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Just time. Nothing we did helped until my daughter was ready to nap longer. Around 6 months, her naps naturally stretched from 30 mins to a little over an hour. Looking back, I wish I hadn't stressed about it so much, but I get how frustrating it is!

LO started stretching naps out more around 6-7 months. I don't know if it was because she was just ready for longer naps or if it was because we started stretching out the time in-between naps longer and she was falling asleep by herself instead of nursing to sleep for naps. She is still a little inconsistent with naps and it's not unusal for her to only take a 45 min nap, especially in the morning.

Not to be a total downer, but M was a chronic short napper from about 2 months on. She mostly napped for 30 mins at a time and went down to two naps at 6 months. Still just 30 mins. She's almost 16 months now and takes 2 great naps at daycare but usually still just takes short naps at home. We tried everything. I cried a lot over it!

All this to say, if it doesn't get any better, don't beat yourself up over it like I did! Some kids just seem to need less sleep.

Time. I know that's the suckiest answer ever, but I do think that eventually they are ready for it. Having said that, I found out around 6 months old when LO woke while I was cleaning the bathroom. I decided to get her when I finished the toilet and she fell back asleep. So, I still think time is the most important, but it's probably good to test the waters every so often to see if they are ready yet. My LO didn't magically just start sleeping longer. She had to learn that it was ok to go back to sleep when she woke.

I agree with all of the previous answers. Time and a change of perspective. The second I stopped trying to fix short naps as a problem, things got a lot better. The issue fixed itself eventually, but in our case it took until closer to 1 year when she transitioned to one nap.

Probably around 6 months? We went through a period of cat naps and I knew it wasn't enough sleep for lo at all. Once he got back on track he started taking 2 solid naps per day. He is 17 months now and still sleeps 3-4 hours per day split between two naps.

@merbaby14: I wish I knew! we're victims of the 40 minute naps, too. I've come to accept it, but still wish she'd give me an hour to clean! It does seem like at 4 months she will go a TINY bit longer than she used to. Here's hoping they keep getting longer

I had a classic short napper literally waking up in tired hysterics at the 40/45 minute mark. We/I tried everything to lengthen them and my life literally revolved around our nap struggles to put her down at the "perfect ideal tired but not too tired" time with and without every sleep crutch in the book (nurse to sleep, EASY schedule, CIO, rock to sleep, rock when she wakes up, lay down together when she woke up, let her cry when she woke up and so on). In hind site now that I have a well rested one nap a day for 2 hours pretty happy toddler I see the only thing I'm sure of with the whole poor napper is experience is TIME is the only thing that made things better. I'm sorry it's not more help but if I realized that nothing I did really did much to help or hurt her sleep I think I would have been able to approach things with a lot less stress.

@BabyTsMom: Like others have stated, once I stopped staying in the house trying to figure out his naps, life was better. I aimed for his first nap in the house and then we got out and about. If he took his cat nap in the carseat, great. If not, we sailed on.

@BabyTsMom: I hear you! Honestly even if he was overtired he was still happier out of the house instead of fighting me at home. Naturally I was happier too