working on my 4mth olds EASY

[Rogue2009]

My LO is also 4 mo old, his schedule is 4-hr and typically goes from 7:00 AM - 7:30 AM (we have a little hiccup around 6 AM which started recently).  We started EASY when he was about 3 mo old, but he never napped very long during the day.  He would typically wake at 7, go back to bed for 3 hours and then it would be EASY for the rest of the day (but with naps lasting between 45 min to an hour if we were lucky).  My LO is a textbook/angel and so when he turned 4 mo, his sleeping immediately went wonky - he would wake up several times in the night (he typically sleeps through the night).  As a result, we decided to try the 4-hour EASY schedule.  But after two weeks, his sleeping is still very erratic during the day (nights are better now as he's sleeping through again).  I cannot get him to stay up during activity times, particularly the first activity time of the day.  He gets very cranky and I think as a result, he is overtired and his subsequent naps are therefore not lasting long enough, which then makes him tired during his next bout of activity.  Today, I decided to just follow his cues rather than "stick to the schedule" and our day looked like this:

6:00 - 6:30ish - wake, shush/pat back to sleep until 7 AM feeding
7:00 - Eat, he has a full feed but is sleepy afterwards
7:15 - Sleep (1 hr)
8:15 - Wake, Activity time (1 hr)
9:15 - 9:30 - Sleep (1 hr)
10:30 - Wake, some activity to keep him occupied until next feed
11:00 - Eat
11:15 - Activity (2 hr)
12:30 - Sleep (1.5 hr - usually wakes after 30 min and needs to be shush/pat or PU/PD)
2:30 - Wake, some activity to keep him occupied until next feed
3:00 - Eat
3:15 - Activity (1.5 hr - he is usually quite cranky come 4:30ish)
4:45 - Sleep (catnap for 30 min)
5:15 - Activity (1.75 hr)
7:00 - Eat, bath, bedtime story
7:30 - Sleep
11:00 - DF

I don't know what to do about the morning.  I don't want to be a clock watcher (it is stressful!), but for the past two weeks I've been trying to keep my LO up in the morning - it seemed to work at first and I was able to get him to take two 2-hr naps, but in the past week, his naps have been shorter and shorter with him waking up after 30 min, spending 20 min (or more sometimes the whole nap period) doing shush pat or PU/PD while he is literally screaming the whole time (he has stamina!).  It's exhausting and he becomes progressively crankier as the day goes on.  Should I still try to keep him awake in the morning?  He is so obviously tired after the 7 AM feed it seems cruel to force him to stay awake for 2 hours especially as he is really crying to be put down!  Or should I try pushing his schedule back so that I put him down at 8 PM and wake him up at 8 instead of 7?  My worry there is that he will be starving - I think the reason he wakes during the 6 AM time is because he's hungry as he is waking up screaming and will gulp ravenously at the breast when I feed him at 7 (his DF is at 11, so should I push that back an hour too?).  Advice would be much appreciated!!  Thanks also for any insight!

[huntersmummyinoz]

hi and welcome

i suspect the nw that started at 4mths was due to a growthspurt and also a need for more activity time during the day. putting him on a 4hr EASY was probably the right thing to do, but many many bubs cant handle jumping from the 3hr to a 4hr EASY so quickly. the super tiredness during the day is probably because he is a little OT from the routine jump.

try following his cues again for another 2 or 3 days and keep a log. paricularly note what A time he is doing and if he settles quickly for the nap or takes a while to settle, also note if he needs any resettling during a nap. (trying to look for the magic A time that gets him to settle quickly and take a long continuous nap). dont worry about trying to keep him up for 2hrs A like a 4hr EASY routine, just follow his cues, as those naps where he is waking after 30mins and needing help resettling indicate that he is OT (overtired/OT naps are usually 30/35 mins, whereas undertired/UT are usually 45/50mins).

is he lasting 4hrly between feeds or is he getting hungry earlier than that?

when you shh/pat back to sleep until that 7am feeding, is he taking long to settle back to sleep and is he sleeping soundly until 7am or restlessly? would he go straight back to sleep if you fed him on that 6/630 waking and then go straight back to sleep or would he be up for the day?


kirry

[Rogue2009]

Thanks so much for the speedy reply!

I will definitely try following his cues again for the next couple of days and update on his schedule today to see how things are going.

In answer to your questions:

- he is lasting 4 hrs no problem between feeds, he was already going in that direction when he was on his 3 hour routine but at the time I didn't know if I should change it especially since he was sleeping well - it wasn't until he started the NW and his naps were progressively getting worse that I got Tracy's 3rd book and switched him to the 4-hour EASY permanently!

