DESPERATE Please explain sh/pat and help with EASY for almost 4 months old

[AMJ]

I see, that's a good idea I'll try that and see if she lasts till next feed after S. thank you!

[AMJ]

This is how our night went:
7:20 BT

9:25 WU so count as D
10:13 S

1:06 WU E + diaper x 2
2:27 S

5:30 WU sh/pat till 7 WU

I'm thinking that maybe 2 x 2hr naps and 30 min CN was too much sleep for her? That's why early WU? Thinking of trying 1.5 hr naps or top 1 hr 45 min plus CN.

[Layla]

When she woke at 5.30 was she crying or just chatting to herself? I ask because you don't really need to do shh/pat until the desired wake up time if she's just laying in the cot. But yeah, it is quiet possible that she had too much daytime sleep. My LO also woke at 5.30 this morning, I fed and then back to bed and she started singing and talking to herself and then eventually fell asleep and I woke her up at 7:20. She's getting her immunisations tonight and then I suspect we'll have a few rough days and once that's settled, I am going to move her to her own room (where she sleeps during the day anyway) and I am thinking of cutting her morning nap to 1hr  to see if her pm nap will extend.

[AMJ]

She is crying or sometimes whining and then crying. She doesn't wake up cooing anymore, it's always a cry. Sumetimes it takes me 40min to 1 hr to sh/pat her till its 7. she falls asleep but keeps jorking and wakes herself up when i stop. She's been very grumpy lately, not sure if its developmental or not.
I think for some reason she thought it was 7 am and she was ready for the day. She also thought that her CN was her BT so she kept eating as much as for the night. I'm not sure why that happens though.

She's been also waking up at around the same time for few day, at around 9-9:30 pm. Do you think it's habitual weakening? If it is do I stop feeding her at those times and sh/pat her or do i feed her. I also have a hard time telling at night if she wakes up hungry or not cause she always wakes up crying. Sometimes I feed her and she doesn't eat too much.

How did the immunizations go? Lots of tears? We have our tomorrow.
Last time we got them she was veeery sleepy for 4-5 day. She slept for 3+ hrs per nap. Should I decrease her A's if she is tired and how long should I let her nap? It's hard to go by her sleepy signs because we are only about 1 week into EASY and she yawns and rubs her eyes before its S time.
Do you try to stick to EASY at all during those days or you just let her do what she feels like?

Thank you for your replies!!

[AMJ]

So if I understood correctly if she wakes up happy I should leave her in a crib? For how long? But if she wKes up crying ( which she does almost always) then sh/pat until 7WU or until its max 2 hrs of nap or if not settling in let say 15 min get her up? Right?

[Layla]

For naps - if she's up anywhere from 1.5 hrs onwards (or if her sleep cycle is 40mins, then 1hr 20mins), you can pick her up and there is no need to do shh/pat up to 2hrs because a nap that long is restorative enough and not all babies will sleep (nor do they need to) for 2 hrs, so again, there is no need to be exactly by the book.

In the morning - if she's up and not crying, I would also leave her until your desired wake up time. If she's up and crying, you could try to shh/pat until your desired wake up time or you could try to feed her (as for me a 5.30am wake up would be a nightfeed) and then back to bed until 7am.

Have you tried no DF to see if that will help with the night wakings?

Immunisations went ok but she's a very cranky little baby and it took me an hour to settle her (eventually I had to breastfeed her to sleep and she only slept for 30 mins) so I suspect we're not going to have a great day today... I treat immunisations same as when they are sick so if she sleeps 3+hrs, I'll let her be and once things settle, we'll try and go back to our routine

So do you feel that things are getting worse? or better?

[AMJ]

Ok great.
I didn't DF last night and so she woke up again about 9:30 pm and I sh/patted her to sleep. I figured if she was hungry then she would be awake pretty soon again but she slept till after 1 am. So 1 night feed.

Poor Jenny hope she is feeling better today.

Things are definitely better then they used to be. She used to nap for 30 min at a time. Today was ok but her naps where a bit shorter then usual and then we are left with too long of an A time in the evening and very tired and sleepy baby and we always ending up with early BT. Maybe that's why she wakes up earlier in the morning.
 We are still struggling with E after S. especially at night. She doesn't cluster feed but spends close to an hour eating and then I burp her and awake her if she falls asleep to put in the crib. I know it's still not ideal but I just can't change it for some reason. Today she woke up an hour after the BT and threw up. I feel really bad because its all cause of E before S but we just can't break that habit.

[Layla]

At night its ok for her to go down straight after a feed so I wouldn't be waking her up. I feed mine, she falls asleep after she's had her feed and then I gently try and burp her and place in her bassinet. I don't intentionally wake her up and then place her back - the same sometimes happens at the last BF, just before bedtime. I feed around 5 (or just after the catnap) and then we don bath and bedtime routine and then last feed and she is either really drowsy or sometimes she falls asleep and I gently place her down to sleep.

I am finding that I can stretch the last A time (as I mentioned earlier) before bedtime to around 2hrs 15mins (and sometimes 2.5hrs). If a nap is 1.5hrs, its not short, I promise!

Are you at the 2hr mark yet? You could try A time of 2hrs in the morning, 2hrs 15mins before 2nd nap and the same before catnap and then around the same before bedtime. That should hopefully stretch out your day a little bit more and bedtime is not SO early. 

