Do you feed if they wake up early from nap?

[cdew]

Hello there,
I am trying to extend my 4 month old's scheudle to a 4 hour one, sometimes I am successful at getting her back to sleep for a longer nap and other times she is ready to get up. Should I feed her right away in order to stick with the EASY pattern or should I wait until the two hour nap window has passed and then feed her?
Thanks for your input.

Clare

[Intransit]

I would say if you are trying to do the 4 hour easy..to try to prolong it for as long as possible. Sometimes LO's can't do a 4 hour right off the bat,and it goes from 3-3.5 then to 4 when they are ready.
If you take a look at the sample routines..there are a bunch with the 3.5 heading.
Good luck and keep us posted.

[hatshetsut]

Actually, I had the same question for my 5 week old. She wakes up early and wants to play, but she is quite spirited and gets over stimulated easily, plus, she just can't stay awake that long. If I play with her to extend her to her next feeding time, she wants to sleep right after eating. I try to wake her again for some low key activities, but I end up with a very overtired infant. Should I just feed her when she wakes rather than waiting until the 2 1/2 -3 hour feed time?

[hatshetsut]

So I would then just try to resume EASY after the next nap/feed? Thanks for the help!

[hatshetsut]

I am admittedly very concrete, and the am having to adjust to the flexibility thing. (It also explains why I work in academia rather than the "real world". The "real world is too grey, research is not  ) Anyway, I was happy to say that I did get her down for the next nap with significantly less struggle than usual. Hopefully we are on the right road.

I also wanted to say thank you to you mods, and for this web site! It is great to have a resource, and literally a world of people to ask questions to. I am very grateful for all of the help and support.

[Mum of girl, boy, boy]

Hi ya,

I can't remember where I read it but as they head towards the 4 hour routine Tracy said it was ok for a little up time before the feed. One of the most important things is for the E not to be before the sleep / feed to sleep etc. I have to be careful with my DS because if I jump in and feed too soon he doesn't take a big feed which means he can wake early from his next nap because of not taking that big feed. HTH

Good luck

J

[hatshetsut]

thank you for the help all. We did much better today about going back to sleep if she woke early, so we didn't have as much of a problem. What I have been doing if she does wake early is do some low key activities so she doesn't get overly tuckered out, then feed, a diaper change, and some tummy time or futher play. that second part may be short though if she starts showing tired signs. Then off to sleep in our cot. I am happy to say that EASY came much easier today!!  That makes mum very happy and much calmer!!  Thanks again!

HJ