6 and a half month old boy never has more than half hour naps

[Dylansmum]

Help!!!! My son is 6 and a half months old and has never slept more than half an hour for his naps (except for 3 occasions which seemed completely random ie the conditions were no different to normal)This applies to sleep in his cot, the buggy and the car. He sleeps pretty well at night now, going to bed awake and sleeping from 7pm to 5 ish and occasionally 6am. Going to bed later doesnt seem to help him sleep later but he usually cries at 5am whereas at 6am he chats happily upon waking.He starts to get tired an hour and a half after waking and if I recognise it in time will go to sleep without too much crying. If I try to put him to bed any later, he is often overtired and we have a real struggle.A bit of controlled crying has got us this far, but I dont know what to do about extending his naps. At the moment I have to get him at least 4 naps to get through the day without him getting very cranky. It's all i can think about and is beginning to stop me from going out to swimming/yoga classes etc with him because I cant seem to fit in his meals and naps around any kind of activities. I would love him to have at least one long sleep(one and a half hours perhaps?) so at I could have a bit of time to myself. Any tips????????????/

have a look at the thread "overtired baby cruel mummy" i think thats what is was called. Mines is around the same age as yours and I got lots of advice there in the last week or so.
Basically, I have been putting him back in to his cot, if he wakes up in half an hour that means he stays there awake until the two hours is up (I only do this in the morning) - Its worked a treat, He did cry a lot at the beginning but I think he now realises that I am not going to get him up to play.

You need to be stubborn,even if it means popping out in the garden so you can't hear the tears, then popping back every 15 mins or so until he either falls asleep or the two hours is up. Its not perfect for us yet but already a million times better than before - and its only been a week! Good luck

My DS was like this for the first 6 to 8 months, although he slept well at night he very rarely had a good sleep in the day, however, and I really don't know why, from about 9 months he suddenly started having really good (ie: 2-3 hour) afternoon naps, and still does (he was 2 in March). I can remember those interminably long first few months when I was so exhausted but hopefully it will get better - I would just have to leave him when I needed to get on with something for myself - sorry, I'm not offering you much help, just hope things get better for you.

My DD was the same. She'd fall asleep and by the time I'd had a pee, put the washing machine on and done the washing up she'd be awake. Oh how I longed to be able to have a cup of tea in front of the telly! I think she was about a year when she started napping for about an hour and now at 23 months she'll nap for 2 hours in the afternoon. I don't have any advice because I never found a way around it, but hopefully hearing stories that it doesn't last forever will give you some hope!

Dylansmum, my dd was exactly the same, in fact half an hour was pretty good for her! Until I did controlled crying and she learned how to put herself to sleep it continued. I did cc when she was about 8 months (she is now nearly 10) and from that moment on she has slept 7 or 8pm till 7 or 8 am and a good 2 hour+ nap in the afternoons.

BTW I had to do cc in the mornings as well as evenings to achieve this, when she woke early I left her to go back to sleep (after getting a blackout blind which helped so much).

Best of luck!

I also left ds to whinge for a while if he woke up early from his nap(by early, I mean clearly not having had enough sleep - in practice if he woke up after less than an hour, I would wait until he'd had an hour in the cot before getting him up). He quite soon learnt to put himself back to sleep again. He still very often cries briefly during his one long nap - very frequently after 45 mins when I assume he comes into a light sleep - but he will invariably go back to sleep again if I give him 5 mins (he's 19 months now and usually sleeps around 2 hours)
Personally I don't think I could have managed it any other way.

Dylansmum - we've been having very similar problems (plus going cold turkey with the dummy) and have been using controlled crying, which is starting to work. Blacking out the room has also helped. Is your ds on solids yet? Our dd has just gone on to 3 meals a day, which seems to give her a bit more energy to go longer between naps, and therefore be more tired and sleep for longer during the naps. I also try to get her to be as physically active as possible (ie lots of sitting up and playing) with some quiet time alone with me immediately before naps.

As someone else has said on this thread, you need to do the controlled crying during naps as well.

And on that subject has anyone got any idea what we can do about daytime controlled crying when dd cries for the whole of the naptime and I then have to get her up to go on with the day? Doesn't that reinforce the idea that 'If I cry long enough they'll pick me up' and confuse her when it comes to the night-time 'You won't picked up no matter how long you cry' message?

cranial osteopathy I would say - they can work wonders. Go to osteopathy.org and they will tell you where one is

Dylansmum, if my dd woke early during her lunchtime nap (about 2 hours)I often settled her back down with a bit of her post-nap milk. Before I got her having a long nap, she also had about 4 short ones a day - a nightmare, as you can't do much. My advice is to get The Contented Little Baby Book - it made life much easier for us. Good luck, Dinny.

Whew!! it is good to know that I am not the only one with this issue. My Gina Ford 5 mth dd sleeps from 7pm-10pm., she is fed, and back to bed until 7am. However, she doesn't nap well in the afternoon. I have even eliminated her morning 1/2 hour nap, and stuffed her like a turkey with solids just to see if she will sleep the full 2 1/2 hour during lunch. No way!! She fights it all the way.
I tried cc for 2 days now and she has cried for over 1 1/2 hours each time. Unfortunately, she has cried up to the time she has to wake up and I am afraid she feels that if she cries long enough she will get picked up.
Let me know if there is any improvement Dylansmum

I could never leave my ds to cry for more than five or ten minutes during the day. He didn't have an established nap pattern at 5months, but now at nearly two sleeps brilliantly during the day - at least two hours in the afternoon. I think sometimes they take a while to find their rhythm. I would have been very, very happy for ds to sleep all night at 5months though. I wouldn't cut out a morning nap at 5months either. I think more sleep leads to more sleep at that age, rather than vice versa, but I suppose every child is different.

Thanks for all the responses.We've just returned from a few days holiday (hoping a change of scene would do us good).
Gini, I can't find the thread you mention but would like to. i think I will try your technique of leaving him in his cot for the naptime I think he should have. Is lunchtime the most likely to succeed?(I have read that this is when babies have a natural dip in energy!)
Boyandgirl, I have exactly the same problem with letting the crying go on for a long time as it then becomes a meal time and I don't feel I can expect him to sleep if he is hungry. Yes ds is on solids and has been for about 8 weeks now. He has 3 meals a day(all with a breast feed to follow) and a breast feed first thing in the morning and last thing at night. I try to make his waking time as exciting as possible to tire him out.We do baby massage, yoga and swimming lessons and none of them really make any difference to his sleep, but he really enjoys them if I have managed to get him a nap within 2 hours before the class.
In the last few weeks he has done the occasional hour long sleep, so maybe things are changing, but I can't put my finger on why or what we can do to encourage more of them!
He has been to a cranial osteopath since he was born and she has described him as having a very "tight" nervous system and hasn't managed to have any impact on that in about 8 appointments so far.
As for the early mornings,I'm thinking of trying a "sleep feed" again to get him to sleep longer in the morning. Does anyone else do this with a 7 month old?

I think there's hope in the horizon . My dd1 adn ds2 were fairly similiar. It wasn't until both of them got to around 9/10 months that both of them began to have long naps. My ds2 now generally sleeps for 1/2 or 2 hours after lunch. It was nothing I did just maturity I think. Good luck!

My 14 week old baby doesn't nap for longer than 20 mins but, even when he wakes up, I leave him for up to an hour. So long as I know he is safe and sound in his crib, I don't feel it is unkind to grab a bit of 'me' time. He doesn't really cry...just lets me know he is awake!