Wont sleep longer than 30 minutes....

[Willow]

Yes, it is a very common problem in young babies. He is waking after one sleep cycle and is unable to resettle himself.

What do you do when he wakes? Do you try to resettle him? How does he go off to sleep in the first place?

[Matryoshka]

Yes but for us it was breastfeeding, he was waking to breastfeed every 15 mins, 30 mins, 1 hour etc round the clock. It only lengthened at 6 months when i introduced solids, then he would go 2/3/4 hours. We just ended up co-sleeping out of necessity, which if you don't mind can be a wonderful experience, we are still doing it now. He can sleep in his own bed when he wants to, but at 20 months he still wakes up once/twice in the night so having him in our bed is more convenient for me.

Some babies are just frequent feeders/wakers. I found it got easier once i stopped trying to force him to go in the cot or sleep for longer - i also didn't like the advice from Ngala. It worked out best for us by myself just following his lead, luckily i stay at home with him so i have that luxury. It can be really hard to get stuff done around the house but that gets easier as they get older and want to get involved.

[bucca]

My 5 month old DD also sleeps only 1 sleep cycle during the day resulting in her only having 4 30-45 minute sleeps all day.. however unlike in your case she wakes up alert and very happy and doesnt need another sleep until a couple of hours later so she obviosly only needs this amount of sleep (in the nights she doesnt go to bed until 10pm but will sleep in until around 8:30am, even though shee feeds twice in that time).

While looking up on a few things to help her (from which i found out i needent bother) i found this link, hope it can help you, for more just Google 'sleep cycle', 'catnapping' and 'baby' or similar terms.

Solutions for catnapping and longer day sleeps - The Sleep Store, New Zealand