New to the E.A.S.Y routine and need advice on naps.

[bestie]

Hi I am new to the forum and to the E.A.S.Y routine and wanted some advice with regards to the nap element.

My 7 week old little boy in the first few weeks of life would only fall asleep whilst breast feeding and I wanted to try and get him to fall asleep independently ASAP.

For naps I am taking my little boys cues i.e. yawning and implimenting the 15 min calm down period before putting him in his moses basket, he is sleepy but has his eyes open, often calm but just staring at the sides of the moses basket which can happen for 5 - 10 mins or so before he cries more of a whiny cry than a distressed cry which i think means he just wants reassurance from me. I leave him for 5 mins or so and then go in, reasure him, he goes quiet and again we have another 5-10 mins of quiet before he cries again. Luckily I only need to do this 3 or 4 times and he drops off .

I am concerned that if I am taking 30 mins or so to get him to drop off and he wakes up after 20 - 30 mins  because he wants another feed (believe me his hunger cues are unmistakable!!) he is not getting enough rest? he is getting 2 of these 30mins naps in the morning and 2 in the afternoon and yesterday he got 13 hours sleep, my understanding is that he should really be getting 16 hours or so. Is the time when he is staring into space rest also?

Should I try and push him to nap longer or will this come with time as he gets used to the routine?

Many thanks in advance.

[~Karen~]

Hi and welcome to the boards!  Can you tell me what kind of A time he's doing right now?

[bestie]

Apart from feeding I will let him have a kick about on his front and back on his play mat, I'll have a cuddle, I'll sing him songs, that kind of thing. He feeds for 30 mins to 45mins and then I change his nappy so he has 15 mins or so of other stuff until he is sleepy.

[~Karen~]

Check out this thread as it covers all aspects of starting EASY!
http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=186622.0

He is very young and may be a bit all over the place with sleeping/feeding for a while.  How often is he feeding?  He's defiantly not getting enough sleep in 24 hours.  Here's an example routine that someone posted for their 8 week old if you want an idea of a good routine.  The poster did say that this was on a good day though!

E.7.30am
A.7.45 -8.30
S.8.30 - 10.30

E.10.30
A.10.45 - 11.30 sometimes 11.45
S.11.45 - 1.30

E1.30
A1.45 - 2.30
S2.30 - 4

E4
A 4.30 - 5.30
S5.30 - 6.15

bath 6.20 dress ect
E7.00pm
A winddown 10 mins
S 7.30pm

E.dreamfeed 10.30pm
A none shes asleep 

E. anytime between 3.30 and 5am

start the day again at 7.30!

[bestie]

Hi Karen, thanks for posting that example, I have to say my LO is not far off that pattern apart from the lengths of the sleeping although that is improving. I have to say though since I started EASY he is happy now to drop off to sleep by himself and in the last few days naps have increased to over an hour before he used to only fall asleep BF and naps were 301mins.

It has definately improved things in that respect. So ill persevere

[~Karen~]

That's great news!  Hopefully you'll find once he can put himself to sleep then he can himself back to sleep and tranision through the sleep cycles on their own.