3hr, 3.5hr, or 4hr routine?

[Paddys mum]

I'm in trouble and need help with our routine! I had determined during pregnancy that I would definitely follow EASY from birth and not have any AP; 3 months on I'm still battling all the bad habits I started... DS was having problems with snacking (frequent feeds every 1-2hours during the day), overtiredness, short naps, and me as a prop (nursing to sleep). After much help from the posts here (thanks!) I put aside two weeks, barely left his cot let alone the house, and worked solidly on a 3 hr routine. We had two perfect days where he was self-settling, sleeping through the naps, and sleeping 5-6 hours at night...and then it all went pear-shaped again. He's now started waking up every 3 hours at night, is not eating well during the day (probably because he's getting an extra feed at night), is not sleeping well at day or at night, and is now in an overtired vicious cycle. My main question is: was the 3hr routine the wrong one to put him on?

He is 14 weeks old, a very big baby (8 kgs!), breastfed from both breasts, went through a growth spurt (I think) a couple of weeks ago, and is probably a touchy baby (although he doesn't cry an awful lot). His A time is maximum of 40 mins to 1 hour before he starts getting tired - even during the days when the routine was going well - and if I miss the window by even 10 minutes he becomes overtired and is difficult to get down for the rest of the day. This makes me worried about how we'll go on a longer routine. But, I also wonder if some of these other problems that have arisen have come about because the timing is wrong. I'm back at square one so will be reintroducing a routine over the next few days and am not sure which timing I should go for. I'm also going to try and give him some formula tonight to see if we can break the feeding at night cycle (I resettle him when I can and get him through a couple of wake ups; and he wasn't happy if I didn't give him as much as he wanted for his night feeds; and I think he's a little too young and oversensitive for pu/pd) and we're aiming for an initial awake time of 7am.

His times yesterday (remember, this was a bad day!):
2am - feed
430 - woke up but I resettled him
545 - feed
715 - woke up and resettled (I figured it was better to not be tired at this point)
845 - feed
920 - started fussing, put down in cot, shh-pat, etc
1030 - finally fed to sleep (I was desperate!)
1145 - woke up because of dogs barking, although he would normally sleep through that
1200 - feed but not a great feed
1230-300 - unsettled, wouldn't sleep
300 - feed to sleep
400 - woke and wouldn't resettle, low level A
600 - bath, massage
630 - feed
645 - sleep
1030 - woke up, wouldn't resettle, feed
1230 - woke, I resettled him
230 - woke, wouldn't resettle, feed
430 - woke, I resettled him
515 - woke, wouldn't resettle, feed
630 - woke, I resettled him
730 - woke, low level A
815 - feed (to try and keep it at 3 hours)

I know there's loads of problems here that I need to get on top of - wake up time, naps, overtiredness, prop(!), night and day feeds... so I'm sorry if I've posted this to the wrong list.

Any ideas or experience as to whether or not the 3hour is okay or if he should be on a different timed routine? If so, how do I deal with the short A time capability or will that sort itself out? Or is this just something that goes with the territory of big babies who are doubling in size? Any suggestions for dealing with this and getting through are very welcome!!

[* Paula *]

Hugs, I am sorry to hear that you are going through such a rough time.

It definitely does sound like your lo is extremely overtired, and would aim to fix this first before you try to sort out any of the other problems.

A 3 hour routine is perfecto for your lo - especially now cause he is so over tired.  How long is your lo sleeping for when you put him down for a nap?  Are you getting 45 minute naps or are the longer?  When your lo wakes up, he is fussing / crying when he wakes up or is he happy?

I would aim to try and extend your lo's naps at this time, try to re-settle when he wakes up with either pat/shhh or you could try wake to sleep to try and extend his naps?

Below is some information for you that may be of some help to you.

https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=64168.0

https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=85499.0

https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=64158.0

[Paddys mum]

Thanks. Yes, I figured that overtired was the big killer - it had been the first time we'd tried implementing EASY properly as well. We were doing really well over the last few days - yesterday he was going down for his naps by himself ( yay!), having good nap times (2.5 hours first one, 1.5 hours second one, 45 mins third one), and I'd spread the first night feed to 4 hours after bedtime rather than the 2-3 hours he was on before. Unfortunately, we had to rush DH off to hospital last evening with a suspected heart attack and poor Paddy ended up having 5 hours in bright lights and noise instead of sleeping - he got about half an hour there when one of the nurses dimmed the lights for us, but it was obviously nowhere near enough. (Luckily, everything seems to be better with DH!) So we've taken a step backwards again today, but having had some successes twice now, I'm feeling more confident that we'll get there again.

I'm still having troubles getting him to eat more during the day to reduce the night feeds - but perhaps that's something I need to investigate on the breastfeeding or the night wakings boards. One more question for here, though: Could it be that he is waking during the night at 3 hourly intervals because he got into a 3 hourly routine during the day? Before we did the proper EASY, he was demand feeding during the day, but regularly sleeping 6 hours at night. Any ideas whether it is the regularity of the feeding during the day or the amount of food during the day? I know there are no real rock-solid solutions, but it is helping a lot just hearing other people's ideas!

[* Paula *]

Hugs, I am sorry to hear that you had such a rough night.  I am pleased that DH is ok though.

When implementing a new routine, it can cause a rocky pactch, until they are established on the routine.  How long have you been trying to implement EASY now?

Could it be that your lo is going though the 4 month growth spurt a bit early and it is just co-insiding with the implementation of EASY?