5 weeks old, still no consistent EASY routine

[shannoncorrin]

I have had the intention to follow EASY since the day LO was born.  I have still not reached anything consistent.  When we first started, I didn't realize that newborns A time was so small, so I would try to keep him up to play, and that obviously didn't work all that well. 

The biggest problem that I run into is that he doesn't always eat at 3 hours.  Sometimes its 3 hours, sometimes its 2, sometimes its 2.5.  Then my times are off for the rest of the day if I think we are going to do a 3 hour routine and he wants to eat after 2 hours and 15 min.   

Another problem that I run into is that he gets over tired so easily.  I try to catch him and get him down before this happens, but sometimes he just wont fall asleep as soon as I would have hoped.  Then it takes him forever to wind down, and sometime he doesn't even nap at all before he gets hungry.  So then the next EASY cycle I just want to get him to get some sleep to I completely skip any A time and basically nurse him and he falls right asleep.  I haven't been able to reach any consistency, and its driving me nuts.  Everyday is a little different.  The problem is I don't like how things went the day before, so I try to fix them and do it different the next day. 

He is unpredictable too, the last 2 days he has been waking early for naps.  This is a new development.  He just sits there and stares at stuff (you can see the wheels spinning in his head). He isn't fussy or acting hungry, so I just leave him be in hopes that he may sleep again.  Its usually not too terribly soon before its been 2 hours since his last feed.  But then I feed him, and he has already been up for an hour and 15 min, so I swaddle him and try to get him to sleep, but then he is OT and it takes him forever to settle.  The next nap I nurse him and put him down right away.  No consistency! 

He always get so sleepy after he nurses.  A lot of times he is asleep when he is done.  Do I wake him up to play with him or let him sleep?  What if he only was up 30 min?  I don't want him to get too much sleep. 

Ive been keeping a log, but I haven't been able to make heads or tails out of it.  I'm trying a different log to see if that helps ( I found the Sprout app, so I'm trying that and making detailed notes for each nap entry). 

So when where you able to establish consistency?  Any advice?

[KookyK]

I'm breast feeding on demand and so I feed around 2-3 hourly but I try to stick to 3 hourly routine for naps. That means it might go eat-activity-eat-sleep. I also use his cues to look for when he's tired for naps which is usually about the same length of time but not always as my DS currently is a short napper (but I'm working on it!).

[Ima shel Alon]

TBH, I don't think we ever had 2 days that were the same, even at times EASY was a smooth ride.

Your LO is very very young, the chances you see consistency in his day right now are very small. If you are separating feeding from sleeping, trying to follow his sleepy cues - that's a huge achievement already!
Re the feedings I would say for now that you should feed when he seems hungry, even if it's only 2h from his last feed. It's ok if your day will look like this: EASAEAS or if need be you can do another E before S but just give a short A time, like 5 or 10min, even just a nappy change that he doesn't associate feeding with sleeping.
And not to confuse you, but even if he does now, then it's not the end of the world. For us, feeding before sleeping gave good naps so we did it for a while till it was easier to do some ST and it was easier for us to read his cues.

If you like, you can post his day in an EASY format and we can have a look if there is some tweaking that can be done, perhaps his A times are too long or too short.

HTH

[shannoncorrin]

My biggest question right now is he falls asleep right after he feeds.  I swAddle him up and sit with him for a minute to establish a bedtime routine and he is sound asleep.  I lay him in the crib and he falls back asleep instantaneously.  After 5 min I go and check on him and he is wide awake.  Not fussy at all, just staring, making funny noises, and even half smiling. I'm not sure whether I should unswaddled and play with him.  Yesterday during the day I picked him up, read a short story then started the shhhh pat.  He got cranky and took forever to settle but eventually napped.  Last night I just left him be and went to bed, fully expecting to wake up to wailing, but to my surprise he didn't wake us up for 4.5 hours out of hunger.  So I'm not quite sure what to do here, leave him be, or pick him up?  Unswaddled and play or leave swaddled? 

