Extending baby's naps

[Roisin n]

Hi there,

My daughters 4month old and has been struggling to nap longer than 30-40 mins and has been getting very overtired through the day.

I have tried the patting (wake to sleep method 1) which seems to have helped extend on a few occasions. However I was wondering whether you are meant to put the dummy in their mouth when they wake up looking for it? My baby keeps using her hand to knock it out and then wants in again. She is half swaddled.

Have you got any tips on how to stop this or whether I should not put the dummy in? When she's in deep sleep the dummy falls out anyway

Thank you

[creations]

Hi there
Sorry to see you didn't get any replies yet.

I did see your thread a few days back but didn't respond as I don't have paci experience, my DS never took one.

I would say not to re-plug, but easier said than done when you have a LO awake and you want to try anything to get him back to sleep. They can become very reliant on it as a prop, on the other hand a baby who is reliant on a paci shouldn't have it dropped cold turkey either (SIDS guidance for LOs under 6 months).
The W2S method itself does not involve use of a paci but if you feel you want to re-plug then that's your choice. There are pros and cons of the paci so if you choose to go for it don't feel guilty. you can wean it later.

4 months is prime time for the naps to go short even when a LO was previously napping well.
You might need to increase her A time as it does rapidly increase more than expected between now and 6 months.  This may help.
Here's a link to A times which may help:
https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=84884.0

This is also the month when you move from 3 hr EASY to 4hr EASY if your LO can manage the feeds further apart.

Often the 4 month regression lasts a couple of months and LOs are usually back on track at 6 months if not before.

hope this helps