Sleeping FAQ: 8-12 Weeks – Lunchtime nap

Despite trying your advice for a week, my 10 week daughter still only sleeps for 45 minutes

I wrote to you last week about my lunchtime nap problem and many thanks for your reply. I have been trying what you suggested but unfortunately without success. I have tried leaving my daughter for 10-20 minutes, sometimes 30, but she cries and cries. This last week after 45 minutes I have gone to her immediately before she fully wakes up. I know that she will not settle in her cot, so I pick her up and hold her in the dark. She will go back to sleep almost straight away, but when I try putting her back into the cot she wakes again. By doing this I am worried that she may learn the wrong associations and want to be held all the time. My other friends who have had the same problem say that it will disappear, but as I am now entering a 4th week of unsuccessful lunchtime naps, I am not optimistic.
At present she sleeps 9.00-9.45am, 12.00-12.45pm, 1.00-2.15pm and 4.45-5pm.

Getting the lunchtime nap into place needs consistency and persistence, as it can take time for babies to learn how to settle back after their first sleep cycle of 45 minutes. In your first question you said you had tried to feed your daughter before going down, but she was not interested. As hunger is often a cause of waking, try moving the 11am feed back to 10.30am.

Your daughter may take a smaller feed at this time, but then offer her a top-up feed just before going down. You are, in effect, splitting the feed in the same way as at 5/6pm.
Continue with the holding to sleep for another week as it can take at least two weeks for a baby’s sleep cycle to readjust itself. Keep trying to put your daughter down once she seems to have settled back to sleep. You may well have to put some ‘crying down’ into place so she learns how to settle herself. For a full description of this see p39 of ‘The Complete Sleep Guide’ and also the section on Sleep Training in Gina’s article on the website. This method will reassure your baby that you are still there, but she will learn the important skill of falling back to sleep without assistance. Again, it takes persistence, so continue in the same way every day. A baby may cry down, gradually decreasing in volume and intensity, for 20- 30 minutes.

Make sure you have at least a twenty-minute wind-down time before settling her for her lunchtime sleep. Again, keep to the same routine every day so she learns to associate it with having her long nap. Sitting quietly in a darkened room, singing the same lullaby, tucking her in with the same words every day will give her the signals to settle to sleep.