5 Month old EASY HELP!

[eeleah]

Hi! Baby is 5 months old. Having a hard time transitioning her to 4 hr routine (EBF). Here's an example of a typical day:

E, A: 8am
S: 10:15- 11:30
E, A: 11:30
S: 2:00-3:30
E, A: 3:30
S: 5:30-6:00
E: 6:00
A: 6:00-7:40
S: 8pm
E: wakes up and wants to eat at 8:45 or 9 (3 hrs from last feed)
E: 12 midnight, then 3 am, 6am ( or 2 and 4 etc. depending)

Questions:
1. I usually keep her up a full 2 hrs after her last cat nap in the evening…. do you think that is too long? Also, is an 8pm (sometimes 8:30) too late to be putting her down for the night?
2. If I feed her at say, 5 am, and wake her up for the day around 7:30 or 8am, do I still feed her right away even if it has only been 2.5-3 hrs?

Thanks for your help!

[creations]

Hello and welcome to BW

Looks like you're doing great if that's your typical day!

So, with a 7.30/8.00am WU I would aim to get her to bed for the night by 7.30/8pm latest rather than 8.30pm.
At this age the EAS isn't quite so neat, you don't need to feed the moment she wakes from naps if she is not yet ready for food and 4 hrs haven't passed since the previous E. The routine can look a bit more like EASAEAS and that's fine. The point of EAS is to avoid feeding to sleep rather than automatically feeding on WU.  So if she can manage to extend that first time between Es then you could see E at 8, 12, 4, 7.30 (just before 8 to get to sleep on time).  4 day time feeds with the last one coming just before BT which is the biggest change I'd suggest for your current routine.  With E coming a long way before BT she is hungry in her sleep and you are seeing many NWs.

WRT the A time before BT, some people find their LO does best with a full A time, others need a shorter A time because they have only had a CN and really the CN is a short nap to just see baby through the bed time routine.  So you could see that last A being shorter, 1hr or 1.5hr, enough time for bath, stories, milk and cuddles before S.

You could expect there to be a long stretch of sleep at night, 8hrs or more (some bf babies can need more night feeds esp through growth spurts but feeding every 3hrs through the night should really be needed now).  So I would alter your EASY as suggested above and see how the nights then pan out. That first NW should be eliminated immediately with the bf before BT.
Morning WU I would feed right away so she comes to know that feed is there and hopefully drops the 6am feed either on her own or with a little encouragement, I would see how it goes first but you could for instance reduce the length of time she feeds on that 6am WU so she gets just a little and feeds fully at her morning WU instead.

What do you think?

[eeleah]

THANK YOU so much for replying!!  Very helpful!

Last night she ate:
6pm, (bed time was 8, but it took her 35 min to go to sleep, so i think maybe it was over tiredness) 10pm DF, 1:30 am, 4:30am, 8am. I can't wait to sleep longer than 3 hrs at a time!! ahh!!

ok, so let me make sure I understand what you are suggesting… I try to feed her at the 4 hr mark throughout the day and give her a feed at BT? but obv not to put her to sleep… Then do a DF at 10:30? that would be 3 hrs in-between? Or what would you suggest? I was also questioning if the DF was working because she would wake up completely and almost cry in annoyance that I woke her up to eat and then sometimes struggle a bit to go back to sleep after… thoughts on that? I was thinking, what if I didn't wake her to eat at the DF last night at 10, would she have slept better? Wondering if it is disrupting her sleep cycle since she actually does not sleep through the feed… not sure what to do with that one.

I have to maybe play around with how much wake time she gets after her last CN… I've been doing 2 hrs but like last nite, it took her a long time to go to sleep. So tonite perhaps I'll try the 1.5 hrs and see if its at all easier.

Thoughts?

[creations]

I would get on with the bed time routine and wind down almost right after the CN tbh so she has time to fall to sleep before the planned S time.
The DF, how about just skip it a couple of nights and see what happens? Mine always woke for it too (and then in anticipation of it) but it was fine here as it meant he did his long sleep after that feed so I got the best out of the night possible for myself.  It's fine to have the DF less than 4hrs though if you do decide to continue with it, it's a kind of top up so you can do it before you go to bed rather than be woken later, but it doesn't suit everyone, there's no rule to have a DF. I would look to wean one night feed but see how the routine pans out first once you have tweaked day E and BT E so you can see which feed might be dropped.
And yes if she can go 4hrs between E in the day then great, most can at this age.
hth

[eeleah]

ok! How do I wean a night feed? PU/PD? Also, what do you mean about winding her down after CN before planned S time? Like if her cat nap is over at 6:00, start 30 min bedtime routine and put her down at 6:30?

