EASY confusion

[loula]

Hi all im new to this but soo glad i came across this forum. I dont know personally of anyone else using the EASY technique so ive been feeling a little lost! No more i hope?! I started the EASY routine when my daughter was 5 days old and she took to it amazingly! I couldnt believe how easy (excuse the pun) it was to have a newborn. She Fed, played, and slept exactly how it was predicted she would. As im breasfeeding our routine is loosely structured around a 3 hour timeframe.As a newborn she just slept all the time so i would wake her for her feed every 3 hours. she would manage maybe 15-20minutes awake before she would cue that she was tired and then she would go back to sleep and sleep through until i would have to wake her again, and so forth. Now shes almost 10weeks. She feeds really well and can manage only an hour awake time before she cues that she is tired. Should she be awake a little bit longer at this stage, or am i being too anxious about this? Also she doesnt sleep now until her next feed and can wake after 40-45minutes. I try to get her to go back to sleep but this doesnt always work and she seems pretty alert and wants to get up. Should i feed her when she wakes up? As she can only manage an hour awake if i try to push out her feed she ends up feeding and falling asleep which i dont want her to do. So i suppose in short my question is "Should eat always follow sleep"? What do i do when she wakes but is not hungry? I really love the advice given in this book and am really determined to get things back on track! Any help would be greatly appreciated! Thanks

[amayzie]

Hi Loula! Welcome!

Ok- it looks like the issue you are having at the moment is that she is needing a little more awake time. Basically she has started sleeping less as she isn't tired enough to sleep longer than that. Then it turns into a cycle- in that she then can't stay awake longer than an hour as she's only slept for 45 minutes or so!!

What you should look at doing is gently push up her A time- even by 10-15 minutes (or 5 minutes!!) every couple of days. It can be ANYTHING- a walk around the house, look at the garden, a trip to the letter box was one of my favourites! (walking SLOWLY!). Just as long as she's awake! The Awake time includes everything until she has her eyes closed to sleep.

Here;s some links to give you an idea:
http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=128419.0

http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=64158.0

Now- i can tell already that you are saying 'no- but she  couldn't possibly stay awake any longer?!?' and ' BUT you say to follow the tired signs' ... Basically babies get used to being up for a certain amount of time, and shw waht appears to be tired signs after that time. I often will say 'mummy knows best'! My guy HATED the first A time push- HATED it!! But after that it was a little easier.

You;ll probably find that every 6 weeks or so you'll need to stretch the A time n this way.

Also- when i was trying to extend naps i would have a set time- say 15 mins or so that i'd try and then give up, get him up and feed him, starting a ne cycle. You will probably not have much luck resettling after an undertired, or 45 minute nap. (I think in 4 months of trying i managed to extend 2!)

The other thing that some people do while trying to get this to all work is that you can go EASASE instead of the usual EASEAS..

Let me know how you go!

[loula]

Thanks so much for the advice. Will try pushing out her activity time a little bit. If she gets too tired she tends to scream the house down, although having said that shes quick to settle if that does happen, thankfully! I was at mom n baby yoga this morning which should of coincided with her sleep time. She fell alseep as we were leaving the house and woke once i got her out of the car. So 20min nap time. She was happy and content so we did our yoga and she probably managed another half hour awake before she became really tired. I got her to sleep and she had another half hour nap and then she woke so i fed her at 12:15. She stayed awake until 12:45 and i put her to bed as soon as we got home. Still asleep at the mo and im hoping she'll stay that way for another hour. Seems to have a big sleep at this time of the day and lighter sleep between 10am-12pm and 4pm - 6pm.
Im also hoping to start tanking her up on feeds at night time to encourage her to go longer. Want to wait until the weekend when hubby is off work incase it'll cause too much disruption. Usually she gets a dream feed at 9pm and then wakes for feed at midnight. Last night she had a feed at 5:45pm then 7:30 (she was very unsettled) then again at 9:30 and she slept through until 2am! So im hoping if we tank her up at the recommend 6pm 8pm and 11pm that she'll manage to go through until a bit later.

[amayzie]

One of those afternoon naps at least will probably be 45 minutes- sort of a cat nap length. Let me know how you go!

[loula]

Hi Amayzie. She seems to be doing well today! Her routine today:
E 6am
A 6:15 -7:10
S 7:10 - 9am

E 9am -9:20
A 9:20 - 10:15
S 10:15 -11:30 (i got her up as i had an appointent)

E 11:30 -11:45
A 11:45 - 13:00
S 13:00 - 13:45

E 14:00 - 14:15
A 14:15 - 14:50
S 14:50 - 16:45

Hopefully i can hold her out until bed time which will be either at 6:30/7pm.  Thanks for you advice, seems to be working!

[amayzie]

YAy!! Remember you can always bring bed time a littleearlier if you need to to help tide her over...