6 month old short naps and frequent night waking

[renn486]

Little one just turned 6 months old and is still having short naps
She mostly takes 40min naps throughout the day with quite a few wakings in the middle of the night
She has 2 hours of awake time and she's usually ready for her nap rubbingeyes etc
She has gotten pretty good at falling asleep in the crib which is such an improvement!
However she does sometimes need the pacifier and sometimes she doesn't. She can put the paci in on her own during the day but not at night

Her day looks:

630 awake + breastfeed
830 nap
915 awake + breastfeed(sometimes if I feed her right after she wakes she will sleep eat)
1030  solids
1115-1130 nap
12 awake + breastfeed
2 nap
245 awake + breastfeed
445/ 5 cat nap
530 awake
700 feed
730 bedtime

I realize she's eating more often than every 4hrs. I find she eats the best after a nap when she isn't so distracted. Totally open to doing every 4 hrs if she could just sleep longerstretches!
She's also up a few times at night sometimes just for her pacifier other times to eat. She feeds twice overnight.
Any help would be great!

[Lindsay27]

40min naps are usually a sign of UT, and most LOs start to transition to 2 naps around 6 months, so it's probably a good indication that her A time needs to be bumped hun.  At 6 months most would be averaging close to 3hrs, so it seems like you might be in a UT/OT loop situation where she's UT for her nap so she takes a short 40-min nap, but as a result is OT at the end of the day because naps haven't been restorative - does that make sense? 

I would start by pushing A times to 2.5hrs and then you can bump up from there maybe 10 or 15mins every few days.  Often as LOs get older their tired signs become more unreliable, and then simply "act" tired because they are bored/need a change in stimulation, or because they are used to being put down for a nap at around that time.  Very often we find if you push past that point, that LO is just fine to NWs can be attributed to OT.

Some helpful links:

https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=84884.0
https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=246541.0

[renn486]

Thanks! I'll try extending her awake time and hopefully it works! 😊

[Lindsay27]

Let us know how it goes! 😊

[renn486]

I started this morning keeping her up 2.5 hrs but she still took a 40 min nap. Then we played again for another 2.5 but this time she took only 30 min nap.
Do I just keep the awake time at 2.5hrs for the next few days regardless how long she naps?
Thanks!

[Lindsay27]

Probably still UT hun, I would go ahead and push A times more.  Most 6 month olds are nearing a 3hr A time, I just thought we'd start with 2.5hr and see how it goes

40 min naps are very typical UT behaviour.  What's happening is what we call a UT/OT loop.  So she is UT for the first nap, thus takes a short 40/45min nap, but because it was not restorative, is then OT for the next nap, and thus takes a 30min OT nap - does that make sense?  Typically 40/45min naps are indicative of UT and 30min naps of OT.

You'll probably need to ride out the rest of the day, but tomorrow I'd start fresh and go ahead and push to 2.45hr A time and see what that does.