5 Key Reasons Why Your Baby is Taking Short Naps - Part 1
Overview
In today’s article we will be pulling back the curtain on why your baby is taking short naps – you know what I’m talking about – she falls asleep in your arms, and when you try to transfer her, suddenly she’s up and won’t go back to sleep.
Or maybe you get her to sleep in her crib, but like clockwork, she’s up after only 20 to 30 minutes. And you’re glad she got some sleep, but you’re ready to pull your hair out.
This is article Part 1 of 2 - because there was so much meat in this article that it got too long and I had to split it in two.
Today in Part 1, you will learn three of the five most common reasons why your baby is taking short naps and the most reliable ways to solve this problem once and for all.
If you’re ready for 5 Key Reasons Why Your Baby Is Taking Short Naps Part 2 << check it out here.
Why Is My Baby Taking Short Naps: Common Doesn’t Mean Required
Stop me if this sounds familiar -
You’ve finally soothed baby to sleep. She’s so peaceful and serene. You’re sure she’s in a deep enough sleep. You rock her as you transfer her, using the recommended method of feet first, head last onto the crib.
But sure as you know what, the moment she’s down, she wakes up. Your heart is in your throat. Your agitation is sky-high.
What. The. Heck!
You followed all the recommendations for how to successfully transfer baby to bed, and now she’s wide awake. And you know from experience that there is no way she’s going back to sleep anytime soon.
Or maybe this sounds familiar:
You’ve been practicing getting baby to fall asleep in his crib.
It was touch-and-go at first, but it’s been a week or two and now he’s falling asleep on his own.
Success!
But like clockwork, he starts to squirm after only 15-30 minutes.
Like, come on! You’ve worked so hard to get to this point, and the success is so short-lived.
You’re glad he’s falling asleep, but there’s barely a chance for you to pee and microwave your coffee before you have to go get him again.
Now don’t get me wrong, you love your baby with your entire being. Your heart literally aches with how much you love him. But you just need a freaking break.
Sound familiar?
Let me start by putting your fears to rest: you are not doing anything wrong.
This is totally common.
But that doesn’t mean it has to be this way.
Just because something is common doesn’t mean that there is nothing you can do about it.
Let me say that again.
Just because something is common doesn’t mean that there is nothing you can do about it.
Illnesses are common, but you can reduce how often you get sick by washing your hands regularly and not licking the sidewalk.
Tantrums are common in 2- and 3-year-olds, but that doesn’t mean you can’t help your kiddo reduce the number of tantrums they have and work their way through the tantrums they do have.
And short naps are common - especially in the beginning months. But that doesn’t mean there’s nothing you can do about them and you just have to suck it up and deal with them forever.
Just because something is common, doesn’t mean it’s required.
Why Is My Baby Taking Short Naps: Most Common Reasons Why
So you may be asking yourself, “Well then, why is my baby taking short naps?”
Let’s discuss the most common reasons why your baby is taking short naps.
Reasons Why My Baby Is Taking Short Naps: Age and Development
As we mentioned briefly earlier, short naps are most common in the early months.
From birth to around 15 weeks, babies’ naps typically range anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours - and in those earliest weeks, some naps can even stretch to 3 hours.
There are a few different causes for this variability:
In the early weeks, baby doesn’t produce melatonin the way she will when she reaches 3-4 months. As I’m sure you’re aware, melatonin is a key hormone that makes you feel sleepy. So if baby’s body isn’t producing it like it will later, her drive to sleep - and sleep for long, consolidated periods - is reduced.
Another cause is her immature circadian rhythm. Your circadian rhythm is your body clock - it tells your body when to sleep, when to be awake, and more. And at this point in her growth, it’s still developing.
A third cause is the startle reflex - that reflex where baby throws her arms out like she’s falling - and it usually calms down and goes away around 3-4 months. But before that, it can cause baby to wake.
A fourth cause in those early months is baby’s early sleep structure. In the beginning, baby has 2 sleep stages - quiet sleep and active sleep.
Now let’s talk solutions for these age and development causes of short naps
If the issue stems from baby not producing enough melatonin or her immature circadian rhythm, you can’t exactly speed these things along, right? What you can do is expose her to natural light during her daytime wake periods, which helps support her circadian rhythm development and learning to differentiate day and night - which will help her avoid day-night confusion.
