Bad/Short Napper

Hi G.,
I agree with Karen. The more tired they are, the less they sleep. Seems opposite of logic, but it IS absolutely true! If anything--put him down for naps earlier--even before he "seems" tired. Good luck!

Make sure he is eating enough during the day. Is he teething yet? May be have some type of white noise going on so it blocks out everything in the house or background noise. Good luck

I agree with a previous poster that maybe your son is just a short napper. Both of my boys were and I was always so jealous of the Moms who had the 2-3 hour window in the afternoon when the kids napped. My window was 1 hour TOPS!

Definitely try all suggestions you receive but you may just have a short napper on your hands. I tried it all with my now 2 year old daughter and NOTHING worked. She would take 20-40 minute naps and that would be it no matter what I tried. It wasn't until she turned 2 (now she is 28 months) that her naps (now 1 nap) changed from 40 minutes to one hour at most. As jealous as I am of other moms who can get so much accomplished during their kids 2-3 hour naps, I have gotten used to it and have adjusted. Good luck!!!!

My son was the same way at 4 months. Keep doing what you're doing; it will get better! He usually makes it to at least 1 hour 10 minutes now. The only thing that helped at 4 months was sometimes letting him cry in the crib for 10 minutes to get out some energy, then doing his settle down routine. Also, gasp!, I started letting him sleep on his tummy near the end of the 4th month. That probably helped the most; though in the beginning I spent a lot of time just reading a book and watching him nap till I felt confident he wouldn't stop breathing.

Didn't take the time to read the other posts so sorry if it is duplicate info.

My baby "never" slept! In the nursery at the hospital when she was born the nurses commented on her being away more than asleep. Holds true for the most part today - Her body rests when it is tired - by the way - she is 17 now. We found out she was asthmatic when she was 3 and started maintence medication at that time and her sleeping improved slightly.
When she was about 3 - she started sleeping longer - but that is also when she was diagnosed with asthma.
A child will sleep and eat whenever they need too.
The ped expert in his day (TBerry Brazelton) always no child will ever die of lack of sleep or starvation as they will eat and sleep when thier body needs it. (provided food is there to eat of course)

Now she probably gets between 6 - 7 hours a night and functions well - up at 5:30 AM for school without problems.

My daughter went through the same thing at that age. Babies this age should be taking 3 naps a day and sleeping for at least 1 hour per nap. Poor little guy is exhausted! :-)
The Sleepeasy Solution by jennifer Waldburger worked wonders for us. It is a quick read and really tells you exactly how to get sleep under control. My daughter went from sleeping 3 x a day for 1/2 hour to sleeping 3 x a day for 1 1/2 hours and she started sleeping 12 hours straight through. To this day she is an excellent sleeper.
You're problem with your son is he may be too overtired to stay asleep. An overtired child will most likely wake early..not sleep later so that system of putting him to bed later doesn't usually work. I'd try putting him to bed 15 minutes BEFORE his usual nap time and see how that does. If he wakes after 30 minutes- give him 30 minutes to CIO (don't know if you're one for it but I will say that it does work when done properly). Now for my daughter we had to keep extending the CIO time by 15 minutes (we started with a 1 hour sleep goal) until we were up to 1 1/2 hours because she was stubborn and it would take her awhile to soothe herself...but she did learn how after a couple of days and by the end of the week she was almost always able to soothe herself back to sleep.
Give the book a look over- I think it could really help your situation.
Good luck!

I always found that sleep induces sleep. The more sleep they had, they better sleep they got. I think at that young age, keeping them up longer, in hopes that they will sleep better actually has the opposite effect. I would try more nap times. Good Luck!!

I also agree with Karen-- more sleep=more sleep. Put him down earlier. But you have to remember that at 4 months all the little systems are still getting worked out. He'll figure it out, just give him a little time. You're setting up healthy sleep habits right now, but he's not going to HAVE healthy sleep habits at 4 months. Just keep doing what you're doing (except maybe put him down a little earlier) and he'll catch on!

