is one hour considered a catnap?

[shanjakson]

Hi my 16 week old son is a catnapper.  mostly only sleeps for 45mins and wakes.  i attempt to resettle for 30mins but doesn't work.  anyway sometimes he sleep for 1hr- 1hr 15mins.  is this considered a long enough sleep?  or is it still a catnap?  i've tried everything to get him to sleep longer but he just doesn't want to do it.  i have accepted the fact that he is only going to sleep short periods as he sleeps all night so that's great.  so should i just allow him to sleep for that hour and get him up or keep attempting to resettle until the 1hr30min mark?
thanks

[Missy Lou]

catnap is about 45 minutes and should be the last/third nap of the day. 

waking at the 45 minute mark is really common.  that's where using pu/pd comes in.  have you tried pu/pd? 

do you think his routine needs a little adjusting? why don't you post his routine and we can check it out?
melissa

[malialeanne]

Hello. With appropriate A times, most babies of his age will take two naps of 1-2 hours each and a shorter catnap. In my opinion (and that of many sleep researchers) a nap shorter than an hour isn't really as restorative, so you want to aim for at least an hour for the first two naps of the day. Whether or not to aim for longer than one hour depends on whether it's long enough for him--does he wake happy? Is he generally happy during the day? Is he sleeping well at night? All of these factors will help you decide whether he's napping enough.

For my baby, I've discovered that she needs between 1 hr 15 and 1 hr 45. If she wakes before 1 hr 15 I will generally try and extend or adjust A times for the next nap.

HTH!