A time question

[donna_issabella]

Do you guys go on A time or cues? I know most will say both, and in one so young, cues are probably better than time, but i find DD starts yawning at 30 minutes A time and then I might miss the window if I try and stretch her to 1 hour - resulting in a 30 minute OT nap. But if I put ehr to bed at 45 minutes she will take a 45 minute nap only. Sometimes she will need waking up even though her A time was only 45 minutes, other times I get her to 1 hour and then she still only takes a 45 minute nap.

She has reflux which for the most part I would say is adequately medicated. She goes to bed without any props and falls asleep independantly. Sometimes she stirs and cries out at 45 mintues and then she self settles, other times she wakes up and refuses to go back to sleep even if I try to resettle.

Her EASY looks like this:

Up at 8am - meds
E 830
S I try for 9 am, but like today 850am
Woke her up at 1100am

E - 11am
S - 12pm
Woke up on her own at 150pm

E - 2 pm - was ravenous
S - 250pm
Woke up at 340 pm and did not resettle , so got her up and she was still SO tired.

Generally the rest of her EASY - or what we aim for - looks like this:

Generally she sleeps a little later and then she gets up at 5/530pm, and Eats
S in swing 630-715

Then bath time routine and in bed at 8pm.

DF at 11-1130pm

wakes to feed btw 4-5am (llast night she was a little off, woke at 3am and then again at 4, think she might have been hot, or some tummy trouble)

I think our EASY is mostly OK, I guess my question is do I follow A times or her cues? I guess I just want to know if others have found that following cues only resulted in wonky naps, and if they stuck to A times, they had better success. Or did you also have issues with following A time and then having an OT babe?

I try to keep things low key when she starts to yawn and stretch her out, I remember I had the same issue with Henry, and I thnk once we hit 3 - 4 months, everything clicked and he hit the 2 hours A time and 2 hour naps, but hoping to get 'there' earlier with DD.

Another question is what do you do when your LO wakes up early from a nap and does not want ot go back to sleep and EASY is kind of off for the rest of the day? Do you bring bedtime forward - which I am reluctant to do, as I want to 'set' bedtime in her bio clock.

TIA

[~inbalance~]

I'm probably not the best example but I'll share what we do anyway.  Since it's still early, I'm not too fussy at the moment and try to go with the flow.  I've started keeping one eye on the clock but really I'm going by cues, and if F seems to want to go back to sleep after 30mins then up to bed we go.  But our naps are not sorted yet, so it's hard to tell if I'm doing the right thing.  He doesn't nap longer than 45mins in his bed (will nap up to 2hrs in the wrap though ).

As for our EASY, I basically aim for feeds around the same times every day and whatever happens in between happens.  So sometimes we end up with EASAE if he wakes up and it's not time for a feed.  Usually in the event of an early wakeup, if he was in his bed I will put him in the wrap and he'll finish his nap that way.

A lot of this will change when I start working more towards having most of his naps in bed.  Right now I'm not worrying about it because we are in between houses and all out of sorts, but once we move I'll be concentrating on more bed-naps, in which case I might have to rework my plan. 

Bedtime stays the same no matter what, and that's just because we do both boys routines at the same time after dinner.  So no matter how F's day has been, he always goes to bed at the same time.  Again, this might change a little when I start tweaking and working towards a more solid EASY.  Like you though, I want more or less of a set bedtime, I really think you almost have to have one when you're dealing with another child as well.  So that's something I'll be working towards.

HTH a little, I'm sure others will have more relevent experiences to share! 

[*Liz*]

My LO is too young for me to have figured out yet but I just had 2 thoughts.

If you have only done a short A and got a 30 minnap I wouldn't be so sure it was OT. J confused me for ages with this but a short nap if any length that you cannot extend could be UT.

I never got the yawns to work for me and J - other signs and fussing seemed better but I did a lot if clock watching really.

But you are right - your EASY is pretty good!!

[Guedo]

I mostly go by cues but a bit of clock watching too. I don't go by yawns because sometimes he'll just get done nursing and yawn (only been awake 10 min). When he starts fussing and a change of scene/position doesn't help then I put him to bed. This is usually around a hour.

[donna_issabella]

Guedo, how old is Colin now?

[Guedo]

9 weeks