Tom has been taking short naps since just after he turned 3 months old and started sleeping longer at night. Apart from this he is brilliant, hes been on easy since he was 3 weeks old, sleeps 12 hrs at night, is (nearly) always in a good mood, and wakes giggling as often as he wakes grizzling
i find it so easy, however, to get hung up on those short naps, trying every suggestion in the book as well as suggestions everyone online has offered. I even put my life on hold to try to sort out the nap issue for 2 weeks (and ended up getting really depressed as id spent so long in a darkened room, with no improvement whatever). I streached his awake time on the advice of one person, and have now shortened it again on the advice of another...... (BTW this has helped a bit) and i often take this failure to improve the situation as a sign im doing something wrong (and therefore a bad mother)
Im now trying to worry less about the short naps, and lengthen them without dwelling on them. My hv said she truily believes tom needs less sleep than many babies so although he may need a litle more than the 45 mins hes currently getting, there is no point aiming for 2 hrs as he simply doesnt need it!
So to all mums suffering short naps remember YOU ARE A FANTASTIC MOTHER, MANY BABIES GO THROUGH A PHASE OF SHORT NAPS, OTHERS JUST NEED LESS SLEEP. EITHER WAY SHORT NAPS DOES NOT MAKE YOU A FAILURE.
i think this site is great, the tips are really usefull, i plan to continue to fight short naps, but i also plan to keep things in perspective :wink:
BTW i posted 2 weeks ago to ask how people whos babies needed less sleep organised easy, i got some tips on how to lengthen naps, but no one replied to say how they delt with easy if there lo needed less sleep. if anyone can help with this id REALLY apriciate it because im worried his short naps will confuse the routine we worked so hard to set up