asleep 50 mins ahead of sched. how to get back on schedule?

[lumpymonkeytoes]

Hi!

My daughter is almost 6 months old, textbook/spiritied and today is day one of the 4 hour EASY (working on falling asleep without nursing.)  She woke up at six instead of 7 and was clearly still tired but doesn't yet know how to get back to sleep without nursing.  I tried to do pu/pd but realized 10 mins later that she was hungry and had to feed her.  She nursed for quite a while and then was pretty happy.  Two hours later she was falling asleep in her seat, so I carried her to her crib, drew the blinds, etc and had to do 18 mins of pu/pd.  She fell asleep at 8:10, so 50 mins ahead of the 4 hour easy schedule.

QUESTION:  How do I get her back on the regular 4 hr easy schedule?  Do I extend the upcoming A times?

Thanks!

[Grace's Mom]

If she is on a 4 hour EASY and wakes up at 6am you should have her asleep in her crib by 8am, not 9am...that's too much A time, starting windown time and nap routine by around 7:30.

If a lo wakes up earlier than normal you just adjust the day accordingly.   
You don't keep them until the time they normally stay awake until as that will only make them overtired and will make the rest of your day even crazier.  When a baby gets overtired they will have an even harder time going to sleep and staying asleep.  Follow her cues before watching the clock.

Don't extend A times more than she can handle.
You may have to put her down earlier for bed time tonight and that's ok.
No day will be exactly the same and no day will be perfect 

EASY is a routine, not a schedule so you don't keep exact nap times, you base it on how much A time they can handle and when your lo last woke up.

Melissa

[lumpymonkeytoes]

thanks! thats what i did!

[Grace's Mom]

Great 

Hope she does well the rest of the day.

Random: What time does she normally go to bed? 
Does she have any night feeds?

[lumpymonkeytoes]

She'll go to bed between 730 and 930 and typically wakes up for the day at 645-745.  But on average she'll wake up at 7 after 10-11 hours of sleep. (This is before starting easy..which we're starting today   

She has been waking up at 3ish for a night feed and again at 5 but I don't feed her, just used to use a soother to put her back to bed.  I will now use pu pd for the 5 o'clock one but feed her at 3 still.  Once she can fall asleep without being dependent on nursing or the bottle, I'll try to wean the three o'clock feed.  What do you think?

oh yeah, another question if I may? Following the four hour easy when should I be feeding my lo solids?  She takes 2 tsp of cereal in the morning and in the evening.

Does this look ok?

E 7:00 BFeed
A
E rice cereal and wash it down with a couple of swigs of milk
A
S 9:00
Y

E 11:00 BF
A
S 1:00
Y

E 3:00 BF
A
S 5:00 cat nap
Y

E 6:00 cereal and BF
A
S 8:00
Y

DF 10:00
3:30 night feed

[Grace's Mom]

With any routine change (starting EASY, changing A time, etc) it does take some time for their bodies to adjust to the change.  All the work you are going to be putting in now, will make a ton of difference down the road and you'll be so very happy you did it.

I think it's great that you are starting EASY.
It's a wonderful concept and is all about respecting your lo's needs.

When she wakes up at 5am, what is she doing?
Is it at 5am exactly every single night?

When they are on solids, they usually have solids 1 hour after having a milk feed.
But, you can do it 30 minutes after....there are no set rules. It's more about when your lo needs the feed.

How long is your cat nap?
If it goes until 5:30 you'll want to aim for a 7:30 asleep time.
That will help insure that your lo does not get OT.

Your routine looks good...just go into it knowing that those are ideal times and most likely will not happen at those exact times.  You should base things on when your lo woke up last.
For example: Say she napped from 9:00-8:30am...your next nap will be at 10:30am instead of 11:00am since you want to have her asleep by the 2 hour mark instead of having her stay up 30 extra minutes thus possibly stirring up the OT monster, which is no fun to battle. 
I hope that makes sense.

Do you have a good nap routine in place?
That will really help your lo know what to expect and get her body in the mindset that it's nap time.
Nice and quiet and dark, etc. 

Melissa

[lumpymonkeytoes]

Thanks! great advice. 

You ask what she does at 5 am when she wakes up, well for the past two days she hasn't done that (instead she woke up at 6 babbling and smiling) but when she used to do that on a regular basis, she would cry a moany cry (I think mantra, but I'm not 100% sure I know what mantra cry sounds like.) We used to make the mistake of taking her to bed at 5:00 nursing her and getting her back to sleep with us until 7:00.  I haven't been doing that for about 4 weeks now.  Instead, I picked her up, gave her a soother and put her back to bed (which now with EASY and no more soother I will only do pu/pd.)

Thanks for the feedback re the solid food schedule.  I'll try that.

And yes, we have the same nap routine as night time.. get into baby sleeping bag, blinds "good night mr sunshine, see you after my nap, I'm going to sleep now." sitting for a couple of minutes in the chair in the nursery, standing with her for a minute or so and then into the crib with: "time to go to sleep now."

[Grace's Mom]

When she wakes up at 5am or 6am...if she isn't crying I'd leave her be for a bit to see if she'll go back to sleep on her own.

Some lo's also have a natural bio rhythm and tend to be early risers...not that you want to hear that 
At around this age my lo switched from a 7am to a 6am wake up and stayed at around 6am (no matter what we did) until 24 months LOL

If she is up and happy, she's probably had enough night time sleep and is ready for the day.
It's good for them to learn to play by themselves upon waking so just leave her be for a bit.
Since my daughter was an early riser, we'd leave her in there for 30 minutes or longer and to this day she just entertains herself while I get things ready for the day.