EASY Question for Paula or others

[moorhan]

Hi Paula and everyone.  Thank you for the fast responses.  I have a 4 week old.  He was 10 lbs at birth (probably almost 12 now).  I have been told that weight does matter when it comes to sleep issues.  Here is our schedule from yesterday with a few questions following:

E  7:50 a.m.
A  Bouncer seat while I dress, Time with Mom
S  9:00-10:50a.m.  (1 hr. 50 minutes)

E  10:50 a.m.
A  Swing, errands
S  12:30-1:50 p.m.  (1 hr. 20 minutes)

E  2:00 p.m.
A  Long feeding ran into activity time w/ changing diaper
S  3:10-5:00 p.m. (1 hr. 50 minutes)

E  5:10 p.m.
A  Long walk
S  6:00 to approx. 6:45 while walking (approx. 45 minutes)

E  7:30 p.m.
E  8:30 p.m.
E  9:00 p.m. (was so cranky that I nursed him to sleep just so we could get some peace!)
S  9:00-11:30 p.m. (1 1/2 hr.)
E  11:30 p.m.  Woke him for dreamfeed
S  12:00a.m.-2:40a.m. (2 hr. 40 minutes)
E  2:40a.m. (Here he was wide awake!  It took 30 minutes of walking him around to get him sleepy again.)
S  4:00a.m. - 7:20a.m. (3 hr. 20 minutes)

7:20 a.m.  Start all over!

1.  As you can see, the morning and afternoon went pretty well on a 3 hour cycle with appropriate naps.  We run into trouble after the early evening or late afternoon feeds.  He gets really cranky between 7 and 10 p.m.  Does a 4 week old need to go to bed early or stay in the family room until a last feed around 10:00?  It looks like we are "cluster" feeding.  Does that mean that they stay up the entire evening until their last feeds?  I noticed some of the other sample schedules had early evening bedtimes, but I didn't know if that was for older babies. 

Out of desperation last night (we had a guest over), I nursed him to sleep as you can see on the schedule!  I know that is bad, but he was just screaming.  Could that have caused his awake time in the middle of the night?

2.  What can we do to eliminate his "awake" time in the middle of the night after that feed?  His eyes were wide open like he thought it was time to get up.

Thank you so much for your input.  I love this board.

Anna in South Carolina

[* Paula *]

Hi Anna,

Thanks for posting your routine.

From the looks of it your lo is really over tired.  The A time for a 4 week old should really be minimal.  Once you have fed, keep the A time to changing his diaper, and then putting him straight to sleep.

How is your lo falling asleep?  Do you rock, swing, swaddle?  Do you put your DS in his cot awake for him to settle himself?

After your 5:00 pm feed, I would try and get down for cat nap, when he wakes from his cat nap, feed him again - this will be your 1st cluster feed, then do your A time i.e. bath etc. then feed again at about 7:00 and put him straight to bed at around 7:30 or straight after the 7:00 feed.

When you come to do your dreamfeed, you do not need to wake your DS up.  Let him take this feed while he is asleep.  Try to keep your dreamfeed as close to 10:00pm as you can.  This will help your DS tank up even more.

I would definitely put all those night wakings down to your DS being overtired.

HTH

Let us know if you have any more questions.

Paula x