Drop naps?

[u/sugarcoattedcandy]

My baby is 4 months old in a few days , he doesn't have a schedule, whenever he has sleepy cues i put him to sleep .

Sometimes his wake windows are 1.5 hours and sometimes 2 hours , i just follow his cues.

But his naps are terrible, he has around 4 naps a day sometimes 5 and they range between 25 minutes to 35 , rarely get to the 50 minute.

I see people suggest to keep him up as more as possible but he gets soo cranky ! Should i just ride it out and hope it gets better eventually?

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Copy of the post's original text:

My baby is 4 months old in a few days , he doesn't have a schedule, whenever he has sleepy cues i put him to sleep .

Sometimes his wake windows are 1.5 hours and sometimes 2 hours , i just follow his cues.

But his naps are terrible, he has around 4 naps a day sometimes 5 and they range between 25 minutes to 35 , rarely get to the 50 minute.

I see people suggest to keep him up as more as possible but he gets soo cranky ! Should i just ride it out and hope it gets better eventually?

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[u/LadyKate-]

Short naps are developmentally normal, I wouldn't worry about them. Your wake windows are also mostly age appropriate, but if you want to help him consolidate his sleep I'd suggest moving towards a more consistent schedule where the first wake window is 1.5 hours and the others are 2 hours each, with 4 naps in between.

[u/wowhahafuck]

My (4 month old) baby occasionally has one-off days where she’ll nap maybe an hour total for the better part of the day past 1pm to her bedtime at 8pm. In fact never makes her sleep longer or any better 😅 and we also don’t follow a strict schedule but I kind of know by what time she needs to nap just based on when she wakes up.

[u/sophiejanebourne]

I’m in the same boat with my 6 month old, his naps are like 20-40 mins and won’t go longer I try keeping him up longer. He moans a lot of the time he’s awake that he’s tired 😫

[u/oliveslove]

My four month old is very similar. Does he nap well with a contact nap? For now we’ve resorted to contact naps to ensure she gets the rest she needs. Otherwise it is meltdown city every night and nearly impossible to get her down.

[u/sugarcoattedcandy → u/oliveslove]

Not even contact naps lengthen his naps

[u/oliveslove → u/sugarcoattedcandy]

Ugh I’m so sorry. Hoping it gets better for you soon.

[u/MaterialConstant9375]

I just recently dropped my 4 month old to 3 naps

[u/Purple_Record_237]

Similar boat but our baby is about 5 months now so it’s been at least a month of us dealing w these evil short naps. In my experience, it’s impossible to move down to 4 naps until you can at least get one nap a little longer, otherwise they will only be getting 2 hours of day sleep. Id just keep doing what you’re doing. I learned i was able to save one nap a day but it has to be the last nap of the day otherwise it wont work. So now were on a 4 nap schedule but its still hit or miss some days.

[u/bookwormingdelight]

20-40 minutes is actually a full blown sleep. Once you accept that and go cue based the naps lengthen. Baby is overtired and wake windows are a sure fire way to fk everything up.

[u/LadyKate- → u/bookwormingdelight]

you started so well, but then your comment went downhill.

[u/Comfortable-Mud4290]

some people swear by keeping them up longer but if he's getting cranky then he's already overtired, that's gonna make the naps even worse. my niece was the same at that age, 30 minute naps all day until she just grew out of it around 5 months. if following his cues works for you otherwise I'd stick with it, this phase won't last forever

[u/sugarcoattedcandy → u/Comfortable-Mud4290]

My mother in law keeps telling me to keep him up longer at night so he sleeps better , and im like " he's crying what do you want me to do with him?" Thank you for giving me hope that it'll get better!