[Ima shel Alon]

Are you talking about naps or going down for night sleep?
If what you mentioned happens with naps then I would gently wake after a feed, have a bit of A time and then put back to sleep. If what you mentioned happens at BT then I wouldn't start and have A time because on the long run you are going to confuse him. BT is BT, yk?
When you put him to bed for BT then do what you do now - swaddle and whatever other night routine you have but I would try not to let him sleep on you and lay him sleeping but more lay him down when he is drowsy. Then leave the room and only come back if he is crying. He might start mantra crying, let him do that and only go in if he is doing the "I need you now, mommy" cry.
How's that sound?

[shannoncorrin]

He has a really hard time going down for naps.  At night I'm guilty of just letting him nurse and he falls asleep. He gets up once MOTN, he usually falls asleep again right away, but about once a week he doesn't, and I'm up with him for 2 more hours and eventually nurse him again to sleep.  Sometimes nursing him to sleep doesn't always work either.  I think its because by that point he is so OT that he is wired.  He always wants to play.  Anyway, as I said everyday is a little different, but here is a "typical" day, I didn't include times because they are all over the place:     

Early morning
E- usually takes 30-40 min
A- diaper change, sing/talk-takes 10 min
"S"- do 4 S, but he usually doesn't sleep.  esp first nap of the morning

Because of no S, he usually eats after 2 hours
Late morning
A- start with changing diaper because I want him to get some sleep after he eats
E- 30-40 min
S- put him right down, no 4 S.  basically I nurse him to sleep.  Sometimes he sleeps here, sometimes not

If he got a good S, then he is back on 3 hours
Early afternoon
E- 30-40 min
A- diaper change, play- 10 min
"S"- again usually doesn't sleep here, but we try the 4 s

If he did sleep, it takes a good 2 hours to get to sleep, so we wait until the 3.5 hour mark to feed him. We do the same E,A,S as before. If he didn't sleep, then we are back on 2 hours and we do A(diaper change), E, S (no 4 S).  so it will either look like this:
Late afternoon option 1 (after a good nap)
E- 30-40 min
A- diaper change
"S"- do the 4 S, may or may not sleep
Late afternoon option 2 (after no nap)
A- diaper change
E- 30-40 min
"S"- if he hasn't slept yet that day, he will usually sleep here. 

Early evening
Same as late afternoon

Late evening- HA!!!! He NEVER sleeps for this one!

Our bedtime
Diaper change
Eat
Sleep

MOTN
Diaper change
Eat
Sleep -usually will fall asleep for this one, but sometimes he doesn't like I said so I will try the 4 S for 2 hours, loose hope and then nurse him again

Wake up the next morning to do it all over again!!!!   Wahoo

If I'm lucky he takes 3 naps from 7 am to 10 pm.  Sh pat used to work rather quickly, now it takes about 2 hours to get it to work

I know I'm having these problems because my day is all over the place, and he isn't establishing a bed time routine, but at this point he is constantly so OT I don't know how establish a bedtime routine.  I just want him to sleep, and introducing something new is really going to screw him up.  I wish I could go back a few weeks and try again. I feel like I have royally messed my baby up! 

[Ima shel Alon]

No, sweety, you didn't mess up your baby. And if you did, then we are guilty of that.
There is no one here who had it easy from day one. In fact, I don't know anyone IRL who had it easy. Even parents to angel babies who sleep ok have other problems to deal with which you don't have.

So you say that his day is from 7AM till 10PM? That's very long, hun. I would aim for his BT to be no later than 20.
I know that it's really difficult to have some sort of BT routine when things are not settled, but out of experience I can tell you that it might be the thing that will help you.
BT routine helps babies understand that this is the "cut" between day and night and that now it's sleepy time and there is no play in the middle of the night.

And re naps and A times, I think it's hard for him to settle for his naps because of a few reasons. The first and the most probable is that he is very young and at this age many babies need a lot of help to fall asleep and many of them need a prop or AP to fall asleep. If there is something that is working for you, like a sling, a swing, the buggy, whatever then I would say - go for it! We had naps in the buggy till around 4m . Only at around 5-6m babies can learn skills of self settling, so till then he would need you to help him.
The other possibility is that he is having not the exact A time he needs, so perhaps too little or too much. I would try and stick to 45min A time first thing in the morning for about a week and see if he settles into it. If he is still fighting it then I would increase it to 55min and stick with it for at least 4 days. Then we can see where we're at.

What do you think?