Dana Obleman:  Hi, I’m Dana Obleman. Welcome to this week’s video chat.

Today, our question comes from Perry. She writes, “Nap times. When he wakes after 45 minutes, what do I do? I’m so happy that he even fell asleep for 45 minutes, because he’s not been the best day sleeper. Do I call that success, or do I keep trying?”

I love this question. I get asked about naps more than any other question, hands down. I think you’re right, Perry. You should be celebrating that you’re baby’s falling asleep in the crib. I always tell my clients, “Listen. Goal number one around naps is that we just get this baby to fall sleep independently in the crib in the first place.”

For some babies, that is a huge challenge, celebrate it. Absolutely, this is very good news. However, 45 minutes is not usually long enough. If it’s the last nap of the day, I can let a 45‑minute nap go, because usually, those are just kind of a tied‑you‑over‑till‑bedtime nap, and it’s not the end of the world if it’s shorter.

But if every single nap is only 45 minutes, there are a couple of things we can do to encourage your baby to sleep longer. Now, lots of people ask me, “Why is it only 45 minutes? I can set my clock to it. It’s every 45 minutes.”

But there is some reason, some science behind that. That is that 45 minutes is really one sleep cycle for a baby. They cycle through and they come to a really light state. Often, their eyes, if you’re watching their eyes, they’ll flicker open a little bit and they really are having a little period of awakening. But the hope is that they go right back into another cycle and sleep longer.

But for babies who don’t have great sleep skills yet, that becomes the challenging spot. How do you get from one cycle into the next? The good news around that though is the better their skills get when you put her down initially, the better she’ll get it consolidating those two cycles into one.

Sometimes, it’s just a matter of time. I tell people, “You know what? Give it a week or two, and this should solve itself.” That would be tip number one. Tip number two would be not to rush right in. Again, if babies are having a little period of awakening and they might even cry for a few minutes and struggle a bit to see if they can get themselves into another cycle, and so you should give them that opportunity.

I always say this, something really magical about waiting 10 minutes that often if you wait 10, they’ll go back to sleep. Set your time, because 10 minutes is sometimes hard to gauge when you have a child that’s crying. You could be surprised that she cries for 9 minutes, and then, bang. In minute number 10, she goes back to sleep, so give her a chance.

Tip number three would be, if she doesn’t go back to sleep within 10 or 15 minutes, then she probably isn’t going to. She’s already had a catnap, and for some babies, especially chronic cat‑nappers, they’ve taught their bodies to do really well on little sleep.

After 45 minutes, she might be feeling really refreshed and ready to go. If you’ve given it some time and it just didn’t happen, then go ahead and get her up, and try to hang in there until the next nap time. The good news around this is that it should all work itself out. The combination of all of these things rolled into one should mean that eventually, this child starts taking longer naps at least once or twice a day.

We’d love to hear your comments or questions. If you’ve got some questions about your child’s sleep, or if you just want to celebrate that your baby’s actually sleeping long enough now, we’d love to hear it in the comments section. Thanks so much for watching. Sleep well.

Dana:  If you are looking for even more advice on your baby’s sleep, head over to sleepsense.net to answer five easy questions and get a free sleep evaluation for your child.

Transcription by CastingWords