Naps 101 (Part 3): How Do I Teach My Baby to Sleep More Than One 30–45 Minute Sleep Cycle?
(Revised and updated from an earlier version.)
Many parents find 30-45-minute naps frustrating. Teaching a baby to sleep more than 30-45 minutes is probably the most difficult type of sleep issue to tackle. This is because "short" naps arise from a variety of factors. Some babies only need 30-45 minute naps and trying to force longer naps is fruitless. Sometimes, a baby would benefit from a longer nap, but environmental issues like a bright or noisy sleep environment cause naps to be shorter than they would otherwise be. In other cases, an inappropriate schedule can result in short, frequent naps. Finally, sometimes lingering parent-led sleep associations can cause a baby to wake prematurely. It's important to identify the reason your baby is taking short naps before you take action.
The Science
There are a few different causes of short naps, but the main problems stem from age/developmental readiness, sleep environment, sleep associations, and the rapid dissipation of sleep pressure during the day. We’ve already covered the issues of age, sleep need, sleep environment, and sleep associations in Part 1 and Part 2 of our nap series, so please review those posts before beginning work on nap extension.
Schedule issues and sleep pressure issues are the final pieces of a complicated puzzle that leads to persistent short naps. Sleep pressure is the build-up of sleep need (i.e., tiredness) that your baby accumulates during bouts of wakefulness. When your child falls asleep, even for a few minutes, some of this sleep debt is repaid and thus will allow your child to stay awake for another stretch of time. The hardest time to get a baby or toddler to fall asleep is right after he or she has woken up. For some children, a short nap takes the edge off just enough so that your child can continue to stay awake after only one sleep cycle, even if you have taught him or her to fall asleep independently.
If your child doesn't have enough sleep pressure (that is, if your child doesn't biologically need more sleep), you'll get a short nap. This is where it gets tricky and where schedule issues come into play. Sleep pressure is not just counting up the number of minutes since your child last slept (or as many people call it, the duration of the "wake window"). Sleep pressure also reflects the amount of sleep your child gets over a period of time. This means that if your child's sleep is out of balance, for example, if your child has long nights (e.g., ~11-12 hours) and short naps or one long nap and one short nap, your child might be getting enough sleep overall but may seem tired due to the schedule imbalance.
Need More Help?
We offer several options for optimizing your child's sleep:
SLEEP TRAINING CLASS (for well babies 6-15 months)
PHONE CONSULTATIONS (with one of our sleep experts)
THE SECRET TO NAPS (downloadable e-book)
How do you teach your baby to connect sleep cycles?
First, make sure that you’ve completed all of the steps that we listed in our previous nap posts (Part 1 and Part 2). In these posts, we covered the importance of sleep environment, age-appropriate expectations, and nap initiation. Make sure you've evaluated the following before trying to teach your child to extend naps:
Don’t start until your baby is mature enough to put sleep cycles together (usually at least 6 months from due date).
Ensure that your child's room is extremely dark so that he or she doesn’t get distracted by the surrounding
Don’t start until your baby knows how to fall asleep independently at nap time.
Ensure your child actually needs more sleep. Some babies have lower sleep needs and just don't need a longer nap. If your baby seems. to be doing well with 30-45 minute naps (or 1.5-hour naps for your toddler), you probably don't need to change anything.
Adjust your child's schedule if needed before trying the behavioral suggestions below. If your child has a longer-than-average night, you may need to shorten your child's night in order to enable your child to sleep longer during the day. For example, if your child sleeps for ~12 hours overnight but takes 30-minute naps, you may need to shorten your child's night to ~11 hours to increase your child's sleep pressure during the day.
If you feel confident that your child needs more sleep and you've addressed all of the issues above, you'll need to help your child learn to recognize that more sleep is needed at nap time. When your baby wakes up from a nap, he or she expects to see you and expects that when you arrive, you’ll pick him or her up out of the crib. Therefore, it is really frustrating for your baby to have you come into the room and try to get him or her to go back to sleep. For this reason, you can’t easily go to your baby and do some sort of interactive nap training at the end of a short nap. Your child will likely just get angry, and that will lead to a lower probability of him/her falling asleep. (On the other hand, this is what you would do at night.) Instead, you need to teach your baby to wait. This will allow your child to wake in a more calm state and begin to recognize that he or she is still sleepy and can go back to sleep. There are a few ways to do this:
Option 1
Don’t go to your child until an hour has passed from the time he or she fell asleep. For example, if your baby slept for 40 minutes, then you would leave him or her in the crib for an additional 20 minutes before you would go in.
