Starting EASY at 5.5 months, 5 questions

[Elizabeth_33]

I am incredibly lucky that my DS is a great sleeper at night. We put him down around 8, and within 20-30 minutes he falls asleep on his own and sleeps all night. We don't usually give a dream feed.

Naps used to be easy. He'd fall asleep on his own whenever he was tired, regardless of where he was. Long story short, he doesn't do that anymore, and we've been struggling with naps for the past 1-2 months. He has a bit of a nursing association that I've managed to lessen, though not eliminate entirely. I'm trying to start EASY to solve our nap problem. I'm using the directions in "The Baby Whisperer Solves all your Problems," but shifting the schedule forwards by an hour to match our bedtime.

I did a dream feed late last night (around midnight) and LO woke up around 6:30 am. I let him be until he started fussing around 6:45, and then I went in and tried the ssh/pat for a little while.

QUESTION ONE: He wasn't really crying, just fussing - unhappy sounding yells with pauses between. Should I have waited until he was really crying? Or started earlier, the second I knew he was awake? Or did I hit the right time?

I thought he was hungry so I fed him at 7. He did seem to be hungry. I tried to get him to go back to sleep until 8 am using ssh/pat and PU/PD, but he wouldn't go. I'm not sure that I should have even been using PU/PD. He was moreso fussing than crying.

QUESTION TWO, PART I: Should I have started by just putting him in his crib and seeing how it went without any intervention from me? Or should I have started the ssh/pat pretty much right away, as I did?
QUESTION TWO, PART II: Do you restrict yourself to the ssh/pat until LO is actually crying, and then try the PU/PD? Or can/should the PU/PD be used for a fussing baby?

I got him up at 8 am. By 8:50 am he was falling asleep in his rocker without any outside help.  I was really tempted to let him nap, but per the directions, I stuck to the schedule and woke him up. He got fussier and fussier, and by 9:15 I knew I was going to have a mess on my hands if I didn't get him to bed soon. I caved and broke the schedule. I did our sleep ritual (though I cut out the sitting, as he was really crying at that point, and the sitting wasn't going to relax him) and had him in his crib by 9:20.

QUESTION THREE: Should I have kept him up until 9:40 and then started the sleep ritual, even though he would have been really overtired and a mess by then? I know that things are different when you're trying to introduce a routine.

I did ssh/pat and tried PU/PD. I managed to get him to sleep by 9:43, which wasn't pretty good, I thought. Then he woke up 37 minutes later at 10:20 crying. I went up and tried the ssh/pat and then escalated to PU/PD.

QUESTION FOUR: I'm not sure I'm doing PU/PD right. He seems to be moving his arms almost nonstop, and leg kicking isn't unusual, either. I know that I'm not supposed to PU when he's struggling/fighting, but I'm not sure what qualifies. Does it have to be an actual arching of the back, pushing away with arms? Or is flailing arms and legs a sign that I shouldn't pick DS up and, if he's already in my arms, I should put him down? If the latter, I will hardly ever be able to do PU/PD b/c he seems to almost always flail around when crying.

He just kept crying until I gave up at 11:30 and got him up, 1 hr 10 min later. As soon as I raised the blinds and started interacting with him doing "normal" daytime stuff (change diaper, feed, play), the crying stopped.

QUESTION FIVE: DS would rather have fun than nap, I think. If he's tired or overtired and not being amused, he'll cry, but often if you play with him the crying will stop (even though he does need the rest). I worry that by keeping him in his crib crying until the next feeding time and then getting him up when he doesn't go back to sleep, he's just going to think "Okay, if I cry for an hour, she'll get me up." Is this a valid fear? How do you handle it when the baby won't sleep and you've used up all of your time?

At 1:40, we went back to his room and did his sleep ritual. He fussed throughout his book and then seemed to fall asleep during the sitting time in my still arms. Not good, I know. I didn't intend for that to happen. We'll see how long he stays down this time, but he's been down for 1 hour thus far, so I'm hopeful for a good 1.5-2 hr nap.

[jessmum46]

Hi and welcome, I also started with EASY around 5 months so you're in good company!

When you say you are using the plan in BWSAYP, is it the one for starting EASY at four months or older?  Just asking because the sample routine there is appropriate for a 4 month old, but for a 5.5mo may need to be adjusted with longer A times.  Could you post up the routine you are aiming for so I can help you adjust it if needed? 

