What do you do when your day gets derailed?

[shark]

DS is 13weeks old and has been on EASY since 3 weeks old.  However, up until 9wks, we were not really "on the clock" but rather just doing the eat-activity-sleep order and having variable cycles of 2.5-5hrs as he was refusing to sleep anywhere but an adults arms and his sleep was very erratic.  However, he was mostly doing a 4hr cycles but sleeping 3 out of the 4 hrs.  The sleep problem was finally solved with the discovery of the aussie swaddle at 9 weeks.   Since then, I have been trying to get ds into a more regular EASY.  I started by shortening him to 3hr cycles and limiting his daytime naps to 2hrs max.  However, I found that with this, he was ridiculously OT by 5PM so I let him have 1 3hr nap a day and this seemed to help a bit.  Now I am finding that our mornings run pretty much like clockwork, but things start to fall apart in the afternoon and I seem to always end up with an OT baby by bedtime.  Usually we get off track because he has too short of a nap (either takes too long to settle to sleep or wakes up early and doesn't go back to sleep) at one of the afternoon nap times and that derails our schedule.  What I have been doing if he wakes up early is having some A time until the next feeding.  This is not bad if the next feeding is 10-15 min away, but if he wakes up an hour early, then we are in BIG TROUBLE because he is awake way too long before the next nap and then it is a disaster too.  If he takes too long to fall asleep, I have been waking him up to stay on schedule and he is grumpy at being woken up, has a cranky A time and starts showing tired signs after only 30-45min of A time. 

So, my questions are, if he wakes too early, what should I do?
If he takes a long time to fall asleep and is still sleeping at the next E time, what should I do?
If he shows tired signs after being awake for only 30-45 min, should I put him to bed early even if this means he will get a nap longer than 2 hrs?
Should I try and eliminate the 3 hr nap again?

Our current (ideal) schedule looks like this:

E 6-6:30 wake up and eat
A
S 7:15

E 9:00
A
S 10-10:15 (this is the 3 hr nap)

E 1:00
A
S 2:00-2:15

E 4:00
A
S 5-5:15 (If he takes this nap, I wake him at 6:30)

bath

E 7:00-7:15
bedtime by 7:30 latest

DF 11:30-12:00 and 03:00

help!

[Grace's Mom]

Sorry it took so long for someone to reply to you.
Your post didn't get sent to my in box for some reason so I just found it today.

How are things going as of late?

Any changes?



So, my questions are, if he wakes too early, what should I do?
if he wakes early, you have some A time and then feed when he's hungry.
You may  have a sleepy baby who falls asleep while feeding. all you can do at that point is try to wake him up a tad just so he's in his crib drowsy but awake.  If he stays asleep, he stays asleep...sometimes you just kind of have to roll with whatever happens.  That's the great thing about EASY it's not a schedule and things happen. No day will be perfect!

If he takes a long time to fall asleep and is still sleeping at the next E time, what should I do?
You can let him sleep a bit past the next feeding....30 minutes at the most I would suggest.


If he shows tired signs after being awake for only 30-45 min, should I put him to bed early even if this means he will get a nap longer than 2 hrs?
If a lo has a short nap, I would put him down earlier than normal to help him catch back up.
It's best to follow their cues.
I would not let him sleep more than 2 hours!  Once they start sleeping longer than that they have a tendency to get it confused with night time sleep and it may be fine now but it could end up messing things up down the road.
With any routine change it takes at least 3-5 days for their bodies to adjust to the change.
When you tired the 2 hour naps or less, how many days did you stay consistant before going back to the 3 hour naps?

Should I try and eliminate the 3 hr nap again?
Yes! 

-Melissa

[shark]

Thanks Melissa!

Lots has changed since that post.  We've moved to a 3.5hr EASY and I did eliminate the 3 hr nap (though he still sometimes goes a bit long with his 2nd nap of the day).  We still have the same problem with the afternoons though.  Despite using W2S (which worked great when he started doing 45min morning naps 2 weeks ago), he still will only nap 1 hr in the afternoon and is often OT by bedtime.  Though our nights have been pretty good despite this.  Our current schedule looks like this

E  7:00
A
S 8:30

E 10:30
A
S 12:00

E 2:00
A
S 3:30 (this is the problematic nap)

E 5:30
A (includes bath)
E bedtime top-up
S 7:00-7:15

DF 12:30, 03:30

The ladies in the bottle feeding section advised me to try and pull his first DF back to 11:00 latest but he can easily sleep until midnight without eating and when I tried to pull it back, he then wanted his second night feeding at 2 ish which then meant he was waking up for the day at 5ish which is just too early for me to start the day.  So I put it back to later and this seems to work better for us.

Our biggest problem of the day is from when he wakes prematurely at 4:15-4:30 from that 3rd nap and then tries to go all the way to 7PM without sleeping.  It's just too long of a stretch for him.  I tried putting him back to bed for a catnap at 5, but he just won't go to sleep.  Sometimes I can trick him to sleep by putting him in his swing or by going for a long walk and this helps immensely but I just don't understand why he won't sleep longer at nap time!

[Grace's Mom]

Glad things are going better

When he only takes a 1 hour nap in the afternoon do you bring the next sleep up some to help compensate (shorten the next A time)?

Trying for a cat nap 45 minutes later after waking won't work due to it only being 45 minutes later.
Have you tried increasing the A time before that 1 hour nap?
It seems like he's only taking an hour due to only needing one hour.

Babies needs are all so different and depending on the time of day it can change.

