Hello wondering what to do for my 7 month old son who is only cat napping through the day. He sleeps from 8pm to about 7am and usually only wakes up once to nurse in the middle of the night. Up until about three weeks ago he would at least take a morning nap for about an hour and an afternoon nap from about 1 to 2 hours. Now at best he will nap for about 20 to 30 minutes 3 to 4 times a day. I do watch for signs of sleepiness and try to get him to nap but usually he wont nap or naps in the car. Still for only about 20 - 30 min.......Any suggestions.
The cat naps used to drive me crazy! I called them terror naps..
What is his schedule in the morning? May be try to extend his play time or if he is just too tired that he falls asleep anywhere, when he wakes up, try to get him to fall back to sleep. He might be going through a growth spurt and needing the cat naps in his busy schedule.
Good luck!
My little girl did this from 3 months to 9 months!!! She took long naps by the book until 3 months old and then only 30 minute naps 2-4x a day. It drove me crazy. I was really worried that she wasn't getting enough sleep for a long time. Eventually i realized she was ok and somewhere after 9 months she started taking longer naps again. Yeah!! I think the more physically active she got, the better. Good luck ; )
Have you tried the 'not let him be up for more than two hours' thing? He may be getting a little old for it, but that helped us consolidate naps more (turn a couple of those 30 min naps into one longer one). With my daughter, sometimes she will actually be very tired and won't really show it; she'll actually get more active. She's been that way since she was really small.
So, if he wakes up at 7, by around 8:30 or even 9, start trying to get him to sleep a little, do sleepy things with him even if he doesn't seem tired (songs, read stories). I used to wear my daughter in a sling or backpack and do housework (bore her to sleep).
This may not work for you, if he really truly isn't tired, but it helped us establish pretty consistent naps. We went to a mid-morning nap and then an afternoon nap around this age, I think.