To answer your questions:

1 - generally you only need to intervene when LO is crying a genuine 'I need you' cry rather than just fussing.  However, around 5/6am is quite a typical time for a feed and it's normal for a breastfed baby of this age to have a night feed in addition to a dream feed.  If you think hunger is the reason for waking, I would just get in there and feed without waiting for it to become an all-out cry, and hopefully get you both back to sleep quickly.  It may be he was too awake by the time he was fed, or it was too close to when his body clock thinks it is morning to resettle with PUPD.  The drive to go back to sleep isn't very strong once they have already had 9/10 hours of night sleep.

2 - I would just put him down in his crib and only intervene if he needs you.  If he is getting upset, try to calm him with shh pat.  Only use PUPD if the crying is escalating despite attempts to soothe in the crib with shh pat.  If he is only fussing, I would try not to intervene at all.

3 - in the book Tracy does talk about sticking rigidly to a clock schedule when first establishing a routine.  However, it's important that the routine you are trying to stick to is age-appropriate, which is where adjusting the sample routine comes in as I mentioned above.  A gentler way, and one many parents here have found effective is to concentrate on getting the A times correct for your LO.  There is a link to average A times here: What are A times and how do they fit into the EASY plan?. There's no sense in keeping a LO up past the point of being overtired as they won't nap well anyway and won't be in a good state to learn.  I think most of us here would say that working on getting the correct A times and avoiding feeding to sleep are probably the key things to focus on. 

I would say that I would only try for a nap for 40 mins max, then take a break.  When trying to resettle a short nap I would personally only try for 20 mins or so before giving up and moving on with the day.  You'll go mad if you try PUPD for hours on end.  If LO doesn't resettle fairly quickly, my experience was that they weren't going to and there's no point in just exhausting you both.

4 - flailing arms and legs might be that he's just upset, or that he's over or under tired.  A big tight 'bear hug' might help to calm him.  I think though if you get a sense that he is more frantic in your arms, then keep the PU to a minimum and try to do most of the soothing in the crib.  Even if you do have to PUPD, you go right back to trying to soothe in the crib when you PD again.

5 - I know this differs from Tracy's advice in the book, but as I said before I really would (for your own sake) put a time limit on trying to resettle naps.  I've never found it to be an issue with LO thinking they will be able to get up if they scream for long enough.  This is different to at night where you would continue until LO goes to sleep.

Hope that helps to start

[Elizabeth_33]

Thanks so much, jessmum! That is really helpful. Here's what I'm trying for.

E 8:00 am (wake and eat, that is)
A
S 10:00 am to 11:30 or 12
E 12:00 pm (or earlier if wake from nap between 11:30 and 12)
A
S 2:00 pm to 3:30 or 4 pm
E 4:00 pm (or earlier if wake from nap between 3:30 and 4)
A
S 6:00 - 6:30 or so  (catnap)
A
E 8:00 pm
S 8:30 pm
E somewhere between 11:00 pm to 12:00 am (DF)

That's the goal, not the reality. If you're interested in where he is: Today he managed to stay in bed till 7:30 am, which was later than he has in a week or so, after going to sleep at 8:30 last night. His first nap was short again - he went down after about 20 minutes of soothing in the crib, but he wouldn't go back to sleep after he woke up, even though he was yawning. He's doing well with his second nap, though he started a bit early. I had him on a playmat in the living room while I was vacuuming, and when I went to get him to start his prenap routine he was asleep. I moved him to his crib. I have a feeling that he's making up for his bad first nap with his second. He seemed to do the same thing yesterday. Yesterday I did also get a catnap out of him, but it took 53 minutes of soothing and some PUPD mixed in. I was very close to giving up when he finally settled.

I have a couple of more questions about PUPD. They're generic, moreso about how you do it in general and not really related directly to the schedule. Would it be more appropriate to post those in a new thread in the PUPD section of the site?

I really appreciate you taking a look at the routine!

[jessmum46]

How long was his actual first nap?  Often the nap length can give us some information about whether his A time needs to be reduced or increased

What I think is probably happening is that he's at the age where many babies are starting the 3-2 nap transition, and that he needs more A time than that routine will allow him.  He is probably undertired (UT) for his first nap, so fights and ends up with a short nap.  But then does better with his second nap because he is tired enough to sleep well.  And then fights the catnap - very very common at this age.  It's ok to have the catnap in the stroller or car if needed - it will be gone soon!

So I think I'd actually aim for a routine more like:

WU 8
Nap 10.30 - 12/12.30 (max 2h)
Nap 2.30/3 - 4/4.30 (max 2h)
Short CN around 6.30
BT 8.30

You will likely need to be adjusting the routine quite a lot over the next few weeks, but I'm happy to help with that if you keep me posted with what's happening, especially how long naps are and how long he's taken to settle for them.  Are you keeping a diary?

