Why wont my baby nap?
If you are a parent dealing with a chronic short napper, I’m sure you’ve scoured the blogs, dug into the comments of FB groups, and maybe even asked every mom-friend you know about how the heck to lengthen your baby’s naps. Short naps can be an incredibly confusing and frustrating sticky spot for many babies (and their parents) so I want to offer 5 tips to help you troubleshoot and solve the curse of the short nap.
First, what is a short nap?
Before we dive into the tips, it can be helpful to know what constitutes a short nap. A general rule of thumb is that naps are at least 1 hour. However, there are exceptions to that “rule”.
• If you have a newborn or baby under 5-6 months, it can be very developmentally normal for naps to be under 1 hour. In fact, in the newborn stage even 20-minute naps are considered normal.
• If your baby is taking 3-4 naps/day, it can be normal for the later naps to be cat naps that only last 20-40 minutes.
• If you have a toddler who is only napping once a day, 1 hour might not be enough. A short nap may be considered anything under 1.5 hours.