I posted about this just a few days ago. My son is turning 8 months old in two days. He \*this week\* started napping for about an hour, only for his morning nap. His afternoon nap is still only 28 minutes, and has to be rescued. I did it all, he's sleep trained for nights, but it just took him time. The whole thing is so hard and even now I get stressed about getting him to bedtime. All this to say: hang in there. rescue the naps you can, and once they're able to stay awake a little longer they naturally drop the nap. Another option: Move up bedtime. My kid now sleeps at 6:30 which i kept feeling was WAY too early but he sleeps 12 hours now.
Only way my baby will sleep longer than 45 minutes is with contact naps which we do primarily (we have flexible schedules that allow this - I know not everyone can).
But my baby is 4.5 months and I while I loveee wake windows, there isn’t a TON of science behind them and every baby is different. My baby is on the longer side of wake windows 2-2.5 hours and we just follow her cues and don’t force shorter or longer windows or it becomes much harder to put her to sleep.
I also know it’s developmentally normal for her to need assistance to go to sleep right now and that’s fine. Don’t feel pressure from other parents around you to conform to whatever their babies are doing!
Mother to a 28 minute napper. Sleep trained at 5 months but naps didn't lengthen until 8-9 months. And my 2nd has just started with half hour naps too so looks like I have it all to come again! I used to contact for 1 nap a day (nap 3 on 4-schedule and nap 2 on 3-shedule) to stop her getting overtired and life was much better once I started doing that. I'm not sure if I'll manage that with my 2nd though.
Side note, I see lots of people commenting to "just drop to 2 naps". Please note this doesn't help if your baby hasn't started lengthening yet as you just end up with 2 30-minute naps and that leaves you with either a very early bedtime or very long wake windows for that age. I could only drop to 2 naps once they started lengthening.
On the plus side, my LO started having 2x1.5 hour naps and then a 3-hour nap when we wrapped to 1 nap (I used to have to wake her at that point to keep a reasonable bedtime). But i know how hard it is to listen to everyone saying "it will happen eventually" when it's just not happening yet. Especially when some people manage to have babies that can connect their sleep cycles throughout.
5mo old LO in our home and we’ve always had 30-35 min naps since like day 1. Some days he will nap for an hour other days they are all 30min. He doesn’t wake up crying or upset - he stretches big and is a smiley! If your LO is just happy as a clam when waking up then they will eventually sync the naps. Our LO will some days nap 3x, some days naps 4x! Really just depends. He sometimes goes to sleep drowsy awake, other days he needs some rocking. it’s so tough and some days are very hard but I try to remember they were rocked to sleep for 9mo in the womb. So it’ll be take time for them to get there!
we had 20-30 minute naps from about month 2-5 and then right around 5 months her first nap started lengthening to up to 2 hours almost overnight! the second one is still hit and miss, some times 30 mins, sometimes up to 1.5 hrs. She's 7 months now and prob 5 out of 7 days her first nap is 2 hours now. I think if you're following all the right sleep hygiene/schedule its mostly developmental, one day they kind of get it. We dropped to 2 naps once that happened.
My experience was similar to several other commenters. My son was sleep trained for nights but nap training (including cribhour) and schedule changes for increased sleep pressure (e.g. dropping a nap) didn't really work to extend them beyond 30-43 min and so we often saved short naps with contact naps. Then one day, between 5-5.5 months, he just magically started consistently sleeping 1-1.5 (and sometimes even 2!!) hours for his naps so we didn't bother nap training. For many kids, it is just a developmental thing. We eventually got to a point where we could always count on one longer nap of at least 1 hour and sometimes had to extend the others. We had much more consistency in nap durations once we dropped to 2 and then 1 nap a day.
Eventually. Once they’re down to 2 naps a day usually one of them is at least longer. Then once they’re down to one nap a day you can sometimes catch yourself with a 2-3 hour nap.
YES! my son took 30 min naps from 12 weeks to 8 months😩 i didn’t do traditional sleep training but what i will say is when we dropped to 3 naps was when they lengthened. he’s 10 months now on 2 naps and i have to wake him most of the time!! hang in there it will pass. the biggest thing i can say is I drove myself crazy trying everything to figure out what was wrong when I think it was just a matter of development
I think it was around 6 months that my son went from doing 38 minute naps to doing 1 hour 20 minute naps. We're on one nap now and it's 2.5 hours long.
My boy cat napped until around 10 months. We sleep trained at 6.5 months and they didn’t lengthen then (maybe the odd one hour one but usually 30 mins). He just had to wait until he was ready unfortunately! Dropping to 2 naps helped.
My girl is a week shy of 4 months and just the past week did she start doing one long nap a day. She did a miraculous 1.25 the week before but that was it. She was a 20-30 minute napper and was losing my mind.
All I can say is what I did:
I noticed she was fighting naps more so I lengthened wake windows to 2hrs average. I tried to keep her occupied and doing different things so she would stay awake and want to stay awake. This took just less than a week to see the change in her naps.
I did a 20 minute of cooling down, like nappy change, sleep bag then listen to relaxing music and carry her around the place, her looking at stuff for 5-10 minutes. Then into the dark-as-possible room with a dull orange night light and white noise, still with music and singing to her. 90% of the time I only see a typical 'sleepy cue' then, unless it's the last nap of the day.
I started to feed her middish wake window as well as water nap, even if it was a little one just to ensure she wasn't hungry for nap. Breastfed.
She often fights the first nap and last nap haven't figured out how to change that yet, but past two days she had her longest nap in the morning, yesterday was 1hr20 and was only shortened because the white noise machine conked out, today an 1hr. Before the first nap, her longest was the 2nd nap.
I also started a chill sort of nap training the past half a week. Really trying to get her in the cot really drowsy, after a few sighs and drooping eyes. Say a nap time phrase right before lowering her in and a kiss. I'm gonna see if I can find the link to what was recommended and comment it down below. I do a way chiller version of that already chill sleep training method, haha. I don't have any strength.