You're more than welcome to post your PUPD questions here to keep all your advice in the same place.  If there's anything I can't answer I'll call in the reinforcements!!

[Elizabeth_33]

The first nap yesterday was 53 minutes, so not super-short, but shorter than ideal. That's better than Tuesday's first nap, which was only 37 minutes (again, after roughly 20 minutes of soothing). Today's first nap was a completely different story - 1.5 hrs after only 3 minutes of soothing. The second nap was only about 4 minutes of soothing, and he slept for 1.5 hrs again. He actually was yawning and fussing a bit between the two naps today, but I waited till 2 to put him down. Maybe he just needed a couple of days to adjust to having fewer but longer naps? He was very erratic before I started this process on Tuesday, with most naps being 50 minutes or less, and some days having 4+ naps and others having as few as 1. The one nap days weren't fun for anyone! Anyways, before tweaking the goal routine, maybe it would be worth giving him a day or two more on the current one to see how it goes? What do you think?

I use the "total baby" app to record when he slept and how much (and when he ate). I can finagle it to record the settling times, too, so that I can review them if needed. I'll start doing that.

Re. PU/PD. Once you're doing PU/PD, is it best to keep doing PU/PD until the baby starts to calm down, or is it equally good or better to just PU/PD every once in a while or a few times in a row with other soothing mechanisms (like ssh pat) in between? I'm not sure if I'm "undoing" the good of PU/PD when I switch back and forth between PU/PD and other soothing mechanisms. I'd also appreciate your perspective on a particular soothing mechanism - I've been leaning over his crib, putting my chest a few inches above his so he's free to wiggle and thrash a little but he can't readily hit himself, and resting my cheek against his upper cheek. I also make the shh sound and pat his side. Is there any reason that you know of to avoid this kind of thing? I do it b/c it's similar to what I used to do to help him fall asleep the rest of the way after nursing him virtually to sleep and then putting him down in his crib, and it seems to calm him more than ssh pat alone (as long as he's ready to be calm). (I position my head far enough away that he can't try to nurse on my cheek or chin, BTW - he'd just love to suck himself to sleep on me!)

Can I also ask how I will know when the routine needs to be adjusted?

Sorry if I'm asking too many questions! Feel free to skip that last one if I am.

Thanks so much for your time!

[jessmum46]

Not too many questions at all - it's why we're here

What would really help (if you don't mind) is if you could post your day in 'EAS format'.  Just makes it Easier to read There's an example below:

WU and E 7am
A (no need to specify times or what you did)
S 9am - 9.50am (the actual time spent asleep - you can also if you want record what time you put him down and how long it took to settle him)

E 10am
A
S 12-12.40pm etc


Both of your first naps tell me he does need more A time first thing.  We ALWAYS got 37 min naps when J needed a push, although 'classic' UT naps (undertired) are between 45-80 mins.  I suspect his longer naps today were because he was very tired from the sleep training in the last few days, but by all means stick with the routine for now if you're seeing progress.  Just be aware if he starts resisting his naps again and/or short-napping he may need the routine adjusting to give him more time awake pre-nap.

PUPD - it's entirely fine to concentrate mainly on soothing in the cot at this age using (ideally) shh pat or a variation of it that works for you.  You only actually need to progress to PUPD if LO is escalating despite you trying to soothe him.  And then once you have picked him up and put him back down, you would continue to try and soothe him in the cot, only picking up again if the cries are still escalating.  I think your variation sounds fine - like all variations of shh pat the key will be that you gradually withdraw what you are doing as he gets more used to it and don't get stuck with a new problem of him relying on the shh, pat, or cheek contact to fall asleep.  I don't see that resting your cheek on his is any different to resting a hand on his back which is what we did for some time, then gradually did less and less.

[Elizabeth_33]

Thanks for the input! Would you mind taking a look at how his actual timing has worked out recently and letting me know your thoughts? Things were pretty good towards the end of last week, but it's been getting less good yesterday and today. I've included last Thursday through today, but only look at what you think is most useful, of course.

Note that I nurse right before bed, but I do a wind-down routine (draw blinds, read book, sit quietly, put in bed awake). He virtually never has trouble going to sleep at night, and I don't nurse him to sleep.

As the time it took to do ssh/pat, PU/PD, and other soothing mechanisms can be a big chunk of the day and help to explain some technically long wake times, I've included them in the 'EAS' format under "S." I hope that's ok. I tried to include relevant details without overloading it too much.

