How do I lengthen naps?
Naps hold such power.
They can happily reset our little ones, or seemingly leave them crankier than before they napped. They give us a short break from being “mom”, can surprise us with their timing, and leave us feeling stressed, relieved, or going out of our minds.
What is the biological purpose of a nap?
For our little ones (typically 3 and under but can be older), naps give them the additional rest they need for their brain to do crazy things: the immune system kicks into gear, imagination forms, memory consolidates, the human growth hormone is secreted, adenosine is cleared out of the brain, and more.
Our littles are doing a whole ton of growing and developing in a short period of time. After they drop that last nap, it slows down.
There are a number of factors that influence sleep, but these 3 are the most common challenges when it comes to short naps:
Baby is overtired.
Most often, a short 20-30 minute nap is caused by overtiredness. This means that our baby’s awake window is too long, and we have missed our child’s sleep cues. When the awake window is too long, baby gets a burst of cortisol (the stress hormone) and it takes them longer to fall asleep. And because that cortisol is still in their body, they are not able to stay asleep very long.
These short naps used to make me cry in the middle of my living room. I felt overwhelmed and like I wasn’t able to get a breath in. Forget “me time”, how about a couple of minutes for the most basic self-care?
How do we fix this?
Watch for baby’s sleep cues before their regular nap time
Check out our Sleep Chart for Healthy Development
Shorten baby’s awake windows by 5-10 mins every few days until you hit that sweet spot
Baby is not tired enough.
These are typically the 40-55 minute naps. What is happening is that baby is only napping for one sleep cycle (about 45 minutes long). When they end up napping for only one sleep cycle, it’s kind of frustrating. You’ve got your coffee, you’ve got your lunch, you’ve had your shower, and then, ugh - baby wakes up.
The issue here is that they have enough sleep pressure to get through one sleep cycle, but not enough for two cycles. They are not tired enough. How do we fix this?
If your little one is falling asleep within 5-20 minutes, but is only napping 45-50 minutes, it generally means their awake time needs to be lengthened a little bit (5-15 minutes).
They may not have the independent sleep skills to transition between sleep cycles.
Reflect on how you handle wake ups (nap or night). Do you do anything that aids them in their transition back to sleep (rocking, feeding, soother)?
If so, what is happening is that they have learned that they need you to get back to sleep. So every time they wake up, they will call for you because they don’t yet know how to get to sleep without the soother, bottle, etc.
We want to make sure that baby is in control of their journey to sleep.
How do we fix this?
Wait 10 minutes before responding to baby’s wake ups. This will give baby the chance to develop their own methods of getting to sleep (like playing with their hair, sucking on their hand, etc.).
When you go into the room, try comforting baby with your voice and instructing them to go back to sleep: “It’s okay, love, Mommy’s here. It’s sleepy time. Lie down.” Then calmly close the door and give them another 5 minutes before getting them up from their nap.
It is super-important to remain consistent with the way we handle getting baby to sleep and managing early wakings. If we feed them to sleep sometimes, they will always expect this and be confused when they are not being fed. If we rock them back to sleep
sometimes, then they will learn to rely on that motion and comfort, and be upset when they don’t get that.
When you lay baby down for a nap, night sleep, or after their night feed, make sure you lay them down awake so that they can practice those sleep skills.
If you feel overwhelmed or that baby is not getting into the independent sleep skill groove, then book a free 15 minute call here with one of our sleep coaches and we can help you start to get things sorted.
It is always going to take 3-4 days for a change to take effect. Therefore, when you make an adjustment to your child’s sleep (taking out a prop, adjusting the awake time window), it will take 3-4 days for you to notice a difference.
Naps are worth working on. When your little one has a great nap, they wake up happy and ready to enjoy the day with you. And if they have a good nap, they have an even better night.
You are never alone in this journey. If you feel in-over-your-head, reach out. We at Little Winks Sleep exist to get you and your family back to those scrumptious full nights of sleep and to give you the ability to function, be present, and enjoy your child while they are little.
Sleep sweetly,
Anna