Waking 30 mins into nap

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My 15 week son suddenly seems incapable of napping more than 30 mins. This isn't too bad for his morning nap, but at lunchtime it's awful. By the time I get him back to sleep it's getting on for his next feed. I'm also terrified that this might start happening at night too. Help!

DD does this (9 months) during every nap, in fact she has just done it a few moments ago. I think 30 minutes is how long a sleep cycle lasts for her, so when one ends, it disturbs her and wakes her up. I can time it to the minute most days! Sometimes she will go back off if I pop her dummy back in, but most times she will be awake for 5 minutes before dozing off again with me sitting next to her crib.

Funnily it doesn't affect her during the night. Probably because she falls into such a deep sleep, whereas during the day she is just napping, if that makes sense

Elizabeth Pantley suggests intervening just BEFORE the wake up happens, using rocking/dummy/whatever it takes to encourage the LO to get into their next cycle without fully awakening... The theory is that after a bit, they will go back into deeper sleep on their own...

my littleun does this it drives me mad at lunch nap, i have to lay with her the whole time! she wakes up after half an hour but if im not there she ownt go back to sleep but if i stay with her sometimes she dosnt even wake, its driving me mad! really dunno what to do x

Very normal. The Elizabeth Pantley intervention didn't work for me but is worth a try. You can try it either before the wake up, or just as the wake up happens.

Apparently daytime sleep is controlled by a different part of the brain from night time sleep, so babies with this problem for naps can happily sleep through the night (or much better, at least).

Many babies naturally start taking longer naps when they're older. One of my friends said that her DS would only sleep 30-45 mins at a time but as a toddler is now a great daytime sleeper. Take heart!

My ds1 did this, and I used to lay with him and when he stirred I would feed him back to sleep. He eventually grew out of it and went through a phase where his lunch nap would be 4 hours if I let him!

Ds2 seems to have a slightly longer cycle, say 45 mins, but I am more relaxed about it this time around and we don't have any fixed routine. He seems pretty happy, and I'm less stressed as I am not clock watching and thinking what 'the books' say. If he's hungry I feed him, and if he looks tired I encourage him to sleep - that's the only routine we have and it works for us.

My LO always had 45 minute naps as a baby and they lengthened out when he got to about 9 months. They're all different I think :-)