Struggling with transition from 3-4 hr easy

[taylorsmummy]

For a couple of weeks we seemed to have a 3 hr easy down pat. Then I found my DS feeds were becoming very short and he was seeming to stay awake for a little longer so I decided to move to the 3.5 hr easy as he was 3 months 1 week.  Since doing this for the last week he is now only sleeping 45 mins throughout the day and for the last couple of days I am also struggling to resettle him to have longer. This is hard anyway with a toddler running round but I use to be able to get him back to sleep.
This morning I kept him up for close to 2 hrs and he did 1 hr so should I be starting to move towards the 4 hr easy or is this just going to make it even worse.
I wake him at 7 most mornings, and then feed 3.5 hourly from there. Can't really post any other times as it is all over the place once he has had a short nap in the morning but he is up from between 1.75 and 2 hr in morning.
At night he is usually down around 7 and has do at 11 then that's him till morning which is fab!
Any advice would be much appreciate. Was on a bit of a high once we cracked the 3 hr routine and now we have hit ground zero again!

[jessmum46]

Could you post a whole day for us in EAS format? He may need a little more A time in some parts of the day to help him get a better nap, or he may just be going through the phase of developmental short naps.  Is he going to sleep independently? 

Are you giving him more naps in the day (and shortening his A times) when he only has short naps?

[taylorsmummy]

His EAS is
7 E
7.30-A
8.45/9 S
From here depends if he sleeps 45 pr not but will either try and resettle or get up and do things as have toddler running around
10.30E
11A
12.15 ish S
2 E
2.30 A
Since we have been on 3.5 hr it's all custard by this point and his sleeps are all over the place and we can usually sneak in a cat nap at 5.15/5.30 till 6. I still feed at 5 or 5.30 depending on cat nap.
6 bath etc
6.45 top up
7/7.15 bed
11 DF

He 99% of time goes to sleep on his own with out much fuss and quite quickly, which is a blessing.  I do think I maybe keep him up too long once his first sleep has turned to poo. If he sleeps for 45 then I resettle and poss get another 45 mins out of him would you still shorted his A time?
He did go through a stage of doing 45 in morning and then if I kept him up for the same A time as the morning he would then have a good sleep, but that doesn't work anymore.
Any help appreciated

[jessmum46]

It actually looks pretty good and fairly typical for this age.  45 min naps are SO common and SUCH a pain!!  His A times look about right - when he wakes at 45 mins do you leave him to see if he will settle himself?  You don't need to go to him unless he is crying for you, and he may just surprise you . If he only has 45 mins first thing you can try a touch shorter for his next A time, but if that makes no difference I would just aim for 4 45 min naps instead of 3 naps until he works out the sleep cycle transitions.  It may mean you have an AEAS or even EASAEAS pattern in parts of the day, that's fine and really common for this age group.  If you need a hand working out how the day would look with several short naps, I'm happy to help x

[taylorsmummy]

Thanks for that reply, good to know it is kind of normal at this age and I'm not doing something wrong. I would love your help with how short naps would work, this would be helpful for the days when everything goes wrong esp with a toddler and until things sort themselves out. I can't quite see how 4 45 naps would work with the 3.5/4 hour feeds.
I was leaving him to see if he would settle but usually doesn't and then it was working better if I went in sooner. I don't tend to go in unless he does sound upset.  This morning he surprised me though and did have a very little cry and went straight back to sleep...success! I am dying to see what he does for his sleep now. He seemed tired after 1.5 hours and we had been at the mall so I don't know if he will be UT.

Thanks again for your help,

[jessmum46]

It could go something like this with 1h45 A time:

WU & E 7am
A
S 8.45-9.30
A
E 10.30
A
S 11.15-12
A
E 1.30 (feed early) then S 1.45-2.30
Or S 1.45-2.30 then E 2.30
A
S 4.15-5
E 5
A
E (top up) as part of BT routine
BT 6.30/7

Something like that anyway!  Doesn't matter if feeds are spaced slightly differently through the day

[taylorsmummy]

Thanks for that. I gave it a try today when he woke early this morning, but unfortunately it resulted in a very overtired baby so think I am going to have to settle for one of the sleeps to get a little more sleep under his belt our fiddle with the A times???

All worth a try though

[jessmum46]

Keep us posted how it's going x