Why do all the books say that young babies can stay awake for stretches of 2 hours?

[WhoahThereCrazyHorse]

Do anyone's babies actually do 2 hour stretches and just 3 naps a day? I can just about push ds (7 weeks) to the three naps a day thing, but it's a struggle and he can only stay awake for an hour at a time. Dd was the same, is it just my children?

Not that I'm desperate to fit into this schedule, it's just that every book seems to talk about the 'average' baby doing 2 hours waking...

Isn't it older babies who do that? Mine is 8 months and doing that now. I don't think he stayed awake very long when he was little.

I always took it as a maximum of 2 hours between sleeps at the start. The awake time does get longer as they get older.

Some babies can manage that long or longer awake, it doesn't necessarily mean they're happy. DD can manage a maximum of about 45 mins awake at 7 weeks before she gets grumpy and needs a hand getting back to sleep. DS would have stayed awake despite the help, got cranky, perked up due to grandparents shoving toys in his face over tiredness & repeat the cycle until he finally crashed out for about 20 minutes! All babies are different, if yours will happily fall asleep by him or herself I wouldn't worry about whether they've been awake long enough, it's being awake too long that I'd worry about but that's just me

your baby should nap as often as he needs to.
as long as he is feeding properly and thriving, then let him sleep :)

a 7 week old is supposed to be sleeping for 15-18 hours a day.
a bit of info here
from babycenter
one more

It's an upper limit. My babies could stay awake longer but would be harder to nap and hell at bedtime/overnight.
Go by your baby's cues. 7 weeks is tiny - they'll change a lot between now and even 3-4 months.

All baby books should be taken with a bucket pinch of salt then ignored

Thanks everyone. I seem to spend a ridiculous amount of time posting questions on here - I am a terrible over-thinker! NiceCup ds would definitely stay awake if over stimulated, so I have to actively do something to get him down for a nap when I think he's had enough. It's just that having read a few things about average waking periods I started to doubt I was doing the right thing!

The more you read the more you doubt yourself. So put the books to one side.

Neither of my children were able to stay awake that long until they were at least 6 months old!

my DS stayed awake much longer than 2 hours during the day even at 7 weeks. He's 2.5 now and dropped his morning nap really early on and stopped napping completely in the day before he was 2. He's just never been a day sleeper (he sleeps 12-13 hours at night though)

There's no way my 7 wI could easily stay awake for 2 hrs. At 16 weeks that's really the limit before over-tiredness sets in and you really don't want an overtired baby.

*7 wo

Guess all babies are different

Yes, I think 2h is normally the max happy awake time (as opposed to just awake time IYSWIM) and I think the average is usually about 1.5 hours. There's supposed to be some biological basis to this. Certainly my DS1 would always be up for 1.5 hours if he were wide awake at night and if you missed the right moment for helping him get back to sleep you'd have to wait a whole 1.5 hours more before he next got drowsy.

In slightly older babies (not sure about

rubs eyes<

My 14 week old DD rarely naps in the daytime, apart from dozing off at the vreast after a feed for a few minutes.

However usually she goes to bed at 10pm and sleeps all night!!!! I wake up with very full boobs and can't wait for her to wake to feed!!

DS (now 3 yrs) was more like the descriptions of kids mentioned on this thread.

Sometimes I worry that she isn't sleeping during day, but I try to just go with the flow, as she does nap in the car or when out for walk...

dd1 didn't sleep in the day until she was 4 mos old.

The reason books say this stuff is because fretting new parents keep asking inane questions about how often babies should sleep. So the authors come up with random guesstimates.

Stop asking, and they will stop feeding you tosh and making you pay for it!

The babies haven't read the damned books anyway, and will do exactly as they please, regardless.