Nap help

CAA0508

My DD is just over 4 months old and we are having a hard time with naps. She only naps for about 30 minutes at a time and then wakes up happy. The problem is that about 20-30 minutes later she is cranky and acting tired again. This cycle repeats all day long. Sometimes she naps 6-7 times a day, all short little cat naps. I just feel like she isn't getting good rest and so she is cranky almost all day long. Is there anything I can do to teach her to nap longer? Would sleep training work here?

TikiHut23

My DD was very similar at that age. We use a fan for naps for white noise, and use black out curtains to keep her room as dark as possible. Even with thise things, she was not taking long naps from 4-6 months. once she turned 6 months, her naps started getting longer. She now takes two 1.5-2hr naps a day.

My advice would be to do what you can to create a cozy sleeping environment for her naps like we did, and then hang in there & keep trying. I think your DD is a bit young for sleep training. Hopefully it's just a phase & her naps will start getting longer before you know it.

=Lee=B

I think it's part of the 4 month wakeful, my daughter started the same at about 3.5 months and now at 4.5 is just starting to get out of it again.  I found that having her nap close to me(in her room with me on my laptop or with her on couch beside me helped so that as soon as she woke I put her soother back in and snuggled her back to sleep).  I got nothing done but I could get her to sleep 1-3hr chunks again.

She now is better and only does this at the start of her sleep and once she has been down for about an hour she will usually sleep another 1-2 hrs with little to no wake ups.

My daughter had started to do the same at night so I stayed in her room on my phone or laptop to keep getting her resettled quickly.  Now she is down to one wake up at about 45min after she goes down and then she is out for a few hours before being hungry.

oh, and my daughter does the totally happy wake ups...when she see's me she is beaming and shaking with excitement...but if I lie beside her she looks at me and passes back out right away.  During this 4 month wakeful I pretty much gave up having her nap and sleep in crib and just bedshared (on bed in her room)...because my lying down beside her helped her back to sleep so everyone was happier and sleeping more.  In the last week or so I've transitioned her back to the crib and she sleeps fine in there again.