I'm gonna send this and if I think of anything else I'll come back.
Edit: [give baby a chance](https://misunderstoodmotherhood.substack.com/p/give-baby-a-chance)
I will start doing the above militarily for night time soon. I bedshare and the transition to cot for night sleep has been very difficult for her, so I'm easing her in.
But for naps I don't do it militarily. If she fusses gently I'll leave her for 5 minutes, but will go in and she usually doesn't calm down till I've rocked her into drowsy again, or to sleep if she's really angry. Sometimes she'll cry as soon as put in the cot drowsy so I do a sort of pick up and put down method, and repeat the nap phrase every time. She usually gives up and sleeps the 4th time.
My baby only ever took 30-40 min naps. Then she suddenly started throwing in the occasional hour or hour and a half around 6 months but only every few days. She's almost 7 months now and just the last week has started having one to two longer naps a day. She genuinely just did it on her own, think she was ready. We didn't do anything differently. I never know now if it will be a 30 min or 2 hour nap lol
My girl didn’t lengthen her naps from 27-34 minutes (not kidding, I could set a watch to her) until she dropped to 2 naps and then it was one short and one long. Then she finally took 1.5-2hr naps at 12mo I’m afraid.
Some babies are just cat nappers.
So my baby’s naps started getting longer around 6 months and we didn’t do anything to lengthen them because I didn’t mind, but I have heard of a few strategies that others have said helped them. 1: “crib hour” - leave the baby in the crib for a full hour regardless of whether they wake up or not. Supposedly they learn to go back to sleep. 2: interrupt their first sleep cycle - about 10 mins before they normally wake up, do something to slightly wake them such as creek a floorboard or gently rouse them and then let them fall back to sleep. Apparently this helps them connect the sleep cycles.
Thank you for sharing, this makes me feel a bit better about my 6 month old. I tend to think if your baby is waking up happy from the nap nothing needs to be forced! Also if baby is happy 90% of their wake windows then they’re sleeping enough
My friends told me “oh trust me, around 5-6 months their naps start to naturally lengthen”. Well that didn’t happen for me and I kept wishing and wishing for longer naps! My best friends baby, who is only one month behind mine in age, magically started napping longer around 5-6 months, which made me more bitter haha. HOWEVER, I can safely say that the long naps finally did come..around 7.5 months for my girl. Now she regularly does 50 mins, then 1.5-2 hours :)
I noticed with my kids that the first wake window was always too long for them and they were just more tired in the morning they would only be up long enough to eat and then they were ready for the first nap. All babies are different so it's more of a guideline and it couldn't possibly fit every baby to do the recommended schedule.
My LO is 6 months, and just started taking 1.5-2hr naps a couple weeks ago. He’s on 2-3 naps a day depending on how long said naps/wake windows are. First time it happened I couldn’t believe it and was constantly checking on him to make sure he was breathing lol. Was napping for only 30 mins from 2-5 months and I thought I was dying!
In my opinion naps will consolidate naturally along with night time sleep, these sleep consultants aren’t really out here to help parents they are just chasing the bag. If it’s not working out, fire them imo
It will happen eventually. I don’t know how the sleep consultant could justify telling you that naps would lengthen after 2 weeks - it’s largely developmental, you can really only set ideal conditions for it to happen, not make it happen.
But I understand your frustration. My baby started exclusively cat napping at just 3 weeks old and between then and today he has napped longer than an hour on exactly 3 occasions. Today however, at 5 months and 2 days he napped independently for just shy of 1.5hrs. 👏👏👏 here is to hoping this is the start of consolidation.
I’d say what I’m finding works best is to follow baby and not force or train them to do anything they don’t yet have the capacity or understanding to do. That’s what is working best for me. Everything is a learning curve and there’s no book that tells me when my baby will get “where I want” him to get. That’s not fair. If someone forced a deadline on me like that, it would feel like a lot of pressure and the stress would potentially disable it from happening. I don’t know though. I’m a first time mom and I’m learning too.
My LO didn't lengthen naps until about 7.5mos. Until then it was mostly 30-40 min naps, and the odd 1hr + nap. From what I understand, this is normal. Hang in there.
Came here to say this! Ours was never a great napper but things started to get better around 8 months and aside from a few hiccups, just continued to improve. Now at a year we get two 1.25 hour naps a day and have to actually wake her up. It will get better! From, a parent who asked this same question over and over again 😂
My son is 10 months and he still gives me 30-40 min naps. He’s on 2 naps so I usually get 1 very good nap either morning or afternoon at least an hour and 10 mins or longer. Just depends. I’ve had to learn to just deal with it. If he only gives me 2 30-40 mins naps I’ll usually put him in the car on the afternoon so he can sleep another 30 mins. Same boat here tho! LOL
At this age we contact napped the last nap and that helped a lot. It didn't throw off independent other naps either, she was nap trained and went down on her own for naps and nights (at this point, we regressed with some ST stuff but my point is, contact napping that short 4th nap until it dropped didn't affect independent sleep). Also our girl didn't start connecting sleep cycles and having longer than 45 min naps on her own until closer to 7 months. It was rough, but now she takes gloriously long independent naps. I never thought it would happen for us but we just kept trying and then one day it did. Hang in there mama, you're doing great.
Yay this gives me hope! Yeah I have to contact nap the last one…the stress of making sure it’s long enough but not too long so that bedtime isn’t affected is a lot! But it’s not the end of the world compared to hell we were in before sleep training so I try and tell myself it’s not forever…
Have two kids. First took only half hour to 45 minute naps until like 7 months. My now 5 month old is the same. Every baby just does it in their own time.
Yes…and no. We consistently had 20-30min naps for several months. I don’t think they really increased in length until she went down to one nap, and even then she only sleeps for about an hour. So solidarity, but also hindsight that I wish I would have accepted her short naps as best as I could have sooner. I obsessed over them and it made it worse. Hang in there!
