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Hi! I’m Dana Obleman, creator of The Sleep Sense Program. If you’d rather read than watch, I’ve transcribed the text of this video below.

Is your child tired and cranky after a nap? If so, they might actually need to stay awake longer!

Kim wrote to me and said:

“Help! I started sleep training my eight-month-old for naps at the end of May and he was sleeping for about 75 minutes each nap. Now in June, he’s only sleeping 30 minutes and wakes up tired and cranky. I’ve tried leaving him in the crib, but I just don’t know how long to leave him. He needs three or four naps a day, too. I’d really like to get this problem solved before I go back to teaching in August.”

I think we could have a couple of things going on with Kim’s baby. She doesn’t say but I’d assume that the sleep training for naps is the same as it is for nights. If not, then that might be causing the problem. She may have to sort the whole thing out by addressing night time as well as nap time.

It’s possible that the baby might need a little more awake time between naps. This can be a tricky one because you don’t want to push them too hard but you do want to push them a little bit.

The average eight-month-old needs about three hours of awake time between naps. If he’s waking for the day at 7 a.m., you need to try and stretch him until about 10 a.m. for his first nap.

Often when babies show those first signs of fatigue, they go down for their nap fairly easily. But what frequently happens is they only sleep for 30 minutes or so. Perhaps they were tired, but not tired enough to take a long nap.

On the flip side, and this is the tricky part, if you push too hard to keep them awake, it could have the same effect when you finally do put them down. If you go too far past their nap “window” so to speak, it might back fire into lots of fussing and crying and still, they only take a 30 minute nap. It can be frustrating for both of you.

Here’s what we need to do: first, try slowly and gently to push their awake time a little bit more each day. If they can only do another 10 or 15 minutes for the first couple of days, that’s a good start. Then gently try to push their awake time another 20 minutes for a couple of days.
By carefully and gradually adding to the awake time over a period of time, they’ll eventually increase it to three hours, and that will most likely increase the nap length as well.

If your baby is still waking up after only a 30 minute nap, there are a couple of different strategies you might consider.

If extending their awake time did not increase the nap time, try just the opposite approach. When they’re waking after a short nap, go to them as soon as you hear them, tuck them back in, give them their toy or “blankey” and tell them “It’s still nappy time” or “It’s still sleepy time.” Rub their head and pat them on the back a couple of times to try to get them back to sleep.

Sometimes if you can catch the baby just as they’re waking up, the 30 minute mark in this instance, you can convince them to go back into another sleep cycle and extend the nap.

If this approach doesn’t work either, that brings us to the second part of Kim’s question, “How long should I wait before I go in?” If a baby is going to go back to sleep after a short nap, it will usually happen within 20 minutes. I’d suggest you wait for 20 minutes before you go to them. If that goes by and they’re still not back to sleep, then get them up. If you’re trying to wait your baby out, you could be waiting a long time and that makes for a difficult day for both of you.

After a cat nap, it can be pretty tough to get a baby to go back to sleep. Just keep trying a combination of stretching out the awake time and quickly going in after a short nap to encourage them to go back to sleep. Again, it can be a tricky thing.

One thing to keep in mind is that the last nap of the day is almost always a short nap anyway. After a good two-hour morning nap, an afternoon nap of an hour or even 45 minutes isn’t that bad and in fact is pretty common. Don’t worry if that happens as long as they’re getting in one really good solid nap, followed by a shorter one. The opposite way is fine too, the short nap in the morning then the long nap in the afternoon.

Hope that helps your baby to sleep well!

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To ask a question about your child’s sleep, just leave it in the ‘Comments’ section below! I’ll choose one and create a new video answer each week!