Hi, I too have a 45 minute napper, it's tough isn't it! He's now 16 weeks old. He use to have his 45 minute nap and would not go back down after he woke up. The problem was that he was still soooo tired and would cry, screaming cry until the next time he would eat and then after eating he would be okay for a very short time until he went back to sleep again. I tried everything to get him to go back to sleep and he wouldn't. I was so worried about moving to a 3.5hr EASY or a 4 hr EASY since trying to hold him off for 3 hrs was hard most days and a lot of the time I gave in. Then around 2 weeks ago I started to notice that while we were out he was staying awake longer (at home he was still going to sleep after 1 hr because he seemed tired). I started extending his awake time slowly and now he can stay awake for around 2 hours and the 45 minute naps started to get a lot easier to deal with. Also since I've started extending his A time he's taken a few 1.5 - 2hr naps! LO's are suppose to have a growth spurt around 4 months that after makes them be able to stay awake longer. I think my son had this around at around 14 weeks (he was 1.5 weeks late so not sure if that has anything to do with it??) as he was a huge grump week 13 who cried all the time. I think once they've had this growth spurt the 45 minute naps become easier to deal with, they have with us.
Good luck, everyone says that lo's usually outgrow the 45 minute nap problem between 4 and 6 months so let's hope it's closer to 4!!
