Implementing EASY with reflux

[Kezzie]

Hi All, this is my first time on here and I have a few things I'm not sure about, but sort of confused what they are specifically...

My LO is 10 weeks old, born 3.5 weeks early. Because she was early she originally was too sleepy to feed properly so we were advised to change her nappy before each feed to wake her. We've then stuck with this routine as she has reflux we think so keep her uptight for 20 mins after feeding (don't want to lie her down to change her).

Now I'm trying to get closer to a routine I often have difficulties in keeping her awake after feeding her as sit with her upright and she wants to sleep! When I put her on the change mat she loves it gets all smiley and excited. So now we seem to be in a routine of AESY and not EASY!

I can't find much in the books on how to introduce her to EASY at this age, can anyone offer some advice please? I fed her on demand from the start but she was naturally feeding about every 3 hours, now it seems to vary from 1 to 4 hours, and I can't not feed her....

Thanks

K

[becj86]

Hi,

Some of the EASY ideas get put to the side when LO has reflux. At this age, really the key is to avoid feeding to sleep, so interacting with her while she's sitting up post-feed may be helpful to separate E from S. I had a happy spitter (would lose his whole feed if I put him straight down on his tummy) but he didn't have the pain for which I am very grateful.

Is your LO's reflux controlled - ie. no pain?

Really what I'd suggest if you do want to get into the EASY swing of things is:
-Try feeding on wakeup in the morning, even if she's had a recent night feed, just to reset the feed clock and set her expectation that she is fed when she wakes (predictability for LO is a big part of why EASY works).
-Try to troubleshoot the crying/rooting before feeding - Keep in mind that milk is soothing so refluxing LO's with pain will want to feed to soothe the acid burn and if LO has gas from a previous feed, they will often root for a feed around 1-2hr after the last feed to help move their bowels along and get rid of the painful gas. One of DS' most common tired signs was rooting (took a while to cotton on to that ).

Most of all, relax. There is plenty of time to sleep train and get into a routine. The main things at this point (if you're able to) are to create some predictability and potentially separate feeding from sleeping, even if its only with 5 mins awake to help develop that capacity to fall asleep and not create the feed to sleep association.

[becj86]

How are you going?

[Kezzie]

Things are going pretty well. The reflux doesn't have pain with it (if indeed it's reflux) she just brings up a lot of we lie her down.

She's loads more alert and awake now so activity time is often quite.... Active, and she falls asleep less after feeds. I can see her showing signs of getting tired after playing in the playmat etc but not good at transitioning from the really alert to sleepy to put her down to go to sleep.

She's very good overnight and will happily put herself to sleep if I put her down when calm, and now regularly sleeps 10pm - 5:30am although she wriggles and makes noises from about 3am.

I really don't want to impose a strict routine but I want enough predictability that I can read her well and she has the reassurance of knowing what to expect. She clearly associates being changed with being fed already!

So I guess my questions now are:
How do I calm her from excited to ready to sleep when I know she's getting tired but is still energetic, without waking and jiggling her?
If she only has a quick sleep and wakes up really alert and not hungry or close to feed time do I just go with it and play with her until hungry or tired again?

Thanks

[becj86]

Sounds like the concern is more around whether she's keeping any food in than pain...

I think this stuff comes gradually, as she wakes up from her newborn sleepy state, it will happen. With DS once I settled my expectations, things went much better. Here's what I would suggest:
- watch the clock til ~10min before A time you're aiming for, then watch LO for sleepy cues (these may not be yawns ) Around 1.5hr is probably right for now but this will increase - if you increase by 15min every 2 weeks or so through this next month, you should get to 4hr EASY fairly naturally and hopefully not end up in a mess
- stick with the EAS order - feed when she wakes so she's got the predictability of knowing what's happening next.
- WRT putting down for a nap, sounds like she may be a bit overstimulated by your description, walking is fine (just use it for relaxing, not getting her to sleep). Do you have the TV on for background? Best to not have it on, at least for the 20min before a nap. You could also try just taking her somewhere specific that is her cue to start calming for sleep.

[Kezzie]

Thanks becj86, I'll try all of that and see how we go :-)