I'm still trying to figure out the right A time for her…. This aft. I put her down for her 2nd long nap at 1:30 and she should have slept til 3:00, but she woke up at 2:15, so I tried to get her back down for 30 min, but she just fussed. I ended up feeding her at 3:20 (4 hrs from last feed). Then she went down for cat nap at 4:45-5:30. and she would not wait to eat, so I ended up feeding her at 5:30s (only 2 hrs from last feed). THEN I remembered I should feed her before bed, so I fed her at 7:30 and then put her down 10 min after that. Kind of a mess! My guess is that she will wake up at 8:30/9, because she is used to sleeping about 1-1.5 hrs and then waking up and I feed her (which is usually at the 3 hr mark) and she's back to sleep til 3-4 hrs later or when I do the DF.

Other than that nap going wrong, anything I should have done differently? Thanks for your feedback! I really appreciate it!

[creations]

Like if her cat nap is over at 6:00, start 30 min bedtime routine and put her down at 6:30?

No not quite that early.  I mean to aim for her to be asleep by 7.30/8.00pm so to start your routine early enough to achieve that rather than doing a full 2hr A time. Many people do bath, stories etc and feed plus wind down (shush/pat or cuddle etc) before LO is asleep, it all takes time.
It's hard to be able to give an exact time for her to be asleep at night because your routine is changing so really you just have to try something and see how it goes.
Same with the night feeds really, if you do an earlier BT for a few nights and see when those feeds end up it will be easier to see what to change.  Weaning night feeds doesn't necessarily involve PU/PD but might.
That nap sounds like she might have been UT but hard to say without seeing the full day.  Don't worry about the feeds etc going a bit wonky, it's only one day.  You all need time to adjust to the earlier BT etc.
If she's getting UT for a nap she might be working towards dropping the CN in which case your routine will get another shake up, worth knowing about it even if she isn't ready right now as this is what you will be working towards over the next month or so.
All about the 3-2 transition- 5/6 months

[eeleah]

Thanks!

quick update: we've been doing pretty close to 4 hr the past 3 days. I did do PUPD for her 2am feed 2 days ago bc i'm sure she was waking out of habit. Took me a whole hr the first night from 2-3am, then 30 min the second and last nite she only woke up at 3am to eat and then up at 7! sometimes she will do a 3 hr A time, so not sure if that is a sign to transition or not. For now I'll keep with the 4 hr routine and hopefully she will drop the other nite feed herself!

[creations]

Sounds like things are improving for you.
It's handy to know that bf babies do often have a couple of night feeds, and will feed at night esp during GS so if there are some hungry wakes through upcoming GS you'll be ready for them   Is she feeding well through the day to get her calories in before the night?
A 3hr A time can indicate the 3-2 nap drop, yes.  There's a support thread on the naps board or you could post your EASY here if you wanted.

[eeleah]

Thanks! Ya her 6 mon growth spurt should be coming up in a couple weeks. She goes 4 hrs during the day and has gone 5-6 hrs randomly at night, so I know she can go that long. Right now she wakes up at the 3 hr mark and I just put the soother in and she goes back to sleep for another 2 hrs. Hoping she will just stop waking up all together? Not sure if the soother is a prop or not, because when it does fall out of her mouth, she doesn't wake up. She using it to fall asleep…

I'm keeping tabs on her A time to figure out if I need to drop a nap yet or not.. I'll look it up on the nap board!

[creations]

Right now she wakes up at the 3 hr mark and I just put the soother in and she goes back to sleep for another 2 hrs. Hoping she will just stop waking up all together? Not sure if the soother is a prop

Sounds like it could be if she can't self settle at that NW, sounds like habitual waking if she isn't hungry but waking anyway so you can either continue as you are or you could maybe try a W2S an hour earlier for a few days and see if it stops that NW?