I'm at my wits end with dd's day schedule!

[lizzymac99]

Hello all, this is my first post - I have no idea what to do about my dd's days.  I have read the book but just can't fathom how to apply it to her.  She is going to be 16 weeks old this monday and is a tiny little thing, about 10.5 lbs now.  Very hard to feed and a very distracted eater.  Sometimes it takes me her whole awake time to get what she needs into her, and I am still feeding her right before winding down to sleep.  She is also a 40 minute catnapper with rare exception which makes it very difficult as I am BF her only at night or early morning and then pumping and bottle feeding her the rest of the day.  Her catnaps are spent pumping and getting milk ready for next time.  Once in a blue moon she will throw in a longer nap but there is no rhyme or reason to it, it can sometimes be in the morning and sometimes in the afternoon, and if it's not 40 mins it can be anywhere from 1 hour to 3 hours and everything in between.

She has also been STTN since about 2 months (she did this on her own) and generally now goes to bed at 7pm and sleeps til about 6 am give or take.  This means that I have to get all her calories in during the day, and with the catnaps and the trouble eating large amounts we are currently on a 2 hour cycle... this is also because at this age she seems to be getting tired about 1 to 1 1/4 hours after she wakes up.  She has very subtle tired signs but sometimes will yawn, other times I just notice that she's quieter and watch the clock.  As for settling to sleep at naps we have a short routine of changing diaper, turning off the dim light, swaddling while I tell her is sleepytime soon, then sit in rocking chair for a few minutes until she looks drowsier.  Then she may talk or fuss a little and settle herself to sleep w/in 10 mins - rarely she will still "fight" a nap and cry and need to be reassured, and even more rarely this doesn't work and we have to give up on that nap (this is almost always the last nap of the day).

Anyway she will wake after napping for 40 mins, then I spend much of the next hour or more trying to get her to eat, then try to have a bit of tummy time or whatever and then wind her down, this happens for 5 naps a day right now and I don't know how or when I can get past this??  She is on a 2 HOUR easy pretty much and it is anything but easy

Some friends of mine have said that the catnapping thing is age related and she will eventually grow out of it? I know by about 6 months they are supposed to be napping only 2 to 3 times a day and can stay awake longer, but how will I know how to do this or when she is ready for this?  I feel really down and trapped by her schedule right now as I don't have time to ever leave the house with her or get anything done.  Me time ONLY occurs when she surprises me with a random longer nap.  I keep thinking that 80 or 90 more days of this until she's 6 months will be enough to send me over the edge...

Any advice or encouragement is welcome, I just don't know what to do... she wakes up from each of these 40 min naps smiling and ready to play - never grumpy or upset...

Thanks in advance

[Ima shel Alon]

Hi and hugs, I know how hard it is, have a bad napper myself at home
Can I ask why is she on 2h EASY? Does she seem hngry to you after two hours? At this age she should be able to last at least 3h between feeds.
If I understand right you don't have a problem at night and you don't have a problem with her putting herself for a nap, it's just the short napping, isn't it?
Have you tried shh/pat to put her back to sleep? W2S to extand naps?
What would happen if when she wakes up after 40min and she is happy, you'll give her A time till the next feed (three hours from the last feed)?
Can you describe how are you feeding her, do you do it in the sitting room where people are around or in a quiet space, is there a lot of noise where you live...
You're not alone, we'll try to help as much as we can!

[Shiv52]

Can you post what your day looks like in E (eat) A (activity) S (sleep) format so I can take a look?

{{{{hugs}}}  At this stage if she is short napping I do think you just have to go for it and get out of the house.  Feed her and then go out.  Let her nap in the buggy and then feed her out and head back for next nap.  If you are only doing it every couple of days it will be fine.  I honestly feel you have to get out and about or you'd go mad.  But thats just my opinion!

Have you tried BFing in the day?   Would that help?  Or are you wanting to stick with bottle feeding?  Just means the little time she might sleep you would have to yourself rather than pumping.  Is she showing hunger signs at the 2 hour mark?

Short naps definately can be developmental but often you can tweak things to help so I'll look at your EASY and see if anything stands out. I do think she is needing more A time and that is contributing to the short naps. 

[lizzymac99]

I guess what is keeping me (and her) on this ridiculous 2 hour schedule is the fact that she will only stay awake for 1 1/4 hours at this stage, and then only sleeps for 40 mins... and then I try to feed her each time she is awake which is every 2 hours.  Also she only seems to want to take 4 oz per feed (sometimes less) no matter what I try.  It's just me and her here during the days so she is fed in quiet without any distractions but she still finds them... for example stopping to stare up at me and coo or smile.  It's cute and maddening all at once

I have tried BF her during the day but she is not interested as my supply gets lower and lower as the day progresses and isn't that great until night or early morning (I also have issues with supply and am taking medication for this).  If I try and nurse her when I am not "full" she won't even try and will often just bite down on me.  I nurse her first thing in the morning when I have a lot of milk and she does awesome, its the rest of the feeds in the day that she does poorly at.

