Hello all--
My 4 1/2 month old boy is supposedly on a 4-hour EASY routine with 7 am wakings-- we aim for the one in the book. When we first switched, Gabriel continued taking the longer naps that he had previously been taking (1 1/2 to 2 hour naps, then one one-hour to 45 minute nap late in the day), but recently, his naps are 45 minutes to one hour long.
I try to get him to go back to sleep and have even tried to keep him in the crib until at least an hour and a half has passed since he originally fell asleep. But most of the time, he is fairly happy when he wakes and does well if I end up getting him up. He rarely falls back asleep. So I'm wondering if he's just going to take shorter naps from here on out or if I should continue to push the longer naps?
Also, as the title suggests, the shorter naps with varying lengths means that the four-hour interval between feeds falls somewhere in the middle of his wake time between naps so that by the middle of the day onward, we are practially feeding him just before putting him down for a nap again. Do we follow the routine or the clock schedule or establish something of our own in between? This last option is what we are currently doing, as described below.
We are running into a problem after the second nap, which usually ends by 1 pm. He is starving and expects to be fed according the the eat, activity, sleep, you routine that we have established-- even though we had last fed him at 11 am and it has only been two hours. I have been feeding him at that time despite the clock because he's been downing 8-ounce bottles lately, and it's a nice way to add an extra feeding to the day, as this is probably a growth spurt. Then we feed him after the third nap, which ends around 4, and then just before bed around 7 or 7:30 pm. Does this sound like the right thing to do even though he is supposed to be on a four-hour routine? And does it sound like a growth spurt even though this has been happening for about a week now?
Let us know what you think!
Lauren
