when might i expect her to nap longer?

[emcdb]

wise mamas,

my daughter is 4 months old and takes naps throughout the day. i have not tried to put her on a schedule; rather, she sleeps when she wants to. this has turned out to be about a 45-minute to 1-hour nap every 1.5 to 2.5 hours. should i expect her naps to combine at any point, e.g., one longer morning and afternoon nap? she usually goes to bed between 7:30 and 8:30 pm and sleeps until about 7 am.

thanks in advance for sharing your experience!

erin

[Hannah'sMommy]

wow, that's pretty good that you can get her to sleep 45 minutes to 1-hour at a time! Up until about 3-4 months, our DD would only sleep in 20-40 minute stretches. Our babysitter finally managed to get her to combine her naps and take longer ones. We found that what helped was having her go longer stretches in between her naps. She's 7.5 months now, and her schedule usually looks like this:

Awake 7am
Nap 9-9:45
Nap 1-3:30
Bed 7pm ish

It's not exactly this every day, but pretty close. I'll admit, that on the weekends its not as easy for us to get her to nap. But the key thing for us was keeping her awake longer in between naps.

Good luck!