Help with my 4.5 mo schedule...

[Nickie18]

My fussy little girl is now 4.5 months. She has been on a 4 hour EASY for a few weeks and doing fairly well. But our mornings I think need a tweek. We are very lucky that she sleeps from 7:30/8pm until 5:15am or so, but she wakes, we feed her, she takes about 30 min to fall back asleep and then we wake her around 7:30am to start the day. Sometimes she wakes at 6:30am and does not go back to sleep. The early wake up is just killing us (would rather she woke around 2am! and slept until 7:30am!)

Not sure if she is just hungry at that time and wakes for hunger since she is so little or if she is having an EMW. She seems hungry and we only try to feed her 4 oz (bottle fed) to get her back don so she will still eat at 7:30/8am when we wake her. right now she takes usually 2-1.5 hour naps and one 30/35 min nap. Started cereal only in am once a day 1 week ago. She has started to sleep on her stomach and can roll around in bed.

Any ideas? Or just be happy? I am just worried she will stop going back to sleep in the am...

[jessmum46]

Can you post your whole day in EAS format?  She could be a bit OT as a 'standard' 4h EASY would have 2x2h naps and a catnap.  She may possibly need her day shortening a touch if she's a 1.5h nap kinda girl

[Nickie18]

This was yesterday-

wake at 5:30am- feed 4oz, back to bed, falls asleep in 30 min (around 6:15)
8am- We wake her-
8:15am- eat 5 oz
9am- cereal
10:15am-11:30am- wake her to pick up brother
12pm- eat
1:30-2:15- nap, she wakes
4pm- eat
4:30- nap until 5:45pm when we wake her
7pm- eat
bath, jammies
7:45pm- bed and asleep by 7:50pm


Can change depending on naps- sometimes she takes a short first nap, etc. usually gets about 3.5 hours of nap a day.
Seems overall happy and content, but is definitely in a fussy period.
Soemtimes when she wakes at 6:30am she will not go back to sleep and then we put her to bed by 7:00pm. We try to keep her day from wake up to down around 12 hours.

[Nickie18]

we have been wakign her to eat when she doesn't always wake before her feed time. Not sure if we should just her sleep??

[jessmum46]

Routine looks pretty ok really, though I would avoid waking her too much from naps before 1h30 if you can (I know sometimes you have things to do and it can't be helped).  If she'll go back down in the morning after a feed then I would just do that for now given how young she is.  The other thing you could consider is holding back on solids for a while - she's still very young and cereals especially are hard on little tummies. 

[Nickie18]

Thank you- Hubbie is very excited to start solids, so solids we start... Just alittle once a day in the am. She usually takes her short nap in the am, about 30-40 min, and then longer middle nap and then an UT CN. The middle nap usually is 2 hours and we wake her usually at 2 hours. last nigth she woke at 4:30 and slept until we woke her at 7:30am due to big brothers school. I am very happy she sleeps until 5am and that she goes back to sleep, but I worry about the future always... Guess we will see how it goes today. Thank you!

[jessmum46]

Sounds like things are going ok, I'd just do what you're doing until it becomes an issue

[Nickie18]

I know that 30 min naps usually mean OT, but she has been doing 30-40 min naps for her first nap for a while now... we keep her up 2h15min and usually she plays a bit before going to sleep and seems not tired. we do 2 hour A time after that and sleeps longer. Maybe try longer A or shorter A to get a better first nap?

[jessmum46]

We had 37 minute (precisely!) naps for ages at that age, and they were UT.  If you'd like a longer first nap it's probably worth pushing the A time a bit x

[Nickie18]

Thank you- we are going to try for 2.5A time! Seems very long for her but she is doing it...

So, when the A time gets so long, what do we do about naps and eating? Do we just let her sleep and then feed her when she wakes, even if longer than 4 hours?

[jessmum46]

Yes you just move to a general pattern of eat, activity, nap, eat again on waking.  If she isn't waking early from naps for hunger then just roll with it and don't worry about timings, if she can't make it that long without a feed you can offer a pre-nap top-up