when will activity time lengthen and how long will it be for?

[nenee]

Hi my lo is 7 wks and his activity time is anytime from around 30 to 1 hr 30 mns at the moment, when do they start to stay up longer? As im finding it more and more difficult to read his cues hes tired as he rarely yawns anymore and i only know when he fusses!  But at least i used to know that they usually need to be asleep no longer than the 1 hr 15 mins after they woke, Is it the same still even though hes 7 wks? does it get longer from 3 months or 4?
nenee

[Erin M]

A time tends to stay pretty short the first few months, I would look for it to lengthen around 3 months, though it does vary from baby to baby.  Have you had a look at the sample routines on the EASY forum?  There are lots of great schedules there that can help you to see where your LO is in relation to others.  How is he doing going down for his naps?  You want to get him down before he starts fussing, so keep track of when that happens and get him into bed before that.  Neither of mine have ever yawned until it's way too late for them to get to sleep well, so I wouldn't rely to heavily on that. 

[nenee]

Hi ya

hes very irregular with going for naps sometimes its after 30 mins then sometimes after hr or so, the only sign i get is he starts to fuss before he fusses he sits there quite happily. He has pros with the 40 min jolt and hates being swaddled he also wont sleep at all mid aftrnoon and today he did not sleep from 3 pm till 8 pm! he cried for hours could not get him to sleep so he ended up overtired, at 3 i went out to the shops with him in his pram thought he would go to sleep as normal but he was wide awake even though tired, then when i got home he was due a feed but was tired to, so i fed him at 4 pm but cause he was tired he only took 1 1/2 oz whilst screaming, then tried to get him to sleep but had 2 hrs of screaming with him rubbing his eyes and jolting, tried swaddling holding etc and nothing worked, eventually fed again at 6.40 then bathed him then to bed where he was fine.  Any advice on how to get him to sleep without shush patting as this causes him to scream even more! swaddling didnt work either as he fought to get out of it and when i put him back into it he went mad!!

[DJs mummy]

Hannah can stay awake anything from as little as 45 mins to about 1hr 45 mins.  She's quite good at yawning at me though until I get the hint  She tends to only be able to do a short A time between 7am when she wakes up and her first nap. Quite often after about 45 mins she's ready for bed again.  To be honest though her A time varies from day to day and also varies throughout the day.

Sorry, I've prob not been much help to you there 

[heidiruthie]

my 13 wo is still only able to stay awake for an hour tops before he's cranky. i have to watch his cues very closely or else he's overtired and in meltdown mode (similar to what your son did, sounds like) i have found that if i keep his morning A activities quite low-key (sometimes not even leaving his bedroom, just talking to him and singing with the lights low) then i'm not only able to notice his cues easier, but he also goes down easier. i'm really ready for him to extend his A time because 1 hour seems so little, but i tried that the other morning and ended up with a screaming baby all day long!! best to watch his cues and then, once you find that you've got the hang of it, watch the clock a little as well. that helps me when his cues are hard to read.

[Erin M]

He sounds really overtired -- it's so much harder to put them down when they are overtired.  It's ok if your A times vary, mine always has her shortest first thing in the morning.  Try different times to find out what works as if he's fussing then he's already starting to get overtired.  He'll get more consistent when he gets older too.  When my LOs are that age, it sometimes worked to get them to a very drowsy state and then put them in the crib and let them fall the rest of the way asleep.  I definitely agree with PP about watching the clock too as that helped us a ton in the early days.

HTH!

[Alibobs]

I don't know if this will help, as I can't remember ages, but my dd was a BIG sleeper. Until she was almost a year, her first A time was literally breakfast, bath, dressed and then she went to sleep. (We have always bathed her in the morning because it was way too much stimulation for her at night when she was young). She would go a bit longer later, but she has always needed more sleep than it is suggested. She still sleeps 11 1/2 hrs at night and 2 in the day now. Just go with what baby wants, not what you think he should want. My friends were merciless - always laughing at me for how much dd slept. But she's a happy baby. It's really hard to sort out their naps at first, because, if they're anything like dd's. there's no pattern.  {{{hugs}}} for you. You WILL get there. It doesn't seem lik it now, but it will be ok.

[Alibobs]

Oh, and dd never yawned until she was over tired. We knew because she started to play with her ears.