Activity Time for 6 week old - help

[mel-bel]

Hi all, I've got a 6 week old and I'm trying to do the 3 hour EASY - problem is that after she's had her bottle and been changed she usually wants to go straight back to sleep which means she ends up sleeping for 2 hours - then when it is bed time in the evening at 7/8pm she is wide awake because she's slept too much during the day.  Mmmm - now I'm reading this I'm not sure if this should be in the sleep bit - oh dear - VERY confused.  Think I'll post there too!! 

[mel-bel]

Oh dear - you aren't allowed to post on two boards - hope someone can help me here!!

[RachelC]

I am going to pop this over to the EASY board.

[rbeetle]

Hi, I have no answers for you I'm afraid, just letting you know that we are in the same boat!!

We have a 5 week old, I have no idea how long he is "meant" to be awake, as after I change his nappy, and sometimes thats even too much, he wants to sleep!!  So I'm kinda winging it and waiting for him to be happy to be awake!  Rather than have him overtired and flailing about all over the place - this has happened a few times!

I have a 2 year old daughter aswell, I remember her being awake ALOT, but that was because she was diagnosed with extreme colic - she would scream every evening for 6-7 hours! hard work doesn't quite cover it!!

But they are all different.  As I said I'm waiting for the time to come for him to want to be awake.  Can anyone say if this is wrong?

He sleeps ok at night, have the odd blip every few days, as he wakes up in the evening and doesn't know how to go back to sleep, or like early this morning he woke about 5, not for food, he wasn't hungry he was cold!  Got out of his swaddle, the little wriggler!!

any suggestions anyone?

[mel-bel]

Well the last two days I seem to have spent a lot of time out and so baby doesn't sleep properly and keeps waking up and so she goes to bed nicely at night - not sure if this is okay but its working for me! 

[jennandsophie]

Babies this age still sleep quite a lot during the day so don't try to keep them up for too long or they might get overtired and then you'll really have a hard time getting them to sleep. 

Do you have your baby on a routine?  Obviously, she can't stay up for very long yet, so you can try for maybe a 2.5hr routine whereby he's awake for an hour (including feed) and then asleep for 1.5hrs and the routine repeats until bedtime.  Go on the EASY FAQ section for some sample routines.  You will want to slowly stretch her awake time a little bit until she's up for 1.5hrs and then down for 1.5hrs and it's a 3hr routine.  She will likely stay on that until she's about 4-5 months when it becomes a 4hr routine.

What's great about the EASY routine is that you know your baby is feeding reguarly and well and you're teaching them to take proper long naps that are much more restortative than short catnaps.  Napping well will become really crucial as your baby gets older.