Short Nap Blues

Troubleshooting short naps can be tricky- but it doesn’t have to be.

When I hear that a little one’s naps are short, generally speaking, my brain goes right to them being overtired. Short naps are a classic sign of being overtired, along with many night wakings and waking early in the morning. Another cause for short naps could be a regression.

Regressions are caused by some sort of development that your child may be going through. Started crawling? New speech development? Beginning to walk? All of these may cause a “regression”. 

A third reason you may be seeing short naps is that you have the timing of sleep wrong. I love wake windows up until 16 weeks of age, and then I move to “biological sleep times” and use sleepy signs within those windows. I find that wake windows after 16 weeks can cause more confusion than clarity, and can make you miss the ideal sleep times entirely. Next week I will map out the ideal sleep times by age.

If you believe the short naps are regression-related, keep offering the nap and try to keep your little one in the crib for an hour from when you first put them down. When the regression is over, you’ll have preserved that nap time and can continue with it easily. You may be able to tell it’s regression-related if they were taking good naps and all of a sudden their naps go crazy. Watch for a new development soon, if this is the case.

If you think being overtired or having the wrong sleep times is causing the short naps, head over to my “work with me” page and book a one time call. Sometimes all it takes is a little tweaking and then you’re on the right track again.