Hi and welcome
You're right in that generally we recommend to start with an EAS cycle of 3h at your LOs age, but many babies will happily go 4h (especially if bottle fed) between feeds so it's not a strict 'rule' as such. Does she have a lot of night feeds? That might be one reason to do feeds closer together in the day, but if nights are good I see no reason particularly to insist on a 3h routine.
You may however need to be a bit creative about sleeps, as the other components of the EAS cycle are as you rightly pointed out activity and sleeping. Usually after a feed you would have some activity time, and then put LO down for a sleep, hoping they would sleep until next feed time. An average A time at 8 weeks is around 1h15 mins (
Average A times- BOOKMARK ME!!) so you can see on a 3h EAS cycle LOs day would look like this:
WU & E 7 (just an example, adjust to your own day)
A
S 8.15-10
E 10
A
S 11.15-1
E 1
A
S 2.15-4
E 4
A
S 5.15-6 (catnap)
A
E and BT 7 - giving a total of around 6h A time in the day with 3 naps of about 1h45 and a catnap of 45 mins.
If you did a full 4h cycle the day would have to look more like:
WU & E 7
A
S 8.15-11
E 11
A
S 12.15-3
E 3
A
S 4.15-5.45
A
E and BT 7 - which would only give 5h total A time in the day and also be expecting LO to take very long naps. I'd be worried on that routine you'd get more NWs, both for feeds and because LO hasn't had enough awake time in the day.
When babies usually move to a 4h routine they can handle around 2h A time, so they still get plenty of awake time and the naps aren't excessively long.
My suggestions would therefore be to start your day with an EAS cycle - so feed her when she wakes, have some A time and then settle her for sleep when she's ready. Personally if she generally sleeps well I wouldn't let her nap regularly more than 2h at a time (ok as an occasional catch-up) but that's your decision to make. Wake her after 2h if she hasn't woken naturally, and provided it is more than 3h since her last feed, offer another one. And then start another EAS cycle. If she only has a short nap and it's only been e.g. 2.5h since her last feed, then do a bit of A time first and offer a feed when she seems hungry. (EASAEAS pattern). Same goes for if you offer a feed and she's not yet hungry, just do a bit of A time and then try again. It doesn't have to be strictly every 3h or every 4h as long as she is getting plenty to eat
Does that help?
