I suspect there isn't an easy answer to this, but usually somewhere out there has a better idea so I am posting just in case!
My LO is a chronic 45 minute napper - has been since she was 7 weeks old
We've had phases of longer naps, but mainly short naps. I was able to extend them with 20mins of pat/ssh until she was 5mo old, now I can rarely extend them in the cot and we usually end up going out in the buggy for her to get the second 45 mins....
My feeling is that Katie is very sensitive to A time - too long or too short = 45 minute naps.
Anyway we had a week or two of longer naps, and now are back into the short ones again and I am wondering if anyone can shed any light on whether her current A time is too long or too short.
She is now 6 mo, so the "average" A times are 2hr 15 to 2hr 30 mins. She is currently on about 2hrs 10 or 2hrs 15 mins so a bit less than average. Today I tried to extend her in the cot, and she kind of went back to sleep with shh/pat but it was a very light sleep, and she woke up again every time there was a noise in the house even though I was there doing shh/pat the whole time.
She can get herself to sleep (I pop her in the cot awake and leave the room, and 95% of the time I don't hear a peep until 45 mins later), she self-soothes by rubbing a muslin over her eyes, we have a 10-15 min pre-nap wind-down, so I feel as though we are doing everything we should be... but still we have short naps!
Does anyone have any suggestions - should I reduce or increase A time? She rarely shows tired signs until we start the wind-down so I find it hard to go on her cues.
I suspect I just need to try it and see but am so wary of ending up with 30 min naps and nightmare night wakings (which is what happens when shes overtired) that I wanted to see if anyone had any great suggestions first...!
Our routine:
7am get up and BF (she's sometimes already awake, sometimes I wake her)
8am solids
9am-ish nap - usually this one is 1.5-1.75hrs, can usually extend if wakes after 45 mins
11am BF
1pm ish (or 2hr 10 mins after last woke) nap - usually 45 mins followed by second 45 mins in buggy which takes us up to about 3pm. On the rare occastion it's a good nap I wake her around 2:30pm
3pm BF
4:45pm catnap for 30-45 mins (earlier if really bad naps earlier)
5:30pm solids
7pm bed time (earlier if really bad naps)
10:30pm BF
We usually have some NWs if overtired, also hitting some milestones at the moment and she's waking up all over the place in the cot!
Thanks so much
Bryony
