How long should a 15 week old stay awake?

[Emy84]

Mine can't seem to manage more than 2 hours awake at a time. He has just started having a long nap of about 2 hours mid morning other naps are shorter but it is making bed time difficult because he either needs to go to bed so early - tonight was asleep just after 6, or needs a nap too close to bed time and is then hard to settle? Some other babies his age seem to be able to stay awake much longer - am I doing something wrong?

I'd try and get the long nap happening around the middle of the day and a shorter nap morning and afternoon. Should help with overtiredness at bedtime. My DD could only stay awake a max of 2 hrs at this age, it's very common.

I'd say 1h 45-2hrs is about spot on for a baby of that age. If he is awake for much longer than that he will likely get overtired and do short naps of 30mins or less. Do you want to post your routine showing when he wakes, when he naps/how long for & when he goes to bed? Is he waking early at the moment?

Sometimes babies who start to take a long nap in the morning can end up overtired at bedtime, fall asleep too quickly or need to go to sleep early & so wake early the next day & you get caught in a vicious cycle.

To add to this, at around 6 months of age the tea time catnap is dropped - so as you approach this age you may find you start to get bedtime battles or nap resistance & overtiredness. I am wondering if this may be what you are starting to get already.

It may just be a case of riding it out until he's ready to drop the tea time nap, or you could try limiting it to say 15/30mins (assuming its around 45mins?) & see if that helps him settle at bedtime & sleep longer at night. If it does then he may not need such a monster nap in the morning. Ideally his longest nap wants to be the one after lunch, so as to prevent him getting overtired by bedtime.

If you post your routine I'm sure someone will be able to help.xx

Until they fall asleep.

Is it a trick question?

Thanks for the responses

Approx routine is
630 wake up
830 nap for 30-45 mins
11-1pm longer nap
3ish nap about 45 mins

Awakes from last nap about 345 so is then needing to go to sleep at about 545 which is a bit early for bedtime but if he has another short nap he is then too awake to settle to bed

He could probably do with having a longer nap in the morning - say an hour to see him through to a slightly later lunchtime nap which would finish ideally around 2pm ish and then he could have a cat nap at 4 making bedtime an hour later around 645.

This is all theory of course - he's got to play ball! :)

I'd aim to try and extend the morning nap by doing whatever gets him to sleep longer e.g. taking out in pram/car.