Day 3 of EASY - question about overtiredness

[ayouens]

Hi there,
Finding Tracey's book last week has been a real life changer for my husband and I, along with our two month daughter.

My husband's been the "rock to sleep" guy and I've been the "breast feed to sleep mum". Over the past two weeks these had both stopped working and our daughter spiraled into overtiredness...so heart breaking to see her try to sleep and she just can't. We are all to familiar with the glazed, wide-open eyes of an overtired baby.

EASY is going fairly well on day 3 - tough but we're committed and the putdowns times are slowly getting shorter. My question is about the A time. Since my daughter is so sleep deprived I find it's about five minutes after I feed her that she starts yawning. And it's not just one yawn but three or four within a short span.

I know the guidelines say to keep her up an hour and I've been doing this. But now I wonder if I shouldn't follow her lead and just put her back to bed right away. I feel like she's missing out on activity time, but I guess that's me putting my expectations and feelings on her when in fact she just needs to sleep. Does that sound right?

If anyone has experience with chronically overtired babies please let me know what you found worked.
Many thanks from this first time mum.

[Lindy612]

Hi, just to let you know I'm in the same boat, didn't want to read and run. I've also just started EASY with my 9wk old last week and sleep/naps are our main issue too. I've had some good advice which has helped - and helped my sanity if you want to read my post - Too many issues with sleep...' I've found regulating the feeds has helped and I'm still 'accidental parenting on purpose' most of his naps and sleep at the moment to try to break the cycle of over tiredness first and gradually trying to introduce the self settling because he fights sleep as if its the enemy! I think if your daughter looks tired it would be reasonable to put her down for a nap, once she's caught up on her sleep her A times will probably naturally increase and not putting her down will only lead to a crankier more difficult to get down baby - missing the window for us is a disaster!
Hang on in there, I'm assured it does get better!!

[ayouens]

Hi Mindy and thank you so much for your response. I read your other posts and we are exactly in the same spot with reflux issues over here as well. I do need to get better about regulating feedings so I will make that a priority tomorrow. I'm just so used to letting her feed on demand but really I think it has made the problem worse this past week.

I will hang in there - you as well! Let's hope these little ones start to realize that sleeping makes everything better.

[ayouens]

Sorry Lindy - my spellchecker got carried away.