10 week old ready to transition to 3.5hr EASY?

[b0nni3]

my lo is 10 weeks old and weighs about 16 lbs by now (has been 98th percentile for weight for the first 8 weeks, and we haven't weighed him since then but we think he's still pretty much up there for weight). he has been on a 3 hour feeding schedule that looks somewhat like EASY but his nap times have started getting shorter (often they will be 45 mis long, esp the afternoon ones; the first morning nap is generally 1.5 hrs long). He also doesn't seem to be terribly hungry at his 3 hourly feeds, though sometimes he's hungry after 2.5 hours and sometimes he doesn't seem to care if he hasn't been fed for 3.5 or even 4 hours. He hasn't slept through the night yet but he has gone 6 hours between feeds several times now. I'm just wondering if there's something we should be doing differently with the routine, as I *think* he should be capable of sleeping through the night now given his weight.

I am confused about the transitioning, and increasing A times. I watch for tiredness cues so I put him down when he starts to rub his eyes and is cranky. If I increase A times, doesn't it make him overtired and not nap as well? Can you explain to me the relationship between A times and S times? (i.e. you said increasing their A times should lengthen their naps.)

My lo doesn't really ever stay awake for more than 1.5 hours, except in the evenings when he can be awake for even 2.5 hours! Is this a sign of needing to transition to a 3.5 hr routine?

I try to implement the standard 3-hour EASY but usually the afternoon naps are short (45 mins to an hour); sometimes my LO wakes up grumpy but other times he wakes up happy and just wants to play.

Here's the routine we try to follow with varying degrees of success. Feeds are usually 15 mins long, breastfed exclusively, and fed on one side only per feed:
E/A 8-9:15am
S 9:15-11am (sometimes he wakes at 10:45 and I just let him chill before the next feed)
E/A 11am-12:30am
S 12:30-2pm but often wakes up at around 1:15
A/E/A: A from 1:15 onwards, E at 2pm for 15 mins, A until 2:45 or so
S 2:45 or 3-ish until around 5 but will wake up at least once
E/A 5-6:30
S 6:30-7:15 or so
A 7:15-8pm including bath
E/A 8 - 10pm (!!!)
S 10pm ish and down for the night
He feeds again at around 11:45 and at some point between 3-4:30am.

I've tried cluster feeding in the evenings for a few days but he still wakes up in the middle of the night. We've tried to dream feed but he doesn't respond to that at all (he just sleeps even if I try to wiggle my nipple into his mouth!).

So I guess my questions are:

1. Does it look like my LO is ready to transition into a 3.5 hour EASY?
2. The long period of awakeness (and good mood) at night - can I do something about it so he's not awake, alert, and wants our attention when we want time to ourselves?
3. Short naps - is it because of too short of A times? But he shows tiredness cues - do I just ignore them for an extra 10 minutes or something?
4. Night feeds - how do you know if he's really hungry? Because he has gone long stretches without feeds (6+ hours) and has occasionally even slept for 6+ hours, I don't know if it's hunger or if it's a sleep issue.

I would appreciate your thoughts!

[m1ch3ll3]

Hi Bonnie,
I'm not expert at this, but just thought that I would share that my lo has a very similar EASY and I am wondering the same thing. She is almost 11 wks old and weighs almost 14 lbs, and she also can go 6 hrs + at night (although not every night). She has suddenly started the 45 minute naps in the last week and a half, and doesn't seem overly hungry at the 3 hr mark. I am debating switching to a 3.5 hr EASY, but like your lo, she only spends about 1.5 hrs awake based on her sleep cues.
My lo also stays awake from 8pm until sometimes 11pm when I feed her again and put her down for the night. This can definitely be difficult when you want to spend some quality time with your spouse. We've started putting her in the swing for a bit around 9pm as part of her windown (kind of AP, I know) but I'm hoping it'll help her start to get sleepy sooner in the evening.
The short naps were definitely a sudden change, as she used to take great long naps during the day, so I'm thinking it's got to be related to her EASY routine or developmental or something. I think I might try increasing the A time, as you say above, by about 10 minutes at a time and see what happens.
Let me know how things go for you!

[b0nni3]

Hey Michelle,

Yeah, I've just started tweaking the schedule a little bit today and will report in a couple of days

I wanted to ask if anyone else has experience of your LO being ready for a 3.5 (or longer) EASY but exhibits tiredness cues before the appropriate time. E.g., my LO definitely can last 3.5 hours between feeds, but his awake time is about 1.5 hours max (and once a day it can be up to 2 or 2.5). Should I keep him on a 3 hour EASY (to accomodate for the awake time) or transition to 3.5 hour EASY (to accomodate for the eating)?

