How do you stop a 30 minute nap?

The answer depends on if your baby *should* be sleeping longer. If your baby should be sleeping longer but you have to wake them for some reason, then wake them like an alarm clock by gently rubbing their belly and waking them up. Their body will interpret this wake approach as a random event, and won't re-program their body clock to always wake at that time.

Otherwise, if your baby should be waking up at that time (say you got a late start to a nap and now letting that nap go any later will impact bedtime), then we want your baby's body to remember to be awake at that time. In this case, you want their body to wake naturally with what we call "The Ninja Wake." You want to creep into the room (like a ninja) and open the blinds, turn on the lights and turn off your sound machine. These elements should be what wakes your baby so that their body clock remembers the wake and will continue to wake at that time.

Not sure of your schedule yet? The Lovebug app tells you when to start and end naps for babies over 4 months. Under 4 months, babies do not have set start and end times and should follow wake windows. You can get our wake window tracker in our Schedule plan.