transition to 3.5 hr or 4hr EASY??

[*Vicki*]

Hiya all 

I really need some help here...I sort of know what I have to do but would like to hear some 'objective' BW advice IYKWIM  Please bear with me, this could be a long one....

My LO is 16 weeks old.  A week and two days ago I took her paci away as i thought it was becoming a prop.  At 11 weeks old she had started to sleep thru from 11pm till about 5.30am/6.30am. Then over a couple of weeks she started rustling around, making whiny noises and needed re-plugging from anytime between 4 and 5am. At 1st this was'nt a prob coz id give her the paci and she'd go back to sleep till near on 6 - 6.30am.This went downhill very quickly and suddenly she was waking up even earlier - sometimes at 3am! Id feed her (obviously my first belief was that it was hunger) Sometimes she'd take a good feed of 3oz's + and other times she'd only take 1 or 2 oz's.So instead of feeding her immediately I went back to giving her the paci..only it would keep falling out her mouth...after about 5 or 6 replugs she'd be in a constant light sleep so from about 4/5am every morning i was replugging over and over again...
Ok so the 1st 2 nights without the paci were amazing - she slept till 7am!!  But after that it took a turn for the worse again..Now every morn from around 4/5am she is restless, not quite awake but not quite asleep..if i feed her sometimes she'll take a good feed sometimes not but even after a bottle she doesnt settle properly and cries out in her sleep (i try to not rush to her too quickly as shes next to our bed in a cot and i realise it could be a mantra cry) up until about 6.30am when she goes back into a deep sleep till i get her up at 7am.  Even if shes only taken a small feed at 4/5am she still cant take a full feed at that 7am feed.  Im thinking i might need to do PU/PD when she wakes at 4am/5am but im worried she might not actually be fully awake and also i dont know how else to get more milk in her daytime feeds...admittedly her bottles have been 7oz's since last week and she does drain around 3 of these a day otherwise she takes between 4 and 6..so could she be hungry?

And heres the next part of the prob  (I did say it'd be a long one  )
During the day her naps are getting shorter and shorter albeit for a 2 hr nap she had this morning  which was a shock she normally never sleeps longer than an hour which is a problem coz she'll want to sleep an hour after waking (feed and nappy change inc) then she'll sleep an hour..then she wakes up and its another 2 hours to go till her next feed (she is starting to only want some feeds 4 hrs apart)...so after being awake for half hour she seems hungry but is very OT hence i have a hungry baby who is screaming inconsolably...I dunno whther to just make the transition to 3.5 hr EASY or let her go 4 hours but try somehow to extend her A time and use PU/PD to extend her naps....

Any help would be greatly appreciated as im so tired im actually feeling quite ill and with a DD who's just started school i really need some help!!!

[Sarah - Enfys' Mum]

A few weeks ago, I could have written your post, so I know how you're feeling!!!  So let me see if I understand, you are on 3 hr EASY?  But some feeds are 4 hrs apart?  I think you need to start going to 4 hr.  Are the naps 45 minutes?  Do you know about 45 minute naps?  There is a whole thread about these on the naps board.  They are often a sign of being undertired - tired enough for only one sleep cycle but not enough sleep to really be any good.  We had huge problems with these and I found slowly increasing the A time helped a lot.  We are now on 3.75 - 4 hr intervals and dd is napping much better.  We've also just been on holiday where I slept in the same room as dd (she's been in her own room at home since 8 weeks) and a lot of mornings she did what your dd does, just being unsettled in the early am, not really awake but not really asleep either.  Like you, sometimes she woke up completely and I fed her but she never went back to sleep properly either.  We were actually going through the transition on holiday (staying with family so we were able to keep it up) and this seems to be better.  Of course, Enfys is now sleeping in her own room so I might just not be hearing her!  lol  Basically I think, yes, you need to go to 4 hr.  There are threads I think in EASY forum about how to do it.  Just go very slow or you will get overtired (we did this, it wasn't much fun!)

[*Vicki*]

Thank you xx wot a beautiful name your daughter has...are you welsh?

I have family in wales...my 16 week old is called Cerys..

[SupermansMama]

I'd love to have my 11 week old DS on a 3.5 hr EASY or even a 4 EASY. I've been trying to do the 3.5 but from the FAQ post regarding transition, the 3.5 EASY routine is not correct.  There seems to be a mistake in the morning and afternoon S times, the E times are 3.5 apart but the A and S times in between is inconsistent, can someone please explain this or correct it??? I'd really like to take a look and either try it if someone can fix it OR just work on a 4 hr EASY cold turkey.

[Sarah - Enfys' Mum]

Hi Hare, yes, Enfys is a Welsh name.  It means rainbow.  Her middle name is Mai, for May!  I love the name Cerys - we actually wanted to call Enfys Cerys but dh's cousin had a Cerys only two months previous so we just couldn't.  But now I love the name Enfys. 

SupermansMama- I can't help you re the mistake in the 3.5 hr Easy, we never really did 3.5 hours only in transition.  Your lo might be too young for 4 hrs though - he might not handle the A time. 

[SupermansMama]

i assumed he's be too young at first but over the past week or so he was staying awake for 2 hrs at least in the afternoon/evening cycles, never in the morning though so we'll see how the transition goes, he did 1.5 no problem today so we're crossing our fingers..he's a big baby and eats really well so I think he'll be on a 2 hr A soon. I'll let u know in a while though, i could be eating my words.

[*Vicki*]

Our DD1 is called Megan...the name cerys just seemed to fitso well for her little sis.. It means love in welsh doesnt it 

I didnt know Enfys meant Rainbow...aww if when i have another one its another girl i might call her that....its gorgeous 

Where i live nobody has heard of the name Cerys and nobody knows how to pronounce it either