A time guidelines

[Gage and Sophie's Mom]

Just want to say this new setup is pretty cool!

Anyway, I have a question about A time guidelines. I know that every child is different, but can someone post what the A time guidelines are for each age.

I am struggling with extending Gage's A time. He is almost 4.5 mths old and is barely doing 1 hr 15 min. Although we have come along way from 45 min, it has been a very bumpy road. Tracy suggests increasing the time every 3 day with one A time at a time, but it takes us so much longer (about a month)! I just don't know if we will ever get to a "real" 4 hr EASY. And if we do he will probably be over the age of one!


How long is it appropriate to stay at a 3 hr EASY? I want to do what is best for Gage. On the other hand, it simple exhausting doing the whole nap time routine every hourish, and we haven't left the house in months. I am sooo tired!

[Nikki~Nathanamp;Danielle]

It's a tough one, because they really are all different.  I know of 9mth olds that still take 2 x 2hr naps + catnap + 12hrs sleep at night yet my dd has been on 2 naps since 5mths old and long activity times.

I think if you're finding it takes a month to extend out the time the only thing you can do is go with that - you can encourage it, but if he's not happy going longer you actually can't make it happen kwim?  Just remember that it's about respecting your child and undestanding his cues.  Are you having trouble with nap lengths?  If not, I wouldn't focus on how short activity time is.  If he's happy and content, it may just be his own personal rhythm.  If naps are short, then you will need to focus on extending those before you can probably expect longer activity times to happen.  It's a bit of a catch 22, but things will extend out, just maybe a bit later for you.

Sorry, that's not much help, but post back wtih your routine if you want to work on altering it.  I would think you'd be looking at 2hrs as an average, but some babies just aren't ready for that at that age.

[Gage and Sophie's Mom]

I hate to even say it for fear of jinxing myself but..... Gage's nap are getting sooo much better. He used to only sleep for 45 min, but now they are a minimum of 1 hr. Thank God! His total wake time is about 1 hr 30, and that is with wind down and falling asleep time. From the hour mark he is crab pants, and it is so hard to keep him up and relaxed from then on. Our routine is pretty good though, except his night sleep is very shaky. He wakes up a hour after bedtime about 2 times. He has not wanted to go to bed before 11pm lately. We are working on set wake, nap, and bedtimes (within reason). Also, I think a long nap prior to bed has been a bad thing, so as long as he has had good naps then I limit his last one to a catnap.


Here is yesterday's routine/schedule

7:50 Sleep- the night before (AMAZING!)
2:45am wake
* This was weird in that this an out of the blue time.

7:15 Wake/Eat
8:00 Sleep (crabby)
9:35 Wake

10:25 Eat
11:35 sleep
1:10 Wake

1:30 Eat
2:30 Sleep
3:20 Wake

4:05 Eat
4:30 Sleep (crabby)
5:23 Wake

6:45 sleep
7:25 Wake--I woke him
* He usually gets up at 8am, and I think by this time he was overtired

7:30 Eat
Bedtime routine
8:45 sleep

9:15 Wake
10:00 No sleep, Got out of bed to see if he needed to be tired out a little. Sometimes doing a fast version of out bedtime routine makes him sleepy. I try not to do this often, as I can see it can develop into a habit, but I was so exhausted.
10:15 back to bed
11:30ish sleep

We had to wake him at 8am this morning. He has been getting up at 8am, so I was putting him to sleep at 8pm. If he wants to get up at 7am, I am okay with that but I am trying to work on consistency witin a half hour. He has been wakiing a hour after bedtime for months, and I think it is because he doesnt have a set bedtime, and he thinks it is just another nap. I hope I am doing the right thing.

[Nikki~Nathanamp;Danielle]

OK, so he's basically napping from 7am - 11pm on most nights?  Well it's sounds to me that you're doing all the right things to try and shift the pattern.

I definitely think a set bedtime and wake up time will be important for trying to get things on track.  My dd goes to bed at 7pm without fail - she will then wake around 6am.  11hrs seems to be her set pattern, she's wide awake for the day, so for me there's no point in trying to extend it to the recommended 7am, so agree with you on the 1/2hr either way thing.  Now, as far as your naps, I'd cut that late afternoon one to not go beyond 30mins, have a longer awake timebefore bed by stretching him out, have a bath, relaxing routine, a final feed and then into bed.  If he wakes after 45mins, I wouldn't bring him out of his room, but continue to resettle him back to sleep without feeding so he gets used to this being his bedtime, lights dimmed, no talking (I know you're probably trying to do these things anyway), to start with do whatever you need to do to get him back to sleep, extended patting or whatever, pu/pd was too overstimulating for either of my kids.  Have you tried the wake to sleep method to try and alter that wake up?  I think it would also be worth your while to try and get those daytime activity times lengthened after looking at your routine.  Sorry, I haven't read the BWSAYP lately, but I would start from the 4/4 section and read up the bit as if you didn't previously have a routine to see if there's anything in there that can help with your routine, also I'm pretty sure there's a section on how to put your lo onto the 4/4.  I imagine it will be tough work tryiing to get him to extend, but it will have to be an improvement on all the short naps you're having.  Sorry if I haven't been much help... 