- usually when we shush pat him at 6-6:30, it takes on average about 10-15 min till he's back in deep sleep (it only takes about 5 min for him to quiet down) and then he will usually sleep through till 7 (over the past 2 weeks there has been maybe one day where he didn't go back to sleep and another when he slept a little restlessly).  Today, though, he woke at 6, we got him back down and he slept through till 7:30!  I haven't tried feeding him at 6/6:30 since it's been possible to shush pat him back to sleep fairly easily.  That being said, when he was on his 3 hour schedule, he would wake between 6:30-7:30, I'd feed him and he'd go back to sleep for up to 3 hours (but that changed when he hit 4 mo and his sleeping started becoming erratic).

Thanks!  Look forward to helping my LO have better naps and happier days

[Rogue2009]

Here was Devin's schedule today:

6:00 - wake, shush/pat to sleep (it only took about 15 min)
7:30 - Eat (he woke on his own at this time and had a full feed)
7:45 - Activity (1 hr)
8:45 - Sleep (1 hr)
9:45 - wake, activity (1.25 hr)
11:00 – Sleep (1 hr)
12:00 – Eat
12:15 – Activity (1.5 hr)
1:30 – Sleep (2 hr – had to wake him up at 3:30 since he was still sleeping!)
4:30 – Eat (this was prolonged because we went out and I didn’t feed him until we got to our destination)
4:45 – Activity (1 hr)
5:30 – Sleep (30 min catnap – he was super tired)
8:00 – Eat, bath
8:30 – Bedtime
12:00 - Dreamfeed

[huntersmummyinoz]

ok, if he is going back to sleep easily with sh/pat in the morning then stick with what you are doing.

routine actually doesnt look too bad, prob just need to work on gradually extending his A times as he took a really long nap after 1.5hrs A time. some bubs do better with A time increases in 5 min amounts (my LO was touchy so this worked great for him) - once he shows tired signs, extend with a low key/quiet activity like a walk around the house or garden, look at a book, sing some songs, cuddle with a soft toy, etc for just 5 mins, then straight into his room for wind down and sleep. gradually overtime he will start to handle longer A times, but keep doing the gentle extension til he gets to around 1.5hrs A time again - and hopefully he will start to nap a little longer too.

if he keeps being super tired for that first A time, then just work on extending the other A times in the day as many bubs have a shorter first A time of the day.

also, if he is happily going 4hrs between feeds then just stick with that for now, it's fine to do AEAS for a while. many bubs increase their time between feeds before they can handle the longer A times to go with, but give it a month or two and hopefully it will all fall into a 4hr EASY routine.


the only thing that jumps out in the routine is his last A time is really long, 2.5hrs from catnap. aim for in bed no later than 2hrs after catnap, maybe even 1.5hrs as it's only a short catnap. so bedtime around 7/7.30 and prob bring df to 11pm.

HTH let me know if you have any more Qs

[Rogue2009]

Sounds good!  I will try to extend A by 5 min - and see how that goes and look at shortening his last A time - it is definitely hard to keep him up during that last A time since it's so long.

Question - if he wakes up after an hour from a nap and is crying, how long should I try shush pat before giving up?  Today for example, he woke up at 8, fed, actually stayed up till 10, went to sleep and woke at 11 after only an hour of napping.  But when he woke at 11, we shush patted for 30 min and he was just screaming so I decided to give up and try to do some low-key activities until 12 when he would feed.  But he was so cranky he kept crying and was hard to settle down.  I've found that PU/PD doesn't work well with Devin.  As soon as I pick him up, if I try putting him down when he quiets, he will scream and every PU/PD I do after that gets worse to the point that when I pick him up, he won't actually stop crying (I think he knows that if he stops crying that I will put him down) at the same time, like today, it was clear that he was still tired and really did need to get back to sleep since he wouldn't settle down.  Any suggestions?

Thanks again for your insight!

[huntersmummyinoz]

hi hun, to be honest i gave up extending any nap that was 1hr or longer. 1hr+ nap is usually restorative enuf for them to handle their usual A time afterwards. i would always try and extend a nap that was under an hour tho, as at your LOs age, short naps can be from OT (usually wake after 30/35 min) or UT (usually around 45 mins). tho around 3 to 5mths many LOs also have trouble transitioning to the next sleep cycle and need to be taught how with shh/pat, typically wake around 45/50min mark for this.

so... if you have some success with shh/pat to extend his naps that are longer than 1hr, then go for it. but if you are finding he rarely extends as i did then i'd just get him up. i think he is prob napping for that length cos he needs slightly longer A times and you can rarely extend an UT nap. that could be why PU/PD isnt working either and he is just getting cranky because he wants to get up.

if he does wake earlier than the next feed time then do exactly as you did, low key A until the next E. i also used to do quiet time in his cot until the next E was due if it was only 20/30 mins away - so keep lighting low (i used to put his night light on, as if i kept it dark he would get all worked up), put his mobile on, play with some soft toys, etc.