[Loz07]

Hi

I'm back with another sleep question And am having a busy night too!

Anyway, I've asked about catnaps before, and remember it being 'they grow out of it about 6 months...'

So, DD is a bit over 6 months now, and still catnapping I would really love a little more sleep (for her! and maybe me... ) during the day.

She did go through a phase at about 5 months where she had some longer naps, but they weren't consistent and she stopped.

She currently has 3 x 45 min naps a day (used to be 4, but her awake time has increased so she's dropped the last one).

So, when did your catnaps stop (if ever?) and did you DO anything to help it? (Have tried to resettle a couple of times. Normally a big fat fail. Or, rarely, it works and she wakes up again 10 mins later)

[squirrel10]

Hi OP My DD started sleeping longer when we moved her to two naps a day which was at about 7 months. She started doing about 2 hours in the morning and about an hour in the afternoon. It changed our lives!

[meggs1]

DS gradually started at around 5 months. Nothing I did before then made any difference.

Maybe there are a few things you could tweak to help though. Things I found helpful were delaying the morning nap a bit, having a good play in the park first (best naps were after his 830 swimming lesson), room nice and dark and cool with fan on (white noise).

[Natttmumm]

DD2 got better at 6 months but it only went to 2 1 hour naps so not that much better.
She slept from 7pm to 5 am (bottle) and back to sleep to 7 am though so I was very happy.
Night sleep meant more to me as she was number 2 so I had her sister awake anyway.
Try not to focus on it too much as I don't believe you can do much.

[Pinky101]

It got much better when DD moved to two naps just after 6 months. Also when she started swimming at 7 months the afternoon sleep got even longer, so I agree with trying to wear her out in the morning.

[Loz07]

Thanks for the responses. I did manage a longer nap last week sometime when her morning nap was delayed. But then yesterday she wouldn't settle for her morning nap, then had swimming, and I still only got 50 minutes after that!

I might try to push the middle of the day nap back a bit and see if that makes a difference, and wear her out a bit before hand. I'll try resettling too (10 mins tops) and see if it helps...

Squirrel 2 hours in the morning and one in the afternoon would be a dream! I think even 2 one hours might be better... 45 mins is barely enough time to clean the bomb that is the kitchen (seriously, how does one small room become such a disaster so quickly?!), make the bed and put a load of washing on before she's awake again!

Her room is nice and dark and she has her arms wrapped, so I'll just continue to hope...

Thanks again for the suggestions :-)

[KRT]

DS was pretty consistently sleeping longer by 6 months. Apart from helping him learn to self-settle I didn't really do much extra - it sounds like you're doing all the right things.

I found that he slept better if I pushed his awake time a little bit. However, that's something I would only attempt if I knew that overall he was getting enough sleep. An overtired baby will sleep less rather than more!

A suggestion - I clean the kitchen while DS is in his highchair eating. I tried to eat with him, but I couldn't sit there for 45 minutes while he fed himself after I finished, so tidied up instead.

[divineM]

I'll try resettling too (10 mins tops) and see if it helps...

Ok, my DD now nearly 2 was a very determined cat-napper. Showed some signs of improvement around the 5 month mark but it didn't last and at 7-8 months was still doing 3x30minutes. Sleep consultant advised that to fix this you need to persist with re-settling ie do not let them get up and keep them in the cot for the duration of the nap you want. So I started by keeping her in the cot for 60 minutes sleeping or not. Naps went up to 60 minutes. I then extended to 90 minutes in the cot, naps went up to 90 minutes. It's painful while you are doing it but seemed to work. We had a few blissful months. However, in our case once DD went to one sleep her sleep did not extend further. She now sleeps anywhere from 1-2.5 hours although her most common nap length seems to be 1.25 hrs which seems to be much shorter than her peers. But i'm not motivated enough to keep working on it. Prefer to get her up and play.

[runnybabbit]

OP have you tried waking to sleep or going in at about 35 minutes and shushing/patting as soon as she starts to stir? I did this with my first when he went to one nap -- 1 x 40 minutes was hell for both of us. It stretched him out to 1.5 hours and now he regularly does a solid 2.5-3.5 hours.