ds just turned 6 months and I have many, many questions about his sleep schedule. I don't know how to separate the questions because they are inter-related so forgive this long message.

ds either falls asleep nursing or in a carrier and tends to just take cat naps during the day, from 20 minutes up to an hour. The only way he'll sleep longer is if he's got my nipple in his mouth, and I swear he'd sleep forever with it :-) I don't mind this but sometimes would like to be able to leave him sleeping to get a few things done. even finding time to type this message has taken me days. as a side note, he sleeps really well at night (with me), just waking a few times to nurse but going right back. so here are the questions:

1) are cat naps bad? do babies need longer naps? should I try to control the environment to keep him sleeping longer?

2) when nursing lying down, where does your arm go? i've heard that babies heads should be elevated when nursing to prevent ear infections so I usually have his head on my arm, but then it's very difficult to disengage. Honestly, I love being all curled up with him when nursing, and it's nice to nap for a few minutes myself, but then it takes forever to disentangle if I want to get up.

3) what, if anything, should I do about that nipple association? someone mentioned that this topic had been covered extensively on this forum, but I haven't found it. probably because even when ds is asleep, my arm is always stuck under his head :-)

Thanks so much for any advice!

Joy