30-45 Minute Naps for 4 Month Old

[kmy414]

I CANNOT figure out what I'm doing wrong. My little guy will be 4 months old on Tuesday and we've been struggling with the 45 minute nap for the last month and a half. I thought things would get better but they are just getting worse. There are now a lot of 30 minute naps and his last nap today was 23 minutes! Once or twice a week we'll get lucky and he'll take a nap for an hour and a half.

I try to put him back down when he wakes up before 45 minutes. I'd say this works 2-3 times a week max. Otherwise he's awake.

The other thing is he doesn't really cry so he doesn't need a lot of comforting. He wakes up, kicks his legs, rolls around, talks to himself and seems ready to play. When I go in to try to put him back down, he just smiles at me. So the shushing doesn't seem to do anything.

We've tried so hard to follow the routine but it's getting so exhausting to not have longer periods of S time.

Here's a typical day for us (we give him between 4.5-5.5 oz of formula at each feeding):

6:00am - Wakes up, Eat
6:20am - Activity
8:00am - Nap
8:45am - Eat
9:05 - Activity
10:45 - Nap
11:30 - Eat
11:50 - Activity
1:30 - Nap
2:15 - Eat
2:35 - Activity
4:15 - Nap
5:00 - Eat
5:20 - Activity
6:45 - Bedtime routine (Bath, Swaddle, Eat)
8:00 - Asleep (typically he sleeps through the night, sometimes I have to get up once around 3am to get him back to sleep)

Any advice? HELP! 

[Scottishmummy]

Hi and welcome to BW 

Firstly you might not be doing anything "wrong". 4mo is a tricky time for sleep..lots of developmental changes going on which can disrupt sleep and some babies just aren't ready to transition between sleep cycles yet & short naps are really common at this age so it might be developmental rather than anything you are or aren't doing.

45 min naps and not resettling after can be undertired (UT) or developmental but your A times of 2hrs look high end of average for his age so I would guess it's not UT.

30 min naps or shorter can be overtired..it might be worth trying less than 2hrs A time after a short nap..some babies need around 10-15mins less A time after a short nap.

Also - does he self settle for naps or do you need to help him to sleep? Around this age longer naps start to depend on being able to self settle.

The only other thing I'm wondering about is the feeds and whether they might be contributing as some babies do larger less frequent feeds by this stage (moving to 4hrly feeds) but I never bottle fed so not sure..I'll see if someone else can come in to offer an opinion.