New to EASY having a hard time with wake ups and bedtime

[Jservello]

Hi all, I'm new to the EASY program( I stumbled on to the forum when I googled something) and from what I've read it really makes sense so I'm trying to establish a 3 hour routine for my 8 weeks old the problem I'm having is he's gets up really late, between 9:30 and 10:00 AM and doesn't go to bed until 11:00-12:00. He wakes up for feeds at 3-4:00 and 6-7:00. This schedule is killing me I'm exhausted, so my questions are how to I get him in bed earlier/waking up earlier and how do I get him sleeping longer at night or do you think the dream feed would take care of the 3-4:00 wake up?

[creations]

Hello and welcome to BW

Have you seen this?
Starting EASY - all you need to know and more!

Looks like your night length isn't bad at all, just all running later than you'd like is that right?
So there are two ways you can shift his pattern of day/night.
1. To wake him at 7am and run your EASY from there (he wakes then anyway so you'd keep him up instead of putting back to bed). The first few days will be tricky as he will be super tired at 7am and will want to sleep. You would need to try to keep him awake. Initially I would look at keeping him awake for a reasonable length of time following his feed (maybe not the full A time of more like 1hr 15), how long does his feed take now as that is counted as A time? So you'd want E/A plus some A, as long as you can but not exceeding 1hr 15.  The put him for a nap, he may need more help calming and settling for the nap if he is over tired by then.  You continue the day like this. Day 2 extend the A a little more (again not exceeding 1hr 15), and again day 3. By day 3 or 4 he should be responding to the new times.  To keep to the (roughly) 10/11 hr night I would have him in bed asleep for 8pm and DF at 10.30/11pm. it is normal for babies this age to need a second night feed, likely around 2am.
or
2. A slower approach is to shift the day by 15 mins each day.  This takes longer but for some would be preferable as shifting all in one go is pretty hard work on parents.  So here you would wake at 9.30 day 1 and run your EASY from there (this option you would do a full A time of 1hr 15). Day 2 wake at 9.15am. Day 3 wake at 9.00am and so on until you reach a 7am WU time. This would take around 10-14 days. It would help you to write down the plan for each day with the shifted E and S times and BT would also move 15 mins each day.

What do you think?

[Jservello]

Good morning! So last night I managed to get him to bed at 8:00 he slept till 9:00 and I went up and fed him, changed him and put him back to bed. He didn't wake up until the DF which I screwed up because he's not supposed to wake up for that, oh well I'll try that again tonight and go way, way slower. He slept till 8:00 this morning with 2 night feeds at 3:00 & 6:00. At the 9:00 and 11:00 tank up he didn't take very much, maybe 3oz between the 2. Now my next question, I can only get him to take his first nap if he's on me for the whole nap and the other naps are hit or miss if I can put him down. How do I get him off of me and in to his cradle?

[creations]

Wow! Great improvement on the night already! Great!!

He is still young so I would keep your expectations low for now and understand that at this age sleep training is a more gradual process of teaching him that you will always return to him when he needs you, the trust bond that is being established by him sleeping on you for that first nap is not as 'bad' as it might seem.  First decide if you are ready to get him into his cradle for this nap as you will need to expect it to be more work and more tiring for you than simply having him sleep on you, his nap will be disturbed and there may be fussing and crying.  Some people choose to wait until baby is older before they begin sleep training, that's fine.  I began slowly (and with no idea what I was doing) from birth really but I found BW and the EASY routine at roughly 4 wks and my LO was sleeping independently at around 8 wks (although I forget exactly when).
If you are ready then I would use shush/pat until he is asleep on you but right by the cradle, then continue to shush/pat as you put him down and continue to do it in the cradle until he is in deep sleep. If he fusses continue in the cradle, if he cries and is distressed then you pick up and continue shush/pat in arms until he is asleep again and continue in this way. He will get very very tired from the disturbed sleep (waking each time you try to lay him down) so the process of falling to sleep properly can take much longer, however that tiredness will eventually work on your side and he will fall to sleep and stay asleep.  Just feeling the mattress beneath him begins to teach him he is safe there, with you there for reassurance.  From there it's a gradual process to put down sooner and eventually to reduce the shush/pat in the cradle.
You might find these helpful
Shush-pat - How to
Teaching Sleep to Newborns and Young Infants
Sleep Training  - the early days

You can work on every nap or, if you feel this may be too much for you in one go then plan for one nap, the first nap of the day tends to be the one people work on first as LO should be quite well rested from their night sleep) but once you choose which nap then stick to that one, don't chop and change each day. Babies form habits quickly so if you are consistent with that first nap he will learn more quickly than if you keep changing the rules on him.

Let me know if you have any questions and how you get on.

[Jservello]

Hi I think this forum is set up on a different time zone it's 10:42am where I am I'm going to try getting him down in his crib tomorrow. I have yet another issue. I manage to get my little one settled for his nap but after 1/2 an hour he wakes up crying and I can't get him settled back down before it's time to feed him again and the he's too sleepy for his A time and the our EASY is completely screwed up any thought on how to get him to sleep longer and can an 8 week old be teething me and DH thought we felt a tooth when we were trying to figure out why he wouldn't stop screaming last night.

[creations]

Would you like to post your EAS times and I'll look it over?  Post what actually happened on a full day (say today if it is written down or keep a record tomorrow and the next few days/weeks until you are settled in a routine) rather than what you hoped/planned to happen.

You can try W2S for those short naps, where you begin shush/pat before he wakes up and continue right through the transition and into deep sleep
How do I address habitual wakings? (wake-to-sleep and other methods)
This will help if you are close to a suitable A time but may not help at all if your A time is right out.  Again you can do this every nap or you can use it for one nap and see how you go with it.  You might prefer to APOP (accidental parenting on purpose eg in sling, in arms) to get baby to sleep the rest of the day just to stop you all getting really exhausted. Aiming for one nap per day in the crib is a great start, of course some parents prefer to work on them all at once and get the habit established more quickly.  It's up to you.

Not sure about teething ages. I'll see if I can find out for you.
And yes we are on different time zones, isn't it wonderful to have mums from all around the world able to support one another

[creations]

A couple of mods have said they know of teeth being present this early, it may not mean it is going to cut through yet though.  I would look for other causes of sleep disturbance too though (it's tempting to blame everything on teeth and miss other things), which right now could be routine whilst you are making some biggish changes.
It's not always possible to work out the cause of crying, nor is it always possible to stop it, I think it worth noting our job is not to stop the crying but to be there for our babies, looking for possible causes but accepting our role as supporter and comforter whether we can or can't find a reason for their crying (sometimes the reason only becomes apparent much later, or not at all).