[charmie]

I would accomodate the sleep rather than the feeds.  Better feeding more often to get those calories in during the day, and get enough sleep so baby doesn't get OT.


xxx
charm

[b0nni3]

Hi Charmie,
Thanks. In another thread I've been asking about bedtimes at 7. Today is the first day we've tried a 3.5 hour EASY so we'll see how the night goes. But one of the things I've been trying to tackle is his bed time. LO has been (until today) on a 3 hour EASY since about 5 weeks old. We have found, however, that he is just wide awake after the 7pm feed and doesn' want to go to sleep. Basically we have had to have him awake after the 7pm feed until around 9pm before he would go down for the night (many, many, many nights of him wide awake in cot and crying because he wants to play; refused to be settled for sleep - he'd just blink and stare at us). I thought one way change that late bed time to an earlier one (so DH and I can get the evenings back to ourselves) was to tweak the routine. When we were on a 3 hourly EASY (E/A at 7am, 10am, 1pm, 4pm, 7pm, and 10pm; S usually 1.5 hrs after E) his naps after the 1pm and 4pm feeds were always short - he'd just wake up and be happy and want to play. He thus gets about 4.5 hrs of nap time before 7pm. Since he'd want to stay up to play after the 7pm feed I figured maybe he was getting too much sleep during the day. Sometimes his first morning nap would be 2 hours long.

what might be contributing to my LO  being so alert and happy and awake after 7? We really would like our evenings back before TOO long! Is it normal for babies to exhibit this behaviour? Do they grow into an earlier bed time at some point?

[charmie]

Can you post your routine please?


xxx
charm

[b0nni3]

Hi Charm,

I've posted his very general (no two days are the same, sigh) 3-hour EASY above. Yesterday I tried to follow the 3.5 hourly one in the EASY Forum, from the thread that about transitioning by 5 min increments from 3 to 4 hourly EASY. (E+A for 1.45 hrs, S for 1.45 hrs) It wasn't very successful.

Yesterday ended up looking something like this:

Wake+E+A: 7-9 (Yay! The first time ever that he has been awake for 2 hours in the morning).
S: 9-10:30 - I had to wake him up, he wasn't too pleased.
E/A: 10:30-11:15
S: 11:15-12:45, at which point I tried to wake him up when he was moving between sleep cycles beecause I didn't want him napping for so long in the day. He was really grumpy.
A (and grumpy) 12:45-1:20 Daddy came home for lunch and we both decided he was tired, so we put him down for another nap.
S: 1:20-2:15 (i watched him move into light sleep and called his name; he opened his eyes and woke up)
E/A 2:15-3:45 Awake and happy
S: 3:50-4:35
A/E/A: 4:35-5:50
S: 6:15-7 (was trying to keep this real short. I didn't think he was done with the day at 6:15 so thought maybe a little nap might tide him over for another feed/awake period)
A+Bath+E+: 7-8:15
Bedtime: 8:30-ish we put him down. However, he didn't settle until 9:15, and then at 9:30 he woke up with a dirty diaper (shoot!).
Unfortunately, on and off again from about 10pm till 2am he was waking.
Night feeds: 11:15-11:35pm and 5-5:15pm

Total number of feeds in 24 hours: 7
Total napping time: approx 5h20m (4 naps)

He managed fine being fed every 3.5 hours. Unfortunately he can't really manage the 1 3/4 hr awake time in the 3.5-hourly EASY. When we were on vacation over Xmas he was fed every 2.5 to 3.5 hours (depending on where we were, what we were doing, etc), followed by some awake time (usually 1 1/4 to 1 1/2 hours), and followed by some nap time (anywhere between 3/4 hrs and 1 1/2 hours). I didn't mind the unpredictability of the naps - not knowing when the long one(s) would be and when the short one(s) would be - since we were on vacation. But now we are back and I am having to do some part time work, and it will be really nice to get a better sense of when nap times would be and for how long.

I just don't know whether the transition is a promising one in terms of a) adjusting his bedtime so it's a little earlier, and b) beginning to wean him off one of the night feeds, which I think he is ready for metabolically.

It's about 11:30am here right now and so far the morning has looked like this:

Lights on at 7; he didn't wake up till 7:30 despite being unswaddled, having his name called out, even picking him up; he was just limp in my arms until 7:30!
E+A: 7:30-9:10 (he was awake, but then was very sleep immediately after the feed and napped for 10 mins before he fully "woke up")
S: 9:10-10:50 (I fell asleep too b/c I was so tired, and didn't get him out of bed till 10:50)
E: 10:55-11:10. He has been really sleepy after this feed too - he's in his bouncy chair half asleep as I type.

Here are some of my thoughts and concerns and would love your feedback or even just some experience or encouragement about:

1. I just don't know whether I'm fighting a losing battle with the LO's body clock. It feels like nothing really works! I am no more certain of his schedule now than when he was 4, 6, 8 weeks old. There's just no knowing what he'll do.

2. He has _no_ trouble going down for naps if I observe tiredness cues - as in, he will be laid down, and asleep in about 8 minutes. So when we put him down for the night and he doesn't go to sleep, we know it's because he's not tired. Are babies supposed to be tired by that time of night?

