Hello,
My DD is 4 months or 18 weeks. She is been on 3.5-hour EASY for 3 weeks. She usually has feedings at 7am, 10:30am, 2pm, 5:15pm, 7:45 pm (I breastfeed her for bedtime at 8pm) and then she has 2-3 feedings during the night. If there are two feedings, she will wake up usually around midnight and 4am (so it is even 4 hours). If there are 3 feedings (which happens once or twice a week), then at 11pm, 2am, 5am.
We transitioned to 3.5 hour EASY when she started eating for 2-3 minutes per feed and most of the time she wasn't hungry when the 3-hour mark hit. She transitioned very well: one day we noticed that she is not that hungry, the next day she was eating every 3.5 hour. After that her feedings become the regular 5-7 minutes and everyone was happy
Now she started eating for 3 minutes again, but she definitely shows hunger cues at 3.5 hour mark (at least for most of her feeds). But her naps went wild. She usually has two good naps (1-1.5 hours) and two catnaps (one for 45 minutes and another one for 30 minutes). The last nap started to decrease up to 10 minutes (yesterday). However today her EASY was:
WU/E: 7am (8 minutes)
A: 7:10
S: 8:55-9:30
A: 9:30-10:15 (We tried to put her back to sleep from 9:30 to 10am using shush pat, but we failed)
E: 10:15 (3 minutes)
A: 10:20
S 11:50-12:30, shush-pat + paci, 12:40-2:30 !!!
A 2:30-2:40 (tummy time)
E 2:40 <- She is getting a bottle with breastmilk (since I'm at work) and she ate 150ml or 5oz in 7 minutes
A 2:50
S 4:45-5:15
A 5:15-5:40 (tummy time)
E 5:40 (3 minutes)
A 5:45
Bath 7:30
E 7:50 (15 minutes)
S 8:05pm
Just a note: our pediatrician suspected a reflux and she recommended to keep her upright after the feed - that's why we used to have a tummy time right before the feed. Recently spitting up decreased and her A-time increased. So we started giving her tummy time in one hour after the feed and we kept the original tummy time before the feed.
So it seems like nap-wise she wants to be on 4-hour EASY with 2 big naps and 1 catnap, but feeding-wise she is not ready since she is usually very hungry at 10:30am and 5:15pm feedings (even though most of the nights she feeds every 4 hours).
What should I do? Right now I'm just going with the flow: if she is sleeping, I let her sleep; if she is hungry and it's around the feed time, I feed her. But since I'm working and I want to skip as little feedings as possible (i.e. schedule my meetings in between feedings), I would like her to be on the fixed schedule.
I will appreciate any advice.
Thank you.