Thursday 5/30/2013      
WU   7:30 AM   (11h 35m sleep)
E   7:54 AM   
A      
S   10:00 AM   Soothing for sleep (3 min)
S   10:04 - 11:37 AM   (1h 34m sleep after 2h 30m awake)
E   12:03 PM   
A      
S   2:05 PM   Soothing for sleep (4 min)
S   2:09 - 3:37 PM   (1h 28m sleep after 2h 30m awake)
E   4:03 PM   
A      
S   6:15 PM   Soothing for sleep (40 min)
S   6:57 - 7:45 PM   (48 min sleep after 3h 15m awake)
E   8:17 PM   
S   8:43 PM   
DF   11:30 PM   
      
      
      
Friday 5/31/2013      
WU   6:30 AM   (9h 47m sleep)
E   6:45 AM   
S   7:30 AM - 8:36 AM   (1h 6m sleep)
E   9:08 AM   
A      
S   10:25 AM   Soothing for sleep (14 min)
S   10:40 AM - 12:19 PM   (1h 39m sleep after 2h 10m awake)
E   12:31 PM   
A      
S   2:29 PM - 4:19 PM   (1h 50m sleep after 2h 10m awake)
E   4:28 PM   
A      
S   6:30 - 7:00 PM   Napped in car seat (30 min)
A      
S   8:05 - 9:00 PM   (55 min) in car seat
E   9:02 PM   
S   9:35 PM   Fell Asleep (8h 40m)
No DF      
      
Saturday 6/1/2013      
WU   6:15 AM   (8h 40m sleep)
E   6:45 AM   
S   7:15 AM - 8:30 AM   (1h 15m sleep)
E   9:02 AM   
A      
S   10:00 AM   Soothed to sleep (30 min.)
S   10:34 AM - 11:25 AM   (51 min sleep after 2h awake)
E   11:58 AM   
A      
S   1:38 PM   Soothing for sleep (15 min)
S   1:54 PM - 2:39 PM   (45 min sleep after 2h 30m awake)
E   2:54 PM   
A      
   4:30 PM   Soothing for sleep (14 min)
S   4:44 PM - 6:23 PM   (1h 39m sleep after 2h 15min awake)
A      
E   6:41 PM   
A      
E   8:19 PM   
S   8:25 PM   Soothing for sleep (15 min)
S   8:45 PM   
DF   12:08 AM   
      
Sunday 6/2/2013      
WU   6:00 AM   (9h 15m sleep)
E   6:15 AM   
S   6:45 AM - 8:00 AM   (1h 15m)
E   8:06 AM   this was basically a snack
A      
S   9:59 AM   Soothing for sleep (11 min)
S   10:12 AM - 12:05 PM   (1h 53m sleep after 2h 15m wake time)
E   12:15 PM   Bottle - didn't manage to get much in him (~2 oz of breastmilk)
A      
E   1:50 PM   Made sure to keep awake, put to bed awake
S   2:08 PM - 4:01 PM   (1h 54m sleep after 2h wake time)
E   4:06 PM   
A      
E   5:06 PM   
No S   6:15 PM   Soothing for sleep (20 min) didn't work
A      
E   7:43 PM   
S   7:59 PM   
DF   12:00 AM   
      
Monday 6/3/2013      
WU   7:40 AM   (11h 41m sleep)
E   7:59 AM   
S   9:52 AM   Soothing for sleep (11 min)
S   10:06 AM - 11:31 AM   (1h 25m sleep after 2h 20m wake time)
E   11:45 AM   
A      
S   1:58 PM - 3:40 PM   (1h 42m sleep after 2h 30m wake time)
E   3:49 PM   
A      
No S   6:00 PM   Soothing for sleep (25 min) Didn't work. Got very worked up, thought might be hungry.
E   6:31 PM   
A      
E   7:48 PM   
S   8:03 PM   
DF   11:50 PM   
      
Tuesday 6/4/2013      
WU   7:00 AM   (10h 57m sleep)
E   7:11 AM   
A      
E   9:10 AM   
A      
S   9:30 AM   Soothing for sleep (1h 15m)
S   10:47 AM - 11:45 AM   (58 min sleep after 3h 45m wake time)
E   12:08 PM   
A      
S   2:27 PM   Soothing for sleep (5 min)
S   2:34 - 4:13 PM   (1h 39m after 2h 45m wake time)
E   4:32 PM   
A      
E   8:05 PM   Bottle
S   9:00 PM   (To bed late bc bottle took loooong time - Dad's retraining to take bottle rather than only nurse.)
DF   12:05 AM   
      
