20/06/2023
.. The Catnapping Cycle ..
A catnap is generally a nap lasting between 30-45 minutes. In the early weeks of the newborn stage, babies often do longer stretches of day sleep linking sleep cycles, though by the time 4 months comes around, you may find they have trouble doing this and their naps have shortened to 30-45 minutes (or sometimes only 20 minutes which is a clear sign baby is overtired as they are struggling to transition from the light sleep to deep sleep phase)
As a result of shorter naps, they will often struggle to stay awake (for an age appropriate time) and want to go back to sleep, but may struggle here and fight falling asleep due to being overtired.
When I'm working with families with babies between 4 - 8 months old, catnapping is a common theme happening for them, as well as having disrupted nights.
This is because shorter naps leads to overtiredness. Overtiredness leads to increased night waking. This leads to baby being tired during the day.... and the catnapping cycle continues.
Catnapping can also be due sleep associations, feeds / solids schedule and sleep environment.... awake windows are just one of the things we look at when helping resolve any catnapping issues!
Drop any questions below if you have any queries about your baby's awake windows and naps :)
Deb
