Making Short Naps Longer?

[LollyMolly]

My 12 week baby has this kind of schedule going on now : Awake 1.5 hours, Sleep 30 minutes throughout the day.  She eats at the beginning of this cycle which amounts to every 2 hours in the daytime.  Night sleep is 6-7 hours then 2 hour stretches until morning.

I'd love for her to be able to take longer more restorative naps, but I end up giving in when she is exhausted and then she wakes up hungry 30 minutes later.  I feel like she is fussy at night after her long stretch so from 4AM-7AM and that gets us off to a rough start in the morning.  Today she woke at 7AM ate, and was falling back asleep at 8:15. 

I'd love to get her on that normal 9, 1 & 4 nap schedule that everyone else seems to be on so her naps will be more restorative.  Any ideas?

Things we are already doing : darkness, swaddling, white noise & Zantac.  When she is tired I swaddle her in the dark room (not pitch black) turn on the white noise and bounce her to sleep on a ball.  She usually goes out in just a few minutes.

[SimpleLove]

I have a 9 month old who is just recently on the nap schedule you mentioned. 12 weeks seems like such a long time ago, but it sounds very young for them to reliably do anything. It's all about nursing on demand and it's tiring, I know. That 6hr+ stretch at night sounds pretty nice though!

[dovey]

When my kids were tiny, I remember that outdoor time or bath time prior to naps always seemed to help them sleep more soundly and for a longer period of time.  Also, some babies do wake up every 30 minutes during a nap, but you can sometimes get them to go back to sleep if you catch them before they are completely awake - I would just lie down beside the babe as unobtrusively as possible and nurse him/her back to sleep.  Sometimes it worked, sometimes not. 

[tanyato]

I write this as I lie next to my sleeping 8 month old he has been a 40 min napper since day one. The only way I can get him to take a longer nap is to go in and lie next to him after he's been asleep for 35 min, then as soon as he stirs I rub his back or nurse him back to sleep. Then I sneak away and he continues sleeping for anywhere from 10 min to 1 11/2 hrs. 25% of the time it doesn't work at all and he's up after that first 40 min. I have done this with him for MONTHS as I read somewhere it will help get your baby to nap longer. Everywhere I've read about thus method the source says it should only take a week or two of this early interception method before your baby will start sleeping right through the wake up. Not for my guy :/

A few times (like 5 or 6 maybe) he's done a randomly freakish long nap of 2 - 2 1/2 hours without any interception from me but I can never count on it happening.

So there's my story. Personally, I became so much happier when I dropped all expectations of my baby keeping any kind of nap schedule ( we have a routine which is the same most days, but we are happily schedule free). Short nappers are a lot of fun! They're so excited about life that they just can't waste the day sleeping!