Is EASY possible with 45 minute naps?

[maofaha]

Hello all! I'm having issues implementing EASY with my 10 week old and I really really hope you wonderful folks can help me. First, to give some context:

- My 10 week old son is a touchy baby...or at least I think he is, because he startles easily and seems to get easily overstimulated.

-For the most part, he naps for about 45 minutes between 5am and 5pm

-He seems to think that 5pm is night time because he starts to take a longer nap, which is problematic because I want him up a little later so that he can sleep later in the morning. Most of the time I wake him up when he's been sleeping longer than 2 hours or 1.5 hours so that I can do our bedtime routine (which includes his bath).

-He struggles going down for naps or bedtime, and pretty much each time I put him down he cries and there is a struggle before he ultimately goes to sleep. I have black-out curtains, but he cries and struggles when I turn off the lights and close the curtains. He also is constantly trying to break free of his swaddle. Most of the time our bedtime/nap routine is me or my husband holding him while he grunts and struggles against the swaddle and spits out his paci. Eventually he gets the far away stare and falls asleep.

-I try not to keep him up for more than an hour at a time, and about about the thirty minute mark of being awake he starts to fuss a bit (well actually what he seems to be doing is practicing talking, but his cute little baby talk eventually turns into yelling and I imagine eventually full on crying but I don't usually let it get that far before I start the nap routine).

-Often when he wakes up from the 45 minute nap he doesn't seem hungry, and he doesn't eat much.

-At night, he usually wakes up at 12am, 2am, 4am, and 5-5:30am. I admit that in the past I would just feed him so that he'd go back to sleep, but recently I've been only feeding him if it has been at least three hours since his last feed. This means I still get up, try the shh-pat to get him to sleep, and sometimes that goes on long enough that it has been three hours since his last feed so I feed him.

Here's my question about EASY:
If a kid is waking up every 45 minutes from naps, he's probably not going to be hungry right away. Should I be feeding him anyway? Usually at that point he just eats a little. It seems like such an ordeal. Also, is 45 minutes a normal nap time for a 10 week old? There were some days that he was sleeping two hours in the early part of the day and 1.5 in the evening (that was heavenly).

I don't want to give up on easy, but it seems to me that if he's not hungry when he wakes up, and so we have the "A", but after that he gets hungry and then sleepy, how do we turn that around?

[trimbler]

Hi Maofaha,

I remember my DD getting her night start time a bit confused at this age, you could either just go with it if you're ok with getting up at 5am for a while and then try to gradually shift, or keep doing what you're doing (ie getting him up and doing BT routine) but maybe don't let him sleep for so long before doing that, so keep it a catnap - I know, hard to do when you're so relieved he's finally sleeping longer than 45mins, and tbh I'd often let mine sleep for an hour before realising, but it might help to reset his clock so that he doesn't get so much deep night sleep before BT.

Struggling before naps is pretty common and everyone thinks it will never get better but it does, promise Your A time looks about right to me, although some LOs will manage more, do you actually start your naptime routine at 30mins? I'd leave it a bit later than that, maybe try some calming activities for a few minutes before going into the room. Having said that, at this age OT tends to be more common a problem than UT, and after a short nap he won't be able to manage much A time.

You're right, he may not be hungry after a 45min nap, unless perhaps he's going through a growth spurt. But then of course with low A times at this age, you wouldn't want to leave it too long or he'll just be tired and hungry at the same time, as you rightly point out! There are two main ways people deal with 45min naps on EASY at this age:

(i) Try to resettle when he wakes (or even go in before the 45min mark to 'catch' his jolt and shh pat him through the transition), for up to 45mins or until he shows you he's hungry or it's been 2.5h since his last feed, say
(ii) Get him up for a very short, calm A time (eg 20mins or so) and then head back for another nap before the next E

Then there's the APOP approach - using a prop (eg holding, sling etc), either to get him back to sleep after a short nap, or for the next nap, to ensure he has a good one. I did much more APOP this time around and didn't regret it

Night wakings are hard, there are so many possible reasons for them, but unfortunately if he's not sleeping well in the day that can lead to more night wakings - another reason why I've become a bit of a fan of APOP in the '4th trimester'! You must be shattered I'd say if he's not settling easily with shh pat then just feed anyway, unless you find that he doesn't take a good feed? Hopefully if you can get more sleep into him during the day and stretch out those daytime feeds then he'll feed better in the day and not be so hungry at night. With the short naps, how many naps and feeds does he end up getting during the day, and what intervals do you usually get between feeds?

[maofaha]

Thank you thank you thank you for your wonderful reply! Is the APOP method in the second book? I've just started the chapter on sleep so I haven't gotten there yet, but yes I agree that it makes sense to try to stretch out the 45 min naps by any means necessary, though unfortunately that often means that I'm left rocking and shushing for up to 30 minutes.

In terms of how I'm feeding him now, he nurses each time he wakes from each nap in the standard EASY way, he just doesn't really eat much every time. Maybe that's ok for now? Perhaps I'll try to extend the two morning naps for now and maybe it will stick.

How old are your little ones? They are adorable! I am going to one day figure out how to put a picture as my avatar :-)

[trimbler]

Sorry - APOP is accidental parenting on purpose! Not recommended by Tracy but used by lots of mums on here when necessary, when we knowingly use a prop to help our LOs to sleep, realising that we'll have to break the habit later but making a balanced decision that it's the best approach for a limited time I think generally props aren't such a problem before 3-4mo, and the more intense sleep training such as PUPD isn't really recommended before that age anyway. Shh pat is the preferred method at the moment, but it may not help your LO to get all the sleep he needs right now if he's finding it difficult. So if you can get a good nap by holding him or using a sling or something like that, a swing maybe, then don't be afraid to do that sometimes, so he doesn't get too OT. Many mums find that just doing shh pat for one or two naps at this age is enough, so I'm just saying don't be afraid to try other things for now, while he's still learning. Actually 30mins is pretty good for resettling if he's able to sleep again after that, I've spent longer

How old are your little ones? They are adorable! I am going to one day figure out how to put a picture as my avatar :-)

Thanks Their ages are just on the tickers at the bottom of my posts (although that picture was taken a couple of months ago), you can get one of them too from lilypie or similar, just go to their website and follow the instructions. You then copy and paste the code into the relevant space on your profile - the link for that is near the top of your screen. That's also where you upload your photo

[maofaha]

Ahhh I am new to the forums so I don't have all the lingo down just yet. And thanks for the tech tips...I seem to have gotten a sideways picture, but it's better than nothing!

[trimbler]

Aw lovely what a cutie Funny, mine came out sideways too the first time, think I just ended up rotating it in another program and saving it again in the original orientation, for some reason that seemed to work! Sorry about the lingo, think there's a page with some translations somewhere, will just have a look...

[trimbler]

Ah yes here we are: Site Acronyms/Abbreviations - What they are, and what they mean.