Ohhhhh catnapping!
The term may make some of your skin crawl. For others, it may be your norm and you’re cool with it. Whatever the case may be for you, let’s take a deep dive into catnapping and find out all there is to know!
Firstly, it’s important to know that catnapping is biologically normal and age appropriate. We usually see catnapping emerge around the 4 month mark but sometimes even earlier. What happens around this age is that our little one’s sleep cycles develop into more of an adult like sleep cycle, going from 4-6 hourly overnight to 2-4 hourly and through the day, around the 30-45 minute mark! Bub will either wake from this little kip quite content, chirpy and appearing to have absolutely zero chance of dozing back off. Or bub may wake instantly upset and seem quite distressed, frustrated and still tired.
So what is it?
A catnap is when a bub will essentially either have one sleep cycle before waking and either not returning to sleep or needing assistance to get back to sleep. Sometimes it can be even less than a sleep cycle (shout out to all those parents dealing with 15-20 minute naps).
For parents of catnappers, encouraging a baby to connect nap sleep cycles can seem like an impossible feat and something that you will need to stay consistent with. Having a bub who will seem to never sleep longer than 30-45 minutes at a time during the day can be extremely frustrating, but you CAN help your baby to connect sleep cycles once he or she is old enough to do so.
How old is appropriate to encourage longer sleeps?
Commonly, somewhere between 4 and 6 months babies start to be able to connect sleep cycles. However, it can take some bubs a little longer to master this consistently. Some babies can do it earlier as well. (they are not the rule! 😉)
What factors affect catnapping & what can we do to encourage longer sleep?
Sleep Environment
Make sure their sleep environment is conducive to sleep.
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Ensure bub is dressed appropriately. (appropriate clothing and TOG sleeping bag/swaddle for the current weather).
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Use white noise to drown out any external noise that could potentially wake them between sleep cycles
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Ensure the space is nice and dark to limit distraction
Sleep Pressure
This is essentially the build up of need for sleep (tiredness) that bub accumulates during their awake time.
We need to ensure bub is having enough awake time to allow their body to feel tired enough to want to sleep a longer stretch.
We also need to make sure that nothing is 'zapping' their sleep pressure during that awake window. This can be frequent feeds throughout the awake window or a car ride riiight before nap time!
Wake Windows
Ensure your little one’s wake windows are age appropriate. It’s common to get ‘stuck’ on an awake window in fear of bubs getting overtired. But sometimes we need to push the awake time a little to help build that sleep pressure
Sleep Associations & Self-Settling
Does your little one rely on something external to fall asleep? Whether that be physical assistance from you or even something like a dummy if they’re too young to find and replace it themselves. If our little ones are not yet able to self-settle, we can’t expect that they will be able to re-settle independently between sleep cycles. To give bub the best chance at mastering consolidating their naps, we need to help them learn to self-settle. This will then allow them to attempt to resettle between cycles, ultimately consolidating. (yay!)
When do we use Catnapping to our Advantage?
There are times when catnaps are absolutely appropriate and encouraged. We use catnaps when bub may be ready to transition down naps. We can also use them when a planned ‘long’ nap didn’t happen and we need to add in another quick nap or 2 before bedtime to avoid bub getting overtired. We also always encourage a catnap as the last nap, before bed!
If you’ve addressed all of the above and you’re still not having any luck, despite attempting resettling… your babe may just not be ready yet OR you may just have not worked out their sweet spot for wake windows. It’s also possible that your little one is doing just fine with catnaps and although we would like some longer stints of time to ourselves during the day, bub is thriving overnight and happy after their short nap. This scenario usually resolves itself with time. In either case, try to roll with it and focus on the lead up to nap time, ensuring bubs sleep pressure is where it needs to be to achieve a nice big sleep while you can chill out and enjoy some Netflix!
If you feel like your bub might be ready but you’re unsure how to encourage some longer day sleeps, please get in touch!! We can, and would LOVE to help!
