3 month old naps

[Sara4rt]

My little one just turned 3 months and although we seem to have a good night time and feeding schedule his daytime naps are all over the place.

His bedtime is around 7:30 but can be between 7-8 depending on the time his last bottle is and he sleeps until 2, has a bottle and is back to sleep for around 2:20 then sleeps until 6:30/7 so he does get a lot of undisrupted sleep at night however once he is up his naps are very random and he can have anywhere from 4-8 naps a day ranging from 10 minutes to around 45 minutes. The hv said at this age he should be having 3-4 naps a day that are 1-2hrs but I can’t seem to stretch his wake windows.

We are out and about most days which probably doesn’t help as we don’t have a set schedule but I think we’d both go crazy trying to stick to the same routine everyday however once he is asleep I try to do everything I can to get him to sleep a bit longer and try not to do anything to disturb his nap.

Does anyone have any tips on how to lengthen his nap time/wake windows?

I think your HV is being unrealistic. Some three months might have naps like that but not all. My DD is four months and has five naps a day. Her wake windows are around 1 hour 30 - 2 hours and then she has a catnap of around 35-45 minutes. These are developmentally normal at this age! There’s no point trying to extend her wake windows as she just becomes overtired and grumpy. These naps are at a similar time everyday but not the same time as I just follow her cues. Around 4-6 months is when you’ll see more of a nap schedule emerging in my opinion. As long as baby is happy when awake I’d just keep doing what you are doing. If you want to try and extend his naps you could always try and resettle, which is what I do sometimes by popping her dummy back in or patting her whilst she is still in the cot. If she needs more sleep she will and if not she doesn’t.

No matter what the HV says, your baby hasn't read that book!

Honestly at 3 months there's not much you can do about sleep other than take it where it comes. My son at 3mo was having 30-40 minute naps - he didn't go a second over 45 min until he was 9 months.

Keep doing what you're doing and getting out and about. You need it for your sanity, and it's good for baby too. When he's older and can tolerate longer awake periods you can think about nap schedules