Help! Discouraged on day 2 trying EASY.

[lindsyhoward]

I would love to talk to someone that successfully switched to the EASY routine! I am on day 2 with my 12 weeks old, trying to correct out bad habits. One is that he would nurse to fall asleep, and/or sleep on my or his dad's chest for naps. I want to fix these mistakes and when I try the sleep training techniques to get him to nap in his crib, he cries and screams until his voice is gone, When he finally falls asleep it is never for more than 40 minutes. Then he remains overtired and the next nap is even harder if not impossible. He is a "touchy" baby. Please help! I don't want to revert to old habits

[H7]

I started our baby on EASY at 8 weeks so can't really comment on the 12 week aspect as I know 4 weeks in a babies life is a long time. However I just wanted to reply to say keep with it. It's tough but it will be worth it. I personally think that babies thrive off routine and consistency so whilst it may take some time eventually your bub will come to expect what's next in their day and will get used to their routine. It's just a bit of a battle to break the habits.

So not a lot of help there from me but more encouragement to say you can do it and you'll be so pleased when it's been mastered just remain consistent. 😃

[Scottishmummy]

It's hard when they are still so little and not keen to sleep. My son was the same (another touchy baby)

With both mine (even "textbook" DD)  I focused first on getting an EAS routine and getting them to sleep any way I could (other than feeding) & tried to sleep train only once I knew the right sort of timings for them.

[Lindsay27]

Can you post your routine in E-A-S format hun?  Might be worth taking a look and seeing if there is just some tweaking needed

[lindsyhoward]

Thanks everyone for the encouragement! I will try to post the last few days schedule when I have time. He had two days where he napped reAlly well, but then it's been awful since then. He just screams his hungry cry and I ended up nursing even if it's only been less than two hours, and he gulps for a few minutes and then just wants to sleep while he's nursing. I have to admit that I am so tired that it's hard to keep trying the sleep techniques in his crib. We did start having him sleep in his crib at the same time we started trying EASY... I don't know if it is just too many changes at once? If we can get him to sleep at night, he doesn't have a problem sleeping in there. He will sleep 3 hours at a time until about the 10 hour mark. Then he is awake but still tired but won't go back to sleep. I feel like not getting enough sleep is setting him up to be overtired from the beginning?

[lindsyhoward]

I've been taking some time to try and get the EASY routine established, and we have been very consistent for a few weeks. I think that there is something off with our evenings, because even if I an get him to take his daytime naps, the evening catnap never seems to help. Whether he takes it or not he is very fussy and cranky from about 4:30 until he goes to bed. We have tried the 7pm bedtime, 7:30, and also 8:00 and he seems to fall asleep at 8:00 no matter what time we put him down. No issues falling asleep at night as long as he gets put down around 8:00.

He is now 4 months and 2 weeks old. I have finally gotten him to go three hours between feeds during the day, here is what our schedule is like on a normal day:

7:00 Wake and Eat
8:30 Nap (1.5 ish)
10:00 Eat
11:30 Nap (1.5 ish)
1:00 Eat
2:30 Nap (1.5 ish)
4:00 Eat
Here is where it isn't so consistent...
I usually put him down at around 5:30 to try for a catnap. I have tried earlier, and later with not much luck. Sometimes he will sleep for 30-40 minutes, but always wakes up cranky. I have tried extending the nap and he won't sleep any longer.
7:00 Eat
7:30 Bedtime ritual
8:00 Bedtime
10:00 Dreamfeed

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!! I have been having a very hard time keeping him happy in the evenings leading up until bedtime, no matter how his evening nap goes. 

[Lindsay27]

Thanks for posting your EASY!  So I think what's happening here is his A times are pretty low so you are ending up in a UT/OT situation by bedtime - so he is under tired and fights the CN but then is OT by bedtime if that makes sense.  For his age his A times should be around 2hrs.

Average A times- BOOKMARK ME!

I think the best thing to do is push those A times to around 2hrs, you will maybe need to increase in 10-15min increments every few days.  This may mean that he only gets in 2 naps and a CN and depending on how that all ends up you may need to move BT forward.  How does that sound?

[lindsyhoward]

Thank you so much! That makes sense, I thought I read that his A times should be 2 hours, but I was confused how his feedings would go with that schedule. Until we got his EASY routine going, I was breastfeeding on demand, and that really made things confusing! He tended to act hungry when he had gas, and when he was tired... So I was feeding him WAY too often and was causing him to just "snack". I was also feeding him every few hours in the night. At his 4 month check up I talked to the Dr and she said to implement the 3 hour feedings, and that he could certainly go 8 hours at night without feeding. I have been gradually extending his time between night feeds because I didn't want to change that so drastically... So, long story short, I finally have him going 3 hours between feeds during the day. If he is awake for about 2 hours, how will I get him to nap longer than an hour, with our current feeding schedule? Or should I try to get that to 3.5 hours?

Thank you SO much for your help!

[Lindsay27]

I would try to get it to 3.5hrs if you can.  I don't have much breastfeeding experience unfortunately but I do know that it takes breastfed LOs longer to get on a 4hr routine (2hr A time/2hr nap) than formula fed babies.  I would try stretching the A time to 2 hours first and see how it goes, if he still takes a decent nap then he will have a good feed when he wakes up.

I can get some breastfeeding eyes on this if you want that can help with extending the feeds with the A times as well.

[lindsyhoward]

Thanks, I will work on extending that and see if it helps! Sure, any breastfeeding advice on E times would be great Also, I was wondering what everyone though about Night feeds for breastfed babies that are 4.5 months? I know my Dr said he could go 8 hours but I just don't know if he really can!

[Lindsay27]

Every baby is different, I think the doctor saying that is really over generalizing.  My DD can easily do 8hrs overnight but she is formula fed and that is much heavier, I'm not sure I would expect the same from a BF baby. 

I get some BF mod eyes on this for you, but like I said in the meantime just work in extending A times and the feeds should (eventually) follow.

[MasynSpencerElliotte]

I agree that the dr is over generalizing...bm is highly digestible and especially right now when there is generally a big growth spurt it would be a lot to expect a lo to go that long (not that some babies couldn't though). Bf knowledge has changed a lot since the BW books were written, and of course with Tracy's passing they have never been updated in that regard. Most bf lo's cannot make a 4 hourly feed routine until around 6 months when solids are introduced (at least none of mine did!). What we did was offered a top up feed a bit before nap time to help them get a longer nap in...alternatively you can also do that top up about 30 min after the feed as well, depends what works for you and your lo.