I haven't tried any of the nap extending tricks consitently as I am usually scrambling to pump while she sleeps and store my milk or get a bottle ready for her next feed.  I think that if she did learn to nap longer she would wake up hungry and maybe eat better and eat more, but at the same time she is so so tiny that I wonder if her tummy can even handle more than 4 oz a feed?  I just don't know what to do at this point - I want to be home so that she gets quality sleep but at the same time I feel like I am under house arrest...   

This is what a typical day looks like (not exactly it varies as sometimes she goes down for a sleep a bit earlier or later give or take ten mins):

Awake at 6:00am
E 6:10
A 6:00 - 7:15
S 7:15 - 8:00
E 8:10 (but often takes almost an hour)
A 8:00 - 9:15
S 9:15 - 10:00
E 10:10 (like pulling teeth)
A 10:00 - 11:15
S 11:15 - 12:00
E 12:10
A 12:00 - 1:15pm
S 1:15 - 2:00
E 2:10
A 2:00 - 3:15
S 3:15 - 4:00
E 4:10
A 4:00 - 6:30 (do her bath around 6 pm and then feed her again at 6:15 pm)
S by about 7pm give or take depending on how long she talks to herself before falling asleep.

[lizzymac99]

Oh yes and one more thing... since she wakes up bright eyed and smiling from each of these 40 min naps what would I do then to try and extend them?  The shhh / pat would be appropriate if she woke up crying or grouchy I imagine, and I have thought about using W2S but haven't had time to read up more on it yet.  I also have this (irrational?) fear that if I use W2S and somehow do it wrong that she will all of a sudden start having even shorter naps!

Also does anyone know why she would do short naps 95% of the time when the other 5% when she naps longer this shows me that she is well able to self soothe and extend her own naps past 40 mins without my help?  arghhhhhh!

[Ima shel Alon]

I might be wrong, but it sounds to me as if she is not eating well, or distracted while eating because she is not hungry. It's not normal for a LO her age to go two hours between feeds. But yet again, she is very small... did you talk to your GP about it? Is her weight gain good?
Perhaps you can try that when she wakes up from her nap to do some low qey A time till the next feed, which will be three hours from the last one and see if she eats better then.

Here are some things you can read about extanding naps:

http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=649.0
http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=85499.0

Hang in there, it will get better (so they say:))

[Shiv52]

How many oz is she taking in a day?  If shes taking 4oz or so 2 hourly I think she's getting lots of milk.  Will be back to look at your EASY in a tick x

[Shiv52]

It's not normal for a LO her age to go two hours between feeds.

I get the impression you are feeding simply because she has woken?  And you are sticking to the EAS format?  It is totally ok if you have a short napper for your EAS to look more like EASAEAS until the naps lengthen out.  So even if she wakes early you can still wait until its been three hours since her last feed to offer your next one.

But yet again, she is very small... did you talk to your GP about it? Is her weight gain good?

I think her weight gain is totally fine TBH.  Yes she is on the lower end of the percentiles.  My DD2 was only an oz heavier at her 16 weeks check and i have never had any concerns about her weight gain. 

How many oz is she taking in a day?  If she's getting 4oz every 2 hours ish that is actually loads. 

[lizzymac99]

In total she takes in about 23 to 24 oz... its approx 4 oz every 2 hours but only in the day so 6 times... she STTN and doesn't wake to eat, when she was younger we tried waking her to feed or DF but she wouldn't.  She was in such a deep sleep it wouldn't work with BF or bottle.  That's how I get confused as to how to get it all into her so I end up feeding her each time she wakes.  This morning she did a random 1.5 hour nap for her second nap of the day!?  I can't figure out how to make these random gems a regular occurance.  Her weight gain is steady but very slow... about 3 oz a week.  She started out at a great weight at birth at 7 lbs 5 oz but we had a setback early on when I didn't realize my milk supply was low and we were exclusively BF so she lost weight at week 2 to 3... ever since then its been very slow but steady.

One book I borrowed from a friend *claims* that babies learn to sleep longer at 4 to 6 months of age... I just feel desperate right now though and that seems so far away...  Thanks for all the replies so far.  Maybe I should try to not feed her at each awake period and then she may take more the next feed?  I just worry about her getting enough in...