5 Reasons Your Baby or Toddler is Taking Short Naps, and How to Lengthen Them
5 Reasons your baby or toddler is taking a short nap
Short naps, aka crap naps, can be one of the most frustrating sleep woes in the early years. If you're a stay at home or work from home parent, it can leave you feeling unnerved and out of control of your day to day activities (e.g. when should I schedule a work call? or when can we go to the grocery store or the park?). Planning your day and/or dealing with a chronically over-tired kiddo is so hard!
Understanding why naps can be short and erratic, and what the heck to do about it, can make all the difference in the world.
Let’s take a look at the five most common causes for your baby or toddler's short naps - and what you can do to help lengthen the naps, sleep better, and maybe even get to make plans in advance from time to time.
Over-tiredness and Other Schedule Mishaps
As far as most Sleep Coaches are concerned, over-tiredness is the root of all evil. Okay, maybe we’ve got a little hyperbole going on here, but seriously, over-tiredness is baby sleep enemy #1. And hence baby crap name enemy #1. Red zone overtiredness is more times than not a factor when a baby or toddlers naps are short (unless your toddler is nearing dropping the nap, which is a different story all together!).
Have you ever been so tired that you get a second wind and then can’t seem to settle down for sleep at night? Babies and toddlers experience this too - except it can hit them much much harder because they haven’t quite mastered self soothing skills and don’t have the same practice adults do. Plus, their executive function skills leave a little to be desired, which is 100% age appropriate btw. Their brains are still developing after all.
But it’s very common for parents to think that the longer their child stays awake, the better they will sleep when it’s time to rest. In fact, we see this advice come up time and time again in the parenting groups online. And unfortunately - for MOST little ones - nothing could be further from the truth! Red zone levels of overtiredness leads to a surge in cortisol levels which is like the anti-sleep tonic. If your kiddo goes down in the red zone, sleep will likely be fragmented, restless, and shorter than it would have been otherwise.
To determine whether over-tiredness is at play with your baby or toddler, or to see if you’re on the right track with nap timing, you want to first take a look at (or think about) their typical day in naps, or a sleep log if you have one. Next, compare it to the guidance within our Sleep Needs and Sample Schedules by Age charts.
These FREE downloadable charts will help you stay on point with schedules for your kiddos first 5 years.
So, might your kiddo be overtired before their nap???
Trouble-Shooting Over-tiredness
If you think your baby or toddler is taking short naps due to over-tiredness, then there are several things you can try to improve this.
If they’ve recently dropped a nap, it’s totally appropriate to offer an additional nap for a day or two (essentially going back to the old schedule), to help them catch up on sleep.
If you’re keeping them awake longer than what’s age appropriate, please consider putting them down sooner. This one is easy to resolve unless you hate schedules (I’m married to one of these humans). If that’s the case, consider taking a moment for some soul searching to decide if your disdain for crap naps or your disdain for schedules is stronger. If the crap naps win, keep in mind that this season of life comes with sacrifices that are hard, but that the pay off is often worth the sacrifice, and then some.
If you have a baby, try putting them down for the nap the minute you notice them showing sleepy signs. Sleep signs can include: zoning out with the far off stare, slowing down in movement, droopy eyelids. If your kiddo is cranky and rubbing their eyes, they are probably over-tired already.
If your kiddo is taking terrible naps at daycare, consider regulating their schedule with a consistent morning wake up time (aim to keep it within a 30-minute timeframe) and then sharing with daycare your baby or child’s ideal first nap time. Many daycare centers are willing to work with parents on sleep schedules!
Other Schedule Mishaps - mainly, erratic napping
We also want to make sure that our child’s body is expecting sleep at nap time. When the body is primed for sleep, because the nap is happening at a relatively stable time each day, it becomes much easier for a child to fall into rhythm with solid napping, and hence longer naps. They will be sleepier at nap time because the sleep window is strong. And they will be alert and ready for playing and learning when they are awake. To create strong sleep windows, we recommend keeping your child’s morning wake up time within a 30-minute window every day (once outside of the newborn stage), even on weekends. This will stabilize the (first) nap time and lead to higher quality sleep overall.
Room Environment, aka Baby Cave
We want our childrens’ rooms to be primed just right for sleep -- cave like, in fact. If you haven’t already, go ahead and add black out blinds and white noise to their room. Bright lights and house noises make it even more challenging to sleep, and adding white noise and black out blinds is truly an easy ‘fix’ since it’s totally hands off for you. Some kiddos are temperamentally more sensitive to light and sound and then cannot be “trained” to sleep anywhere and through anything.
A child who is too hot or too cold will also have a harder time linking sleep cycles for a nice long nap. Experts recommend 68-72 degrees, if at all possible, for SIDS prevention and general comfort. Toddlers and bigger kids will likely do well with 65-70 degrees. You'll also want to consider whether your child's room becomes warmer during the day because of sunshine, or if you typically turn your heat down during the day while you're away. Even small changes like this can make a difference in how well a child naps.
No Nap-time Routine
Sleep isn’t an on-off switch. Kiddos need time to wind down for sleep -- bring down the heart rate, relax, and ease into sleep. If your kiddo is banging on drums one minute and plopped in their crib the next, it probably won’t lead to the greatest nap. The routine serves as a transition from wakefulness to a nice and drowsy state of being, perfect for nap time. It helps their little minds and bodies calm down enough to settle into deeper sleep, rather than just crashing. The nap routine also cues to children that sleep is coming (after x, y, and z, it’s time for sleep!)
Try to carve an extra few minutes for a nap routine - and try to keep it consistent between each care provider, if you haven’t already done so.
Hunger
A hungry baby isn’t great at sleeping. No surprise here. But it’s more common than you might think, given the prevalence of the "Eat-Play-Sleep" routine, sometimes called the EASY method (Eat, Activity, Sleep, You-time). When a parent is following this framework, it often means that several hours have passed between when Baby last ate and when they are laying down for sleep. A starving or thirsty baby isn’t going down for a nice, long nap.
Toddlers also have a harder time sleeping if they are really active and burn off their morning nutrition before nap time. If you think this may be the case for your baby (or toddler), then try offering a feeding or snack about 15-20 minutes before it’s time for nap. For toddlers, go for foods that are filling but not sugar heavy (since that can backfire). Good nap and bedtime snacks are turkey slices and cheese, hummus and crackers, or banana slices with almond or peanut butter.
Dependent Sleep Props
This one is often the key. If you are holding, rocking or feeding your child to sleep, or even just sitting bedside or cribside as they doze off -- and then they’re waking up early from the nap -- then it’s likely because they realize you’re gone when they transition from one sleep cycle to the next. In essence, they feel like they “need” you for sleep, just like you may feel you need a pillow. If you suspect a dependent sleep prop is to blame, it may be time to consider teaching your child to fall asleep independently (or re-teach them if it’s a skill they’ve forgotten). If your heart rate just spiked, you’re not alone! Take a few slow breaths and know that your friends at Little Dipper can help. Feel free to book a 15-minute intro call with us to learn how we can help -- there’s no charge and no obligation here, so you’ve got nothing to lose.
Here’s a recap if you’re in a tl;dr kind of mood today, or every day.
The best 5 tips for helping your little one extend their naps are:
Check your kiddo’s schedule, or lack thereof, to rule out over-tiredness and other schedule mishaps.
Ensure the room environment is optimal for sleep, aka create a baby cave.
Follow a consistent and calming nap routine
Rule out hunger with a snack or extra feeding
Identify potential sleep props => and consider teaching your little one how to fall asleep independently at nap time (we can help make this step a lot easier than it may sound!)