      
Today      
WU    6:30 AM   (9h 30m sleep)
E   6:55 AM   
S   7:38 AM   Soothing for sleep (4 min)
S   7:43 AM   Napped for 3 min, then I think a dirty diaper woke him
S   7:47 AM   Soothing for sleep (38 min) didn't work
A      
E   9:50 AM   Brief nursing to make sure he doesn't wake early from hunger. Made sure he was awake when put down.
S   10:14 AM   Soothing for sleep (1 min)
S   10:16 AM - 10:55 AM   (39 min sleep after basically a 3h 45m wake time - 2h 30m if you count the 3 min nap. He didn't seem very tired till around this time.)
S   11:05 AM   Soothing for sleep (46 min)
S   11:53 AM - 12:50 PM   (1 hr sleep)
E   1:05 PM   
A      

[jessmum46]

Overall I'd say you're doing really well . It looks like around 2h30 mins A time is right for him after a good night, and maybe a bit shorter after a shorter night.  One thing i'm not sure of - on quite a few days you have WU at around 6/6.30am and then he goes back to sleep shortly afterwards.  I'd count that as a night feed really, do you keep lights off and minimise interaction at that hour?  I think it would help to decide at what time you want to start your day e.g. 8am and make sure everything before that time is treated as night. 

How have the last few days been?

[Elizabeth_33]

Thanks for the reassurance. I agree re wake time, and I've been trying to do 2.5 hours awake time in general over the past few days.

I have been treating wakings before 8 am as night. He's pretty much always soaking wet at that point, so I change him with the least light I can manage, feed him, and try to get him back down - as long as it hasn't gotten too close to 8 am at that point. If he wakes up at, say, 7:15 or later, by the time I'm done with all that, it's almost 8 am. When he wakes at, say, 6 and can't get himself back to sleep, I do what I can to get him to sleep more.

Things actually went really well on Friday and Saturday. Then today didn't go as well, but it's mostly my own fault. DH and I really needed to go to Babies R Us. We had a laundry list of things to shop for. We left just after his morning nap, but he fell asleep on the 40ish minute car ride anyways. We didn't finish until well after he should have already been having his 2nd nap. He slept in the car, but woke when we moved him inside. With two very short naps that were on the go, I thought that he'd really need a catnap, so I took a long walk in the stroller this afternoon. Tonight, he wouldn't go to sleep. I had to sooth him to sleep, which I virtually never have to do, and he seems to be sleeping more fretfully. In EAS format:

Sunday 6/9/2013      
WU    7:15 AM   (9h 45m sleep)
E    7:24 AM   
A      
S    9:46 - 11:00 AM   (1h 14m)
E   11:15 AM   
S   11:45 AM - 12:15 PM   Napped (30 min) in carseat
A      
E   2:09 PM   He started melting down in BRU but we weren't done there yet. I fed him, which made him seem content.
A      
S    3:15 - 3:45 PM   Napped (30 min) in carseat
A      
E    5:15 PM   
S    5:55 - 6:25 PM   Napped (30 min) in stroller. Started walk around 5:30 pm, but it took a while for him to fall asleep.
A      
E    7:05 PM   The bottle of expressed BM took forever again - over an hour. It's really not going well.
S   8:35 PM   Soothing for sleep (18 min)
S   8:53 PM   

That kind of brings me to my current confusion. I live about 30+ minutes from any major shops, restaurants, etc. How do I get things done without totally screwing up the routine? If he's awake for 2.5 hours and I spend 25 minutes changing and feeding, an hour driving to and from wherever, and I need to reserve 15 minutes for changing and the pre-nap routine once I get home, that only leaves 50 minutes to actually do stuff. Sometimes errands take more time than that! It can take me an hour or so at the grocery store alone. Is there really a solution here, or do people just try and get stuff done as quickly as they can, and spread errands out over several days (which seems silly when you're driving an hour to get to and from the same location a few days in a row)? What about when you're on vacation? DH and I are going to spend about a week near a national park soon, and I'd love to go hiking and swimming. We're usually out for 3-6 hours at a time when we go to this park, though, which just doesn't seem possible with LO. Do we just hang out at the hotel most days?

I really appreciate your time, jessmum. If I should be posting a question elsewhere (on another board) and giving you a break, just let me know.

[jessmum46]

It's really a balancing act, life has to go on and there are times when it just isn't practical to do things in a 2.5h window.  On those days really you have to do what you can, accept (in advance) that LO will probably get OT, and then try to have the next day at home to catch up.  Same with holidays, you can't stay in all the time doing nothing so maybe try a day out followed by a day in.  Or head out for the day early and get back mid afternoon so LO can get a reasonable chance at a nap to avoid OT at BT.  If I'm honest I did sometimes avoid going out for the sake of 'the routine' (what there was of it!) but in retrospect I wish I'd relaxed a bit more.  As they get older it does get somewhat easier as they can stay awake longer and handle OT a bit better