STARTING EASY at 21 weeks ahh help!

[chelsey181210]

Hi I'm new but have been reading this forum and it looks fantastic!
I'm in urgent need of help with an EASY routine, my son is 21 weeks but has CMPA, reflux,severe eczema and a toddler sibling so establishing a routine has been at the back of the que whilst we've been dealing with health problems very hard when you're a control freak like myself! My first son was like clock work all by himself so training Bobby is new to me lol.
Sorry for babbling his current routine is roughly this:
6-7 wake but never hungry straight away
7:30ish E 5oz
A
9 S 45mins
A
10:30 E 3oz
11 S 45mins
A
12:30 E 3oz
2 S 45mins
A
3 E 3oz
A
5 bath massage
5:45 E 3-5oz

9:30 3-5oz
12:30 3-5oz
3/4:30 3-5oz
TBH it changes every day, my main concerns are that he is rarely goes 3 hours between feeds during the day and he isn't taking much, he's on neocate and isn't loving the taste! My two year old sleeps 5:30pm-6am so I'd like to keep bedtime around 6pm and we also travel to and from nursery at 10am and 3:15 so these can't be times for sleeping or eating. He also won't feed anymore if he stops for wind.. Ok I'm done, if you got to the end thanks for reading any advice would be great!

[jessmum46]

Hi and welcome to the forums

A few questions - does your LO go to sleep independently at the moment?  Are all of his medical problems fully controlled at the moment?  Is he medicated for reflux, and what with? 

At the moment, are you tending to use cues, the clock or A times to decide when nap time is?  Or a combination?

There are a couple of things that will help to establish a more consistent routine for him - spacing out his feeds to nearer 4h and working on appropriate A times.  With the feeds, if he normally has a feed at the 3h point, do everything in your power to distract him for an extra ten minutes.  He will be a touch hungrier and hopefully will take a little more.  Next feed, push him to at least 3h10 again and as near as you can get to 3h20 etc until his feeds are more like 4h apart.  If he is hungrier he should take bigger feeds and should last the extra time.  Keep persisting with the neocate and with time he will get used to it

A time wise he should be able to handle something in the range of 2-2.5h at his age.  If you stick to one A time for a few days in a row, you should be able to start spotting patterns.  Can you ever resettle him after his 45 min naps? 

Sorry so many questions but hopefully we can help more with some extra information

[chelsey181210]

So grateful for your reply! His health issues are pretty much sorted, with the exception of ezema flare ups. He's no longer on any medication for refluz since changing to neocate he is a happy spitter
He takes all his naps in him cot with a dummy and is able to fall asleep independantly, but struggles if he is overtired.
At the moment it is just cues as soon as he gets wriggly and rubs his eyes I take him up.
I would love to stretch the feeds so will try starting that as quite often if his bottle is less than hour away I try and keep him up and that results in feeding him too soon and him becoming overtired.
I am unable to resettle him after 45 mins as he's very nosey and as soon as he sees me he wants to play lol.

Hope that's detailed enough

[jessmum46]

Great

Ok, so the 45 min naps could well be a sign of needing a touch more A time, or waking for the paci, or they could simply be developmental in that he hasn't yet learned to transition smoothly through the sleep cycles.  I'm tempted to say either developmental or waking for the paci if he never naps longer than 45 mins - what do you think?

Have you tried being there while he naps and as soon as he starts to stir doing shh pat or applying gentle pressure to his upper arms (holding through the jolts) to see if he can make it to the next sleep cycle without waking? Or you could try wake to sleep, perhaps stirring him very gently at around 30-32 mins? 


Routine wise I would suggest that if you want to ideally keep a 6pm BT, you should be looking to start your day at 6/6.30am.  Taking 6am as WU time and an average A time of 2h15, assuming longer naps develop, your day might look like:

WU & E 6am
A
S 8.15 to 9.45
E 9.45
A (nursery run 10am)
S 12pm for 1.5-2h
E 2pm
A (nursery run 3.15)
S (catnap) around 4/4.15 for 30 mins
A
BT 6pm including feed

Obviously if naps are shorter it gets a bit trickier, and you will generally need to do a slightly shorter A time after a shorter nap, and offer an extra nap in the day.  The day could be more like:

WU & E 6am
A
S 8.15-9
A
E 9.45 (before nursery run)
A
S 10.45-11.30
A
S 1.15 -2pm
E 2pm
A (nursery run 3.15)
S 3.45-4.30
A
BT 6pm including feed

As you can see with short naps you get more of an EASAEAS pattern which is fairly common around this age - as long as you are avoiding feeding to sleep you won't be setting up any bad habits

What do you think?

[chelsey181210]

I think he definitely has trouble transitioning through the sleep cycles, for a good few months he didn't sleep in the day at all because of his constant reflux, pain, overtired cycle it's only been the last few months he's started napping so I'm not sure if that could effect his relationship with sleep?
The last two days have been odd as he's teething so not sleeping well at night although I've been practising the patting shhing through the night and it has been working so I will have to try it at nap wakings.
Yesterday just from putting him down when he was tired instead of feeding first we managed perfect 4 hourly feeds which was great 7:45, 11:45, 3:45 I put him to bed at half 5 and he only fed at 7:45 and 12:45.
But due to his restless night he only managed to stay awake 1 hour from waking at 6:30, and refused to feed before 9am so we are well off today :s
Starting to wonder if teething is the best time to start all this lol but either way really pleased with less feeds and taking more

[jessmum46]

Ugh teeth, they always get in the way!  You just have to do your best with wonky days and try again tomorrow

[chelsey181210]

Due back at work in a few months let's hope I crack it by then! Thanks again for your replies xx