When it comes to the startle reflex, a swaddle is majorly helpful. It makes her sleep environment more like the womb in that she’s snug and her arms meet resistance when the reflex hits. And here’s a pro-tip - if your baby is fighting the swaddle … keep trying. Really. Many babies who fight the swaddle actually need it the most to help them feel snug and secure.
And lastly, if your baby still has that early sleep structure of just quiet and active sleep, be aware - 50% of baby’s sleep is active sleep. In active sleep, she squirms and grunts and wiggles around. But she’s still asleep. Many new and even seasoned parents make the mistake of thinking baby is awake or waking up during this type of sleep, so instead of just letting baby keep sleeping, they jump in too soon and scoop baby up which wakes baby up. Let baby squirm and grunt. If she opens her eyes fully and begins to squawk and cry, then you know she’s up.
And do remember that each of these growth and development causes are impacted by adjusted age if your nugget was born early. So if your baby was born early, these developments most often come into play later than their same-age, non-premature peers.
Reasons Why My Baby Is Taking Short Naps: Independent Sleep Skills
Now let’s talk about another common reason why your baby is taking short naps.
Your baby may be unable to fall back to sleep independently.
Why does this matter?
Because your baby sleeps according to her sleep cycle. Whether that’s the 2-stage sleep cycle of newborns or the 4-stage sleep cycle that babies transition to around 3-4 months. At the end of either kind of sleep cycle, your baby has a brief awakening.
This is totally normal. It’s a good thing. A survival instinct, in fact.
Your baby comes to the surface of sleep, and, if the environment is exactly as it was when they became drowsy and fell asleep, they might slide into another sleep cycle.
But if it’s not …
That’s when baby’s body forces her fully awake. Because think about survival - if we fall asleep and the cave is quiet and dark and our bow and arrow are leaning against the wall - that’s great.
But at our brief awakening, if our bow and arrow have disappeared, or there’s a mountain lion at the entrance - well, we need to wake up ASAP.
And this many years later, that survival instinct is still there. For your baby and you and me and everyone.
So if she’s getting help to fall asleep - any kind of help - and that help is no longer there when the brief arousal hits - or if her sleep environment in general has changed - her body will often make her wake up fully.
This means that if she fell asleep with a pacifier or while feeding or rocking or listening to music or even white noise - and then when she has a brief awakening, if any of that is different, there’s a really good chance she’s going to wake up all the way.
Because her brain tells her, “Nope. This is the way it has to be. You fell asleep in that environment before, so you can’t fall back asleep until that happens again.”
That’s why sleep props that you don’t have to replace - like white noise - are so great. Because most people need something to help them fall asleep. And if it’s safe and you don’t have to replace it over and over and over, then that’s a win for both of you.
But if you do have to replace it over and over - like rocking to sleep - and it’s becoming overwhelming to you or baby isn’t getting quality sleep - that’s when it can become an issue.
Now, many newborns need significant help to get to sleep in the beginning. Can many newborns learn to fall asleep independently? Yes. Is it as common a skill as when they reach the 4-month mark? No, it’s not.
So do keep that in mind.
And many babies younger than 6-months still need a night feed - and in the earliest months, sometimes multiple night feeds.
And the American Academy of Pediatrics does recommend keeping the pacifier until 6 months because there’s a correlation between pacifier use and reduced incidence of SIDS.
At the same time, you can begin to practice helping baby fall asleep as independently as possible.
Practicing Independent Sleep: Newborn Technique
Do this during the first nap of the day, when your baby is least likely to become overtired:
Keep the same sleep environment every time you try. Include all of these elements:
Super dark
White noise
Fan on for air movement
Swaddle if baby is not rolling or sleep sack if she is
In a crib, bassinet or pack’n’play
Baby on her back
Get baby to bed shortly before her wake window is up, and see how it goes.
Try for 15-30 min.
If it doesn’t work, take her for a walk and let her fall asleep in the stroller. And use whatever nap routine you’ve been using for the rest of the naps that day.
Try again for the first nap on the following day.
