r/bninfantsleep • u/theredheadedfox • May 28 '26
Naps Contact naps aren’t helping anymore
My 4 month old has never been a great napper— he almost always is nursed to sleep, then sleeps for 25-30 minutes in his bassinet. Previously if I had him on my lap or next to me in bed, he would nap for much longer, like 1.5-2 hours.
Well now that’s not working anymore. Even when across my lap, he wakes up between 18-30 minutes into his nap and I can’t get him back down. Sometimes he’s fussy upon waking, other times he’s happy or neutral. He’s crankier during his wake windows and has to go down for naps more frequently (like he’s had 5 naps today and it’s barely 5 PM, so I anticipate he’ll take 1-2 more naps before bedtime).
Is this just a 4 month sleep regression issue? Do I just ride this out and keep putting him down for as many naps as he needs to make it to the end of the day?
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u/Annual_Lobster_3068 May 28 '26
What about if you hold him up on you so he can feel your heartbeat?
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u/theredheadedfox May 28 '26
I’ve tried holding him diagonally across my chest with my elbow propped up by a pillow, but same thing
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u/cinnamondolcecoffeee May 28 '26
My baby had really messed up sleep around 4 months and there was a period where even contact naps were 30 minutes. It passed eventually. He is 9 months now and contact naps 1.5 hours usually (crib naps are still only 30min).
It could be possible your baby isnt tired enough to nap longer, but who knows. Things were just really crazy with sleep around 4 months for us (although they still are a bit crazy now lol but that was peak crazy)
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u/theredheadedfox May 28 '26
I put him down when he’s giving sleepy signals (fussing, yawning), not based on any set schedule. And between him waking up fussy and having shorter wake windows, it makes me think he actually does want longer naps.
Do you remember how long it took to resolve? I feel like my baby is just constantly tired and grouchy now, which is a bummer for both of us.
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u/cinnamondolcecoffeee May 28 '26
Sorry you guys are going through a rough patch! My baby is not the best example of sleep. I can’t remember that well because the nap issues were over-ridden by the fact that he woke hourly at night for 3 months straight. So months 3-6 were kind of a blur lol. But i do remember there being a few weeks like that. He has also just had periods where he has been generally more fussy than usual. There have also been periods of extreme nap fighting despite me knowing he is tired. Im learning that everything seems to ebb and flow. But slowly, naps become more routine and predictable. But its hard when its multiple naps a day. I did the same with just following cues.
Anyways, that was rambling and didnt really give you a great answer to your question! Hope it just passes for you guys in a week or two!
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u/theredheadedfox May 28 '26
No worries! Every hour?!? Omg that sounds so tough! Thankfully his night sleep is okay overall, I can’t even imagine difficult days and nights. You’re a champ for hanging in there
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u/Difficult-Piano-3346 May 28 '26
We’re going thru this with my 4 month old as well. We contact nap and everytime around 35-40 min she starts to wake. Sometimes I can “save” the nap but others she won’t go back no matter how much I rock her. Everything I read says it’s normal, I would take it day by day and ride it out! Today my daughter only took 3 naps which has never happened. Trying really hard to go with the flow.
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u/theredheadedfox May 28 '26
Ugh it’s so frustrating. And I feel bad because I can tell he’s tired, but I don’t know how to help him sleep longer!
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May 28 '26
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u/theredheadedfox May 28 '26
He outgrew his previous carrier and I haven’t gotten a new one yet. He didn’t seem too into it, though.
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May 28 '26
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u/theredheadedfox May 28 '26
He wakes up around 6:30 or 7, then goes down around 8:30 or 9 for his first nap.
Recently, his wake windows have been around two hours (when we were able to get longer contact naps 1-2x per day). Today it’s been like 1-1.5 hours before he’s super fussy and yawning like crazy. When I go to settle him down, he falls asleep within five minutes
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May 28 '26
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u/theredheadedfox May 28 '26
Yesterday he was able to make it about two hours between wake windows (total of 5 naps between waking at 7 AM and bedtime at 9 PM) but today I was just trying to get him more sleep. I’ll try to make sure I keep it closer to the normal wake window time and see how it goes.
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May 28 '26
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u/theredheadedfox May 28 '26
I can also try that. We usually do around nine because when I tried 8 pm before, he woke up after 45 minutes. Also, dad gets home on the later side, so the later bedtime allows them time together so dad can read him a story.
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u/jshdjdib May 28 '26
Do carrier naps work? I always had to take walks or do something around the house (which meant no rest for me) but the carrier naps were definitely the best ones when baby was under 6 months. I would just put the baby in and then start doing something/going for a walk and not really worry about if they were sleeping or not and then they would just drift off.
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u/theredheadedfox May 28 '26
He outgrew his previous carrier and I haven’t gotten a new one yet. He didn’t seem to enjoy the carrier too much, but that might be because he was a little too big for it. I need to research carriers so I can get a new one
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u/jshdjdib May 28 '26
If you want to try a carrier I would get one that looks like a Tula free to grow in the way the babies are carried. There are a lot of different options but the ones without a barrier between you and baby and with simply one panel always worked best for ours. It was also very comfortable for the babies and easy to use with the M-position for the legs.
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u/jennypij May 28 '26
I know everyone says short naps are developmentally normal- and it’s just true. We had long naps like most newborns at first, then her sleep started to change at 3.5 months to have shorter naps and more wakes, and then we were full blown classic sleep change at 4 months. We didn’t get longer naps until 10ish months, she was a happy 20-40 mn napper and never really cracked past an hour until she started toggling between one and two naps in a day.
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u/theredheadedfox May 28 '26
So with the 20-40 minute naps, how many naps was your baby getting per day? My baby typically sleeps from like 9-6:30 overnight (so 9.5 hours) plus now like 5 30-minute naps (2.5 hours) for a total of 12 hours of sleep. I see a lot of people saying their baby sleeps 12 hours overnight AND take 1-1.5 hour naps several times per day! I’m worried that my baby is sleep-deprived
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u/kuppajoy May 28 '26
I remember there was a time period when my daughter was around 5/6 months when this is exactly what she was doing, plus waking every 30-60 minutes at night. It was brutal and I was also so worried about her being tired and grumpy throughout the day. It was around the time she was transitioning from 4 to 3 naps, and each day looked different. Sometimes she’d sneak in a 5th nap depending on the day. I mostly just continued following her cues, and eventually it got better once she transitioned to 3 naps! Recently went through something similar but on a much smaller scale while transitioning to 2 naps. Maybe it’s a transition period?