If you’re feeling frustrated by short catnaps or nap resistance, you're not alone. 
We checked our clients intake forms recently, and over 70% of our clients in 2025 are struggling with short naps or nap strikes. 

When I speak with tired parents they often feel more guilty about wanting help with naps than they do night sleep. There is this perception that we should be able to cope with short naps or no naps! 

But if you know you know, having a baby who doesn’t nap well means you have a grumpy, grizzly, short-fused baby. Or a toddler who has more tantrums and doesn’t eat well. Dealing with these traits day after day is mentally draining, and can make even the most seasoned parent exhausted and googling “Ferber method for naps”.
If this is you, good news - you are in the right place!

Many parents find naps to be one of the most challenging parts of sleep training. While the Ferber Method is often associated with nighttime sleep, it can be a powerful tool for improving naps too — when used correctly. This article will walk you through how to apply the Ferber Method to naps in a gentle and structured way that supports better daytime sleep for your baby.

What Is the Ferber Method?

The Ferber Method, also known as graduated extinction or progressive waiting, is a sleep training technique that teaches babies to fall asleep independently. It involves allowing your baby to fuss or cry for short, timed intervals before offering brief reassurance.

Why Use the Ferber Method for Naps?

While nighttime sleep is often the focus of sleep training, daytime sleep plays a critical role in your baby’s development and mood. Poor naps can lead to overtiredness, which in turn makes falling and staying asleep even harder.

Using the Ferber Method for naps can help:

• Encourage independent settling for naps
• Reduce nap resistance and battles
• Extend short naps by promoting deeper sleep cycles
• Support better overall sleep patterns, including at night

When to Start Ferber Method Nap Training

Most sleep experts recommend beginning sleep training around 4–6 months of age, once your baby can self-soothe and has a more regular nap schedule. If your baby is younger than this, gentle routines and sleep shaping are more appropriate.

Look for signs your baby may be ready for nap training:

• They’re at least 4 months old
• They’re fighting you when you try to rock or pat or feed to sleep
• They have established a bedtime routine
• They’re generally healthy and gaining weight

How to Use the Ferber Method for Naps

The Ferber Method follows a clear, step-by-step approach that involves gradually increasing the time you wait before offering reassurance. The bit that trips most parents up is that their baby responds differently at naps to how they respond at night when using the same approach.

Understanding that this is normal is one of the big keys to success. Your baby has a lot less drive to sleep in the day, they’re biologically wired to need a lot of sleep at night and a little in the day, so that push or wave of sleep pressure is a lot smaller at lunch time than it is at 10pm.

How Sleep Hormones Affect Nap Sleep Training

These work with us to help night sleep feel like a piece of cake compared to naps. That sleepy hormone Melatonin climbs and peaks at night, ensuring we get a good long stretch of sleep. Our cortisol drops right down, only rising in the morning when the body is trying to wake us up.

This awake hormones fluctuates over the day, but is definitely responsible for some of the difficulty we experience trying to get our babies to nap.
Try our nap guide that takes you from short naps to long regular naps. 

Side note: Ferber for naps vs spaced soothing 

If you’ve ever worked with our team of baby sleep consultants you’ll know we use spaced soothing. This is our adapted version of the Ferber method, it is a bit more gentle, and has a 97% success rate for nights and 91% for naps.

1. Set the Stage for Nap Success

Before starting the Ferber Method for naps, make sure the basics are in place:

• Consistent day routine: Offer naps after age-appropriate wake windows or on routine to avoid overtiredness, and work with your babies biological clock. This consistency is often the key to our clients success where they have previously failed. Check out our routines, and how-to nap guides in our online sleep programs. 
• Calm pre-sleep wind down: Use a short, predictable wind-down routine before each nap (e.g., diaper change, story, cuddle).
• Sleep-friendly environment: Keep the room dark, quiet, and cool with white noise if needed.

2. Put Baby Down Awake when using the Ferber method for naps 

Place your baby in their sleep space ready to sleep but awake. This helps them learn to fall asleep on their own. Putting baby down awake is one of those tried and tested sleep strategies that even your Mum probably encourages you to do. The kicker is knowing what to do if they cry before they even get into bed, or once they are in bed! This is where our “learn how to put your baby down awake" guide is your saviour.

3. Use Timed Intervals 

Ferber intervals are the key to the termed “timed checks” or “progressive waiting”. It is this gap between checking and soothing that gives baby time to learn to fall asleep, or try to fall asleep on their own.
Often we as parents are panic parenting, rushing to our babies the minute they make a peep and giving them back their dummy, or picking them up for another feed. Assuming their cries are cries of distress and inability to sleep.

Consider the other reasons your baby might be crying or grizzling?

• Tired
• Frustrated they aren’t yet asleep
• Confused about why you're not feeding to sleep anymore
• Tired
• Annoyed you have changed the sleep routine on them
  
• Learned behaviour that crying ensures you rock them to sleep
• Tired

Yes I have put tired on the list 3 times! Crying is a cue, and the best way to understand your baby, is using cues within context. The cue is crying, if it is nap time, the context is… Baby is fed, maybe even had solids too, likely is not hungry. They have a clean nappy, and warm clothes, a beautiful sleep environment, you gave them a big cuddle and song before sleep. They have not been in pain all day. They haven’t slept in 3 hours. They are most likely, when I look at all this context… tired. The crying is most likely tired.

4. Set a Nap Cap

If your baby hasn’t fallen asleep within your nap cap, end the nap attempt and try again at the next scheduled nap time. This helps avoid drawn-out battles and keeps your day on track. DO NOT rescue a nap. This is a common phrase made popular by social media sleep content creators. But working on self soothing and then rescuing a nap is text book definition of inconsistent reinforcement and will likely de-rail your nap self soothing attempts.

5. Stay Consistent to be successful using the Ferber method for naps

Naps can take longer to improve than nighttime sleep. Stick with the approach for at least 5–7 days before assessing progress. Our nap guides take you through a 7-14 day plan with the option to book a chat with us if you want more 1:1 support. 

Tips for Troubleshooting Nap Challenges

Nap training can come with bumps. Here are some common issues and how to handle them:

• Short naps (under 30–45 minutes): Stay consistent. Babies often learn to connect nap cycles with time.
• Increased crying at naps vs. bedtime: This is common. Naps have more external distractions and less sleep pressure.
• Skipping naps entirely: If your baby skips a nap, offer an early bedtime to make up for lost sleep.
• Regression after progress: Stay consistent through regressions or off days. Avoid going back to old habits.

How Long Until Naps Improve?

Most families see improvements within a week, though full nap consolidation can take 2–3 weeks. Every baby is different, and some naps may take longer to improve than others.

When Not to Use the Ferber Method for Naps 

There are situations when sleep training — including Ferber — should be paused or avoided:

• If your baby is under 5 months
• During illness or teething flare-ups
• When major life changes are happening (e.g. travel, starting daycare)
• If you or your baby are feeling overly distressed by the process

Final Thoughts

Using the Ferber Method for naps can be an effective, structured way to help your baby learn independent sleep during the day. The key is consistency, patience, and meeting your baby where they are developmentally. Naps take time to improve, but with the right approach and expectations, daytime sleep can become more restful — for everyone.

If you’re feeling stuck or unsure, it’s okay to seek support from a sleep consultant or pediatric sleep expert. You're not alone, and you don’t have to figure it all out on your own.