Help with A time and short naps for someone just starting EASY

[claredm]

I need to some advice on short naps. My question is:
1)   do I stick with the routine i.e. 2 hour awake time regardless of nap length, and hope she adjusts and accept the overtired for a bit longer.
2)   accept 45 minute naps – in which case what A time do I use?
3)   Or is my A time the issue here.

On Friday (today is Monday) I started trying to get my almost 6 month old daughter, ~ 4 months adjusted (she was born at 32 weeks), onto EASY and learning to sleep independently (all previous naps were in my arms/carrier, and she slept in a dockatot in my bed at night).

I read PU/PD chapter (which worked great for my son), decided on a 3.5 EASY (2 hour awake time), but it was very apparent she was being overstimulated and was too young for PU/PD. So after two PU/PD nap attemps, I switched to putting my hand on her tummy when she cried and I had to go in (and not picking her up). This worked great, it always calmed her. From end of day 1, she goes down in her crib without any issues (she fusses for 1-5 minutes on her own without me in the room). This seems a HUGE success! And I'm super happy about her independent sleep.

The issue is that her naps are short. In the PU/PD chapter it talks about getting her on the EASY routine, so I have been keeping her 2 hour A time, despite short naps. Which means she gets overtired, and the naps are 30-45 minutes, and I can rarely re-settle.  And since im not actually using PU/PD, just reassurance in the crib, im not too sure how to handle the short naps.

She is a very small baby because of being 2 months premature (85th percentile for head size, too small to be on the chart for weight) – so I’m not following easy more eaasy. I didn’t put the feeds on the times below, but I feed when she wakes from a nap, and then a small top up 30 mins before she goes down for nap if she wants it. She is exclusively breastfed. At night I feed her when she wakes between 1-3am, and I'm not wanting to stop doing that as she is hungry and needs to gain more weight (the 4am wake up is habitual and I will address that soon).

Friday day 1 = terrible naps
5.25am wake for the day
7.30am crib (VERY tired)
8.25-8.55 nap (PU/PD didn’t really work)
11am crib
11.15 - 11.30 nap
11.35 – 12.45 (lots of short nap, 20-30mins, and re-settling with me)
2.45pm – 4 (lots of short nap, 20-30mins, and re-settling with me)
5.30pm crib
6-8pm she woke every 20 minutes
8pm breastfed her
1.40am wake and BF
4.am wake and BF

Saturday (day 2) = perfect day
5.25am wake
5.30 BF
6.30am Top BF
7.05am into crib (very tired)
7.13-8.40 (nap)
10.30 crib
10.35-12.30 nap
2.15 crib
2.20-3.10 nap
4.30 crib
4.35-5 catnap
5.50 crib
6pm asleep
9.30pm Dream Feed
3.30am wake and BF

Sunday = terrible naps
6.25am wake (we overslept, should have had her up at 5.30/5.45am)
8.05 crib (very tired)
8.10-8.55 sleep
10.40 -11.15 nap - woke
11.25 -12.10 resettled and she slept more. She woke tired.
1.55 crib
2.05-2.35 nap (couldn’t resettle)
4.05-4.35 nap
5.45 crib (asleep immediately).
7.30pm (she woke and I Breastfed her – she was so tired early evening she fed really badly).
9.30pm Dreamfeed (this is when I go to bed)
1.20 am (wake and I fed her – she is truly hungry and wakes between 1-3 am every night).
4.15am (this is a habitual waking that I need to address but right now I just BF her).

Monday
5.40am Wake and UP For the day.
7.25am Crib
7.30 – 8.15am wake (tried to resettle – IMHO this is always futile after 45 minutes). She was very hungry.

[creations]

You've made great changes and had fabulous success really quickly - well done

almost 6 month old daughter, ~ 4 months adjusted (she was born at 32 weeks

When LOs are not full term there is a little experimentation needed to work out what A time is suitable.  She might be ready for 4 month of closer to 5 or even 6 month A times.  At 4 months adjusted I think you've made a good decision for now, just be aware that as she grows and develops her times might not always be 2 months different to her real age - a degree of catching up can be expected but I wouldn't be able to say when or how quickly that will happen. You just have to stay aware to it.

Looks like you've made a great start to sleep training   Falling to sleep calmly in the cot without you there is wonderful, the next step is to teach her to transition from one sleep cycle to the next - this is not always automatic and she probably needs to learn this just as she did the self settling for the start of nap time.  Re-settling will help her to learn this and will teach her that she is to take a longer nap.  you can also use W2S, here's a link on it, look at naps option 1 and adapt it to your LOs needs, so perhaps a firm hand on her rather than patting:
https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=223809.0
Depending how much time and energy you have you might do this for every nap, or you might choose one nap (maybe first of the day) and work on that one, doing the W2S and really trying to resettle for a long nap. Then with the other naps you might prefer to get her up if she doesn't resettle easily so that you don't get totally drained by it all (it can be very tiring spending all day sleep training) or so you can get out and about.

I would stick with the A time you are working with at the moment until it becomes a little more obvious that it isn't right. At this point it is not clear as it can be the inability to transition from one cycle to the next which wakes her and nothing to do with the A time.
If she takes a short nap and you cannot resettle I would probably reduce by say 10-15 mins if she is getting horribly OT.  OT naps tend to end up more like 10 or 20 mins and with some work LO can often be put back to sleep.

I would leave the night feeds in. It is totally normal to have a DF and a couple of NFs and she obviously needs the feeds just now.  There's no hurry to drop the NFs at all, especially for BF babies.  Don't feel any pressure at all to drop those. The BW books are a bit out dated on BF research.

I think also, although we advise to avoid feeding to sleep and snacking, if she needs a top up feed prior to nap that's okay. It could be that the nap (if it was a long one) would take her a bit too far over the 3hr E time and maybe she's just not ready to move to 4hr, which again is fine, not all LOs can move to 4hr E yet.  Tracy said that prem, low birth weight or BF babies may not be ready to move to 4hr E until more like 6 months - my own DS did not fit any of those categories but he also couldn't move beyond 3hr E until he was 6 months and had solids between his milk feeds.  You can adapt EASY to fit with your individual LOs needs.

hope this helps

[claredm]

Thank you for the feedback. I really appreciate it.

I think I'll give the short naps 2 weeks to sort on their own. Hopefully as she gets used to the routine things will improve.

One final question. She seems VERY tired with 2 hours. When I read her stories during wind down or sing songs, she often cries (when I do this with a shorter A time, she doesnt cry - so it's not my singing 

Right now I'm putting her into the crib at 1hr45 minutes and she typically is asleep within 2 minutes.

Could 2 hours be too long? Or perhaps its because the last few days her naps have been rubbish (30-45 minutes) and she's just tired.

[creations]

Yes it can be because 2 hrs is too long but the short naps indicate that she needs this rather than shorter I would have thought.  LOs often fuss when an A time is increased until they get used to the longer time and with the longer time tend to sleep longer too so end up more refreshed.
See how you go - you know her best