Longer than 30 min nap - how?

[Sunnybambino]

Does anyone have any tips on how I can get my 3.5 month old to sleep longer than 30 mins for his nap? He is put down in his bassinet swaddled and with a dummy and puts himself to sleep. He always wakes after 30 mins, wide awake and with his dummy still in. I put him down around 1 hr 15m to 1 hr 30m after he's woken (any earlier he's not tired, any later and he's overtired and crying).

I lie down with him after lunch and he gets a solid 2.5-3 hours but if I try the bassinet at that time he'll still only do 30 mins.

Is this just something that he'll grow out of? My other children always did naps of a couple of hours and I'm not doing anything different with him.

[SpecialPatrolGroup]

I used to sneak in to my dd just before the 40 minute mark and gently pat her and when she started to stir I would pat and shush her through that stirring and then she would settle back in to deeper sleep.... Sometimes.

[bbhope]

I always have to help him. Putting him to nap was near impossible. At 30 mins mark, I would wait to put the dummy back in and walk out the room. Some time it worked, sometime it didn't. We stressed a lot and even sent him to sleep school. My DS grows out of it around 5 months. That's when he was happy to have nap back in his cot than in the bouncer. I would try what the previous post suggested. Try to resettle.

[Renn]

If you want to try to get longer naps, catch him just as he starts to stir and resettle. Shushing, patting, patting the mattress, dummy, rocking the bassinett, white noise, music...all sorts of options.

I stressed over it so much with my first. She did eventually have longer naps. My second is 10 months and I still can't resettle him during the day (or get him to sleep in hiscot for that matter, but that's another story). DP can usually resettle him by patting, and if he's asleep in his cot then he will often have a longer nap there now.

[Sunnybambino]

Thanks for the replies! I went in just before the 30 min mark and held my hand on his chest for a few minutes and that got him through to 45 mins so that's an improvement already. I'll definitely keep trying at that. Thank you.