Starting EASY for 7.5 month old

[GreenerRock]

Hello Ladies!

This is my first post on this forum so here's a bit of background:

My DD is almost 7.5 old and has never been on a set routine.  I BF on demand and she has just started eating solids 3 times a day.  She takes decent naps most of the time but I feed her to sleep each time.  She wakes up multiple times during the night (3-7 times) and I either walk with her or feed her back to sleep.  At least once a night she will wake up and stay up for an hour before going back to sleep (usually around 3 or 4 AM).

So I would like to start her on the EASY routine mainly to have her fall asleep independently and to help her sleep through the night.  I've been observing her for the past few days and this is what a typical morning looks like:

E -  7:00 AM: wake up & bf
A -  8:00 AM: solids
S -  9:00 AM: bf & nap
E - 10:15 AM: wake up & bf
A - 11:15 AM: Solids
S - 12:30 PM: bf & nap
E - 1:45 PM: wake up & bf

Her afternoons are all over the place.  Some days she takes a CN, some days she fights it, especially if she's had longer A and S periods earlier.  If she happens to take longer naps earlier and a CN, her BT gets pushed late but if I skip the CN, she wakes up 40 minutes after BT.  From reading the boards it sounds like I may need to go from 3-2 naps but her morning A time is still only 2 hours.  For her last A period is the longest and she's able to stay awake up to 3 hours but no longer than that.  Her day time naps are generally 1.15 hrs long but sometimes they are only 30 or 45 mins.

So here are some of the questions I have before I start sleep training her:

- Should I start her on a 3 nap routine for now and then eventually move to 2 naps or since I'm going to sleep train her might as well go straight to 2 naps?
- Since I feed her back to sleep during the night, she's getting the bulk of her calories during the night and doesn't feed for long during the day.  Do I need to get her to feed more during the day before completely cutting her off at night? 
- Currently her naps are about 1.15 hrs long, should I keep them that way to push to towards 1.5 or 2 hr naps?
- During sleep training, if she wakes up happy and content after a 45 min nap, should I let her be or PU/PD until the full nap time is reached?

Any help is appreciated and TIA!

[GreenerRock]

Hi Ladies,

I made DS's A time a bit longer today to test it out and it went well!  This is what today looks like so far:

  7:00 AM - Wake up & bf
  8:30 AM - solids
  9:30 AM - Nap (walked to sleep, no bf)
11:00 AM - Wake up (no bf)
12:30 PM - 3 oz breastmilk and solids
  1:30 PM - Nap (walked to sleep, no bf)

Its 2:30 right now and she's still asleep.  I will wake her up at 3:30 PM if she doesn't wake up by then on her own and am planning to skip the CN and put her to bed at 6:30 PM.  I haven't had much success with EBT before but I'm planning to start PU/PD tonight so hopefully it'll go well.  She was also OT before each nap as she's not used to staying up for 2.5 hrs and I had to walk with her for a while before she fell asleep. 

Can an experienced mama take a look at this and see if it makes sense?  I'm worried about starting off in the wrong foot making it worse for DS.

TIA!

[*Ali*]

Sorry you haven't had a reply before now. But you are doing just fine on your own

I think you need to extend the A times as you are doing but just do it gradually to give her time to get used to the new longer periods awake. Maybe stick with 2.5hrs for a week and then add another 15 mins?

You are doing so well to be getting her to sleep without BFing if that is what she has been used to. Maybe when you have her on a more consistent routine that you are happy with you can work on putting her down a bit more awake each time. That way she may hardly notice. You can try shh pat in the crib if she cries or if that doesnt comfort her then pupd instead.

Let us know how she goes