I am having trouble with my EASY schedule and my 17 week old EBF son. He doesn't do well with a DF, doesn't wake up for breast and has trouble with bottles when awake, tends to gulp them too fast/is overwhelmed which wouldn't make for a gas-less dreamfeed.
He is currently on a 3 hour EASY and can only stay up for about 1.5 hours and wants to eat every three hours so I don't think he is ready to move toward every 4 hours. Honestly, every three hours was quite an accomplishment for him a month or two ago, he is a big eater.
Anyway, my issue is that he wakes up with a poop-a-thon around 6 or 6:30am every day. He is still tired but often hungry. If I fed him he would probably go back to sleep til about 7:30, which I used to do, but then the EASY was thrown off for the day and it wasn't consistent whether he'd go back to sleep (but sure would be cranky and ready for a nap by 7:30am) Previously I had his last feeding at 7:30pm and that was causing him to wake up and poop at 5am. So I moved the last feeding to 8:30pm and have moved the poop to 6:30am in the morning but he is waking up so tired and the whole day is thrown off by this. Plus, with his short A time we are still doing 4 naps a day (tends to be a 40 min napper) and if he wakes up for this 6:30 poop fest and naps from 7:30 or 8 until 8:30 we are then up to 5 naps a day. Which is a bit much.
Any advice? If I move the bedtime earlier I'm moving up the last feeding and will have to deal with him waking up at 5am. (oh and there is always at least one NW, right now at 3am with the 8:30pm last feed. 2am or earlier with a 7:30pm last feed. If I move it later than 8:30 I feel like I'll need another catnap to get that late and he is just going to be more tired in the morning. Plus the late evening naps are hard to get and if he misses them I'm really screwed with OT.
Plus, right now in order for me and DH to get enough sleep we have to go to bed when he does around 9 (used to be earlier, which was chaos trying to eat, etc in order to be in bed after him at 8pm)
I'd post my EASY, but it varies so much right now I just try to stick to eating every 3 hours and asleep after no more than 2, usually a little less. I just hate starting every day so confused on whether to feed him, try to get him to go back to sleep or get him up. I'm pretty sure without the poop issues he'd naturally want to wake up around 7:30 based on his demeanor when waking up at various times. He used to smile when he woke up then, now he wakes up from most naps and mornings pretty crabby.
