Almost 4 month old on a 3 month routine- should I nudge her to progress?

[Scottishmummy]

DD is 16 wks now & will be 4mo old next week.  For the last month she has fed pretty consistently around every 3hrs & had around 1hr30 A time, apart from late afternoon when she needs 2hrs before she'll take a last 5pm nap to get her to BT.
We can only get short naps at home (40mins) but have just posted in Naps as she is often quiet after waking for up to another 40mins & I'm wondering whether to try leaving her in her cot for that time.  We can get one long nap a day if she's in the sling.

On a good day this has been our routine:

WU & E : 7ish
A 1hr30
S 8.30-9.10-15

A
E:10
A (total A1hr30/35)
S 10.45-1pm (in sling)

E:1pm
A: 1hr30
S: 2.30-3.10/15

A
E: 4pm
A total A 2hrs
S 5.15-5.30 (in sling & capped otherwise we get EW)

A:
E: 6.30/45
A: 1hr15-30
S: between 6.45 &7

She definitely still shows hunger cues around 3hrly & tired cues around 1hr20-30. Just wondering if I should be pushing her to go longer between feeds & naps as she approaches the 4mo leap, or wait & see whether she extends this herself. This routine suits us right now for My older DS's activities too. I did try pushing to 3.5hr feeds & 1hr45 A time a week or so ago & ended up with a sad, hungry OT bubba. I just wonder if we *should* be attempting to progress

[Martini~]

Oh no Honey:) there shouldn't be a "should" approach there for sure:). If something is working, don't fix it! However if you would like to change something or you see some signs of UT or OT let us know and we will try to figure it out!

[Scottishmummy]

Thank you, that was my gut feeling but it helps to have that reassurance.  It's hard making all the routine decisions alone sometimes (DH is great with the kids but leaves all the routine stuff to me)

[becj86]

She is getting a good long naps in there and she's getting about the 'average' amount of day sleep for a 4mo anyway, so if the three catnaps and one longer nap works well for your family, keep it going.

We can only get short naps at home (40mins) but have just posted in Naps as she is often quiet after waking for up to another 40mins & I'm wondering whether to try leaving her in her cot for that time.

This is your clue that its probably time to increase - she may only need a touch more but just be aware that babies can be stuck in their A time if its not increased then it sometimes all goes to pot in a big way. If its all working, not need to fix it, but if she's having too many short naps, it can eventually catch up with you. A little 5-10min increase may be the way to go since she struggled with 15min - I'd suggest being there at 30min into the nap just to help her through if she is struggling the first day or two of the increase.

That short first A time can contribute to long happy NWs or multiple NWs in the early hours of the morning, so definitely worth increasing that one if those things start happening and they bother you but otherwise, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

[Scottishmummy]

Thanks for your replies.  I think DD is starting to extend her first A time herself so is now doing about 1.45 before first nap.  She still only sleeps 40 mins, but that suits me as it means I can get out with her & DS before 10 (which is the time DS tends to start getting stir crazy if still at home).

I've found that she still wants her 2nd nap at the same time though, which, with a later 1st nap is a shorter A time & is giving us a broken/shorter nap.

So yesterday's morning looked like this:

WU & E: 7
A 1.45
S 8.45-9.25

A
E:10
A total A 1hr20
S 10.45-11.15 (in sling)
A: 1hr
S: 12.15-1pm (in sling)

Today was similar but I kept her going until 11.00, she needed resettling at 11.20 and woke up at 12.30.  This threw the rest of the day out a bit and we ended up doing an earlier BT.

I'm wondering whether she's got in a habit with clock times rather than A times. Going to keep the 11.00 nap for a couple of days then try to push a bit later if she can cope with it.  I'm not sure how a much later nap will work with her feeds though, if she's still wanting to feed 3hourly (she's exclusively BF & is a big girl & therefore a hungry baby) as nap would get steadily later but shorter to keep the feeds.  How would I get round this?

[Scottishmummy]

Update- after a bad night last night with frequent, long wakings, I decided to just follow her lead (with some nap capping for feeds/cat napping) She had a really good nap day:

WU & E:7.15
A 1.45
S 9-9.45

A
E 10.30
A (total A 2 hrs)
S: 11.45-2.30 (woken by me)

E: 2.30
A: 2hrs5min
S: 16.35-16.50 (woken by me- I've found that more than 15-20 mins after 4pm gives us EW)

A
E: 5.30 (split feed part 1)
A (total A 1hr45)
E: 6.30 (split feed part 2)
S: 6.45

So a mixture of 3 & 4 hr feeds and A times but seemed to work for DD.  Will see what night we get as a result!

[Scottishmummy]

Well that didn't work- awake at 9.30 pm starving hungry and 3 further NWs then up for day at 6.15! Back to the drawing board!