how much A time for a 9 day old baby?

[{{{Angela}}}]

Hi all, we started EASY today with our 9 day old DD.  The last few nights she has been up all night and sleeping all day, so I realized we had to switch her days and nights.  So far we have gone through 2 EASYs today, starting at 7am.  Her habit is to fall asleep after a feed, so we change her diaper (or pretend to) and she wakes up and we've been keeping her up for about 20-30 minutes.  Then it takes about 30 minutes of shhhh-pat to get her to sleep, which gives her a total of 1 or 1.5 hours of nap time.  Is that too much A time for her age?  It's hard to keep her up b/c she's been up for most of the night but we've got to start somewhere, you know?

[*Natasha*]

Hi Angela,

My DD2 is 2.5weeks old and including feeds is up for 45mins on average and takes 20-30mins to settle for her nap. We are feeding every 3hrs during the day and she goes 5.5hrs after bedtime to her night feed and then 5hrs after that to her morning feed.

[{{{Angela}}}]

Thanks Natasha.  So you're including the E time into your A time?  My DD can take anywhere from 20 to 45 minutes for a feed and then I was trying 20-30 minutes of A time on top of that.  Do you think that is too much?

[*Natasha*]

It might be for this age. All i do is feed nappy change and a quick cuddle.

[{{{Angela}}}]

Hmmm.  Our previous A time was also just a diaper change, but then she was staying awake for 4 hours at night!    Maybe my girl just needs more A time...we'll see how it goes tonight.  Wish me luck! (and sleep!)

[{{{Angela}}}]

I'll try the 2.5 hour EASY.  Last night she had her last full feed at around 9:30 pm (a huge feed) and we tried to do a DF at 11:30 but she only took 1 oz. of EBM.  She slept until I woke her at 2:30am b/c she was a bit restless and I thought she might be hungry, seeing as how it had been a long time since her last full feed.  She fed well, but then it took more than an hour to get her settled down and asleep again!  Ugh, I don't know what to do...if she sleeps longer during the night, should I just let her?  Even if been a while since she ate?

Yesterday we did get in 7 full feeds and that partial little DF.  I'd better wake her now if we're going 2.5 hours between feeds.  Thanks Stacy.

[{{{Angela}}}]

I let her sleep as long as she wanted last night...last feeding was 11:30ish and she woke on her own at 3:30am, and then again at around 6am (which was actually 2:30am and 5am because of the time change).  It took me a while to get her down for sleep (I also posted on the sleep boards), she would quiet down but as soon as I put her down she'd be wide awake.  So tonight I'm going to shh-pat her in my arms until she's really asleep...not ideal, I know, but I can't be spending an hour or more putting her back to sleep.

It's really strange b/c my first baby would sleep for 5 or 6 hours at a stretch right from the beginning - we had to wake him for a feeding.  Then again we had weight gain issues with him that I'd rather not repeat.

[{{{Angela}}}]

Well DD has been sleeping from her last feed (which starts somewhere around 11:30pm or 12am) to about 5 am, so yay!  She's also been staying awake from 6-9pm cluster or comfort feeding, so I don't feel the need to force her to have some A time. 

She's sleeping a lot today though...which makes me worry if she'll be up tonight....