3-month-old baby: How much grizzling is normal?

[Lbro888]

Hi all,

My baby boy is 15 weeks old. He's my first baby and seeing as I had him just before lockdown began I could do with a bit of guidance please as I haven't had the normal support from family/ baby groups to know whether his behaviour is normal (if there is a 'normal'!!)

A bit of background - He's exclusively breastfed, and has one expressed bottle per night. Feeding has fortunately gone really well and he's put on weight nicely. Sleep-wise he goes to sleep for the night around 8pm, wakes up twice for feeds around midnight and 3am and is generally up for the day around 7am.

My concern is that he just seems so grizzly for the majority of the time. When he wakes up for the day he has about an hour and a half where he seems lovely and happy - he's smiley, interactive and can be left happily in his cot while I get myself ready. He goes to sleep easily for his first nap or the day, around 90 minutes after he wakes up.

However, when he wakes up from his nap (without fail 45 minutes later) it's like he's a different baby for the rest of the day. He seems to get bored and frustrated very easily and just constantly seems to be grizzly. He likes tummy time, but after 10 mins or so starts to get tired, which seems to frustrate him. He no longer likes being on his playmat and he's not happy being held if I'm sitting down. The only times he seems content for a decent amount of time are when he's in his carrier (facing outwards), when he's being carried (while walking) or when he's feeding.

He also seems very agitated a lot of the time - always wriggling around and kicking. We saw some friends for a socially distant meetup and their baby of the same age was just lying there quietly the whole time, which is something our baby never does.

I've been wondering whether he's just getting tired and needs to sleep for longer during that first nap of the day but I just can't get him to sleep longer than 45 minutes.

He has been particularly bad this week, which I'm hoping is due to a leap (he was born 2 weeks early so could be going through leap 3 around now). But to be honest since he's become more alert he's always seemed quite difficult. I'm just worried we're doing something wrong or that there's something making him unhappy.

Grateful for any help!

My son is grizzly all day if his first 2 naps are under 1.5hours. Its harder to settle him now that he's teething (5.3 months), but I try. Can you catch him before 45mins are up and try settling him again? Shhhing really works for my ds when he starts to get restless, but we used shh and sway for ages to get him for a nap so he now associates that with sleep. He just sounds overtired to me.

Thanks so much for your reply @aimzxd, I think you're probably right. I've tried so hard to settle him when he wakes from the first nap but it just never works!

Today however there was a massive improvement after he went to sleep straight away after his first feed of the day (so an extra 2 hours compared to normal), plus a 2.5 hour nap around lunch (it was on me but that's ok). We've had way more smiles than usual and his first proper laugh, so I think a combination of longer night time sleep and daytime naps might be the key...