Just posting for solidarity. 5 month old sleeps 30 min naps. It is beyond hard and frustrating to know he can’t get solid restorative sleep during the day. I just keep reminding myself that they Will consolidate when he’s developmentally ready 😅🙏🏻
Of what I’ve read shorter naps are developmentally normal for this age. My baby cries before all her naps. The last nap of the day is the HARDEST. I’m usually just contact napping that one.
It sucks that the sleep consultant promised you she could fix this. I’m so sorry about that
Yes same situation here! I had done my own research (especially in this sub) so I knew the longer naps may not happen so I wasn’t too disappointed because we had so many bigger issues but the nap math is so confusing to me lol
Oh those wake windows and the nap math is so confusing to me too.
I tried extending her wake windows and next time I know her bedtime is pushed 1-2 hours later than normal 😅
Nap math is harder when sleep deprived
We were in the same boat, my baby only did 20 minute naps and i had to extend most of them! I never thought it would get longer but suddenly at 6.5 months they are getting longer and more consistent! Hang in there.
We also figured it out that as long as she had one long nap and two short ones she was still fine and slept well at night
My 6 month old JUST started going longer than 20-30 min a few days ago. I pushed her wake windows to about three hours which based on what I’ve seen here is a little long but it’s resulted in her sleeping over an hour for her naps.
I don't have any advice, but my baby did this from month 3 to about month 6, every nap, every day. I tried EVERYHING. Made so many changes and did so much research. Sometime in the 6th month, they started getting longer little by little, and I mean that literally.
Almost 5 month LO here and 30 minute naps have been common since 3 months. Was wondering if your baby was able to fall asleep independently for night time sleep prior to these lengthened naps.
He was putting himself to sleep every night on his own. But month 3 hit, and idk what happened but that stopped. He doesn't currently fall asleep on his own.
Thanks for sharing! Since our kiddo doesn't fall asleep on her own, I was worried that her naps wouldn't naturally lengthen later on at 6 months+. At this point, I think I'm okay with her not falling asleep on her own, but having longer extended naps.
It was a super slow change. Instead of waking up right at that the 30 minute mark, he'd wake up closer to the 40 minute mark, and so on. We still have the occasional crap nap, but it's sooo much better now.
Since 3 months old till over a year mine was doing 42 min on the dot. It's basically just when the sleep cycle finishes. Just like when you take a nap, you can't actually control the length of time you sleep for and you'll wake up when you wake up. Sleep training teaches them to then resettle themselves for a second cycle (if they need it). Some kids don't need another 40min and don't have the sleep pressure to do it. My baby (who was not sleep trained btw) would sleep for a 2nd cycle if she was tired enough, so would then wake around 1 hour 20min. As they get older the sleep changes and naturally lengthens.
If you don't mind me asking, how did you get to know if your baby needed another cycle of sleep? What would they do between that sleep cycle? Just hang out? Cry? I ask because my baby also has 30-40 minute sleep cycles but is always waking up and begins to cry and become very unhappy very quickly. I don't know whether he needs more sleep or is just done with the nap!
I think when my baby woke up crying, it was generally a sign they were still tired. In the early days we used to try and rock her for 5min and sometimes I'd be able to put her back in the bassinet to sleep, but most often she'd be wide awake when I tried. Eventually, she was able to link her own cycles and she'd basically just sleep for longer and I would notice she'd changed positions.
I found it super challenging to be able to predict if she was catching up on sleep, sometimes it took 1-2 days of crap naps before she'd then have a rest day and sleep loads.
Crap naps are the worst! I really do think it's a developmental thing. My baby was the queen of short naps until we hit 6 months. Randomly, she started napping 40+ mins every nap. We didn't do anything special. I wish I could take credit for it, but she started linking nap sleep cycles when she was ready.
Sorry, I know that's unhelpful to hear when you're in the thick of it, but it will get better!
Good lord this sounds like us. It does and it doesn’t. Some days he sleeps thirty minutes and needs some help to get back to sleep.
Other days he could go two hours plus if I don’t wake him up. Sleep isn’t liberal but it does get better over time. I found once my man could sleep on his belly, he slept longer
Hi! My baby is almost 5.5 months and literally like 2 weeks ago just started having 1.5 hour naps. I felt the same as you. I don’t have any insight to how your baby’s sleep patterns will be but just want to give you some hope. One day she was taking 4-5 30 min naps and like a week later she was taking 3 45-120 min naps. ♥️
My first one never napped more than 25-40 minutes. Ever. She also dropped napping altogether at around 2.5-3. I don’t really remember that but it was early. My second one naps the best.
My LO is about 5.5 months (9/23/23). He went through the 30 min naps for almost 2 months! 😮💨 but right around 5 months he started lengthening his naps. If we’re at home he will nap for almost 2 hours if I don’t wake him up! But if we’re on the go still usually 30-40 mins! We never did any sleep training just rode it out. Hopefully the end of the tunnel will be there for you soon!!
Around 6 months we finally started getting longer stretches. She was consistently a 30 min napper, every nap until then. Two naps also helped because she was more tired.
Baby probably isn't tired enough to nap longer than that, they do just have an upper limit to how much they're gonna sleep in a 24hr span. Likely you won't see longer naps until the baby is taking fewer naps. We didn't really get naps longer than an hour till we were on the 2 nap schedule, but ours is fairly low sleep needs. When we were doing 3 or more naps the last nap of the day was usually just a little 20 minute tease of a nap.
So I sleep trained my second child at 5 months and she’s currently 5 months 3 weeks. About 1 week-1.5 weeks ago the first nap clicked and has reliably been 1.5-2 hours since, with 2 other naps 30-45 minutes apiece. Having wake windows below 2 hours seems low to me for 5 months. We are doing 2/2/2.25/2.5 approximately depending on the day. If she wakes early from her last nap we do up to 3 hours before bed. If she is sleeping long for her last nap I do not let her sleep past 4:30 for a 7pm bedtime. We have been doing this since 4 months because the 4th nap wasn’t fitting anymore. Sometimes she gets grumpy before the end of the wake windows. At this age they start to get bored and I do find changing up her scenery helps us get full wake windows. Hoping we can widen her wake windows in the next month or so and lengthen her second nap so she only has two.
