Naps only 30 min - W2S not working - HELP!

[AmandainAZ]

[color=Purple]My 4-month-old is finally doing great at falling asleep (we just stopped accidental parenting last week).  At night he goes down without a peep and stays asleep for several hours.  During the day he falls asleep easily enough but is awake at about 30 min.  I've tried both forms of W2S many times and at many different times and still can't get him to stay asleep past that 30 minute mark.  Trying to get him to go back to sleep is always horrible, with a ton of crying and multiple stops/starts of sleep.

He's only staying awake about and hour to an hour and a half at the most and never seems well-rested.

Here's our typical day:

Wake and eat at 7:00ish
A: play for about an hour until fussy
S: 8 or 8:30 - lasts about 1/2 hour
if I can get him back down it takes at least a half hour and then he's only down for another 30-40 min and we start all over again in this same pattern, all day long.

Any help???!!!  Thanks[/color]

[Mom to M&M]

Hi there. I think the problem may be not enough A times. If he's not tired enough for a long nap, no amount of W2S is going to help, unfortunately.

At 4 months, he can likely handle more A time. I'd shoot for 1.5 hours in the morning, so first nap starting around 8:30 and second nap starting 1.5-1.75 hours after end of first nap.

Do you have a consistent wind-down routine? Use white noise? Darken his room?

Keep up the good work - you're doing a great job so far and congrats on ending the accidental parenting!