Sample EASY schedule for an 8-month old? Confused...

[pelusa214]

I'm just starting on EASY now at 8 months, but I'm confused about a 4-hour EASY.  If my DD is supposed to be staying up for 2.5-3 hours before sleeping at this age, that means she only gets a 1-1.5 hour nap twice a day, right?  But then if she's too old to be taking a catnap, her last stretch of A time is going to be 4 hours long?? Very confused...

[Mashi]

Our routine at 8 months is:

wake 620ish and come to play in our bed until 645 ish

E 700, solids 745
A
S 845 for one hour
A
E 1100, solids 1145
A
S 1230 for two hours (sometimes a bit more, sometimes a bit less)
A
E 300, solids 400
bath 530
E 600
up to bed, asleep 630

Our first nap is earlier in the mornings, he just can't stretch that long. And, I notice if he sleeps anything longer than an hour, then he's still tired for his nap at about 1230, but won't sleep longer than an hour-ish, which mucks up the whole afternoon and evening, so I usually wake him by being noisy downstairs after an hour or so.

HTH

[jana224]

Hey Pelusa,
Since the 4 hour EASY is introduced at 4 months (with the plan that baby does 2 hours awake, 2 hours asleep), it gets modified by 8 months... Your baby might be able to handle 3 hours of awake time, but still need to nap for 1.5-2 hours, so you could end up with a 4.5-5 hour EASY.  Basically the Eating gets stretched out as they do longer A times.  But you still want to see good naps.

Our example 8 month EASY:

7am - BF
8/8:30am - breakfast
9/9:30am  - S
11am - BF
12/12:30pm - lunch
2pm - BF
2:30pm - S
4pm - snack
5:30pm - dinner
6:30 - bath
7pm - BF and bed

[pelusa214]

That looks much like our schedule today, only she was up at 6 am instead of 7.
She took a 1h50m nap, then a 1h45m nap.  She woke from her last nap at 3:10 and by bedtime she was OUTRAGEOUSLY tired.  From 4:30 until bed, she was clingy, whining & crying nonstop unless I carried her around.  I took forever to get her down, too, she was so restless, despite almost 1/2 hour wind-down time.  Why can't she stay awake as long as she's supposed to?  But then she wakes in the middle of the night & stays up for an hour, as if she's getting TOO much sleep!

[jana224]

When she wakes at 6am, any chance you can feed her and put her straight back to bed?
Also, some 8 month olds are still doing 2 naps plus a catnap...  So, if you find her tired at 4:30pm, I'd put her down for a quick 20-30 minute snooze to tide her over until bedtime.  It's only when they can do a full 3 hours of A time that the catnap dissolves.  Alternatively, put her to bed earlier if she's cranky but it's not bedtime.  This week I've had to put DD down at 6pm once and 6:15 another day because she was so tired... she just slept right through to normal waking time.  For us it was better than dealing with OT, which can create the night waking you are experiencing where they are awake in the middle of the night.

What time were her naps? 

Jana

[pelusa214]

Normally she wakes around 7, but she sttn last night (which has only happened a handful of times since she was born), so I don't know if she got up an hour earlier because she didn't spend an hour awake in the middle of the night?  Also, I thought about feeding her, but then that would screw up the EASY sequence, wouldn't it?
Her day went like this:
6-7 am - woke & mommy tried to rock her back to sleep
7:15 - bottle
7-8 mommy took a shower while she played in the bouncy seat
8:15 am - solids
8:40-10:30 - nap
11:15 - bottle
12:00 - solids
1:30-2:50 - nap, then mommy rocked while she dozed until 3:10
3:30 - bottle
5:45 - attempt at solids (she screamed when I tried to put her in the high chair at 5)
6:30 - wind-down, story, bottle
7:15 - asleep

It's still quite light here at 7:15 and although we have blackout shades AND a towel on the window, a little light filters in & I know she notices it.  She also just whined & cried basically from 4:30 on.

I don't know why, but as the day goes on she seems to be lasting less & less time between sleep before she starts rubbing her eyes, staring and getting cranky.  In the morning it's 2 1/2-3 hours, but by 1-1.5 hours after the 1st nap, she's rubbing her eyes again.  And an hour after the 2nd nap is the same thing.  But getting her down for that catnap is like pulling teeth.  I tried 3 times the other day before giving up!

I just don't know what to do....there is no pattern, no rhyme or reason to why she randomly sttn!

[jana224]

I treat anything before 7am as a night feeding, so I feed her and put her back to bed.  Then if she wakes again 1-2 hours later, I feed her again (she takes much less of course) but that way we are starting the day on E.  Or, sometimes if she has milk at 7am, but sleeps till 8am, then when she gets up I give her breakfast, and then milk again just before her nap.  I've found that as their A times get longer, EASY sometimes gets switched around to EAES, so that she isn't waking in the middle of her nap to eat.  But that's also when my DD does 3.5 hours of A time...

A few questions for you:
-when she woke at 6am and then napped at 8:40am, does that mean she was awake the whole time?  If so, maybe she needs an earlier nap in the morning, like 7:45-8am?
-her afternoon nap of 1.5 hours was a good nap, did you try to extend it because she woke up crying/unhappy?
-do you think she'd be more likely to take a short catnap at dinner if her afternoon nap had been a bit shorter?