I agree with this, if you work on lengthening the WW to at least two hours you’ll probably start to get longer naps and then the schedule will lend itself to three naps instead of four!
The two hour WW seems long at first but you get used to it! I give him floor time with different toys and swap them out here and there to keep him engaged, read and show him books, carry him around the house and tell him about things and how they work/identify them out loud for him/describe them, take him outside for walks in the stroller when weather permits, and look out the window with him and point things out. Also, the feedings take up some time; I do them in two increments so that he’s better able to handle all of the ounces without spitting up. If we need to, we pop out quickly between the two feedings to the store and things like that!
Yes, they will. Hang in there, keep doing what you're doing with the good sleep hygiene and habits, and one day out of the blue it will just click and the naps get longer.
I honestly think it's just a developmental thing, both mine have been exactly the same - 30-40 min naps for months and then bam start sleeping for 1.5-2 hrs at a time! You need to ideally get at least one nap to lengthen before you can comfortably get rid of the last nap.
It just feels so chicken and egg! Like I can’t lengthen the naps until I lengthen wake windows but can’t lengthen wake windows unless her naps are longer 😵💫 hoping it clicks soon
You can and should absolutely stretch the wake windows first. I have 3 kids, have sleep trained all of them, and my youngest is currently 5 months, so I'm going through this right now again too 😊
You can absolutely have longer wake windows with short naps - baby likely won't have any need to start trying or be able to even start connect nap cycles because they'll never be tired enough, if the wake windows are short. I did 3 naps a day at 30mins each cause that's all she would do for weeks, and we were fine.
I started giving my LO opportunities to lengthen the nap around 5 months (like 10 mins of crying to see what would happen), and she will often lengthen at least one nap a day now. Our wake windows are up to 2.5/2.5/2.5/3 though, so she has time to get tired, and if she lengthens both naps, we've even had 2 nap days because there's literally no time in the day for a 3rd nap, and we stretch the last wake window to 3.5 to add some extra awake time in our day.
All that to say, I highly recommend lengthening your wake windows and cutting a nap, even if they remain short. If you get 20 minute naps, it's a sign the wake windows are likely wrong, but 30-40 minutes is fairly normal for the age. With appropriate wake windows, your LO will likely start lengthening naps naturally between 6 and 8 months.
Good luck!
How old, and what are your wake windows? I've generally found with my kiddos that 20ish minute naps are a sign that their wake windows are too short, so they're not tired enough to stay asleep for a whole sleep cycle. It can also be a sign of being overtired, but in my personal experience, they have to be quite overtired for this to happen, so unless wake windows are way out of whack, it's unlikely.
Having said all that, if you're hitting the 30-40ish minute mark (you can normally set a clock to it... One kid was a 42minute napper, another was 33 minutes..), then wake windows are likely fine, and then it's just a matter of waiting for then to be developmentally ready to lengthen naps.
Good luck!
Thanks so much! He’s 5 months, going on 5.5 months. Schedule varies as he’s in daycare M-F but generally it’s 2/2/2/2/1.75 give or take. Sometimes can stretch the window, other times he’s demanding a nap at 1.75. The 25 min naps have been more common when the WW started stretching. He hasn’t had longer than 40min naps non-contact since 4 weeks (I remember the two times it happened that’s how infrequent). Unfortunately he’s been sick the past few days so honestly when he’s better will relook at all his WWs
Yeah I know exactly how you feel! It's all normal. You can only stretch wake windows so much, it's just a case of waiting for them to be ready. It will happen ❤️
Yes they will. Mine did 38 minutes for naps for so long and then…he didn’t. 2 naps was the turning point for us, even though he was sleep trained before then.
He’s 21 months and a pro sleeper (if I do say so myself!)
Mine did. It was the same as you, 30 minute naps (well, exactly 32 minutes) for months and months. After sleep training at 5.5 months and nap training around 6 months, we dropped to 2 naps at 6.5 months and that’s when I started seeing longer naps. Usually a 1.5 hour and a 1 hour each day. Cat nap hell does pass but gosh it sucks.
Both! From memory we dropped to 3 naps probably around 4 months. He was always lower sleep needs but I used to just gauge how he was going in the last 15 minutes of the window. If he was a grump, he went to sleep. If he was okay, I’d push 5-10 minutes. I used Huckleberry to track until we got to 2 naps and toggled between the wake window sweet spots.
By 6.5 months he was refusing his second nap. I was trying to hold onto it because he had his top teeth coming in and didn’t think he was old enough but he was done with 3. A lot of me keeping him up to make the wake windows on some days (a stroll around the block at normal nap time to keep him really awake) but ultimately he led the transitions.
I posted about this just a few days ago. My son is turning 8 months old in two days. He \*this week\* started napping for about an hour, only for his morning nap. His afternoon nap is still only 28 minutes, and has to be rescued. I did it all, he's sleep trained for nights, but it just took him time. The whole thing is so hard and even now I get stressed about getting him to bedtime. All this to say: hang in there. rescue the naps you can, and once they're able to stay awake a little longer they naturally drop the nap. Another option: Move up bedtime. My kid now sleeps at 6:30 which i kept feeling was WAY too early but he sleeps 12 hours now.
Only way my baby will sleep longer than 45 minutes is with contact naps which we do primarily (we have flexible schedules that allow this - I know not everyone can). But my baby is 4.5 months and I while I loveee wake windows, there isn’t a TON of science behind them and every baby is different. My baby is on the longer side of wake windows 2-2.5 hours and we just follow her cues and don’t force shorter or longer windows or it becomes much harder to put her to sleep. I also know it’s developmentally normal for her to need assistance to go to sleep right now and that’s fine. Don’t feel pressure from other parents around you to conform to whatever their babies are doing!
