3 month old still confusing day and night

[Purplelooby]

ARGH! I don't know what to do...

Basically, DS has bath-and-bed at 8 pm and wakes properly (one night feed) at around 6 am. He has a nap in the morning and one around lunch, but when he takes his next nap (around 3 pm) he thinks it's bedtime. When it gets to about 6 pm I wake him and try to keep him awake because otherwise he would be having a 3 pm bedtime, but he gets very upset and fussy and screams until we out him down at 8. I feel so guilty keeping him awake when he clearly wants to be asleep and I know you shouldn't wake that sleeping baby, but 3 pm really is too early for bedtime and would lead to a 2 am morning! Should I stop being selfish and let him set his own nighttime and deal with getting up at 2 am, or should I keep forcing him to be awake from 6 pm - 8 pm? I'm upset because he gets so screamy when we wake him - it makes me feel like a bad mother :(

Shameless bump - sorry :(

Huge sympathy - I have the exact same problem though DD is only 6 weeks. I have been doing bath at 6pm and putting her in bed at 7 but she is up for the day at 2 or 3am. So I am watching with interest!

Personally I wouldn't put him down at 3pm & let him sleep for the night or like you say he'll start wanting to get up at 2-3am. Unfortunately at this sort of age many babies can be very crabby between that final nap and bedtime, and its a phase they grow out of, once they are able to cope with staying awake for longer stretches at a time.

Can I ask what time does he have his morning nap & lunchtime nap & how long is he sleeping for at each nap? It may be that if he's not getting enough sleep at these naps then this is why he is zonking out so deeply come 3pm. By restructuring things a bit, you may find he lasts the distance to bedtime a bit better.

Oh no funchum that's horrid! I think at 6 weeks babies are still pooey at night though so don't worry too much...

omama I've been thinking too that extending his naps would help - so any advice would be most welcome! He takes 3 or 4 naps a day and they are still stuck at about 45 mins... He gets tired for his first nap quite quickly - he gets up at 6.30 and is already tired by 8 am; however he only sleeps about 30 mins on this one. After that he goes until about 11ish and does a longer nap - often 45 mins to an hour - certainly not longer as much as I'd like him to... He then doesn't want one until about 3/4 and this is where the whole problems come... saying that, this changes quite a lot, except for the first nap of the day, and sometimes he does 4 naps. Today, for example, I slotted in a nap at 1.30 pm and he took nearly an hour and another at 4.30 pm (when of course he thought it was bedtime...). I'm also experimenting with making his bedtime just a bit earlier (about 7 pm) so that he gets more sleep and is possibly less tired. Maybe...