How To Get Baby To Nap Longer

Are you struggling with your baby's naps? Your baby takes short naps and wakes up fussy, grumpy or crying?

Find out why your baby or toddler takes short naps, and get tips on awake times, night sleep and how to get baby to nap longer!

How To Extend Your Baby's Short Naps (9 steps):
[ Ссылка ]

Learn how to get your 6-24 month old taking long, restful naps everyday: [ Ссылка ]

CONNECT WITH JILLY:
Pinterest: [ Ссылка ]...
Instagram: [ Ссылка ]...
Facebook: [ Ссылка ]...
Blog: [ Ссылка ]


Transcription:

Today I’m answering a question about how to get your 7 month old to nap longer.

“My baby is 7.5 months old and I’m having huge difficulties with naps during the day. She is not taking a pacifier and falls asleep only with my pinkie in her mouth. And when she falls asleep, she only sleeps 20 minutes. It’s almost impossible to make her fall asleep again. Any tips on how to make naps longer?”

On my website, www.babysleepmadesimple.com, you’ll see an article called ‘How To Extend Your Baby’s Short Naps’. There are 9 really simple steps to take to do that. Make sure to check that out! There’s a link under the video.


Naps for 6-8 Month Olds
A 7.5 month old needs to have 2-3 naps every day. Sometime between age 6-9 months, your baby is going to drop that third catnap in the late afternoon and settle into 2 predictable naps/day.

It sounds like your little one is having some issues, because she’s only sleeping 20 minutes. So my guess is that she’s napping 3-4 times a day. We do need to get her napping longer.


Awake Times for a 6-8 Month Old
2-3 hours. Your baby can only handle being awake in the day for a 2-3 hour period at this age. Your baby has a biological need to sleep often during the day.

How long is your baby typically awake before she has another nap? Jot down your baby’s nap times for about a week to get a good idea of her awake times in the day.

If your awake times are too long for your baby’s age and developmental stage, then they will get overtired and actually have trouble falling asleep.

She should be falling asleep for each nap and bedtime with only a 2-3 hour awake period during the day. Typically, the first morning awake period is a bit shorter – maybe 2 hours. Then it gets longer throughout the day. Maybe before bedtime, you might be stretching it to 3 or perhaps 3.5 hours, but you don’t want to go over that.


Teach your baby to settle herself and fall asleep on her own
Another reason for your baby’s naps being short is that she’s needing you to help her fall asleep. You say that she likes to suck on your pinkie finger to fall asleep.

When we assist our little ones to fall asleep, they don’t develop the skills to settle themselves and fall asleep. Every baby passes through sleep cycles of 40-55 minutes longer. When they finish one sleep cycle, they might wake up slightly. If they don’t know how to settle themselves and fall back asleep, they’ll call out for you.

If your little one is used to is you providing your finger and your comfort to fall back asleep, then she will need you to help her every time she wakes up early from a nap and at every night waking too.

You need to slowly teach your little one to settle to sleep on her own. If we’re assisting our babies to fall asleep, then it causes them to wake more often. We have to slowly wean off of our support. Your baby will learn how to resettle herself.


Work On Night Sleep First
What is your daughter’s night-time sleep like? If she’s waking often throughout the night, then we don’t even want to work on naps yet.

Once we work on night sleep and get your baby sleeping really well at night, it’s easier to teach her to sleep well during the day.


What To Do Next – Sign up for my Exhausted Mom’s Starter Kit: [ Ссылка ]
The way that we teach babies to sleep better is that we fix the bedtime. Then we work on night sleep. Then, we work on naps. So the first step you need to do is to work on bedtime.

The best way to do that is to sign up for my Exhausted Mom’s Starter Kit on my website. This is the first step toward getting your baby sleeping really well at night, waking later in the morning, and napping really well every day.

But if your little one is an amazing sleeper at night and she’s just having these short naps, I would say:

• Sort out the awake times
• Figure out how many times she needs to sleep during the day
• Slowly wean off your support helping her to fall asleep

свернуть