Anyone successfully got a short napper to sleep longer?

[WhatFreshHellIsThis]

DS2 is 6 months and has only very rarely slept longer than 45 mins in the daytime. DS1 was like this at first but then at some point strted taking longer naps after lunch, can't really remember when but before 7 months for sure.

DS2 is showing no signs of this and I could really do with him sleeping longer! Anyone successfully influenced their child's sleep like this? Any tips?

bump?

No advice, I'm afraid, just a "right here with you WFHIT". DD is 5.5 months and the only way I have ever got her to go longer than 30/40 minutes is by transferring her when asleep from sling into car seat and then driving. Not particularly practical it has to be said. Today she also slept for an hour in her buggy as I carried on walking constantly for that whole time.
How does your DS do at night? I am desperately trying to find a pattern for DD to encourage her to sleep better at night, at the moment on a good night she is up 2-3 times, on a bad night 5-6. Oh, it's just not as easy as I thought it would be! I shall be watching this thread closely in the hopes of a solution...

The only thing that got my DS (9 mos) sleeping longer for naps is when he dropped from 3-2 naps. Because he would only sleep for 45 mins at a time until about 7 mos, he ended up needing a late afternoon nap to avoid meltdown before bed. Somewhere around 7 months he dropped the 3rd nap and started sleeping a bit longer in the morning (I stress, a bit longer...I get excited if he sleeps longer than an hour...though maybe once a week he will sleep for 2 hours in the AM).

Other than that it is just walking with the buggy that works for me (and I still do this to get him to have a sleep in the afternoon) - and that is walking the entire time...no going into shops, no sitting down in cafes, just walking. Probably doesn't work if you have more than one DC!

And, to my disappointment, even when I started getting the better morning nap, and perservered with the buggy for a good afternoon nap, it still made no difference to the nights. Not until I stopped feeding at night did they get better.

i'd be interested to know too! dd2 (6m) is very random- yesterday she only had 3 half hour naps which really doesn't seem like enough. She managed an hour this morning but I think she was exhausted after having been up from 6am til about 9.30. Mind you that's not always a guarantee she'll have a long sleep.

She most often does 45 minutes but every now and then will do an hour and a half-the trouble I never know when this is going to happen so can't plan anything around it.

Oh and she's a bit rubbish at night too.
grrr

Gah! Sounds like there's quite a few short nappers out there, but noone with a solution yet

Same here CatisSleepy - very occasionally he'll go for 1.5 hours or even 2, but there's no knowing when that will be so you can't plan anything.

DS2 isn't brilliant at night, either, but then he's teething his third tooth at the moment, and hasn't had a break from teething for about three weeks, so I can't remember what a good night feels like!

I thought I might try a dummy - we tried one when he was tiny as he was a really sucky baby, but he spat it out. Worth a go again, though?

dd2 would never take a dummy either. I was convinced she would start sucking her thumb like dd1 and gutted when I realised this wasn't going to happen! dd1 was a brilliant sleeper as a baby

may be worth a try again though...

Yes, DS1 is still a great thumbsucker and a good sleeper, I was all smug and put it down to my fantastic parenting

DS2 won't suck his thumb, needs to be fed to sleep, and if he's disturbed then that's it, he's awake and he ain't going back.

Tchah.

When they crawl allegedly they are knackered and sleep longer. Don't have 1st hand of this as am waiting for my 10 mo to crawl... We did try wake to sleep (baby whisperer I think,) where you wake them before you know they will wake and let them settle into another sleep cycle. We tried this with DD when she slept in pram and it worked a treat and she started sleeping longer on her own but it changed when we put her in cot and we have not tried it again (just getting her to nap in the cot was big enough!!)

Not sure if it's already been said here but I found the longer napping came with age. Can't remember what age exactly but was def after around 8 months. Perhaps it was something to do with weaning more established and him having a fuller tummy?

My solution probably causes more problems than it solves and I am trying to get my daughter out of the habit, but it does work for longer naps... the only way she will sleep longer than 30-40 minutes is if she is lying next to me or her dad. If I think she needs a long nap, I'll take her to bed with me and settle her in the crook of my arm (and either have a nap myself or read a book). The other version is lying on the sofa and putting on a film... she settles in the crook of the arm and with a finger to suck on. Ridiculous if you need to do things whilst she is sleeping (which I do) but a nice treat if I can ignore work and chores while she sleeps.

Sadly, we've tried that and he still wakes up after 45 minutes. You can almost set your watch by him!