Does baby cry too much?

[Madge91]

First time mum with little experience with other babies, so not sure what’s normal and what isn’t! Our little girl is 12 weeks, she’s very cheery and smiley in the mornings then will usually get grumpier as the day goes on, and then pretty much have on/off crying between 6-8ish. However, once she goes to sleep, she is great and rarely wakes during the night now and won’t cry even once awake. She also gets very upset around new people or more than 2 or 3 of us, so makes mum groups and spending time with family a bit difficult 😅 is this normal? The few people I do know with babies either have bad sleepers who cry a lot, or have very chill babies that are good sleepers. So she is a bit of a weird combo! Just worried I’m missing the signs of something like colic etc as she does have alot of big cries in the day??

Yes normal. My son used to take a good hour to warm up to visitors and by late afternoon was just overwhelmed and cranky. He's now a chatty three year old.

She sounds pretty easy to be honest especially her night sleeping. She’s still really tiny at 12 weeks so just wants to be close and cosy with you and obviously finds visitors and baby groups too stimulating at this stage. Could she be overtired or missing naps if she gets crankier and crankier as the day goes on?

I think there is all sorts of combos.
I have what would be described as a chill baby, rarely cries, sleeps good in the day and wherever, in any condition with noise , light etc , loves people.

Nighttime however , it's pretty crap. Wakes alot but doesn't really cry . Just acts restless.

Thank you! Good to know, she naps ALOT so don’t think it can be that? Pretty consistently from 8-10.30, then at lunch, then usually a big 3 hours after about 2.30ish and sometimes small one before bed. Think it’s hard as I suppose people with the quieter babies are the ones at groups etc more consistently then ones they get overwhelmed. Happy missing out on some but would be nice to get through a yoga or mumfit class without her being hysterical! Also makes me worry about us leaving her with my parents for an hour or two, as she gets so upset if it’s not me or my other half

Have you looked up the witching hour?

No she's fine sounds perfectly normal to me!

think I’m winding myself up worrying as we have a family wedding on Saturday, so worried that it’s going to be a lot for her, bless her! I’m driving so atleast we can leave if all gets too much

She honestly sounds completely normal and is just going through the witching hour in the evenings which is totally normal at that age. My now 5 month old went through it and we are out the other side 🤗

I do think I would cut the 3 hour nap down to two hours though personally at that age

Ohhh ok, what’s the benefit of cutting their nap times??

If you look up 3 month old sleep schedule there is a lot of them online but most recommend that babies are woken 3/3.5 hours since the start of their last feed and so they have enough active wake time to sleep well at night. What to expect website and the Huckleberry website for instance. And usually that's at 2 hours nap time. They usually also recommend the last nap of the day to be shorter and to have a longer wake window before the bedtime sleep. But I never followed a schedule really except for waking her if she was going to miss a feed.

But in looking up my response to you I found this other article that disagrees with waking up after 2 hours unless they are going to miss a feed.

https://www.helpingbabiessleep.com/blog/should-i-wake-my-baby-to-preserve-a-schedule