Oh, HOW does he go down for naps and bedtime?  Any props or associations that could possibly be affecting his ability to stay asleep for long periods?

[Gage and Sophie's Mom]

I am so afraid to push the A time as he gets overtired so easy, but I think that is why he keeps waking and not taking long naps. I think I will work on extending his A time in increments of 5-10 min each week to see how he does. When I jumped from 45 min to 1hrish all at once we had some severe meltdowns.

The only real prop he has is his swaddle, which I am weaning him from using the Aussie swaddle vs. the miracle blanket. As far as accidental parenting.... we have been down that road, and I am sooooo afraid of doing that again! However with that said, I do SOMETIMES feed to sleep to get him drowsy after wakening.

I just dont know if he is capable of staying up more. He falls asleep without much fuss (unless overtired) in about 5 to 10 min after being laid down. To me that says he is very tired. Is it possible that he is one of the rare few that has very limited A time?

[Nikki~Nathanamp;Danielle]

Sounds to me that because he is touchy about being kept up longer than he wants, that you will just have to respect that and do the gradual increase amounts.  At the end of the day, if he's happy and content I think you will just need to ride it out.  He is coming into a whole bunch of new things developmentally, so even if you managed to stretch him out now, there will always be changes.  Sorry I can't be of more help, but even knowing that other babies can do 2hr activity, doesn't really help you long term since you know that he's not capable of that.

Good luck.

[Gage and Sophie's Mom]

Thank you for all your help. It is nice to know that I am not doing something to wrong to promote this. Just for info though, most babies his age can stay up for 2 hours without being overtired?

[Nikki~Nathanamp;Danielle]

The 4/4 routine works on 2hrs activity time, but there are a lot that can only do shorter - so that's only an average, please don't read too much into it and work with what your wee man needs.

[Gage and Sophie's Mom]

Thank you

[Paulsmama]

In case it helps you at all, at 4.5 mos DS was on a 4 hr routine (shorter at end of day) with only 1.5-1.75 hrs A time.  Around that time we were starting to move to 1.75-2 hrs A time.  I just checked my log and here's what we were doing roughly (not exactly EASY but close).

8 Wake/Eat/Activity
9:30 S
11:15 Wake/Activity
12:00 Eat/Activity
1:00 S
3:45 Wake/Eat/Activity
5:15 S
6 Wake/Activity/bath
7ish Eat/bedtime routine
7:30/8 S
11 Dreamfeed

[Gage and Sophie's Mom]

Hi Paulsmama! Thanks for sharing your schedule/routine, it does make me feel better. I have a couple of questions though. Did your lo wake any at night. I am trying to establish a set bedtime, but Gage most often wakes at an hour or two later. I feed him because it would technically be a dreamfeed. If this happens then after he finally (usually 11pm-12 am) falls asleep he will not wake until morning. However, if he stays asleep (very few and far between), then he wakes 7-8 hrs later for a feed. I dint know if this a feed or sleep thing. He usually eat a full bottle. Did your lo ever do this?

Also, I noticed your lo was taking long naps. Gage wants to too, but I wake him because I am afraid that he will switch his days with his nights AGAIN. Right now he takes a 2hr nap in the morning (I usually wake him), 45m-1hr nap mid morning, 2hr nap in late afternoon ( I usually wake him), and a 30-40m nap before bed. I wonder if I should let him sleep the longer 2 naps and maybe he will stay up longer. I am just afraid to do that because I have a hard enough time getting him to stay asleep at bedtime, and I dint want him to have too much sleep during the day, thus the vicious cycle continues. What do you think?

[Paulsmama]

Hi, I hope things start to improve for you.  I can let you know what happened with us, but don't know if it is just our situation.

LONGER NAPS:  I think this was his biorhythm.  We were not on any routine prior to 2 mos and DS always took a LONG afternoon nap -- often his longest sleep of the whole 24 hrs -- and he was on his own eating about every 4 hrs.  Then we went on sort of 3-hr EASY.  DS had a growth spurt around 3.5 mos and was waking twice at night to eat (no DF then) and I was having to wake him from his naps during the day.  I didn't want to add a bottle since that was going the wrong direction so instead we went to something like the routine I posted before.  I actually think sleeping the longer stretches in the day helped DS at night. Our ped suggested not letting DS sleep more than a 3-hr stretch in the day.  So I woke him from his first 2 naps, the last nap was ALWAYS about 45 min on his own.  He seemed much happier to be able to take his naps, esp the long afternoon nap.  I do think this helped extend his A time once he got used to it (he seemed to do it naturally).

DAY/NIGHT:  Didn't have any issues with D/N mix-up on this routine.

NIGHTWAKINGS:  We had these around 4.5 mos, but almost always just for gas (he'd squirm around the crib and cry when he got stuck).  He'd go right back to sleep when repositioned/patted or held a bit depending how bad the gas was -- no extended wake times.  We fixed the wakings by elevating his mattress and we'd just have to reposition him around 5 am when he would have slipped to the bottom of the crib. Then he grew out of the gas.

GETTING OUT:  The routine we had worked for us to go out after his AM nap, I could bring his bottle with us and then we could be out for a little over an hour before we had to get home for nap wind-down.

Hope this helps a little.