Are you frustrated with your baby’s short naps?
You feel like you’re doing everything right. Your baby’s clearly tired – he’s yawning and rubbing his eyes. You put him down for a nap and he happily dozes off. But then 30 minutes later, he wakes up fussy and irritable, and despite your best efforts, he refuses to go back to sleep.
This is a very common frustration that parents have with their baby’s sleep.
Let’s talk about why this is happening and how you can get your baby to take longer naps.
What is a Short Nap?
First of all, what is a short nap? In general, a short nap is anything under one hour.
The Reason Behind Short Naps
Babies, just like the rest of us, sleep in cycles. We start off in light sleep then gradually fall into a deeper sleep. This deep sleep is very restorative sleep where our brains and bodies do all of the maintenance work, including memory stabilization, cell repair and immune system repair. Getting enough deep sleep leaves us feeling refreshed, clear-headed and energetic.
After our deep sleep, we slowly start coming back to the light stage again. We typically wake up for a few seconds and then drift off again, and the cycle repeats itself.
In adults, one of these cycles typically takes about 90 minutes. In babies, a sleep cycle can last 30 to 50 minutes.
So the fact that your baby is waking up after only 30 minutes is completely natural. We all have brief awakenings when we come to the end of a sleep cycle.
But whether your child can handle it on their own or not is a different story.
Eliminate Sleep Props
There are probably times when your child comes to the surface of sleep and then goes right back into another cycle. But it’s those times where they come to the surface, pull themselves wide awake, and now they can’t get back to sleep on their own.
What happens to babies is that we, with our best intentions, help them fall asleep by using a sleep “prop”.
And a sleep prop is anything that a child feels that they need in order to fall asleep that they can’t provide on their own. (Common sleep props include breastfeeding, bottles, pacifiers or rocking).
So your baby falls asleep with their sleep prop and then every time that they come to the end of their sleep cycle and have that little awakening, they’re going to pull themselves wide awake because they no longer have their sleep prop.
In order for your child to be able to string together two (or more) sleep cycles in a row for a nice long, restorative nap, they need to learn how to fall back to sleep on their own.
And this is really the main reason why your baby is taking short naps. So it’s a really important issue to address.
However, if your child truly is being laid in their crib wide awake, falling asleep without any sleep props and are still suffering from short naps, here are some other pointers to get your baby to take longer naps.
Keep it Dark & Quiet
Keep the bedroom as dark as possible. Buy some blackout blinds if the sun is getting in, or if you’re on a budget, tape some black garbage bags or tinfoil over the windows. It doesn’t have to be pretty, it just has to be functional.
White noise machines are useful if there are any environmental noises that could wake your baby from their nap. Just make sure it’s not too close to their ears and not too loud (50 dB is the recommended limit).
Use Age-Appropriate Awake Times
Make sure to have your baby on age-appropriate awake times. Putting them down for a nap too soon or too late can result in a short nap.
The most common mistake is that parents wait too long and then their child is overtired. An overtired baby has a difficult time falling asleep, and when sleep does come it’s very fragmented and light, resulting in too short of a nap.
Proper Timing of Feeds and No Drowsiness Prior to Naps
Your baby’s day should follow an Awake – Feed – Play routine. And there should never be any feeds in the naptime routine. If you are feeding your baby in the naptime routine and they are getting drowsy, this is a sleep prop situation, as we discussed in point number one.
Ensure Full Feeds & Recommended Amount of Solids
Try to make sure your child is taking full feeds (from the breast or bottle) and, if they are 6 months and older, that they are getting the recommended amount of solid food for their age.
For babies 6 months and up, I suggest offering solid food meals 30-45 minutes before naps.
Nap Routine, Not Too Short or Too Long
A good naptime routine should take about 5 minutes, long enough to let your child know that playtime is over and naptime is coming. It also gives them a few minutes to relax and get ready for sleep.
If your child’s naptime routine is too long, they could become overtired.
If your child’s naptime routine is too short, they may not be relaxed enough, and by the time they do fall asleep they may be overtired.
And again, when your child is overtired, sleep will be very fragmented and light, resulting in too short of a nap.
Change How You Respond To Short Naps
There are a couple of ways you can respond to your baby’s short naps. You can try to go in quickly and catch him before he wakes himself up completely. See if you can encourage him to fall back into another sleep cycle.
If you’ve been trying that for a week and nap length is not improving, try waiting 10 minutes or so. Give him a chance to see if he can get himself into another sleep cycle.
Implement a Set Schedule (7 months+)
If all the previous pointers have not helped and your child is still having short naps, instead of using awake times, try implementing a set nap schedule. I only recommend a set nap schedule for babies 7 months and older.
Consider Dropping a Nap (if age appropriate)
Depending on your child’s age, they may be ready to drop a nap (with a subsequent increase in awake time).
Give it More Time
If you are implementing a sleep plan and all of the previous pointers have not helped, you may just need to give it more time.
Naps tend to be a bit trickier due to the lack of melatonin (sleep hormone) in the body, plus there’s just so much to do and see during the day. The good news is that if you are giving your child the opportunity to learn how to fall back to sleep on his own, and have all these other things in place, nap length will improve with time.