4 wk old stays up all day- help!

[CanadianMum]

Hello- my sweet little 4 week old DD has been on a 3 hour EASY for the last two weeks. Nights are going well- falls asleep around 8:30, up at 12:30, 3:30, and then for the day. In the night she settles down within about 20 minutes of shush patting (mostly in my arms, until she is extremely sleepy and then a few minutes in her crib). The problem I am having is during the day: she eats (BF, about 30 min, counting burping), I change her and sing to her or walk around the house so she can look at things) and then she starts yawning so we swaddle and go upstairs to her room. She then is calm and quiet but I shush pat her for 20-40 minutes while she is in her crib and she never drifts off- she is totally alert. I often get only 10 minutes of sleep in an entire EASY cycle or none! She has gone 3x3 hour cycles in a row without sleeping- yes, 9 hours! She never cries, and will just lay quietly in her bed unless I try to leave and then she starts crying. Help! Should I just keep at it? Or is there another strategy I should try?

[jessmum46]

Hi and welcome to the boards

Tracy was very much of the mindset of 'start as you mean to go on', but my own feeling is that 'as you mean to go on' can be to work on getting an EAS routine established, rather than trying to achieve everything including independent sleep all at once.  At only 4 weeks she is super-tiny!  And if it were me doing it again I wouldn't even be thinking about crib naps right now, though perhaps trying for one every now and again would be starting to set a good foundation.  From my own experience with my two I found that I had little success with naps in the crib before maybe 8-10 weeks or so - lots of effort for extremely little gain.  I would probably focus more on enjoying and cuddling her   And yes try for a crib nap every so often, but try not to stress if it doesn't work out just yet.  If she's not slept in 9 hours then sleep is most definitely more important than how it happens!!  So cuddle/pram/car/sling if needed and think about establishing the order of EAS for now - if you are doing that much you are doing great   If you keep the end goal in mind and try perhaps for one nap a day for now where possible, then I suspect in a few short weeks you will find that things fall into place much easier.  You'll never regret the lovely cuddle naps - wish mine would still do it now!!

[CanadianMum]

Thank you for responding- your post confirms my gut feeling but I was afraid of training a baby who will only sleep in my arms! Nevertheless I think I'll take your advice and just go with the flow for the next few weeks- getting her to nap however she wants to! And then work on the crib down the road. I'll send an update in a few weeks. Thanks again- this motherhood thing sometimes feels overwhelming and exhausting.

[jessmum46]

There are some useful threads in the EASY FAQs about getting started with a newborn and EASY in the early weeks - may be worth a read as lots of useful/practical advice there x

[Mommyadel]

I am in the same boat with my little one. He is almost 6 weeks and I was so focused on him sleeping in his crib then quality of sleep. They are so tiny at that age, and do what you can to get her to sleep during the day and the rest will follow I'm sure. My little is doing the 30/45 cat nap so it makes it hard to get anything done around the house. But enjoy the moments, if won't be like this forever

[CanadianMum]

Hi everybody,
Well it's 4 weeks later so I thought I'd share an update. I spent 3 weeks just working on getting daytime sleep (usually in arms/ stroller/sling) and the last week starting to put her in her bassinet as often as possible. Here's what our EASY looks like now. Three obvious concerns 1) she falls asleep in my arms- not having any success shush patting in crib 2)very early start to the day (about 50% of the time I can get her to go back to sleep until 7, otherwise day starts at 5:30! 3) she can't make the nap transition at  45 min on her own. I should point out that if I hold her the whole time (or keep walking the stroller) she will sleep 1.5 hours every time.

We're still working on it but getting there! She self soothes to sleep at night, so I'm hopeful that I can get her to do it in the day over the next few weeks.


E:5:30
A: 5:45-6:45
S: 6:45-8:45 (30 min in bassinet, woke up, 30 min to resettle, slept 1 hr in arms)

E: 8:45-9:15
A: 9:15-9:45, then wind down (swaddle, soother, shush/Pat in bassinet to 10:10 when we gave up!)
S: 10:15-  11:10  (10:15-10:30 in arms, 10:30- 11 in bassinet then fussed until full cries by 11:10,  rocked / shush patted in arms until gave up at  11:30)

E: 11:30-11:45
A: 11:45-12:35 (5 minutes to fall asleep in arms with shush/pat)
S: 12:35-2:25  (12:35-12:45 in arms, 12:45-1:13 in bassinet- woke up with a sudden screaming cry, 1:22- 1:50 fitful, in arms, 1:50-2:25 in bassinet)

E: 2:25-2:50
A: 2:50-3:30
S: 3:30-4:15 (stroller walk)

E: 4:30-4:50
A: 4:50-6:00 (out for dinner!- it's a miracle!)
S: 6:00- 6:30 (cat nap)

E:6:30-6:45
A: 6:45 (bath time, swaddle, book, cuddle)
S: 7:35- 8:30 (cat nap)

E:8:30
S: 8:50
NW:12:40-1 (E) 4-4:15 (E), 5:35 (gas? Burped, reswaddled, slept until 7

[jessmum46]

Thank you for coming back to update.  It sounds like you are making some lovely progress   I found after the 8 week 'wonder week' settled down we had more success in the crib with naps so hang in there and keep trying, and enjoy those little bits of 'Y' time even if they are short for now x

[CanadianMum]

Hello again!
We are past the 11 wk mark and still struggling with a few things:
1) falling to sleep on her own- will do this about 1/10 attempts, so improving. Still has never made the transition at 45 minutes on her own.
2) activity time- she can only stay awake 1 hr- 1 hr 5 min max before becoming extremely fussy. This seems short for a baby that is almost 3 months. Should I force her to stay up longer to see if that gets longer naps?
3) how do I maintain a 3 hr EASY if she is only up an hour, and sleeps 45min-1.5 hours? At the best, this results in eating every 2.5 hours, but often she is up at 2 hours because of a short nap and I end up feeding her again to stay on the EAS order of things.

Just not sure which of these to prioritize/ work on first and would love some suggestions!

[jessmum46]

I agree I think 1h or so (assuming you are counting from eyes open) is quite a short A time for a nearly 3 month old.  When she gets fussy I would perhaps put her in a sling or just hold her and have a little walk around for a few mins just to see if you can get an extra 5-10 mins before going for the nap.  I always found you had a better chance of a nap resettle at least if a bit OT, but no chance if UT!  And also a better chance of getting that independent settling if LO is actually tired otherwise I found playing turned to OT and inability to settle without help.

You can still aim for a roughly 3h eat cycle even with short naps - just means some parts of the day might be AEAS or even AE(very short A e.g. nappy change) then S.  Don't worry if that's the case - it all seems to sort itself out somehow eventually

[CanadianMum]

Hello,

Yesterday I tried (gently) extending activity times to between 1h15-1h30 minutes. And.... she had 3 1.5 hour naps (with my hand on tummy to settle at 45 min) and 1 45 min cat nap. Because she woke early (5:45) she was ready for bed at 6:30. So I just went ahead and put her down for the night and she only had one NW and was up for the day at 6:15!

I am thrilled! I know it doesn't mean every day will be as great, but I'll take it!

Thanks again- I'll be back when she hits the 4 month regression

[jessmum46]

That's great