Extending naps?

[RyansMum]

Hi, I keep reading on here about people needing/wanting to extend naps and I just wanted to know why this is such an issue?

My lo tends to have 3 naps a day.  First one is 2 hours after he wakes up in the morning (about half hour, occassionally 1 hour).  Second one comes around lunchtime and is usually just half hour and the final one if I have not over done activity takes place around 3-3.30 where he will sleep for half hour (occassionally 1 hour) again.  He then stays up till bedtime (sometimes he gets grouchy during his wind down and other times he is fine)

He has also slept through for the last 3 nights (only wake up has been during his dream feed) so I feel that his naps must be enough for him and he is getting his main sleep from bedtime onwards.

Just curious about the reasons behind this as sometimes I doubt myself but then I see his smiling face and feel I must be doing something right!

[tash donohoe]

You're right. I decided to do this as Ethan started to make huge changes at 4 months, went from feeding every 2 - 2.5 hours to 3.5 - 4 hours and seemed more tired. He is always happy in the morning after a great nights sleep but as the day goes on and he wakes up from his 45 min naps he still looking sleepy and grumpy. I stayed home all week trying to help him through his naps but gave up yesterday thinking he is not ready and will work it out eventually on his own. I will now leave the guy to figure out his transition naturally and am sure that he will make it soon. I think that when babies change sometimes we feel that something isn't right and we really need to help them, which sometimes works and in my case I gave it a go and stressed too much about it and needed to let it go.

[RyansMum]

Well today was a different story.  Woke up early at 5 and it took me just over an hour to get him back to sleep!  We then both dozed until 8!  He had 2 20 minute naps and then slept from 3.30 (wake half hour for feed at 4.30) to 6 when I woke him up.  Felt very bad but knew he would be a nightmare at bedtime (dh is feeding him now).

I think I will just go with the flow and listen to Ryan!!

[Mia & Scarlett's Mummy]

Hi Ryansmom

My dd Mia is 3.5 months and has only just started to extend her naps beyond the 45 minute mark and it is only every now and then.  I worked hard on extending her naps using wake to sleep and pat/sshhh and it went horribly wrong as she started waking in the night which she had never done before.  I quickly abandoned that idea and like you figured she would suss it out on her own.

She has started extending her naps as I say sometimes with me popping the dummy back in and sometimes all on her own.  It sounds like your little man is happy on the amount of daytime sleep he gets which is great. 

In another post I say I've learnt to roll with her naps a bit more now, knowing the type of baby she is (a handful!) there's not much I can do other than hope she will continue to work it out and extend her naps independantly, because, unfortunately for me, unlike your ds, my dd can't make it through the day on 3 or 4 45 minute naps.  If she only has short naps she ends up screaming and sobbing from around 4.30pm onwards right up until we put her to bed at 7pm which breaks my heart.

I think listening to your LO (and yourself) is the right and only thing you can do.  I'm sure Mia will sort herself out eventually and in the meantime I'm here to guide her and give her a helping hand.

[Taylor's Mommy]

HI Ryans mum,

to answer your question about why some moms stress about short naps so much:
1. It can be so tiring for both mom and baby.  Mom barely has time to herself to shower, take a nap, do laundry, etc. 
2. For baby, a short nap is not very helpful...antyhing less than 1 hour, and especially less than 45 minutes is really of no use to the baby.  As one other popular sleep doctor says, "it is not restorative."   Babies do most of their learnign and processing of they day's activities when they sleep.  So if their naps are short, they don't have ample time to do the processing and developing they need to.
3. Good day sleep begets good nights sleep for many babies (but not all).  Some babies can't sleep well during the night because they didn't get proper rest during the day, so they have a hard time falling asleep and/or staying alseep.  For other babies though (like my dd), her poor short naps never affected her night sleep.

So now I may have got you in a panic, but don't fret!  Babies as young as yours are still trying to develop their day sleep so short naps are quite common and sometimes not a lot you can do about them.  But by the time they are 5-6 months old it is a good idea to try to "fix" them if they are still taking short naps IMHO.

[RyansMum]

Thanks for the replies ladies.  I actually let him sleep for 2 hrs for his final nap yesterday and it basically messed him up!  He would not go to sleep at bedtime.  DH and I tried for 2 hours after bedtime to get him to settle but to no avail!  In the end I was quite naughty and brought him back down with us.  But no play I just rested him on my lap and he fell asleep within half hour!  Partly due to his long nap and partly I think due to the fact he has a slight cold.  Last night after the dream feed however he was his usual self only waking once (though that also took a while to get him back to sleep).  I felt bad for waking him but now I think if it happens again I will wake him earlier as its no fun for him to cry and fret for all that time and its no good for my stress levels either!

I hear what you are saying about short naps and the fact they take in what they have learnt while asleep but I am not bothered about that at the moment,  his short naps seem to suit him.