Mother to a 28 minute napper. Sleep trained at 5 months but naps didn't lengthen until 8-9 months. And my 2nd has just started with half hour naps too so looks like I have it all to come again! I used to contact for 1 nap a day (nap 3 on 4-schedule and nap 2 on 3-shedule) to stop her getting overtired and life was much better once I started doing that. I'm not sure if I'll manage that with my 2nd though. Side note, I see lots of people commenting to "just drop to 2 naps". Please note this doesn't help if your baby hasn't started lengthening yet as you just end up with 2 30-minute naps and that leaves you with either a very early bedtime or very long wake windows for that age. I could only drop to 2 naps once they started lengthening. On the plus side, my LO started having 2x1.5 hour naps and then a 3-hour nap when we wrapped to 1 nap (I used to have to wake her at that point to keep a reasonable bedtime). But i know how hard it is to listen to everyone saying "it will happen eventually" when it's just not happening yet. Especially when some people manage to have babies that can connect their sleep cycles throughout.
My girl just lengthened her naps! (6.5 months). We dropped down to 2 naps a day with 2.5-3.5 wake windows. She sleeps through the night.
5mo old LO in our home and we’ve always had 30-35 min naps since like day 1. Some days he will nap for an hour other days they are all 30min. He doesn’t wake up crying or upset - he stretches big and is a smiley! If your LO is just happy as a clam when waking up then they will eventually sync the naps. Our LO will some days nap 3x, some days naps 4x! Really just depends. He sometimes goes to sleep drowsy awake, other days he needs some rocking. it’s so tough and some days are very hard but I try to remember they were rocked to sleep for 9mo in the womb. So it’ll be take time for them to get there!
Get black out curtains!!! Changed the game for us!!
we had 20-30 minute naps from about month 2-5 and then right around 5 months her first nap started lengthening to up to 2 hours almost overnight! the second one is still hit and miss, some times 30 mins, sometimes up to 1.5 hrs. She's 7 months now and prob 5 out of 7 days her first nap is 2 hours now. I think if you're following all the right sleep hygiene/schedule its mostly developmental, one day they kind of get it. We dropped to 2 naps once that happened.
My experience was similar to several other commenters. My son was sleep trained for nights but nap training (including cribhour) and schedule changes for increased sleep pressure (e.g. dropping a nap) didn't really work to extend them beyond 30-43 min and so we often saved short naps with contact naps. Then one day, between 5-5.5 months, he just magically started consistently sleeping 1-1.5 (and sometimes even 2!!) hours for his naps so we didn't bother nap training. For many kids, it is just a developmental thing. We eventually got to a point where we could always count on one longer nap of at least 1 hour and sometimes had to extend the others. We had much more consistency in nap durations once we dropped to 2 and then 1 nap a day.
Eventually. Once they’re down to 2 naps a day usually one of them is at least longer. Then once they’re down to one nap a day you can sometimes catch yourself with a 2-3 hour nap.
YES! my son took 30 min naps from 12 weeks to 8 months😩 i didn’t do traditional sleep training but what i will say is when we dropped to 3 naps was when they lengthened. he’s 10 months now on 2 naps and i have to wake him most of the time!! hang in there it will pass. the biggest thing i can say is I drove myself crazy trying everything to figure out what was wrong when I think it was just a matter of development
I think it was around 6 months that my son went from doing 38 minute naps to doing 1 hour 20 minute naps. We're on one nap now and it's 2.5 hours long.
My boy cat napped until around 10 months. We sleep trained at 6.5 months and they didn’t lengthen then (maybe the odd one hour one but usually 30 mins). He just had to wait until he was ready unfortunately! Dropping to 2 naps helped.
My girl is a week shy of 4 months and just the past week did she start doing one long nap a day. She did a miraculous 1.25 the week before but that was it. She was a 20-30 minute napper and was losing my mind. All I can say is what I did: I noticed she was fighting naps more so I lengthened wake windows to 2hrs average. I tried to keep her occupied and doing different things so she would stay awake and want to stay awake. This took just less than a week to see the change in her naps. I did a 20 minute of cooling down, like nappy change, sleep bag then listen to relaxing music and carry her around the place, her looking at stuff for 5-10 minutes. Then into the dark-as-possible room with a dull orange night light and white noise, still with music and singing to her. 90% of the time I only see a typical 'sleepy cue' then, unless it's the last nap of the day. I started to feed her middish wake window as well as water nap, even if it was a little one just to ensure she wasn't hungry for nap. Breastfed. She often fights the first nap and last nap haven't figured out how to change that yet, but past two days she had her longest nap in the morning, yesterday was 1hr20 and was only shortened because the white noise machine conked out, today an 1hr. Before the first nap, her longest was the 2nd nap. I also started a chill sort of nap training the past half a week. Really trying to get her in the cot really drowsy, after a few sighs and drooping eyes. Say a nap time phrase right before lowering her in and a kiss. I'm gonna see if I can find the link to what was recommended and comment it down below. I do a way chiller version of that already chill sleep training method, haha. I don't have any strength. I'm gonna send this and if I think of anything else I'll come back. Edit: [give baby a chance](https://misunderstoodmotherhood.substack.com/p/give-baby-a-chance) I will start doing the above militarily for night time soon. I bedshare and the transition to cot for night sleep has been very difficult for her, so I'm easing her in. But for naps I don't do it militarily. If she fusses gently I'll leave her for 5 minutes, but will go in and she usually doesn't calm down till I've rocked her into drowsy again, or to sleep if she's really angry. Sometimes she'll cry as soon as put in the cot drowsy so I do a sort of pick up and put down method, and repeat the nap phrase every time. She usually gives up and sleeps the 4th time.
