30 minute naps are driving all of us crazy!

I have 4 month olds (born 5 weeks early) who are going through a phase (at least I hope its a phase) where they will only take 20-30 minute naps - about 3x's day. Needless to say, they are exhausted and fussy all day long b/c their naps never last long enough to make them well-rested. I put them down after being up for about 1.5 hours - that is the point where their eyes get reddish and tired looking, etc. Then we do this dance all day long - but they never sleep for longer than 30 minutes. I rock them, I pat them, I shush them, etc. and even if I succeed at getting them back to sleep after a 30 minute nap, they will wake up as soon as I lay them down.

Is it their age? When do naps get better? I don't remember going through this with my 3-year-old DS, but maybe since there was only one of him it didn't seem so exhausting!

Thanks!

 

My girls are almost 7 months and were napping exactly as you had described up until about 2 weeks ago. At 6 months they became much easier to entertain/distract in the morning, so it was easier to hold them off longer for a nap. Then their afternoon nap just fell into place. I didn't really do anything terribly different; it's like a switch just flipped and suddenly they started napping for more than 30 minutes. I feel your frustration. Some days I would drive myself crazy trying to get them to sleep longer. My older boys didn't do this either. When you have other children to take care of, you don't have the luxury of dedicating all your time to getting them on a great sleep schedule. Hang in there...it will probably happen soon.

 

This started happening to us last week. It seems like no matter what we do the days of sleeping for an hour or two after a bottle are long gone. Sometimes it will be a 10 nap then up again until the next feeding! I thought it might have something to do with them sleeping from 11:30pm until 7 am, but I am glad you posted b/c they need those big naps during the day. The worst/funniest thing is trying to get a baby to sleep who just won't. I told my dh it should be on a reality show, like a challenge either eat live worms or try to get an infant to sleep! I would eat the worms!

Hopefully this post will prompt some insightful resplies to aid us in this non-sleeping time.

 

Glad to see I'm not alone!

I swear sometimes I feel like I spend my entire day TRYING to get babies to go to sleep - only to be defeated by them time and time again! It's not that I don't love spending time with them...but come on, when they are soo tired they can barely keep their eyes open - they NEED to nap! Hopefully they catch on to this idea soon!

Maybe some mommies with older babies can offer more insight - like the PP whose babies just started taking long naps in the middle of the day.

Thanks!

 

I posted almost exactly this post about a month ago...
My guys are still all over the map. Some naps are 2 hours now but they are also as short as 20 minutes.
So it's starting to get better...but we still have a ways to go. I think time is the only thing that has helped here.

 

I was just about to post something about this too. Mine started doing this just this week. I thought that maybe they were just fussy because I have had to work a lot more, and they haven't seen me. Today, though, I was here with them all day and they still only took really short naps and were fussy all day. I don't know what to do. I have been reading HSHHC, but the techniques aren't working for me thus far when it comes to naps (although the babies are sleeping great at night).

 

Our naps are never consistant. Sometimes they get to sleep for an hour, sometimes more sometimes less.

 

At that age our DCs had a 1-2 hour nap in the morning about 1 hour after waking up. But after that it was "fair game"... There was no consistency and no long nap period. Then it changed to no real naps, all were 20-30 mins long and all took place in swings, car seats, or strollers. This was when my Dh took time off from work to be home and all our previous routines were wiped out.

I'm following HSHHC and sleep training for night and naps, and its working. They now nap for 1-2.5 hours 2 times per day, and are STTN 7-7 (sometimes one feed at 12:30am). My babies are totally different now and MUCH less fussy. It is a blessing.

I hope you find a way to get your babies to sleep longer. Have you read any material on it as yet, in order to make an informed decision as to how you are going to proceed?