When do naps improve?

[FebMama]

I've written a few posts recently about transitioning my 8 month old into his own cot and room and how hard it's been. We are two weeks in now and seeing SOME improvement. Far from perfect, but he's doing longer stretches thank goodness. And doesn't need me to help him get off to sleep as much. Hopefully learning to now settle himself.

But I kind of thought we would see some improvement in his naps now too. Everywhere I read, tells me he 'should' now be on two naps a day. But he's only napping for around 30-40 minutes at a time. So he's having 3 naps a day. Which is fine at the minute, it's working ok. His last nap is capped at 4.30pm so he's ready for bed by 7.30pm.

My question is, if he's able to do longer stretches at night now, why is he not able to nap past 30-40 mins?

I know my eldest napped a lot longer when he began to be more active and crawling but my little one isn't there yet. Could this be contributing to the short naps?

I found it better to count their sleep in a 24hr period rather than naps. But generally I found from a year onwards that large 1 afternoon sleep was the best age for naps.

@OnlyFoolsnMothers thanks for this. Over 24 hours he's getting about 13.5 hours. 1.5 in naps and 12(ish) hours overnight although some of this is broken sleep as he still wakes overnight every now and then.

I know all babies are different but I recall my eldest now doing 2 pretty decent naps a day at this age. But he was also crawling already. So hard not to compare between the two!!!

The awful reality is some babies just need less sleep.
DD1 barley slept as a newborn but napped until 3.5
DD2 slept non stop as a newborn and dropped her nap at 22months
Sounds like you little one has the right amount of sleep in a day albeit the lower end.
I think the one big nap might creep up earlier for you.

In desperation I bought a sleep programme which I followed from six months. Never completely cracked the night time as she was a frequent waker but a half hour at 9am and then a nap 12.30-2.30 was what we followed. They said she would wake after 45 min sleep cycle at first and just to settle her back for another cycle. This worked and she then used to sleep longer without waking until she was a little past two (dropped the first nap at 17 months) when any nap seemed to stop her going to sleep before 10pm!

My two year was still napping for just 30-40 mins until recently she has stopped
My first was the same as well 😬😳

DD’s naps never really lengthened (though she kept napping till 3.5).

I spent sooooooo much energy trying to get her to sleep longer, but it was just her. Assuming he’s not over tired (and he sounds fine), I’d just go with the flow!

DD is 1 and still I'm 30 minute naps twice a day 🤷🏻‍♀️ I've given up trying to lengthen them.

Google "waking windows" for the age of your child and try to follow that.

It was the only thing that worked for my twins from around 7 months old, I was a single Mum and on my knees with exhaustion and it really did help to have the routine- may mean other activities like Mum and baby groups have to end for a while whilst your establish your routine!

Good luck x

Thank you so much for the replies.

@TulipsTulipTulips that's exactly where I'm at. I actually haven't got the time or patience to spend ages trying to get him back to sleep. So I'm just accepting he's awake when he's awake and he then naps when he's tired again.

@bubblesandbathwater honestly I'm trying this but I can't quite get the wake windows right. I've tried shorter and longer windows and regardless he still naps for 30-40 mins. It's frustrating!

@FebMama no answers but solidarity - my 9mo only does two 30 min naps a day, one around 10ish and one around 3ish.

It’s absolutely exhausting isn’t it, and hard not having time to yourself. But as others have said, it would be easy to spend your life trying to get them to nap longer so I’ve just accepted it and am just grateful that night time sleep is improving…!

For both of mine it was around the 12 month mark.