It’s important to note that, in most cases, this waiting period will not lead to your baby going back to sleep. It will simply start to teach him or her to wake in a more calm state, which will increase the likelihood he/she will connect sleep cycles in the future.
This type of strategy takes about 5–7 days before it leads to longer naps
If your baby doesn't connect sleep cycles in that time, it's possible your baby is getting enough sleep. Remember, there is nothing wrong with a 30-45 minute nap if your baby is otherwise thriving.
Option 2
Wait a few minutes before you go to your baby at the end of every short nap. For example, if he or she sleeps for 40 minutes, then wait 5–10 minutes before going to get him/her.
As with the option above, this will not lead to your baby going back to sleep, but it will teach him or her to wait. This option is often easier for parents to do, but it generally takes longer for babies to learn to connect sleep cycles.
This type of strategy takes about 5–10 days before it leads to longer naps (in some cases it may be even longer).
Again, if your baby does not connect sleep cycles, it could mean that your baby is getting enough sleep.
Option 3
If you prefer a more gradual approach, then you can work on nap anticipation (as described in our first nap blog) at any age. This strategy involves anticipating your child’s wake-up and getting to your child before he or she wakes fully. As soon as your baby begins to stir, you put your hands on him or her, or possibly even pick him/her up to help connect sleep cycles.
Continue this nap anticipation to stabilize your baby’s schedule. As each day/week passes, reduce the amount of intervention that you do. For example, if you have to pick your baby up between cycles for a week, then the next week try to soothe in the crib between cycles rather than picking him or her up.
As mentioned in our first post, this works great for some babies and not at all for others, based on personality.
This strategy usually takes several weeks to a few months before your baby can connect sleep cycles independently.
It’s also important to make sure that you are asking your baby to connect sleep cycles appropriately. In most cases it’s only the first two naps of the day that extend longer than one sleep cycle. The third nap can remain short until it naturally goes away. Check out our ages and stages sleep chart to make sure you know how much sleep to expect from your child.
Need more help?
We are moms with formal education in sleep medicine, nursing, and behavior analysis. We always appreciate it when you share our blogs and resources with other parents who could benefit from the information. If you need a little help to figure naps out or if you are facing other challenges, then please check out our other blogs, our 0-6 month class, and sleep training class. We have blogs on schedules, travel, toddler issues, and more! If you just need to talk to someone who can help you devise a sleep plan, then feel free to book a one-on-one consultation with us. We are always happy to help!
References
Wong, S.D., Wright Jr, K.P., Spencer, R.L., Vetter, C., Hicks, L.M., Jenni, O.G. and LeBourgeois, M.K., 2022. Development of the circadian system in early life: maternal and environmental factors. Journal of physiological anthropology, 41(1), p.22.
Kurth, S., Lassonde, J.M., Pierpoint, L.A., Rusterholz, T., Jenni, O.G., McClain, I.J., Achermann, P. and LeBourgeois, M.K., 2016. Development of nap neurophysiology: preliminary insights into sleep regulation in early childhood. Journal of sleep research, 25(6), pp.646-654.
Jenni, O.G. and LeBourgeois, M.K., 2006. Understanding sleep-wake regulation and sleep disorders during childhood: The value of a model Curr. Opin. Psychiatry, 19, pp.282-287.
Athanasouli, C., Stowe, S.R., LeBourgeois, M.K., Booth, V. and Behn, C.G.D., 2024. Data-driven mathematical modeling of sleep consolidation in early childhood. Journal of Theoretical Biology, 593, p.111892.
Mindell, J.A., Leichman, E.S., Composto, J., Lee, C., Bhullar, B. and Walters, R.M., 2016. Development of infant and toddler sleep patterns: real‐world data from a mobile application. Journal of sleep research, 25(5), pp.508-516.