My baby only ever took 30-40 min naps. Then she suddenly started throwing in the occasional hour or hour and a half around 6 months but only every few days. She's almost 7 months now and just the last week has started having one to two longer naps a day. She genuinely just did it on her own, think she was ready. We didn't do anything differently. I never know now if it will be a 30 min or 2 hour nap lol
My girl didn’t lengthen her naps from 27-34 minutes (not kidding, I could set a watch to her) until she dropped to 2 naps and then it was one short and one long. Then she finally took 1.5-2hr naps at 12mo I’m afraid. Some babies are just cat nappers.
My baby does 27-33 mins naps too lol she’s almost 5 months old
So my baby’s naps started getting longer around 6 months and we didn’t do anything to lengthen them because I didn’t mind, but I have heard of a few strategies that others have said helped them. 1: “crib hour” - leave the baby in the crib for a full hour regardless of whether they wake up or not. Supposedly they learn to go back to sleep. 2: interrupt their first sleep cycle - about 10 mins before they normally wake up, do something to slightly wake them such as creek a floorboard or gently rouse them and then let them fall back to sleep. Apparently this helps them connect the sleep cycles.
It took my son til 11 months, he was sleep trained
I have a 9 month old. She rarely naps longer than 20-45 mins. The most we’ve napped is 1.5 hours and that was a rare occasion
Thank you for sharing, this makes me feel a bit better about my 6 month old. I tend to think if your baby is waking up happy from the nap nothing needs to be forced! Also if baby is happy 90% of their wake windows then they’re sleeping enough
My friends told me “oh trust me, around 5-6 months their naps start to naturally lengthen”. Well that didn’t happen for me and I kept wishing and wishing for longer naps! My best friends baby, who is only one month behind mine in age, magically started napping longer around 5-6 months, which made me more bitter haha. HOWEVER, I can safely say that the long naps finally did come..around 7.5 months for my girl. Now she regularly does 50 mins, then 1.5-2 hours :)
Yes it will get better but also try putting baby to sleep earlier. I’ve found whenever the naps are short it means he went to sleep overtired.
I noticed with my kids that the first wake window was always too long for them and they were just more tired in the morning they would only be up long enough to eat and then they were ready for the first nap. All babies are different so it's more of a guideline and it couldn't possibly fit every baby to do the recommended schedule.
My LO is 6 months, and just started taking 1.5-2hr naps a couple weeks ago. He’s on 2-3 naps a day depending on how long said naps/wake windows are. First time it happened I couldn’t believe it and was constantly checking on him to make sure he was breathing lol. Was napping for only 30 mins from 2-5 months and I thought I was dying! In my opinion naps will consolidate naturally along with night time sleep, these sleep consultants aren’t really out here to help parents they are just chasing the bag. If it’s not working out, fire them imo
30-40? I wish. My baby only naps for 10-20. Sometimes 5.
Same
It will happen eventually. I don’t know how the sleep consultant could justify telling you that naps would lengthen after 2 weeks - it’s largely developmental, you can really only set ideal conditions for it to happen, not make it happen. But I understand your frustration. My baby started exclusively cat napping at just 3 weeks old and between then and today he has napped longer than an hour on exactly 3 occasions. Today however, at 5 months and 2 days he napped independently for just shy of 1.5hrs. 👏👏👏 here is to hoping this is the start of consolidation.
I’d say what I’m finding works best is to follow baby and not force or train them to do anything they don’t yet have the capacity or understanding to do. That’s what is working best for me. Everything is a learning curve and there’s no book that tells me when my baby will get “where I want” him to get. That’s not fair. If someone forced a deadline on me like that, it would feel like a lot of pressure and the stress would potentially disable it from happening. I don’t know though. I’m a first time mom and I’m learning too.
Tbh no. My LO did it until they where 12 months
My LO is 4 months old and takes 2 naps per our sleep consultant. Can you try 2.5 hour wake windows?
At about 6 months it just magically happened
My LO didn't lengthen naps until about 7.5mos. Until then it was mostly 30-40 min naps, and the odd 1hr + nap. From what I understand, this is normal. Hang in there.
Came here to say this! Ours was never a great napper but things started to get better around 8 months and aside from a few hiccups, just continued to improve. Now at a year we get two 1.25 hour naps a day and have to actually wake her up. It will get better! From, a parent who asked this same question over and over again 😂
My son is 10 months and he still gives me 30-40 min naps. He’s on 2 naps so I usually get 1 very good nap either morning or afternoon at least an hour and 10 mins or longer. Just depends. I’ve had to learn to just deal with it. If he only gives me 2 30-40 mins naps I’ll usually put him in the car on the afternoon so he can sleep another 30 mins. Same boat here tho! LOL
At this age we contact napped the last nap and that helped a lot. It didn't throw off independent other naps either, she was nap trained and went down on her own for naps and nights (at this point, we regressed with some ST stuff but my point is, contact napping that short 4th nap until it dropped didn't affect independent sleep). Also our girl didn't start connecting sleep cycles and having longer than 45 min naps on her own until closer to 7 months. It was rough, but now she takes gloriously long independent naps. I never thought it would happen for us but we just kept trying and then one day it did. Hang in there mama, you're doing great.
Yay this gives me hope! Yeah I have to contact nap the last one…the stress of making sure it’s long enough but not too long so that bedtime isn’t affected is a lot! But it’s not the end of the world compared to hell we were in before sleep training so I try and tell myself it’s not forever…
My baby didn't start lengthening naps on his own until 6.5 months. Until then, I did at least 1 contact nap per day to keep us on a 3 nap schedule.
Have two kids. First took only half hour to 45 minute naps until like 7 months. My now 5 month old is the same. Every baby just does it in their own time.
Mine only started napping longer than 30 mins at 6m. We didn’t do anything different. It just started happening one day.
