30 minute naps? 45 minute naps?
Also lovingly referred to as CRAP naps.
They can run your life and ruin your days so we want to understand them and know how to handle them.
The reality is that they happen, and if your child is under 5 months they are expected.
Developmentally your baby won’t start to lengthen naps on their own until around 5 months. This, however, doesn’t mean newborns can’t lengthen naps, just that we might need to assist them to do a longer nap.
Because short naps in the first 4 months are so common, we can often just add a fourth nap to make up for the short sleep. I don’t put too much pressure on short naps at this age but there are things we can do to naturally lengthen naps and the tips below will help!
What is a short nap?
Typically a short nap is a nap under one hour long. Some are very precise and seem set at 33 minutes or 45 minutes (for example), others vary and can be as short as 10-20 minutes.
Why are they a problem?
They are only a problem if they are a problem for you!
However, I often see short naps lead to:
An overtired baby because they are not getting restorative sleep during the day.
Frustrated parents that have a cranky baby catnapping all day, which means they are not able to enjoy the day with their little one and sometimes can’t leave the house.
Wake up’s early on in the night, fractured sleep, and early wake-ups.
In the end, you’ll have a miserable tired child, frustrated parents, and no time to rest from your long nights.
Solutions
There are 3 things that are going to help you with short naps:
Environment - Are you setting up the environment to promote sleep and keeping it consistent throughout the entire nap? We want to decrease stimulation so a dark room is essential here. The conditions in which your baby falls asleep should remain the exact same for the entire duration of the nap. This means that if your baby falls asleep rocking, thats what needs to continue to help them back to sleep, if you are putting your baby down asleep, as soon as they hit a light stage of sleep (Ahem 33 minutes later) they will wake up.
2. Sleep Pressure- If your baby is too tired or not tired enough, you can expect short naps. This means that sleep pressure has to be just right to help achieve a long nap. For example, if you wait to long and your baby goes into an overtired state, they will have fractured sleep and have a short often 30 min or less nap. If you don’t have enough sleep pressure built up, you will get a short amount of sleep and not enough pressure to push you into the next sleep cycle. This can become a cat napping cycle that creates a tired, fussy baby. So getting sleep pressure right is so important.
Here are some sample schedules and an age-appropriate wake window chart that will help!
3. Who’s doing the work? If you are assisting your baby to sleep at the beginning of nap then after that first sleep cycle (45 minutes), you will need to assist them back to sleep (often that’s unsuccessful if they get too stimulated). This is why having your baby master falling asleep (going from wide awake, to drowsy, to asleep) is KEY. Babies under 4 months still might require some assistance (with a plan to wean off of that assistance as they get older) but if your baby is over 4 months they can learn to do this all on their own. If your child cannot do this, then this is where I can help. You can book a free 30 minute call here.
As a summary, environment, schedule/routine and independent sleep skills are the three key things for ensuring great LONG naps and time for you to get a little bit of rest yourself, maybe finish some housework, read a book, take a nap, watch some tv and just REST.
Reach out and let me put it all together for you so that you can get back to enjoying your days and while baby naps fit in time for yourself. Your wellbeing, health and happiness is important too!
Stay rested my friend,
Lily xx
