Naps for 3 month old

[Lozzapops]

My 3 month old daughter is a good sleeper at night, we are gradually going longer and longer through the night, which is great.

She also has 3 naps during the day (on a good day, if we're out and about a lot, she tends to cat nap rather than have full naps).

She tends to go down for a nap at around 9:15/9:30ish, having woken up for the day at 8am. She will then nap again at around 12:30/1ish and again at around 4pm. Each nap only last for around 45 minutes to an hour. Bedtime is around 7:30pm.

I hear about other babies having long naps, especially around lunch time, and wonder if there is anything I should be doing to encourage longer naps? She has a dummy and goes to sleep with that. When she wakes up, she seems fully alert, full of smiles for a short while after the initially whimpers, so I don't make any attempts to get her back to sleep. But I have been reading recently that babies tend to wake naturally after around 45 mins and then can settle back to sleep again.

On the whole, she is a grouchy baby, she needs a lot of walking around and holding to keep her settled, she cries a lot more than other babies her age. Could she be in need of longer daytime sleep? Should I be going in to her when she wakes, shh-ing, patting and replacing the dummy to try her for longer? Anything else I could try?

Many thanks.

[sazzle82]

If she's grumpy it's possible she needs more sleep. I read somewhere that young babies can't really be awake more than 1.5 hours. This is certainly true of dd who is 4 months. She can sometimes stretch to 2 hours but that's the absolute max, anything more and it's a nightmare getting her to sleep.

I often find that if I get dd up when she wakes after 45 mins she is then grump & tired and ends up falling asleep on me. Today she woke up after 45 mins and I just sat in the room with her until she went back to sleep. That was 1hr 10mins ago.

She has 3/4 naps a day and is usually only grumpy when tired.

Sorry, that's a lot of info, and dd is my 1at so I'm clearly no expert it's just what works for her.

[Chickz]

I'm in the same situation. Baby sleeps well at night but only cat naps during the day. I think they should be having a good two hour nap at lunchtime. Sometimes she has a very long nap in the morning. Wondering if I should wake her up so she can instead have this long nap at lunchtime.
It's tough knowing what to do.

[Blankiefan]

Me too. DD is 13 weeks tomorrow and sleeps really well at night (8pm-4am 50then 4.30am-8.30am last night which is pretty typical.

Naps in her cot (where she also sleeps at night) are 30 mins (almost to the minute!). If we're out and about, she'll nap in her pram for up to 2 hours. If she's in her Moses basket around chat, telly, etc, she'll do an hour.

Have tried white noise, radio, etc to stimulate her being around the action but nope - still 30 mins...

Anybody got any suggestions?

[LostMySocks]

I'd love some ideas too. My 15 week old DS sleeps 10 hours ar night but resists napping during the day. Usually only gets a max of 1.5 hours. I can't help feeling that rhis isn't enough?