Daytime naps

[0310Star]

Looking for some advice. I'm a FTM to a beautiful little almost 11 week old baby girl.
Luckily she's always been a really good sleeper, likes to sleep on her own in the quiet and has been going up to bed on her own in the evening between 6-7pm since around 5 weeks due to horrendous screaming all evening until we put her up to bed! And generally will only wake up once for a feed, if at all, until the next morning.

I've noticed the last week or so that she's really starting to need a proper nap in the day. She has little ones but never really settles downstairs with me, she likes her bed and the quiet!
I've just put her upstairs for the first time for a nap, and as expected she's straight down with her Ollie the owl keeping her company playing a bit of white noise.

My question is- how long should I be putting her upstairs for in the day? I'm planning on doing 1 big nap in the middle of the day when I feel she's ready for a nap, then just letting her sleep as and when she feels for the rest of the day time, does this sound adequate? Should I be leaving her until she wakes up, or should I be limiting her big nap?

I appreciate all the advice

I'd leave her sleep as you've said. I'm jealous as mine never did this naturally!

@CremeDeSudo it was short lived today, she was up within half hour and that's about all she slept today, it's going around in circles in that she is getting too tired and then over tired, and then won't nap but doesn't want holding or putting down, hungry but too grizzly to have her milk.. the list goes on!🤦‍♀️
Nighttime is never an issue, it's day time that I'm needing to sort some kind of routine out with. I need to get a mattress for her cot as her room has a blackout blind so I'm wondering if she'd settle better in the day in there?!

Today was definitely one of those days where I needed to scream into a pillow!!

I would think that she needs about 3 or 4 naps a day, witch would include cat naps and naps in the car or pram if you're out and about. So they don't all have to be in her cot.
I used the sleep table on the below website to work out how often I should put mine down for naps. Of course every baby is different but it could be that she's getting cranky in the afternoon because she's been awake too long in between her last nap and bedtime.
www.preciouslittlesleep.com/are-you-keeping-baby-awake-too-long/

I still screamed into a pillow many a day! But it helped me to know how long to expect the baby to stay awake between naps at each stage. And I didn't really focus on getting them to sleep at the same time each day when they were so young, but would just try and aim for a consistent amount of time awake before each nap.

@TheresALight thank you so much! She just seems to be struggling to be consistent during the day.
Monday and yesterday was hard work and ended in a really grumpy baby as she just wouldn't nap at all and then got over tired, and today is the complete opposite of been asleep most of the day because she's so tired from the past 2 days... can't win! 🤦‍♀️
I guess il just have to keep trying!!

It's so hard isn't it! My eldest was never good at napping in the afternoon even when I followed the awake time guide. Hopefully if you get her used to sleeping after every 1.5 hours or so then she'll start getting used to it and become easier.

She had always been so good until about a week ago. She was going to bed about half 7 but we've bought that forward to 6 as she then gets over tired and is a pain to get down to bed so the earlier bed time seems to be helping but I just need to sort these naps! Maybe I just need to go for a walk every 1.5 hours so she has a nap lol

I had a similar issue (my son is 15wks) but he literally stopped wanted to nap and started to get over tired. I drove myself mad reading different books, looking online etc etc for nap guides and then decided to follow his sleepy cues for a while and he naturally started to fit a similar-ish pattern to some suggested guides. They were a morn nap for about an hr (he started off with two 30 mins nap then as awake time grew it turned into one longer nap at 9am), 2hrs to 2hrs15 at midday, then an afternoon nap at 4:15/4:30 ish to no later than 5. He would wake during these a little but if he woke crying with his eyes closed I would settle him back down. If awake fully I got him up and adjusted nap times to suit him. If I felt he was sleepier than usual I let him nap a little longer. I followed the Little Ones guide www.littleones.co/ roughly. I had to put him in his cot as wouldn’t sleep for long being around everything else, too distracted.
He still hates going down for a nap (doesn’t like stopping!!) but does go down brilliantly at 7pm and is really happy now between naps as no Overtiredness. Good luck, follow your baby’s guide and adjust as they grow/need. I’ve had to shorten his naps as started to wake early - it’s all trial and error (and a few tears from both you and baby!!!) xx

Thank you @MBayliss4 that's really helpful!
The last 2 days I've let her do what she feels she needs, left her to nap when she wants to and left her until she woke up herself and she's been a lot happier!
I wonder if I was over thinking it, and was worrying I needed to keep her awake long enough to be tired which really was just backfiring spectacularly!