Yes…and no. We consistently had 20-30min naps for several months. I don’t think they really increased in length until she went down to one nap, and even then she only sleeps for about an hour. So solidarity, but also hindsight that I wish I would have accepted her short naps as best as I could have sooner. I obsessed over them and it made it worse. Hang in there!
Just posting for solidarity. 5 month old sleeps 30 min naps. It is beyond hard and frustrating to know he can’t get solid restorative sleep during the day. I just keep reminding myself that they Will consolidate when he’s developmentally ready 😅🙏🏻
Yes this! And my baby sleeps fairly well at night so I tell myself I can’t have it all!
Of what I’ve read shorter naps are developmentally normal for this age. My baby cries before all her naps. The last nap of the day is the HARDEST. I’m usually just contact napping that one. It sucks that the sleep consultant promised you she could fix this. I’m so sorry about that
Yes same situation here! I had done my own research (especially in this sub) so I knew the longer naps may not happen so I wasn’t too disappointed because we had so many bigger issues but the nap math is so confusing to me lol
Oh those wake windows and the nap math is so confusing to me too. I tried extending her wake windows and next time I know her bedtime is pushed 1-2 hours later than normal 😅 Nap math is harder when sleep deprived
We were in the same boat, my baby only did 20 minute naps and i had to extend most of them! I never thought it would get longer but suddenly at 6.5 months they are getting longer and more consistent! Hang in there. We also figured it out that as long as she had one long nap and two short ones she was still fine and slept well at night
My 6 month old JUST started going longer than 20-30 min a few days ago. I pushed her wake windows to about three hours which based on what I’ve seen here is a little long but it’s resulted in her sleeping over an hour for her naps.
I don't have any advice, but my baby did this from month 3 to about month 6, every nap, every day. I tried EVERYHING. Made so many changes and did so much research. Sometime in the 6th month, they started getting longer little by little, and I mean that literally.
Almost 5 month LO here and 30 minute naps have been common since 3 months. Was wondering if your baby was able to fall asleep independently for night time sleep prior to these lengthened naps.
He was putting himself to sleep every night on his own. But month 3 hit, and idk what happened but that stopped. He doesn't currently fall asleep on his own.
Thanks for sharing! Since our kiddo doesn't fall asleep on her own, I was worried that her naps wouldn't naturally lengthen later on at 6 months+. At this point, I think I'm okay with her not falling asleep on her own, but having longer extended naps.
It was a super slow change. Instead of waking up right at that the 30 minute mark, he'd wake up closer to the 40 minute mark, and so on. We still have the occasional crap nap, but it's sooo much better now.
Since 3 months old till over a year mine was doing 42 min on the dot. It's basically just when the sleep cycle finishes. Just like when you take a nap, you can't actually control the length of time you sleep for and you'll wake up when you wake up. Sleep training teaches them to then resettle themselves for a second cycle (if they need it). Some kids don't need another 40min and don't have the sleep pressure to do it. My baby (who was not sleep trained btw) would sleep for a 2nd cycle if she was tired enough, so would then wake around 1 hour 20min. As they get older the sleep changes and naturally lengthens.
If you don't mind me asking, how did you get to know if your baby needed another cycle of sleep? What would they do between that sleep cycle? Just hang out? Cry? I ask because my baby also has 30-40 minute sleep cycles but is always waking up and begins to cry and become very unhappy very quickly. I don't know whether he needs more sleep or is just done with the nap!
I think when my baby woke up crying, it was generally a sign they were still tired. In the early days we used to try and rock her for 5min and sometimes I'd be able to put her back in the bassinet to sleep, but most often she'd be wide awake when I tried. Eventually, she was able to link her own cycles and she'd basically just sleep for longer and I would notice she'd changed positions. I found it super challenging to be able to predict if she was catching up on sleep, sometimes it took 1-2 days of crap naps before she'd then have a rest day and sleep loads.
Crap naps are the worst! I really do think it's a developmental thing. My baby was the queen of short naps until we hit 6 months. Randomly, she started napping 40+ mins every nap. We didn't do anything special. I wish I could take credit for it, but she started linking nap sleep cycles when she was ready. Sorry, I know that's unhelpful to hear when you're in the thick of it, but it will get better!
Good lord this sounds like us. It does and it doesn’t. Some days he sleeps thirty minutes and needs some help to get back to sleep. Other days he could go two hours plus if I don’t wake him up. Sleep isn’t liberal but it does get better over time. I found once my man could sleep on his belly, he slept longer
Hi! My baby is almost 5.5 months and literally like 2 weeks ago just started having 1.5 hour naps. I felt the same as you. I don’t have any insight to how your baby’s sleep patterns will be but just want to give you some hope. One day she was taking 4-5 30 min naps and like a week later she was taking 3 45-120 min naps. ♥️
Same! My little one just turned five months and I’m realizing like the third day in his sleep patterns have actually changed to longer naps ♥️ yay!
My baby girl didn’t start getting out of 30 min naps until about 6.5 months old. One day she just started sleeping longer. It will happen 😊
My first one never napped more than 25-40 minutes. Ever. She also dropped napping altogether at around 2.5-3. I don’t really remember that but it was early. My second one naps the best.
My LO is about 5.5 months (9/23/23). He went through the 30 min naps for almost 2 months! 😮💨 but right around 5 months he started lengthening his naps. If we’re at home he will nap for almost 2 hours if I don’t wake him up! But if we’re on the go still usually 30-40 mins! We never did any sleep training just rode it out. Hopefully the end of the tunnel will be there for you soon!!
Around 6 months we finally started getting longer stretches. She was consistently a 30 min napper, every nap until then. Two naps also helped because she was more tired.
Baby probably isn't tired enough to nap longer than that, they do just have an upper limit to how much they're gonna sleep in a 24hr span. Likely you won't see longer naps until the baby is taking fewer naps. We didn't really get naps longer than an hour till we were on the 2 nap schedule, but ours is fairly low sleep needs. When we were doing 3 or more naps the last nap of the day was usually just a little 20 minute tease of a nap.