Pro-tip - lots of babies who rely on mom - especially for nursing - to fall asleep struggle to fall asleep independently if she’s still in the room. So if it’s not working with you in the room, try a few days of putting baby down and stepping into the next room to see if that makes a difference. You don’t have to go far, and bring the monitor with you. You just have to be out of smell-range. ;)
If you’re looking for a breathing monitor to help you feel more confident in stepping away from baby’s bedside while she’s sleeping, check out the Snuza Hero. This is one of the breathing monitors we used when our own kids were in the infant phase. It’s not a medical device, so don’t rely on it 100%, and it’s, of course, only expected to be used with safe sleep practices. But it did bring me peace of mind at a time when peace of mind was really hard to come by. <3
Independent Sleep Practice - Baby Still Taking Short Naps
Now what if you have been practicing allowing baby to fall asleep independently, but she’s still waking up after those darned 30 minutes?
Two things:
One, it takes time. When I work with a family, nighttime sleep typically falls into place when you’re 100% consistent with your Sleep Plan in the first 2 weeks. Sometimes as little as one week, sometimes up to 2 weeks.
But naps take longer. Almost always. Even when you’re 100% consistent with the Sleep Plan, sometimes naps take up to 3-4 weeks to fall into place.Secondly, a very common mistake many parents make is intervening too quickly when their baby wakes up. It is harder to fall back asleep during the daytime - it’s just a fact of the matter. Sometimes light is peeking in behind the room-darkening shades. Sleep pressure is lower. There are more house noises.
Let your baby squirm and fuss a little. Give her a chance. This is a new skill and she needs the opportunity to practice.
I mean, if she’s poopy or screaming, pick her up. But if she’s just complaining or wiggly, let her be and see what happens. She may surprise you.
Reasons Why My Baby Is Taking Short Naps: Snack and Snoozer
Now let’s move into a third most common reason why your baby is taking short naps.
Enter: the snack-and-snoozer.
Maybe you’ve met her.
She’s the baby who seems ravenous all the time. But she doesn’t cluster feed - meaning, she’s not taking a bunch of full feeds in a relatively short time frame.
No, this girl latches on, guzzles a couple gulps, and promptly falls asleep.
It’s so incredibly hard to get her to wake up to finish that feed.
And yet, sure enough, 15 to 30 minutes later, shes up and at ‘em, ready for another wee snack.
This girl loves to fall asleep at the breast. It is the greatest thing in the world. She would do it all the time. In fact, she does.
Falling asleep at the breast isn’t bad. It isn’t wrong.
But when your baby is a religious snack-and-snoozer, she may only be getting the foremilk - meaning, the thinner milk at the start of the feed, and not the fattier hind milk that babies get at the end of a full feed.
Foremilk is still good quality milk, but she’s not filling her belly. So she’s hungry again a lot sooner.
Also, if she’s just catnapping all the livelong day, she’s also not getting quality sleep - and likely, neither are you.
Optimally, we want her to be able to make it through at least a complete sleep cycle before waking up fully - which, for newborns, can be approximately 30-45 minutes.
So the solution is this: make sure she’s getting full feeds.
This means that you can’t hold back on all those little tricks to help keep her awake during her feed. Listen, I get it, you’re exhausted too. And you hate hearing her fuss when you use the wet wipe on her cheeks. But she needs that full feed.
We don’t want her to be overfull, where she’s spitting all of her meal up as soon as she shifts position. But we do want her belly full.
Some ways to keep your baby awake during a feed:
Say her name, talk to her
Tickle her
Undress her down to her diaper (if it’s warm enough in the house)
Use a wet wipe or wash cloth on her cheeks and neck
Switch which side you’re feeding on
Keep her awake during the feed, fill her belly, and see how that next nap goes. And try it again the next time, too.
Why Is My Baby Taking Short Naps - Part 1: Summary
That’s a wrap for today.
Today you learned 3 of the 5 most common reasons for why your baby is taking short naps:
Age and development
Unable to fall back asleep independently
Not getting full feeds
And you also learned what to do to solve each of these short-nap-inducing triggers.
Join us next week for the final 2 most common reasons why your baby is taking short naps.
Now go love on your sweet baby – it’s time for them to Play. Sleep. Grow.
Resources from today’s article:
Sexton, S. & Natale, R. (2009) Risks and benefits of pacifiers. American Family Physician. https://www.aafp.org/pubs/afp/issues/2009/0415/p681.html
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