My little guy was exactly the same way and it was hard for metoo... Especially because I was soooo hard on myself if things didn't go "right". All that aside..... As helpful as that book is, it got me in such a tizzy. Anyway, my son was the same way, 1/2 hour... Maaaaaybe 45 minutes for napping (great at night) UNTIL that lovely week when he was able to roll over on his tummy in his sleep, and then he slept like a charm from that moment forward and still does. He's just a belly sleeper, and he was on his back of course.
So... My advice... Just hang in there until he can roll over and you will have 2-3 naps/day of 1-3 hours each in no time :-).
Good luck!
M.

I agree with everything everyone said about sleep leading to more sleep. Keeping my 9 month old awake longer would just make her sleep less long, and that's how it's always been. Same goes for nighttime sleep - she'll sleep for 11-12 hours if she gets to bed at a decent time, but if she goes to bed late she'll only do 9-10, if that.

My question is, are you on a routine with him? Not a set schedule of nap times or anything, but a routine of what order he does what? I found that to be VERY helpful. We follow The Babywhisperer routine: EASY...Eat, Activity, Sleep, You time. I think babies sleep longer if they've had some play time between eating and sleep. If they eat and then go right down, i think they sleep a shorter time. I'm sure there are many mamas who will say they've found the opposite to be true, but that has been my experience.

One other thing - how long is he awake in between naps? At 4 months, my daughter was only awake for 1 1/2 hours, and then was ready for another nap. So if she got up at 6 am, i knew she would be just about ready for a nap at 7:30-ish, so i started watching for sleepy signs at that time. Which means that every day is a little different depending on what time she gets up in the morning.

Now at 9 months her wake time has stretched to about 2 hours, sometimes more depending on how busy we are. Her awake time is longer at the sitter than at home, probably b/c the sitter keeps her busier and changes activities more often. But it's still not a very long awake time! I would have thought there would be a longer time there, but i've found that if i stick with that amount of awake time, she naps much better. (case in point: she takes shorter naps at the sitter than at home.) At 4 months her naps were almost always 1 1/2 hours, sometimes with a "wake-up" at the 45 minute mark when she would sometimes need a little help getting back to sleep. Now she often sleeps for 2 hours or more.

Oh, and she usually takes 3 naps a day - morning, afternoon, and an evening "catnap" which is usually only 45 minutes to an hour. Over the last few days it's looking like she's ready to drop the catnap, but we'll see if that's still the case during the week when she's taking shorter morning/afternoon naps at the sitter.

Wow, that was long. Sorry about that. Hope something i said is helpful. :)

I agree, don't let him get over-tired. Also, how many naps is he taking? My kids only slept 30 min when they took 3 naps and only about 45 min when they did 2 naps. It wasn't until they went to 1 nap that it became more like 1.5 - 2 hours. Every kid is different and you need to figure out what he needs.

G. I feel your pain. My DD was a 30-40 min napper for most of her 1st year. It was awful. I felt like she was always exhausted no matter what I did. I literally would sit and cry some days when she wouldn't sleep. Some days she took 4-5 naps because they were all so short. Unfortunately, your son is probably just not a good napper like my little girl. First let me tell you that it does get easier once they are older. Now, at 16 months, my DD takes one 1-2 hour nap every day and sleeps straight through an average of 10-12 hours each night. No more 30 min cat naps!

I never found any of the sleep books helpful (and I literally bought out the bookstore on baby sleep books). She was just a short napper and I couldn't change that by implementing the strategies in the book. Using the books only made me more frustrated because she wasn't responding to it, so I just did my own thing.

One thing that helped a bit during that really tough first year was to make sure that she was put down for a nap 2 hours after awakening. So about 1 1/2 hours after she woke up- whether she looked tired or not, I would go upstairs and start her nap routine. Being awake for more than 2 hours at that age is just too much. My pediatrician even told me that she should only be awake for about 2 hours at a stretch. She has never had set nap times- it all depended on what time she woke up in the morning and how long her naps were. It is tough because you have no idea how each day will go so it's hard to plan anything, but for me getting her to get some sleep was key. As she got older (maybe 8 or 9 months) that time frame stretched to 2 1/2 hours of awake time between naps. Then, shortly after she turned one year old, she dropped to one nap (she just stopped sleeping at all for the second nap) and when I adjusted the time of her one nap so she was napping in the middle of the day, her naps extended to 1-2 hours.

Good luck! I know it is tough, but hang in there. I always felt totally alone when dealing with my daughter's sleep issues, so remember that you are not alone.