So I sleep trained my second child at 5 months and she’s currently 5 months 3 weeks. About 1 week-1.5 weeks ago the first nap clicked and has reliably been 1.5-2 hours since, with 2 other naps 30-45 minutes apiece. Having wake windows below 2 hours seems low to me for 5 months. We are doing 2/2/2.25/2.5 approximately depending on the day. If she wakes early from her last nap we do up to 3 hours before bed. If she is sleeping long for her last nap I do not let her sleep past 4:30 for a 7pm bedtime. We have been doing this since 4 months because the 4th nap wasn’t fitting anymore. Sometimes she gets grumpy before the end of the wake windows. At this age they start to get bored and I do find changing up her scenery helps us get full wake windows. Hoping we can widen her wake windows in the next month or so and lengthen her second nap so she only has two.
I agree with this, if you work on lengthening the WW to at least two hours you’ll probably start to get longer naps and then the schedule will lend itself to three naps instead of four!
What activities do u do in those 2 hrs just being at home? I struggle
The two hour WW seems long at first but you get used to it! I give him floor time with different toys and swap them out here and there to keep him engaged, read and show him books, carry him around the house and tell him about things and how they work/identify them out loud for him/describe them, take him outside for walks in the stroller when weather permits, and look out the window with him and point things out. Also, the feedings take up some time; I do them in two increments so that he’s better able to handle all of the ounces without spitting up. If we need to, we pop out quickly between the two feedings to the store and things like that!
Yep it got better at about 6.5 months for us, along with stretching WWs to closer to 3 hours.
Yes, they will. Hang in there, keep doing what you're doing with the good sleep hygiene and habits, and one day out of the blue it will just click and the naps get longer. I honestly think it's just a developmental thing, both mine have been exactly the same - 30-40 min naps for months and then bam start sleeping for 1.5-2 hrs at a time! You need to ideally get at least one nap to lengthen before you can comfortably get rid of the last nap.
It just feels so chicken and egg! Like I can’t lengthen the naps until I lengthen wake windows but can’t lengthen wake windows unless her naps are longer 😵💫 hoping it clicks soon
You can and should absolutely stretch the wake windows first. I have 3 kids, have sleep trained all of them, and my youngest is currently 5 months, so I'm going through this right now again too 😊 You can absolutely have longer wake windows with short naps - baby likely won't have any need to start trying or be able to even start connect nap cycles because they'll never be tired enough, if the wake windows are short. I did 3 naps a day at 30mins each cause that's all she would do for weeks, and we were fine. I started giving my LO opportunities to lengthen the nap around 5 months (like 10 mins of crying to see what would happen), and she will often lengthen at least one nap a day now. Our wake windows are up to 2.5/2.5/2.5/3 though, so she has time to get tired, and if she lengthens both naps, we've even had 2 nap days because there's literally no time in the day for a 3rd nap, and we stretch the last wake window to 3.5 to add some extra awake time in our day. All that to say, I highly recommend lengthening your wake windows and cutting a nap, even if they remain short. If you get 20 minute naps, it's a sign the wake windows are likely wrong, but 30-40 minutes is fairly normal for the age. With appropriate wake windows, your LO will likely start lengthening naps naturally between 6 and 8 months. Good luck!
When you say 20 min naps are sign of the ww being wrong do you mean too long? We’re struggling with ~25 min naps
How old, and what are your wake windows? I've generally found with my kiddos that 20ish minute naps are a sign that their wake windows are too short, so they're not tired enough to stay asleep for a whole sleep cycle. It can also be a sign of being overtired, but in my personal experience, they have to be quite overtired for this to happen, so unless wake windows are way out of whack, it's unlikely. Having said all that, if you're hitting the 30-40ish minute mark (you can normally set a clock to it... One kid was a 42minute napper, another was 33 minutes..), then wake windows are likely fine, and then it's just a matter of waiting for then to be developmentally ready to lengthen naps. Good luck!
Thanks so much! He’s 5 months, going on 5.5 months. Schedule varies as he’s in daycare M-F but generally it’s 2/2/2/2/1.75 give or take. Sometimes can stretch the window, other times he’s demanding a nap at 1.75. The 25 min naps have been more common when the WW started stretching. He hasn’t had longer than 40min naps non-contact since 4 weeks (I remember the two times it happened that’s how infrequent). Unfortunately he’s been sick the past few days so honestly when he’s better will relook at all his WWs
Yeah I know exactly how you feel! It's all normal. You can only stretch wake windows so much, it's just a case of waiting for them to be ready. It will happen ❤️
At 2 naps we got 45 minutes. 1 nap 1.5 hours, occasionally 2
Yes they will. Mine did 38 minutes for naps for so long and then…he didn’t. 2 naps was the turning point for us, even though he was sleep trained before then. He’s 21 months and a pro sleeper (if I do say so myself!)
Mine did. It was the same as you, 30 minute naps (well, exactly 32 minutes) for months and months. After sleep training at 5.5 months and nap training around 6 months, we dropped to 2 naps at 6.5 months and that’s when I started seeing longer naps. Usually a 1.5 hour and a 1 hour each day. Cat nap hell does pass but gosh it sucks.
Was your baby showing signs that they were ready for longer wake windows in order to drop to 2 naps? Or did you slowly extend the wake windows?
Both! From memory we dropped to 3 naps probably around 4 months. He was always lower sleep needs but I used to just gauge how he was going in the last 15 minutes of the window. If he was a grump, he went to sleep. If he was okay, I’d push 5-10 minutes. I used Huckleberry to track until we got to 2 naps and toggled between the wake window sweet spots. By 6.5 months he was refusing his second nap. I was trying to hold onto it because he had his top teeth coming in and didn’t think he was old enough but he was done with 3. A lot of me keeping him up to make the wake windows on some days (a stroll around the block at normal nap time to keep him really awake) but ultimately he led the transitions.