3. All of this has led me to think maybe I should try the 3.5  hourly EASY, but again he can't seem to manage that much A time. It throws the schedule off when his A time is shorter than stated in the schedule, and if we were to keep to schedule he needs to have longer S time to compensate to make up the 3.5 hours. However, he doesn't need that much sleep so he wakes up early from his naps and then he is awake but can't hold out until the next stated S time. I also wonder if the three 1 3/4 hr naps combined (totalling 5.5 hours) will eat into his nighttime sleep.

4. I just don't know whether I should choose the EASY that accomodates to his A times (3 hourly, since he can only manage 1.5 hrs of A time), or whether I should choose the EASY that accomodates to his E capabilities (definitely able to be fed every 3.5 hours) as well as some of his 45 min naps (esp the ones when he wakes up happy and ready to go!)

4. So basically our son has almost always done 4 daily naps (instead of 3) before he would go to bed and stay in bed - at around 9-10pm, sometimes even at 11 (over Xmas his night sleep was from about 10:45pm till 8am since we all slept in; he'd wake up naturally at arond 8.). If we tried to make him go to bed earlier, he's just wide awake. We've tried to move everything forward slowly but it hasn't work - he just resists it.

I don't know whether or not to just give up and leave him be!! When I try to get him on the routine it's hard for everyone - I'm tired (and feeling discouraged) and he's grumpy, he doesn't sleep at night and I feel like we're fighting him all the time!

Bonnie

[b0nni3]

P.S. He has been asleep for an hour since his feed (no A time) - could this be due to the fact that he didn't really go to sleep until 2am last night? What do you do when that happens? (I'm sure it'll happen again when other things happen, like when he gets his first round of vaccinations)

I also wondered about your thoughts on some other "schedules" out there; for example, I read one where there are 3 naps, 1 short in the morning, a long lunchtime one, and a short one in the late afternoon. (i.e. not in EASY, but more like EASA at some times and EAS at other times.)

I'm just desperate to know what to expect from my son so I can plan my day around him! Nowadays I can't plan anything!

[charmie]

I think he was probably OT, as the last 2 naps were not long enough.  I would let him catch up on some sleep today.  Wake him for his feeds but keep a times short and quiet.

As for other type of routines, I don't know what to tell you, cause I never tried them out.

I'm just desperate to know what to expect from my son so I can plan my day around him! Nowadays I can't plan anything!

I know how it feels.  But only he can tell you what you can expect from him.  Have you ever tried to follow EASY without looking at the clock?  Just do E, then A , and when he shows you he's tired you do the S.  And so on...


xxx
charm

 

[aimeeL]

Bonnie - I'm definitely no expert at this, as my LO is just almost 12 wks old.. but wanted to add my few cents anyways, and you can do as you please with them.. =)

I have been having somewhat similar issues... my LO was taking longer naps 1.25 - 2 hrs, but recently started waking up after 30-45 min... granted, DH and I have both gone back to work - and are taking her with us - and also just come back from vacation, so I know there were a lot of changes going on, BUT - I read a GREAT post somewhere in the Naps archives about how right around 12 wks, LOs start to have problems transitioning through their sleep cycles.. I'm going to try to find that post again and link it here, but in the meantime.. it had to do with babies about this age startling right at 45 min, and how you can help them get back to sleep by applying gentle pressure on their legs to help them with that transition.. I've been trying that for the last 4 days, and it's worked BRILLIANTLY... her naps are back to 1.25-1.5 hrs... DON'T know if this will help your situation, because if i"m reading right, he hasn't really napped that long in the afternoons ever?  But anyways - thought I'd throw that in so you could try if you wanted..

Also - I also posted awhile ago - I think she might have been 7-8 wks about her late bedtime.. Liana just seems to be a little night owl.. not going to bed until 10:30-11 p.m and I, too, was wanting some alone time with DH... the responses I got was that it's perfectly normal - and common - for babies this age to not sleep until that late... that early bedtimes would come later... so I haven't been fighting to get her in by 8 p.m anymore.. because - like you said - she'd either scream, or just lay there, staring at us... And we've all been much happier now that our evenings aren't spent fighting with her... I just moved her bath time a little later and reconciled myself to the fact that she'd be up and we'd just play with her in the evenings... that having been said, though, the last 3 days, she's been taking her clusterfeed at 8 p.m. and nodding off to sleep on that... before, I would put her down, which would wake her, and she'd be up again until the last feed at 10-ish p.m.. but these last couple nights, I've just held her, and she's slept up until 10 p.m., and then after that last feed, where she's pretty much asleep anyways, we just put her down and she's down for the night.  Obviously, I don't want to have to hold her every evening for those 2 hrs, BUT - I'm hoping that that might lead to being able to swaddle her at 8 p.m, put her down, and then DF at 10 p.m.... we'll see...

Anyways.. good luck!!!

[aimeeL]

One more thing... just wanted to add that I, too, thought my LO might be ready for a 3.5 EASY, because she was waking early from naps and then I had an hr to kill before I wanted to feed her again... BUT - (again this is based only on this last wk's experience!!), since I've gotten her to sleep longer, she's been doing much better... so I think, in our case, it was more a matter of her being OT and her schedule being off as opposed to needing/wanting to go longer between feeds...