[shark]

He's already maxed out on A time before the 3:30 nap.  I can't really decrease his time to the next sleep or I'll be putting him to bed for the night at 6:30!  I think I'll just have to keep going as we are.  At least it's summer so we can go for long walks in the early eveneing if we need to.

Thanks!

[Grace's Mom]

What do you mean when you say he's maxed out on A time?
As they get older their A time continues to increase....sometimes it happens each A time all at once and other times one A time changes sooner than the others.  Some babies need greater A times prior to average.  He may be ready for a tad more  A time (10-15 minutes or so) but of course only if you think he's ready.  Shorter naps and a happy/content baby are usual indications of that but it's up to you.

Also, putting a lo to bed a bit early if they are OT is actually better than keeping them up.
I know it may sound crazy but it really does work and help them get back on track if needed....on those rare days things go a bit off.

I hope things continue to work out.
Long walks sound lovely! 

[shark]

What I meant by maxed out is that he actually cries to go to bed when he is tired and at 1.5 hrs he is crying for his bed.  I've already increased his A time from 1hr to 1.5 hrs over the past 3 weeks so I think we're doing good in that respect.  I'm hoping that in another week or two we can try for 1hr 45 min of A and then eventually hit 2hrs of A time sometime in his 4th month (then I would switch to a 4hr EASY).

My only concern with putting him to bed at 6:30 is that he'll want to feed at 11 and 2-3 and be up at 5 rather than feed at 12 and 3-4 and be up at 7.  5AM is just too early for me!

[Grace's Mom]

Oh no, poor little thing.
Do you think he might need to go down earlier for that nap?
Do you think he is overtired, thus crying for bed?

[shark]

I know it sounds horrible,but when he starts to cry for his bed, I swaddle him and put him down and he's asleep within minutes without any help from me.  I don't think he's OT after 1.5hrs, just tired.  He woke up at 4 again today, it's 5:45 now and we just put him down hoping for a short nap, cause he's crying with fatigue but he's just not going to sleep! Argh!  Why won't babies just accept that we know what;s best sometimes?

[Grace's Mom]

I know it can be very hard.
It's such a balancing act and there's always such a fine line between OT/UT.

I think you are doing a wonderful job!

Melissa

[shark]

Thanks for the advice and encouragement!

[Grace's Mom]

You are very welcome!
Let me know how things continue on.

Melissa

[AshleyB]

Hi, I've been reading your thread because I'm having a similar problem with my 8-week old LO. The afternoon nap is just such a problem. I can spend hours in the afternoon trying to get her to sleep. I'll get her wound down, put her in her crib, watch her drift away, then . . . POP! The eyes are wide open and she's crying. We start over and do the whole stupid thing all over again at least three times. As you know, that means that we've reached the next feed time by then. I've found that I can sometimes get her to sleep 30-45 minutes in my arms, which I sometimes indulge in, because the option is having her wake up and scream for the same time period. At that time of the day after being with a baby all day, it's just sometimes too much to ask to keep banging my head against the wall.

I also have been working on getting rid of that middle of the night feed like you have. My LO wants to do 3 hour EASY 24 hours a day. I've found that feeding her more before midnight has made her sleep until a lot later. We've gone from a 1 a.m. feed and a 4 a.m. feed to just a 4 a.m. feed--due solely to her eating more during the day. She's now sleeping 5-6 hours after her dream feed since I changed her feeding schedule. Sometimes, I'll throw in an extra feed in the afternoon if she's refusing to nap anyway. MIght as well!

Is your LO eating as much on the 3.5 EASY as he was on the 3.0?

[shark]

Sorry it took me a while to respond, was away visiting the in-laws for a few days (which btw has completely messed up our schedule).

DS is still stubborn when it comes to the last nap of the day.  But as long as the weather holds, DH or I have been taking him for a walk at nap time and he will usually sleep at least 30min in the stroller.  We even went and bought a sun shade for the stroller so we can take him out when it's super sunny too.
 
As for the evening feeds, he still wakes twice a night to eat.  I am a bit hesitant about increasing the volume of his feeds because he is a spitter-upper.  I found that with larger feeds, he just spits up more and I don't want him spitting up all night.  Though admittedly, spitting up is more of an issue during the day when he is all excited during A times than at night..maybe I should try to increase his night feedings a tiny bit...

He is eating the same amount on the 3.5hr EASY as he was on the 3hr EASY because I feed him at 5 and then again at 7 before bed to top him up.  Though some days he does skip a feed because he sleeps a little extra here or there (almost to a 4hr EASY) but it doesn't seem to affect his night pattern at all.

[ginadsp]

Hi shark, I'm also sort of new to this site and loving it for all the help these wonderful moms have given me.

I just have to intrude and say I think your doing AWESOME! 

I didn't start BW till about your ds age and it's not easy  to start it then but has been worth it. My ds still needs to take that last catnap in the car or stroller. I just go with it and as long as he sleeps for that last nap I'm happy. (He will also fall asleep in 5 min flat on his own in crib for every nap but that last one) SO WONDERFUL that your ds has those long naps in the morning.

Also, I started putting ds down for the night at 6  He wakes way to early in the morning if I dont. Do not ask me why this works because it makes no sense to me. Sometimes even with this early bedtime he will wake at 5/5:30 but if I just leave him alone (he's not crying or anything) he will fall back asleep by 6ish and sleeps till 7.

Oh and those oh so hard feedings in the middle of the night, hang in there it does get better in time