Hellobee Boards

I did some nap training because my kids were fighting their naps something horrible around 5 months I think? They were also having a hard time with the tranfer from arms to crib. So what I did was institute a nap routine that included taking them into their nursery away from the other baby with dim lights, reading a book or two, singing and rocking. For the training, I put them in the crib after X rounds of the song, and did incremental checks.

But even 2 months later, I still rock them before every nap, and now, they typically fall asleep quickly while I rock them, and will slightly wake up and settle themselves when I put them in the crib. This was really my goal for nap training.

I also find that my kids nap better when they have a full belly. I know a lot of people disagree with the bottle before sleep, but my kids very rarely fall asleep eating (unless they're dead tired because nap time is late). So my kids get the bulk of their milk during their awake time, but I usually top them off with like 2 oz before sleep. It might be something to try since it seem like she's hungry when she wakes.

My son still sometimes struggles with short naps and waking up tired. In the worst of it, I just picked him up, fed him, and tried to rock him back to sleep. Otherwise, I'll usually just try to hold him and do something chill for a bit, maybe give him a soft toy to play with. Sometimes he'll wake up more and be fine, and other times he'll fall back asleep after half an hour of winding back down.

And there is just so much happening developmentally right now, it might just be something that you both just have to muddle through. My son downright refused the crib at night for weeks around 6 months, and now he's back to sleeping in his crib like a champ.

Have you considered reducing the number of naps from 4 to 3? According to the baby whisperer 3 is appropriate for that age. It would also give your baby more awake time between naps and might result in longer but fewer naps. Good luck!