2 hour awake period - when does this change?

[mustardtomango]

Ds is 19 weeks and seems to be defying the, up till now, neatly adhered to 2 hour rule.

Is he at the next stage or do I need to use ever cleverer ways of persuading him he really does need to sleep?

Help, his crankiness can be overwhelming if he gets too tired

Mine could still only do 2 hours at 6 months. Don't push him to stay awake longer - they're all different and have different tolerances for awake time. You won't thank yourself for making him overtired!

I had a sleepy baby, but now at 16 months she does 11.5 hours at night and a 1.5-2 hour nap after lunch and is awake the rest of the time, same as most other children her age.

Thanks for your reply... It's less pushing him, more that he refuses to go down!

I think he's actually on the beginnings of a cold, think that's affecting him a bit. Fingers crossed it passes soon

At 8 months my ds is still at 2 hours, sometimes 2.5. He's a v active little guy so I think he tires himself out

I don't the 2 hour rule really applied for every awake time. It was more 60-90 mins after first waking, then a nap, then awake for 1.5-2 hours then another nap then about 2 hours then a power nap.

Maybe as he becomes more active in his awake time he needs to go down after 90 mins? He could be overtired rather than undertired. I wouldn't have thought he is really ready for more than 2 hours awake so I would try to convince him to sleep rather than increase awake time!

Read Gina Ford, The Contented Little Baby. Even if you don't want to follow the routines it will give you an idea of what is the natural routine of a baby at each stage.

Mine started going exactly 3 hours at maybe 5-6 months, except longer at the end of the day - up at 7am, nap 10-11, nap 2-4pm, bed about 8pm

Other routines suggest doing 2, 3, 4 - so two hours from waking til first nap, three hours between naps, four hours til bedtime - 7am, nap 9-10am, nap 1-3pm, 7pm bedtime.