The curse of the short naps

Macha

Hi all,

Our (almost) 4 month old baby sleeps pretty well at night. He goes to bed around 7.30 pm, wakes up once or twice eat and wakes up around 7.30 am. He doesn't need any rocking or props to get him asleep after he eats and he goes straight back to sleep after eating.

Daytime is an entirely different story. He won't nap (or eat) unless we're bouncing him on a yoga ball, sometimes for quite a while. He then will only nap for a maximum of 20 minutes, sometimes even less.

It's driving me insane because I spend more time getting him asleep than he spends napping. It also means I have to try to put him asleep at least 5 times during the day to make sure he isn't awake for more than 2 hours at a time. It's not only physically exhausting, I can't get anything done around the house and I know he's suffering from not getting a decent nap.

Does anyone have any advice or can share something that worked for them?

Thanks in advance

dori_dormer

My boy was terrible for naps at that age too. I might get him to nap if we went for a walk, but he'd wake up as soon as arriving home. He needed movement to fall asleep.

Have you tried simulating bed time? Like darkened room, maybe some white noise? That helped my boy. But honestly it was a year of hell. I spent more time gettign him to sleep than he actually slept. I wouldn't stick to a 2 hr window, I'd look for the signs your baby is tired, like yawning etc. he might not be tired enough or could be over tired.

The other thing you could try is a sling as your movement becomes the bouncing. Stops your arms aching anyway! You can usually get some stuff done at least while you are trying to get him to nod off!

LegacyUser

I had to post when I read this - you're bringing back memories!!

Actually your timing could be very good on this. I have a 17 month old girl, who had silent reflux. So she never napped for more than 40 mins at a time and I couldn't put her down straight after feeding because I had to hold her upright for 20 mins. I only realised around the 12/13 week mark that roughly 2 hours was the guideline for how long she should be awake. She didn't (and still doesn't) show any signs of tiredness, until it's way too late!

Anyway, I went through a phase of doing similar to you - I remember spending hours facing blank surfaces like the wall of the hall or the wardrobe door, rocking and jiggling her to go to sleep. (and she'd wake up on transfer to the cot...) Eventually it got to the point where she just getting too heavy and I felt I was setting myself up for trouble along the line - how do you jig and rock a 1 year old to sleep, for example? And as you say, I was spending more time getting her to sleep than she was actually sleeping. The other thing I realised is that the older they get, the more interested they get in the world around them and you quickly (like 5-6 months) get to a point where you can't MAKE them sleep - they have to go to sleep themselves, otherwise you're on to a loser.

(Sorry this is long winded). Anyway, the approach I took was to instigate a routine. I aimed to commit to one nap a day in the cot. As it happened the morning one was the easiest - as far as I understand, it is the easiest because they're not overtired. So 2 -2.5 hours after she woke up, we went back up to the cot. And I started doing the same things every day, reading a book, giving her a soother, looking out the window, close the curtain, into her cot. And there she stayed until she slept. I did have a book that said, for napping, if they're not asleep after about an hour and 40 mins, then take them out for 30 mins or so, then try again. If that doesn't work again, then head for the buggy or whatever. (just for a guideline)

I did use a white noise CD for quite a while but I actually gave up on that as she got older. The afternoon nap tended to be more difficult and that was the one most likely to be in the car or the buggy because I had to get out! There should have been one again around 4:30 - 5pm (she only slept 40 mins at a time), but it didn't always work - she was often way overtired and I was trying to do dinner, so I used to do my best, but sometimes had to just write it off. I did try to roughly structure my day so that I would be walking or driving around the time she was due to fall asleep in the afternoon. It wasn't always perfect, but 8/10 times it worked ok.

This didn't work overnight. It took a couple of weeks of doing the little routine, and I remember going through a phase of sitting beside the cot and putting the soother back in til she fell asleep. I gave up on that eventually too. But within 3-4 weeks she did actually master falling asleep herself. Now it could take up to 20 mins or so, but I learned to stay out of the room during that time (she was probably around 20 weeks then), only going back in every 10 mins roughly to sort her out if she was moving around a lot.

It's not a magic fix but it's unfortunately about the only way to go. In hindsight I probably tried too hard for too long to MAKE her sleep, instead of going with the flow a bit more and letting her learn to do it herself. Your little one technically doesn't have a prop at night - but does, in the sense that it's the feed. Again as he becomes more lively, he may well start to stay awake after the night feed. Ours went from being a fantastic sleep through the night baby at 3/4 months to one that was wide awake quite regularly - I believe there's a sleep regression phase around then - so for our sanity we had to learn to deal with it!!

