Gotten into falling asleep while eating cycle/difficulty taking nap...HELP!

[liv'smom]

Hi Ladies,
My DD is 3mo old and is not the best napper.  Lately, she has gotten into this cycle of falling asleep while feeding.  Most of the time a diaper change wakes her enough so she can finish eating but sometimes she still ends up getting really sleepy while finishing her bottle and then basically falls asleep while I am burping her.  Needless to say, his drags out the eating process...more often then not feeding her takes 1hr. 

But despite her being so tired while eating, once I change her diaper and have some playtime, she can still be difficult during the wind-down.  In fact, she doesn't really show me signs that she is tired even if she's been up for 1hr-1hr 15min.  Yet when I swaddle her and sit down with her she starts fussing and crying.  Often she ends up not napping at all. 

Or on the flip side she is still super sleepy after eating and I can't wake her for some A time, so I swaddle her and put her to sleep.  Usually though she ends up taking just a short nap.  Should I be concerned that bad habits are forming, like associating sleeping with eating? 

thanks in advance

 

[malialeanne]

Hi. I wonder why she's so tired when eating. Are you feeding as soon as she wakes? Sometimes los need a minute or two to wake up after sleep so that they can feed well. Can you post your routine to see if it needs some tweaking?

[liv'smom]

I do try to give her a few minutes before starting to feed her.  Here is my a typical day.  As I mentioned, naps often don't happen which could be why she is so sleepy during the next feeding.  Today for example she was dead tired after eating and I couldn't really wake her so I took her up stairs, read her a story, swaddled, sat and put her in her crib.  Initially, it  seems like she is drifting off into sleep but then wakes up and stares up at the ceiling with eyes wide open.  She seemed to have some gas, so I picked her up burped her and then started the wind-down again.  She calmed down, once she was drowsy I put her in her crib and she lasted all of 5 minutes.  For how long should I keep trying to get her to nap?  If I can't what should I do until the next feed?  I have put her in her swing on occasion.

E  7:00 (usually stirs around 5:30-6, I reswaddle and she continues to sleep)
A
S  8:15-8:30

E  9:30-10
A
S  10:45-11

E 12-12:30
A
S  1:15-1:30

E  3:00-3:30
A
S  4:15-4:30 (almost never happens)

E  5:30-6:00
A  Bath
E  Often hungry again after bath
S  Alseep by 7-7:30

I am trying to follow a 3hr EASY but sometimes she's hungry in 2.5.  At night eats around 12am and 3am.  I haven't been doing the DF. 

[malialeanne]

OK, so from your routine, you say S is 8:15 - 8:30--does that mean you're putting her down during that time or that is her entire nap??? Or, does she sleep from 8:30ish to 9:30/next feed?

[liv'smom]

that is when i put her down and usually her naps last 45mins but sometimes she manages to sleep till her next feed and I have to wake her up.  Right now for example she started eating at 12:10, took till almost 1pm to finish and burp.  I changed her diaper and let her look out the window, only one yawn but doesn't seem so tired.  Should I wait or start winding her down?

[malialeanne]

Wow, that's a pretty long feed time! I think dd was taking 15 mins to bf at that point. 1.5 hours A time is about average for 3 months, so she can probably make it a bit longer after feeds. Around 3 months we started having yawns and such in the middle of A times and getting confused about cues and putting dd down too early, which resulted in short naps. They only started extending when we learned that not all sleepy cues meant that she needed to go down right away. Not suggesting that you overextend A times, but you don't necessarily need to put her down at the first yawn.

[liv'smom]

I'm not sure why she takes so long to eat during the day, especially since at night it takes her only 20-30min.  Any thoughts?  Trying to take note if it happens only after a missed nap. 

Her sleepy cues are definitely confusing.  Not sure if I am putting her down too early or too late b/c she is usually really fussy and more often then not starts to cry shortly after I swaddle her.  It almost seems that she is hungry but given she just ate I am inclined to think she's just tired and can't settle.  Plus if she was really still hungry then I don't think she would calm down and go to sleep.  I guess it will just be a trial an error process for quite some time.  I will just keep trying to figure out her cues. 

What throws me is that she seems dead tired after she finishes eating but after I change her diaper I don't really see any sleepy cues, unless being fidgety qualifies. 

Thanks for your input

[malialeanne]

Re: feeding, there could be a couple of things going on: she could be more interested in the world now and eating less efficiently because she's distracted (which could be why night feeds are faster); she could also be using you as a pacifier toward the end of the feed. (she's bf, right?) FWIW my pediatrician said to "cut her off" at 40 minutes when dd was really young and taking a long time to feed, which I wasn't really comfortable doing, but I did make a huge effort to keep her awake and actively eating, kind of restarting the engine several times during the feed iykwim, and that made a huge difference in helping her learn to eat more quickly.

Cues become really tough to figure out from around 3 months onward. Around 3 months dd started to display sleepy cues in the middle of her A time, which was really confusing. She'll still do that sometimes, but she gets a second wind. When we make the mistake of putting her down at the first sleepy cue she's rarely tired enough to take a long nap. If you're regularly getting 45 minute naps and she's sleeping OK at night, it might be time to extend. You might find that some different activity will help to refresh her and help her make it through her entire A time. DD loves going outside and walking in her Bjorn, that always works like a charm when we need to extend A times.