Question for those who never got over 30 naps...

[lilflav]

Hello, I've been dealing with short naps since my dd was about 4 months old.  She is now 8 months- 7 months adjusted.  I have tried everything to get her naps to extend, but nothing seems to be working.  I have gone by cues, btc, I started putting her down as much as possible- that of course led to me aping. Even 2 weeks ago I was putting her down sometimes as soon as 1hr15 min.  Two weeks ago I started lengthening A times up to 2-2.5 hrs & stopped aping and trained her to fall asleep on her own again.  After doing this her nights at least got better, but naps aren't improving.  It seems she'll have a good nap or even a few days of having one good nap per day then she reverts back to 30 min naps.  I am beginning to think this will never get better & just have to deal with it.  But now that she is getting older her a times are stretching longer & longer, I have no idea how to get enough sleep.  It seems she can settle herself between 2hr15min-2hr45min now, and no sooner. So I can only get 3 naps totaling 1.5 hours.  And this is only going to get worse as she gets older.  The past week she had some longer then 12 hour nights & shorter days, so I have been letting her sleep in as much as possible in the morning because that is better then waking her up to only get 30 min naps out of her. But I don't know how long that will last, or how often that will be.   I have no idea what to do.  Has anyone else had a lo the wouldn't kick the short nap phase?  What did you do?  What was your schedule like? 

[tylersmommy]

Well, my 2nd LO was a chronic short napper. I did what I could to lengthen them, but honestly, being on the go and having another kid to tend to meant that I couldn't spend a lot of time on it. I just shrugged and dealt with it as best I could. She started taking longer naps when we transitioned her to 2 naps around 8 mo. I knew she was ready because the 3rd nap kept getting later and later and was pushing bedtime later. It was hard to stretch her A time to get to 2 naps because I had to ignore her cues, but that's what kicked it for us once her body adjusted.

One thing jumped out at me. Keep in mind that babies and kids need a certain amount of sleep per day. How it's split between night and day doesn't matter to them as long as it adds up to the total amount they need. Letting your DD sleep later in the morning only adds onto her night sleep and could be taking away from her day sleep, KWIM? And I'm a believer in keeping morning wakeup time and bedtime pretty consistent from day to day.

Hopefully she gets past it soon!

[lilflav]

Thanks for the reply Melissa!  Extending her naps isn't even an option, at 30 min she just pops up and smiles & is ready. Only very occasionally it is possible, like once a month.  Also she seems to buck the trend of 30 min=ot 1hr=ut.  yesterday I couldn't get her down for her nap (I tried too early, then she got frustrated then ot), so I eventually got her up and fed her & had a break.  It was over 4 hours a time & she took a 1hr10 min nap.  I've been having the same problem with bedtime & nap scheduling that you had.  I'm having a hard time scheduling naps so they don't go to close to bedtime push it later or I don't have to put her down much earlier-esp. since daylight savings is coming up.  Maybe I should just put her down at scheduled times.  Right now I am giving her between 2.15-2.75hrs of a time, w/ some 2 hrs sprinkled in.  I hope by next month she willl also start kicking the 30min nap trend, if not she will soon only be getting 2x 30 min naos a day! 

[lilflav]

I guess no one else had this problem for so long?  :*(

[taygensmom]

Hi! For us naps lengths were inconsistent until around the 8 month mark, then they started to improve and now my LO (10 months) consistently takes a 1 to 1 1/2 hr nap in the morning and a 2 hr nap in the afternoon. I think for us several things helped:
1. Realizing that developmentally lengthening naps often doesn't occur till around 7-9 months of age. This is exactly how DS#1 was as well...inconsistent naps that finally "settled" around 8 months of age. I also agree that your LO only needs a certain amount of sleep per 24 hr period, including nights. So if your Lo is getting 13 or so hours of sleep at night (not sure what the number actually is for you) then daytime sleep is going to be more of a struggle. For us 11 hour nights worked well for both our LOs, as they eventually settled into great nappers, but I know many of this site also like 12 hr nights.
2. Making sure there is no accidental parenting going on that might hinder sleeping.
3. Waking in the morning at a set time, regardless of how they slept at night/napped during the day. This helps "set" their itnernal clock so that it is starting at the same time every day, which eventually helps with naps.
4. Stretch the first morning nap (for us around 9:30 AM)
5. Let the rest of the daytime naps fall where they may, depending on how she napped prior. Try not to stress too much over this, cuz in most cases the naps will lengthen as their system develops and they mature!

At around 8 months our LO's schedule was something like this:
Wake -7:00
Nap - 9:00 or 9:30 (hour to hour and a half)
Nap - 2:00 (few hours)
Bedtime - 8:00

If she slept poorly for the first nap I would put her down a little earlier for the second. If she slept poorly for the second I would give her a little catnap around 5:00 jsut to get her to bedtime. Eventually everything just fell into place. HTH!!!
HTH!!!

[lilflav]

Ok, so here's the deal- I'm going to give her until she's 9 1/2 or 10 months old to start having longer naps.  If she doesn't then I'll be back!!  I guess we'll just make do until then.  Thanks!

p.s.- I don't think there's any aping going on.  for naps & bedtime my routine is change diaper, swaddle bottom half, walk around turing off lights & closing curtians (unless she is very sleepy already, then I hold for a min or two then she goes down), walk/rock until she starts closing eyes or 7 mile stare (rarely does she do this, when she does she usually drops off very quickly in my arms), put her down, her eyes reopen if closed, give about 5 pats until she stops wiggling (sometimes she just opens eyes then starts closing again), then run out of room, then she is usually quiet or she fusses and eventually falls asleep.

[taygensmom]

Hope it goes well!