trying to get 10 week old on 3 hour schedule

[Skychick79]

Hello all, I'm new here.
I've been trying to get my 10 week old daughter on a 3 hour EASY schedule. I have been following the EASY pattern since she was born, but she hasn't been able to stick to a 3 hour schedule yet. She is healthy and gaining weight great, and exclusively breastfed, so I think she should be able to handle 3 hours without a problem, but she doesn't seem to agree :/

We have the following issues:
1. Short naps. She naps usually for only 40 - 50 minutes, and wakes up before the 3 hours are up, sometimes a whole hour. Sometimes I am able to extend the nap, others not at all. In the evenings, she always wakes up before her time, screaming to be fed.
2. At night, she seems to have made her bedtime 11 pm, so when to dream feed?
3. She is up 3 hours later to eat again. I feel that at this point, she should be able to go more than 3 hours without feeding.

I appreciate any help! thank you.

H.

[~Lori~]

Hi Skychick!  It sounds like you have a very typical 10 week old!!  I just had my 4th child who is also 10 weeks old and with all my kids, (and if you check out the 0-3 mth birthboard on here) this is very common to have short naps at this age...a lot developmental, sometimes associated with being OT or UT but mostly developmental in my experience.  We get the 35 minute naps very frequently with our 10 week old.  Like you, sometimes I can extend, sometimes not.  On days I can't, I just get her up and depending on how she is doing, I either feed her then (it is sometimes just 2 hrs) or hold off for as long as I can.  we do NOT have a perfect EASY.  That's the goal, but for the majority of BWers I know, it's not a perfect system.  If she is screaming to be fed, I would feed her.  I find DD2 is always fussier at night and probably some OT in there due to short naps, so I do tend to feed more frequently in the evenings.

Dreamfeeds can be hard to do and don't work with all babies.  Is she sleeping at all in the late evening?  My DD2 sleeps at around 8:30ish and when I go to bed, usually around 10-10:30, i change her diaper and feed her again, so i guess you can say her bedtime is 10, but after the last sleep, she is only awake to eat so no A time.

My last son was up every 3 hrs to eat for a LONG time, didn't seem to matter what I did!  Does she take a pacifier?  Anyway to hold her off at all?

[Skychick79]

Thank you so much for your response!
She doesn't take a paci at all, although I've tried and tried.

Tonight has been a confusing night. She went to sleep at 9 pm, I dreamfed her at 11 pm and she slept until 3:45 am!
But then she was up at 6 am screaming to be fed. Oh well.

I'll just accept the fact that she's an unpredictable newborn I guess!

[~Lori~]

Oh I hear you about the paci! This is the only one of mine who hasn't been too keen on it but I still keep trying!

That was a nice chunk you got after that dream feed! Yes newborns are unpredictable! That's the only predictable thing about them 😜