4 Month Old Nap Times

I agree with Kim,is he sleeping at night?I guess its better to have him up during the day than at night...but he will find his little grove and figure out a schedule.Enjoy!!

I think he is too young to have a nap schedule. He will sleep when he needs to sleep even if it is for short periods. When they are this young, perhaps under 6mo, you are more or less on their schedule, and go with their flow.

Don't worry, when he's tired he'll sleep and eventually he'll get down to longer sleep times and a more scheduled routine. Each child is unique and has their own rhythm.

Feed, activity time, then sleep. I agree, swaddling works for most. sleeping in the car seat or "moses basket" also gives a more cozy sleeping place than flat on back. I swaddled my babies (4 of them! now 11, 9, 6 and 3) and used a wedge to keep them slightly on their sides, they seemed to prefer it. Try running the vacuum, fan or sound machine to block out sudden sound/noise changes. Stick with the breast feeding add solids after 6 mo.
Then your baby might start a morning nap and afternoon nap routine with a pre bedtime catnap. Best of luck to you.
Word of caution, be careful you don't start a sleep habit you don't want to keep. It's harder to break a bad habit than train good ones!

The first question I would ask is - How does your son sleep at night? If he is sleeping a lot, meaning 8pm to 5am or so with maybe only 1 feeding during the night. Babies do tend to cat nap during the day. If however, he doesn't sleep well at night then maybe consult your doctor.

L. M

If he's still little enough to be swaddled, try that. I bet he's just waking himself up. You could also try having him sleep in a swing (or the high chair, reclined. That worked well with my daughter). good luck.

I second the swaddling advice, as long as your baby isn't too strong to get out (or try using a tight swaddle with a regular blanket and then wrapping a Swaddle Me or other Velcro swaddle blanket on top of that -- if you've got air conditioning, of course). I had to swaddle my second baby until he was 6 months because otherwise it was exactly as you said -- he napped twice for about 20 min. He was just waking himself up -- he has very active hands and would constantly paw at his face. Good luck!

This is the age (16 weeks) that you can try to organize his naps. A great book (which saved me) is "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child" by Marc Weissbluth. My first child had the same issue and the book's sleep training strategies worked with him. The book stresses that a baby needs help getting the proper sleep and they just don't fall into their own groove - which is so true!! Try putting him down for his first nap no later than 1 hour after he wakes up for the day and don't let him stay up for more than 2 hours. At 4 months he could go back down after 1 1/2 even. If he wakes up after 20 minutes help him go right back to bed because a nap less than 30 minutes is not restorative. Being consistent with those steps will eventually get him into the groove. My 3 month old is doing the same thing now - maybe not even sleeping 20 minutes - which is effecting his night time sleep (up every hour). As soon as he hits 16 weeks, I plan on implementing Dr. Weissbluth's sleep strategies because "Sleep begets sleep"!

I highly recommend Tracy Haag's books - "the baby whisperer solves all your problems". she advocates for a consistent routine of eat, activity, sleep. and she doesn't believe in crying it out. the weisbluth book someone else recommended is all about crying it out for hours so you have to go with what you feel comfortable with. 4 months is a perfect age to get on a solid routine which will help him nap for you. it seems to be true that a better rested baby sleeps better.

best of luck.

j