Help with my 10week old nap/routine please

[twinkleprincess]

Having read through loads of threads relating to little ones, I realised how many wise, wonderful & helpful people are out there so I'm asking for a bit of your knowledge & experience in helping me sort my 10wk out!
Naps have always been a huge issue for us, mainly because he seems to be such a windy boy that he's always falling asleep on wind regardless of what tonics I give him or how often i wind him, so the wind wakes him up.  Secondly, he does jolt although I've noticed recently that he can sometimes sleep through them. And thirdly, every health professional that's seen him have commented on how alert & advanced he is for his age so don't think it's surprising that he'll only nap for 30mins sometimes & some days not at all!!  They all say he's a Margaret Thatcher!!  He's Formula fed now but seems to vary how much he wants to eat & will wake up from a nap having not slept enough & the only thing that will settle him is a bottle, I've tried to rock him back to sleep but nothing works, he just screams.  He's one of those that seems to have a couple of ok days & nights then a few bad ones!! So here is my routine, this is a good day routine, some days I can't even get him to sleep!! (would also like some help getting him to sleep through night)
5-6am wakes, nappy change &  feed (6oz) takes up to an hour to feed & get back to sleep.
6.30-8.15 (max) back to sleep in crib (but sometimes in our bed!!)
8.15-9.15 awake, nappy change, in my arms whilst I totter around.
9.15-10am sleep in electric swing but it can take him 20mins to get to sleep which is included in time (can't seem to get him to sleep in crib)
10-10.30 feed 6oz, then A (top & tail, get dressed, play mat etc)
12.25ish nap in crib, lie him down & hold dummy in place & he goes off but can be restless
12.50-1.00 awake & upset as if not had enough sleep but won't go back
1.30 give in & feed 6oz, usually nap straight after food, no A as too tired
2.40 nap (today he's on sofa!) just lie him down & hold dummy in place, falls off.
3.15 wakes, wind him, put dummy in & he'll fall off again
4.40-5.00 wakes
5.00 change have kick etc
5.30-6.00 feed
7.00 (time varies as wait 20 mins after finish feeding) bath
8.00 bed downstairs in bouncy chair, cuddle & he drops off then put in bouncy chair
10.15 change, dream feed 6oz or he's disturbing already (sometimes wakes up between 8 & 10, just wind & cuddle & will eventually go back off)
1.15am awake (sometimes he'll go till 3.30am!!) feed 5oz
sometimes he'll wake again around 4am  & can stay away from then till 5 -6 am!!

Reading this I can see that I should be putting him in his crib for all his naps & when he goes to bed, but here's my lame excuse! We have a substantial house & if he disturbs by the time I've got to his room he's really upset & harder to get back off.  I'm prepared to put him in his cot for all his day naps as I can stay upstairs, but at night I don't want to have to spend my evening on my own upstairs with hubby downstairs!!

Any help greatly appreciated, he is mainly on 4hr feeding routine & has been since 3 weeks so don't really want to change this.

Thank you

Kate

[malialeanne]

Hi there. Welcome to the boards!

From your routine it looks like your activity times are pretty varied in length. At 10 weeks we were doing about 1 hour 15 minutes including feed, diaper change, and wind down. Nap lengths did vary, but the A times never did. Some people need to do a shorter A time first thing in the morning. We did the same A time throughout the day, so our EASY ranged from 2.5 to 3 hours depending on nap length.

I would pick a consistent start time to the day, your lo may not adhere to it but it's good to have a "goal" time, and if he wakes earlier or later you can adapt the routine, and try to find and stick to an appropriate A time for him. Feeding on a 4-hour schedule will not allow you to do EASY at 10 weeks (EASY calls for feeding when the lo wakes, so most don't get to a 4 hour schedule until 4 months or so when A times and naps are both closer to 2 hours), so you'll need to adapt the routine if you want to continue a 4 hour feed schedule.

My dd is also VERY spirited, alert, and awake, def not a drift-off-to-sleep type of baby at that age. We have a very dark bedroom for her, and do a rather long winddown that never varies (books, snuggling in rocker, crib). This lets her know that it's time for sleep. She needs the extra time to transition to sleep, but she always goes down awake and independently. This took some work, however.

I suspect that fixing A times, instituting a good winddown and avoiding overstimulation will get you 75% of the way there, but you may need to do some sleep training using pat/shhh to get him used to sleeping on his own in the crib. Pat/Shhh is hard work but it's very worth it. Here's a link on how to do it: https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=26672.0

HTH!