So it does sound like the 9.30pm wake up was habitual.. well done on being able to settle her. So it sounds like the DF didn't make a difference then. Stick with that for another 3-4 days and see if she can manage just the 1 NF (which is fantastic for her age ).

Sorry to hear she threw up . Do you think she might take to a paci instead of E to help her settle before sleep and you can try and use it at just that time and then put her down without it - so use it as part of your windown routine?

Jenny settled herself at the 30 min mark and has now been asleep for almost 3 hours . I don't know if I should wake her up or just let her be

[AMJ]

I don't think she can last even 2 or 2.5 hrs of A without being OT. She usually gets grumpy and sleepy at around 1 hr 20  or 1 hr 30 min and then I stretch it till 1 hr 50/55. And sometimes we get 1 hr 30 sometimes 1 hr 15 mins of S. her activity after immunizations right before CN ended up being 2 hr 20/25 min and she woke up crying and really tired so we did a bit of A then 1 hr of E and sleep and she woke up crying.

Yeeey ill skip the DF and keep doing what I did to get rid of hibitual wakening.

She doesn't take a pacifier. She hates it.
Here is today so far

Aug 8 2013

6:00 WU whining and cooing
6:24 S on her own

7 WU me + A
7:03  E (10 min)

10:08 WU whining left in a crib + A
10:20 WU E few min
11:58 E (12 min)
12:15 S

1:30 WU crying. Sh/pat from 1:45. Fell asleep at 1:50. But had to keep sh/patting cause keeps waking up
2:15 WU + A
2:16 E ( 6 min)
4:27 E
4:40 CN (30 min)

5:10 WU on her own + A
5:30 E for 1+ hr
6:50 BT

7:45 WU crying threw up
7:55 S

9:05 WU crying didn't settle so sh/pat
9:15 S


So did you end up waking Jenny up?

[Layla]

she woke on her own just after i wrote that post so i am with her now

i've attached a link you might find useful (in the faq section) - sample easy routines and you can see what other 4mos are doing 

Sample EASY Routines from 0 - 13mths+

will come back and have a look at your post properly after i spend some time with her and put her down for another nap 

[Layla]

I never know with the time differences what time it is (it's 2:12 in the afternoon here)... so I gather you've already done your immunisations. How did she go...poor munchkin . Try not to worry too much about the routine for now and hopefully over the weekend she will start to feel better and you can go back to your routine... and mine was really really unsettled this morning and I had to do some serious AP to get her to sleep and in the end she fell asleep at the breast on my bed!

To be honest, if she is not taking much of E just after S and she prefers to do the E before the S AND she's not falling asleep by the breast (so there isn't that association), then maybe you should let that be .

I found another link Sample EASY routines, 3-6 months and this one has some more sample routines.

[AMJ]

I'm in Alberta Canada right now so here is 11:40 pm on Thursday Aug 8. And yes we had our immunizations already. She did really well much better then the first time. I distracted her with her favourite book and cuddles.

Thanks for the links. It looks like babies her age have As from 1 hr 45 to over 2 hrs and sleep for 1 hr 30 to 2 hrs. I don't know how to go about it cause we are at 1 hr 50 m A now but she is getting tired at about 1 hr 30 min mark. Don't know if I should still increase her A

[Layla]

Yes, A times can range and now that I think about, I've been able to extend my LOs A times a little earlier than the av and that may be because she was 2 weeks overdue and I should think of her corrected age

If you don't think your LO can handle any more than 1hr 50mins for now, then leave it and maybe try over the next couple of weeks to add say 5 more mins over 3-4 days until she's closer to the 2hrs A time to help you spread the day a bit. Tired signs can be somewhat habitual too... could you try changing activity or distracting her at the 1.5 hr mark or maybe doing a longer windown? She might be still getting used to the A times since she could only stay awake for 1.5hrs until you've started implementing easy...

Hope she's feeling ok after immunisations. My lo had that 3 hr nap in the morning and then 45mins in the pm and nothing in the evening . That's the 3rd time she's missed her catnap! She was in bed by 6pm (3 hrs A time ) and we had 2 night feeds and up at 6, where I fed her and back to bed and she fell asleep until 7 - phew!). This morning she did 45mins am and a longer pm nap and no where near as cranky as she was yesterday morning

[AMJ]

Hi actually we by chance had a 2 hr A because of immunizations taking a while to get done and although she was a bit cranky she handles it. So now we are doing 2 hr As and it's going good. She is still getting cranky earlier but like you suggested I distract her and she is ok. Tha naps became anywhere from 1 hr 20 to 1 hr 45 min long. So we are sticking to it. Today she almost rolled over when she woke up from her back to the side cause she was squirming and I know this is when I need to stop swaddling her so I tried leaving her one hand out and it was a disaster. So she ended up OT for the cat nap but eventually fell asleep.

Otherwise she wasn't really effected much by the immunizations. I do stick to the routine though but she seems ok. Maybe just a bit more crankier.
Wow you LO is a trouper! Maybe she is done with CN for good??

[AMJ]

Now she also started to fight CN. She ends up staying up for 3+ hrs. You said you just skip it. How early is your BT then? Is 6 too early?