short am nap long pm nap

[allyson]

I have a 5 month old and her morning naps are 20-45 min. She wakes at 5:45-6 and I keep her until about 8:45 for a nap. I try to extend her activity time but keep it low key before her am nap. Before I put her down too soon and she still did a short nap. she tends to take a 2 hour nap at 12 ish cannot keep her up until 1 because she takes such a short morning nap. She then wants to go to bed early because she is tired at the night time 6:30-7. and is waking up betewwn 4-5:50am very hungry usually goes back to sleep after being fed. I need to tweek these times to make them all a bit later. how do I do this? is it normal to have a baby take such a short nap in the morning??if is throwing the whole day off......

[Taylor's Mommy]

hi there,

first, her bedtime of 6:30-7 is quite normal for a lot of BW babies.  And the fact that she wakes for a feed around 5ish is also normal and GREAT that she goes right back to sleep for a bit.

Regarding the short am nap, perhaps 2.5-3 hours of A time is too long first thing in the am.  It is VERY common for the first A time to be shorter than the rest, and it is said that the am and am nap are actually an extension of night time REM sleep.  So the key is to keep the am A time a little shorter and less stimulating than the rest of the day.

I would suggest trying to keep her A time in the mornign to no more than 2 hours and see if that helps.  It is possible that she is overstimualted by the time she take her nap, therefore the short nap.  Perhaps give it a try for 3-4 days and see if it helps.

Andrea

[Nikki~Nathan&Danielle]

Totally agree with Andrea's advice there!

My dd also only naps 45min in the morning but can handle then going down for her 2nd nap at 12.30pm which actually means she sleeps a good 2-3hrs.  The fact that you sometimes get REALLY short naps like 20mins is definitely a sign of overtiredness.  My dd often wakes at 6.30am and I keep her up until 9am for a nap, but on the days that she wakes at 7.30am and I put her down for a nap also at 9am she'll often then sleep for 1.5hrs, so the shorter A at the start of the day does need to be shorter.

Oh and my dd has only just sleeping through the night at just over 7mths with the odd wake up for a feed still.

[Aarismom]

Another thing to add: Usually if your lo gets 11-12 hours of sleep at night, it's natural biorhythmically to take a short am nap, usually 1-1.5 hours in length. The PM nap has more deep sleep in it, and is a little more important than the am nap, although both are important. This one may end up being 1.5-2 hours long (well, it's "supposed" to be anyway ).

You might try some tricks to see if you can make the am nap longer. At that age, my lo was doing the same thing; 45 min morning nap, and 2 hour afternoon nap (if I was lucky).

*HUGS*
Sonya =P