Four month old struggling with 3 hour EASY

[Neen]

I have a 4 month old who has yet to master the 3 hour EASY.  Our schedule:

E 7:00
A 7:30
S 8:00

E 10:00
A 10:30
S 11:00

E 1:00
A 1:30
S 2:00-2:30

Here is where we start to fall apart.  I am unable to push the activity past one hour because then she becomes OT and the day spirals down hill.  She goes down with no trouble first two naps and sleeps a full two hours.  However, she has slept soooo much by lunch time, it is very difficult to get to sleep and/or stay asleep until next feeding (that would mean another two hour nap).  

Sleeps well at night between four to six hour stretches.  I have tried extending wake times by five to ten minute intervals with no success.  Any extending = OT.  No medical issues that I am aware of.   No props used.  Put down awake. 

In the afternoons, routine turns into:
E 1:00
A 1:30
S 2:00
A 3:00 (she will wake up happy)
E 4:00 (now basicly fed to sleep - not intentional)

next problem...now has three hours until next feed!
Thanks

[trimbler]

Hiya,
Two thoughts for you, what do you think?

(i) Why not try extending the wake times again? Or did you do this very recently? I would only extend one at a time, though, and if she's really sensitive to OT then only by 5mins. Maybe try the first A time to begin with, although as I know my DS always preferred a slightly shorter first A time, you could start with the second if you think that would be better for your DD. I agree it does sound like she's slept a lot by lunch time, and that may well be why she struggles to have a good long sleep after lunch.

(ii) Don't worry about a strict feeding schedule. EASAE is fine, if she's not hungry when she wakes, although I agree it's probably not such a good idea to plan to feed to sleep. However I wouldn't really worry about that too much if she usually gets to sleep by herself, sounds like you're doing REALLY well on that front You could always bring that 4pm feed forward so that she's not going straight from feed to sleep. What happens after that? Does she cat-nap? Lots of babies cat-nap and cluster feed in the evening, so don't worry about waiting a full 3h until the evening feed.

[Neen]

Thanks for the encouragement.  I am going to try your advice of extending only one nap at a time - starting with the 2nd nap.  My LO is preferring to cluster feed in the evening, but again I was trying to extend her feed times into a three hour time frame so we could transition to the four hour feed times.  However, it sounds like I should go back to cluster feeding.  Thanks for the help. 

[trimbler]

Hope you see some encouraging signs soon I think we kept 'clustering' feeds in the evening until DS was on two naps and three solid meals! Not that that will be right for every LO, but I certainly don't think it did him any harm.