So my very long-winded advice to you is to simply stop bouncing on the yoga ball and head for the cot/pram/moses basket at home in your house for at least one nap of the day. Get a little routine set up and be prepared to sit near the bed for a while for a few weeks. Take each day at a time.The thing I realised was that firstly, they quite quickly reach a stage where you can't actually make them sleep, they have to do it themselves, and secondly, unless you change your behaviour (ie, your methods), they won't change, because they just don't know any other way. You're at a good time I think though, because you will hopefully get him into a nice routine just as he's starting to get really into the surrounding world! For what it's worth, ours started sleeping longer than the 40 minutes at 6 months - we suddenly dropped to 2 naps of an hour/90 mins (a whole hour!!!) twice a day. But that came with more moving around, and solid food, which I think may have all combined to have an effect. If it hadn't, I figured she'd just be doing 2 x 40 min naps a day until she started crawling/walking and dropped to one nap - I hoped she'd be so tired the one nap would then stretch out longer, but thankfully it happened before that!!! I would actually stick to the 2-2.5 hour window for now, because it's quite a good guide.

From my marginally more experienced viewpoint :-) , if you can get this routine going and get him into a good little routine of his own, you will really reap the rewards of it for the next few years. I'd try to do a similar routine at bedtime if you don't already. Just don't be too hard on yourself about making it work straight away, he's still quite small and it will take some time. Ours now does a good 10 - 11 hours sleep every night and a minimum of a 2 hour nap every afternoon - it's taken a lot of work to get here, but I will say now that it's worth it.

madeinamerica

I second wearing him in a sling around the house. Seriously saved my arms/back/sanity.

mirrorwall14

We had issues around this time and it turned out he was up too long first thing in the morning, he could only stay awake about 60 mins at that age at that time of the morning. Started putting him down at the very first eye rub/yawn and things got better

corsav6

Your not alone OP, our 4 month old boy does 20 mins at the most during the day. Down for the night at 6pm, wakes for 2 or 3 quick feeds and up around 7am.
When he wakes during the day he cries until either myself or my wife picks him up. When he's not overtired he's happy enough playing on his mat, or been entertained by his 2 and a half year old big brother, who is a saviour sometimes because baby thinks he's amazing and he'll just watch him for ages.
No real advice as we haven't figured it out yet either, but your not alone.

angeldelight

I was exactly the same. The only thing that helped was time I'm afraid. My now 7 month old has only started taking proper longer naps in the last few weeks!

How Strange

I think it's fairly typical at that age. Both of mine started sleeping longer for naps from around 7-8 months.

joanene

hi i feel your pain!
my 5 month old is a terrible napper...takes 3/4 naps of about 30 mins. he sleeps very well at night so i know i cant complain but as you've described its so hard to get anything done.
even if we are in the car on a longish journey he will wake after 30 mins!

he is my second boy...my first was exactly the same and it drove me mad but im more relaxed about it this time.
At 7 months my first boy started taking longer naps...just when i went back to work!!
So im hoping this little man will do the same!

hang in there...it will improve!

Mink

Yep, was exact same when he was that age and gradually the naps became fewer and longer. Awake time was about 1.5-2hrs between naps.

By the time he was 6mths he was taking 3 naps of about an hour which was great and also he was much easier to settle for them.

I had to get a little routine in for nap time and stick to it and then he started to recognise the routine and just went with it.

Macha

Thanks for all the replies! I'm heartened to hear it naturally improves with age although I will be doing my best to give nature a helping hand..

I'll definitely try putting him back down for a nap after an hour in the morning and easing off on the rocking. I've also read that babies will stir after 20 minutes but go into a deeper phase of sleep so if he's waking up, it's that he can't put himself to sleep. Seems like a win-win if I can help him learn how to go to sleep with less support and he also naps better.

LegacyUser

They do a bit, I thought long and hard around every angle of that and tried a few things to lengthen the sleep, but it never really worked. I eventually just settled for being happy that I was getting a guaranteed 40 mins in the morning (at least) to have a cup of coffee

It will take time because he's still quite small, but it will come around. And don't be too hard on yourself all the time, there are some days when it all just goes out the window completely!!

I should add that any change throws them - so like when my little one was ready to go down to 2 naps in a day, at around 5.5 months, we had 2 weeks where she went from 2-3 40 min naps in a day down to about 2 20 min naps. Total disaster, she was exhausted and nothing I did could change it. But she then suddenly slept the hour in the morning and the afternoon one day (bang on 6 months!!!!!). We had the same with the 2 naps to 1, it went a bit haywire for a week or so then sorted itself.

Hindsight is an amazing thing.... !!!! Good luck!

Dobbit

My fella is nearly the same age as yours Macha and he is also a crap napper but sleeps fine at night. I think they will grow out of it esp once they go on solids. As someone said to me on a different thread, if I have to choose between a crap napper and a baby who wakes up every 2 hours at night, I know who I'd pick...