45 minute naps-need reassurance

[~Angie~]

Hi,
I need some reassurance here. My LO has taken 45 minute naps for about three weeks now. She had been doing good with them, so I left them alone. However, the last two days she has been cranky. So, I decided to start working on extending them. I went in at 45 minutes and of course she is laying there smiling at me. I gave her her paci and patted her back. It took 40 minutes of pressure on her arms and patting, but she did go back to sleep. So, now I am sitting here thinking- is this worth it-to spend 40 minutes getting her back to sleep. I know deep down it is. I thought the same thing when we first starting teaching sleep to her. It took a few weeks of spending 40 minutes with her. Now, she goes to sleep all by herself every time. 

What I want to know is-who has had success extending naps and how long did it take before your LO took long naps without help from you. I know all babies are different, but just want to hear success stories from others. 

[ks6]

We had short naps from 8 weeks to 5 1/2 months.  I did not have energy for any extention methods, so we just went with whatever nap happened.  Happily, the morning nap turned into 1 1/2 hours at 5 1/2 months.  Ds would usually have 2 other short naps during the day, but what a difference!  Right now (7months), the afternoon nap is longer about every fourth day.  Ds did this all on his own, so there is hope!
Kim

[Harvey and Theos Mam]

We didn't start b/w until Harvey was 4 months and the first thing we worked on was his short naps.

It took a couple of weeks to sort out because of our "accidental parenting" but we got there in the.

He is gone 2yrs now and still has a daily nap of anywhere between 1-3hrs from 11am. This is great as i got to nap whilst pg and can still nap as theo naps around this time too. Am having progress extending his naps and he's almost 6wks.

[milliesmaw]

We are the same as ks6. I spent a couple of weeks trying to extend naps and it drove me mad so I just went with 4 x 45 min naps per day. We got used to it. This week at 6 months we have had one long nap per day and two short ones. Today was 2.5 hours!! Didn't know what to do with myself Ds did this himself however it has been since he learnt to go to sleep independently and I ditched the paci.

[Luke-n-Me]

I honestly will have to tell you that I had NO luck with nap extending with either of my lo's.  My son was 3.5 mos. when he found his thumbs and became the worlds best napper.  My daughter on the other hand is now 5 mos. and we're finally starting to see some sort of pattern.  She takes a short 45 min. a.m. nap, a 2-2.5 hr. p.m. nap and another 30-45 minute nap later.  We just rode out the short naps until they stopped on their own, I nearly lost my mind trying to extend naps!!!!

[~Angie~]

Thanks for your replys. I did manage to extend her naps the other day. She had three good 1.5 hour naps. As a result, she was up playing until 12:00 AM. I would have been frustrated if she didn't decide to show me at that time that she could really laugh, not just giggle. So, needless to say, I haven't tried to extend any more naps.