Author Topic: Nearly 12 weeks old, seems ready for longer between feeds but not long A time!  (Read 1149 times)

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Offline Mrs Grumbley

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Hi there

I've got a few issues with my 12 week old son - I'm pretty sure he's Spirited/Touchy.

We've been trying to do EASY since he was 3 weeks old and sometimes it works brilliantly - I think he's had about 8 'perfect' days in that time... I'm exclusively breastfeeding, with him taking breastmilk from a bottle with his dad on the weekends.

At the moment, his routine looks standard at the beginning and end of the day, but it's all over the place in the middle, with naps ranging from 45 mins to 2 hours.

So it's hard to post the routine, but here's a pretty standard example:

7am Waketime - in the last few days he's reduced the amount he eats at this time until he had absolutely NOTHING this morning.
8am Sleep (sometimes this is a 2 hour, sometimes a 45 min-1 hour)

9am Eat
9.15 Activity
10am Sleep

12pm Eat
12.15pm Activity
1pm Sleep - 45 minute intruder usually pounces

2pm Eat (He's usually not hungry, but I'm trying to stick to the program!)
2.15pm Activity
3pm Sleep - usually 45 minute intruder again

4pm Eat (As above - not hungry, but trying to 'start over' the cycle)

(and this is where we have our evening routine TOTALLY sorted and working like a charm, regardless of what kind of day we've had)
5.15pm Activity or Sleep (we go for a walk in the pram when dad gets home)
6pm Bath
6.15pm Eat (long, relaxed feed 25-30 mins)
6.45-7pm Sleep

10pm Dreamfeed (long feed - around 25-30mins)

Usually NW any time between 2am-4am (so between 3.5 and 5.5 hour stretch)

7am wake (he just wakes up himself and cries a bit to get me to come in and start the day).


Some other notes -

He has started eating less at his feeds - obviously because there's too little time between them in the daytime, but I don't quite know what to do about that!

He simply cannot handle awake time of more than about an hour at the moment - believe me, I've tried, but he starts to grizzle and cry if I try to push through his early tired signs. Even just being cuddled in a dark room with nothing stimulating doesn't seem to help (and he gets plenty of stimulation during his A time - whether it's play gym, a story, tummy time, a shower, etc, but I watch closely for signs of overstimulation)

However, it seems like he might be ready to go longer between his feeds in the daytime - at the moment he eats way more at the end of the day and at night, and almost nothing in the morning and middle of the day. But his awake time is only an hour and his naps can often be only an hour, too! What should I do? Should I just start doing his feeds every 3.5 hours, regardless of where he is in the EASY routine? (Obviously not if he's just started a nap).

(As a side note, he cries and wrestles before he goes to sleep, EVERY time. We sit quietly holding him and shush-patting when necessary - he does not respond to shush-pat in his cot. He will cry like the world is ending for 3-8 minutes, then suddenly stop and relax, ready to go down in his cot. It's weird.)

(Also, he ABSOLUTELY WILL NOT sleep while we're out. Sometimes he'll sleep in the pram or car for 20-30 minutes if we're moving, but as soon as we stop, he wakes again. The other ladies at my antenatal group have babies that will sleep on them, or on the floor, or whatever, but no matter what I try, he just will not sleep away from his cot and the dark room. And within an hour, of course, he's over-tired and then he's howling the place down, red-eyed and wired like some kind of addict.)

(ALSO, if there are more than 2 other people in the house, he won't nap. We've tried white noise, at different levels, but he just lies there listening to it until he's overtired again...)

Help, please - has anybody got any advice for me? When he's awake and not tired, he's a lovely happy chappy - full of smiles and coos. But I'm chained to the house and things seem to be all over the place at the moment - I end the day exhausted with trying to keep him on target!


Offline trimbler

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Hugs Mrs Grumbley, it's hard isn't it! Quick question, do you try to extend short naps and if so, how? I've also had short A time LOs so I'll believe you for now ;) just watch out in a few weeks time you'll probably find there are some A time jumps... The first thing I'd try would be to extend the naps, if you really feel he just doesn't need more sleep then have a go at gently extending A time. If you do try to extend but it just isn't working, if he's been fairly calm in his cot then you don't need to treat it as fully counting towards the next A time, iyswim, so don't worry about 'wasting' his next A time trying to resettle. I probably spent too much time trying to resettle but then they would eventually go back to sleep and so the length of time between feeds increased to where it needed to be! Or just leave the feed until later in the A time but leave enough time before the next S. Don't worry about him having to eat as soon as he wakes, the EASY is more about setting good habits of not feeding to sleep and also an aid to know whether they're likely to be tired or hungry, but you know he's not hungry on waking from a short nap, so you can go more by his cues.



Offline Mrs Grumbley

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Thanks very much for the reply, trimbler!

It's good to know that I don't have to worry about always feeding him as soon as he wakes up - his hunger cues are getting a little more complicated, because he's found his fist for sucking for fun, rather than hunger, and he likes to 'taste the air' and practise lip-smacking for talking, too. Tricker!

I have never once in his life had any luck with shush-pat getting him to resettle mid-nap. It just riles him up further and further. I've tried every time, and if he's just stirring a bit and fighting sleep, I don't go in to him, as he can be pretty good at re-settling himself (probably 50% of the time), but I can definitely tell when he's ramping up. At that point, nothing works except calling a halt to the nap and starting over. (I do try and watch him carefully as he usually needs a shorter A time after a short nap.)

I always watch for his tired signs, starting around the 50 minute mark. The wind-down takes about 10 minutes, so he can be up either an hour or up to 1hr 20 very occasionally, if he's had a nice long nap (he sometimes does 2.5 hours without a peep, so I KNOW it's not that he can't!) He used to reliably yawn and I'd pounce on him, but he stopped doing that - he can be jerky, red-eyed and grizzly without once yawning.

He really hates going to sleep, though - as soon as I darken the room and put him down ready to swaddle, he starts screaming, but I know it's not that he's not ready, because between 3-5 minutes later, he's totally relaxed and ready to go down.

I'm currently trying to train him to go to sleep in a portacot, in an effort to be able to get out of the house and visit relatives at Christmas time!

Offline trimbler

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Have you tried going in just before the 45min intruder and holding him through the jolt? Kind of wake to sleep? I've never tried this but some people do have success extending naps that way.

With the routine you posted above (I realise it changes, but just for example), if there's no chance of extending the nap then you could feed at, say , 2.30pm and then again around 5.30 or when you get back from your walk (nice idea, I used to do something like that with DS whilst DD napped in the sling), then a quick top up after the bath before bed, what do you think? Funny, your 'long' feeds are our usual length but both mine have been leisurely feeders!

It's pretty common for LOs to do this screaming thing before sleep, never really worked out why but it does seem to be a phase which eventually passes :) I sometimes found that doing something a little different acted as a distraction to break the screaming cycle, but once DD got used to it and realised it was just a slightly new sleep routine, she'd go back to her screaming! But it did stop...

Well done on your advance planning for Christmas sleep :)