.

With the responses from PP, am I right in thinking that DD will soon be able to link sleep cycles in the day without me doing any sort of sleep training?

She goes down for naps and bedtime independently, we have a routine and she is shhhh-ed and patted to sleep essentially.

So normal, but still hard. My DS only napped for 38 mins (exactly!!) from about 3 weeks - 5/6 months.

Slowly the 1st nap of the day started to double in length (so he’d do two sleep cycles). Then I found lengthening awake window to 2nd nap helped that become a double sleep cycle nap too. He’s now 15 months.

I spent a long long time obsessing and worrying over this issue and I wish I hadn’t because it did gradually change.