How to Help Your Baby Transition From 4 to 3 Naps — Baby Sleep Blog
Around 4–5 months, many babies start shifting from four naps down to three. This doesn’t necessarily mean they’re sleeping less, they’re just beginning to consolidate sleep into longer stretches. So if your baby used to take four or five short 30–45 minute naps (totaling around 3.5–4.5 hours of daytime sleep), they may start taking three longer naps of 60–120 minutes each, while still getting close to the same total daytime rest.
This drop from 4 to 3 naps often happen naturally and without much effort on your part, usually it just gets to a point where there just isn’t quite enough time to fit in a fourth nap without bedtime being pretty late. However, if you are stuck in a chronic short nap cycle, there are a few things you can do.
Sleep Training Helps To Get Longer Naps
Sleep training is the process of teaching your baby how to fall asleep on their own, meaning your baby can fall asleep without any help from you and resettle between sleep cycles. Babies who have a good foundation of independent sleep skills often naturally start linking their sleep cycles, which is where you see the naps stretch to 60+ minutes.
If your baby does know how to fall asleep independently, but the naps are still short — this is where sleep pressure (how tired they are) comes in.
Around four months, many babies need slightly longer wake windows than they did as newborns. As a newborn, your baby might’ve had 60–90 minutes of wake time between naps, with around 90 minutes before bed. By four months, wake windows typically stretch to around 75–105 minutes, with up to two hours before bedtime. If your baby always seems “ready” for a nap early and/or naps are short (and they’re waking up happy) gently extending wake windows by 10 minutes at a time can help build sleep pressure and encourage longer, more consolidated naps.
If your baby is sleep trained and they have long enough wake windows, I’d expect them to start lengthening their naps out by about 6 months.
When to Expect Your Baby’s Naps to Get Longer
Now, if you’ve chosen not to sleep train for whatever reason (because we’re team whatever work for your family around here!) you might see one of two patterns around 5–6 months:
1. Your baby naturally begins lengthening naps, with at least two naps lasting 60+ minutes
2. Your baby continues taking shorter 30–45 minute naps
If you’re in the second camp, first: you’re not alone. Many babies who don’t know how to fall asleep on their own won’t master linking sleep cycles yet and wake at that 30–45 minute mark (which is a normal transition point between sleep cycles). When that happens, they may need your support to settle back into sleep.
You have a couple of options at this point:
You can support extending naps by assisting your baby back to sleep and/or finishing with a contact nap
Or you can stick with shorter naps and increase the total number of naps per day until your baby starts connecting sleep cycles
Wake-to-Sleep Method to Extend Naps
The “wake-to-sleep” method is a gentle way to help lengthen short naps by preventing your baby from fully waking at that 30–40 minute sleep cycle transition. About 5–10 minutes before you know they usually wake, you lightly rouse them like a gentle hand on the chest, soft repositioning, or quietly opening the door. You’re not waking them up, just nudging their sleep cycle so they transition into the next phase of sleep more smoothly. This can help babies move past that mid-nap wakeup and start extending naps naturally, but if doesn’t seem be working after 3-5 days, I wouldn’t worry about it!
Have Other Baby Sleep Struggles?
The transition from four naps to three can feel a bit messy before it becomes the new norm, it’s temporary!
If you’re trying to make sense of wake windows and want help building your baby’s schedule, you’ll love my blog post all about baby schedules and wake windows. And if you’re on the fence about sleep training or wondering which approach fits your parenting style, I break down different methods so you can make an informed, confident choice that feels good in this blog post.
Online Baby Sleep Consultant
If you want a customized sleep plan, book a 1:1 consultation here! Or, if you prefer to learn at your own pace, my Nap Guide covers every daytime sleep stage from 0–24 months and gives you practical steps for nap transitions, wake windows, and troubleshooting short naps.
