3 month old, time awake between naps?

[ChopMonster]

DS is 14 weeks and can only really stay awake for roughly an hour - 1 hr 15 between naps. We don't have a routine, I just put him down for a nap when he shows signs of being tired. If we don't see the signs he will cross over into over tiredness very quickly, then struggle to go to sleep and wake early, so even though he will go a bit longer with distraction (or because the in laws have declared "he's not tired" and won't give him back ) I don't like to push him.

Is this amount of awake time normal for his age? A lot of the babies from my Due In group don't seem to nap much. If DS doesn't nap well then his night sleep goes wonky. The past week or so he's had a couple of periods of 2 hour awake time and some where he barely makes it 45 minutes. Is this because he's about to go longer between naps or just the usual random baby behaviour?

[bagelmonkey]

He sounds just like my little girl who is now 4 months old (but was 4 weeks early). For ages I didn't know how to get her to nap and she was really cranky. Now I'm doing exactly like you and putting her down when she's tired but with no set routine and she's do happy and giggly when she's awake bid just stick with what you're doing!

[bagelmonkey]

Sorry for terrible typing. Hope you can understand what I was trying to type

[Muser]

My 3.5 month old doesn't nap much if left to her own devices, but within about an hour and a half of being awake she'll get tired and cranky. I don't think your baby napping so much is abnormal. I am incredibly jealous that you can just put her down for a nap though. I have to work at getting mine to sleep!

[ChopMonster]

He went through a stage of not napping at all and subsequently not sleeping at night. Nothing I did worked. I ended up sobbing on my living room floor I was so tired - this phase lasted about 4 weeks One night it was 11pm and he was still kicking like a loon in his cot, DH was sat in the chair exhausted, so I swaddled DS (he used to hate it so had given up) gave him a dummy (which he generally spits out) and he went to sleep. I thought a miracle had occurred! So now I have to swaddle him and give him the dummy but it means I can put him down awake. If I didn't do this he wouldn't sleep either! And some days I do seem to spend my whole day trying to get him to sleep so I feel your pain there!

I gotya Bagel, thanks! DS is very smiley these days too, he's a different baby when he's napped well. Good to know it's normal, thank you :)

[Snarfle]

My 14 wk DS naps for anything between 2.5 and almost 5 hours a day.Through the day he naps best being held and will sometimes nap in his pram when out and about. He is roughly following the easy routine although this is more watching what he wants rather than from reading the books. The books just make you worry that you are not doing a good job!! If he misses a nap I don't worry I just know it'll be harder to get him down for his next one!