Hi again
Well we've had 2 good nights now, although still a little messy in the mornings. The last 2 nights ds has gone to bed at 7pm, I haven't done the dream feed and the first night he went until 4am, then back to sleep until about 7am, then last night/thismorning he slept until 5.10am! Yay! I fed him only one side then and put him back to bed. He slept until 6.40am. I went in and unwrapped his arms and gave him a toy and I went back to bed until 7am. Just so he had some awake time in his cot. I'm working towards having him unwrapped so this will help I think when he does wake a bit earlier being able to move his arms around. He wasn't very hungry at 7am as you can imagine as it had only been 2 hours since he ate, but from 7-8am I offered it to him 3 times and he took some each time. Probably about the amount of a normal (not famished) feed.
Today's day will probably be something like this:
E 5.10am
S 5.30am
A 6.40am
E 7.10am
A 7.13am (sitting in highchair watching me have breakfast)
E 7.30am
A 7.33am (exersaucer)
E 7.55am
A 7.57am (reading stories, walk around house, songs - wind down)
S 8.15am (put in cot, wouldn't settle -pooped his nappy, possibly now overtired. This is where I am in my day now)
Hopefully it will continue as follows:
S 8.45am
A 9.45am - jolly jumper, floor time,
E 10.45am
A watching me do house stuff, stories
S 11.30am
A 1.00pm visiting neighbours, floor time, exersaucer stories
E 2.15pm
A
S 2.30pm try for nap but may not happen usually only 30mins - 1hour max at this time
A 3.00pm Walk in buggy (especially if hadn't taken a nap, will sleep if I keep moving and for about 15mins once I stop), Baby Mozart video, floor time, more cuddles than usual as tired and grizzly
E 5.30pm
Bath 6.15pm
E 6.40
S 7.00pm
As you can see it's not very consistent. Because ds takes shortish naps, not big long 2 hour ones which would make things 'work'. Usually 1h in the morning and 30 m - 1h in the afternoon, with the middle of the day about 1h 30 - 1h45m, and he's only awake 1h 45m a 4 hour EASY just doesn't work out. Especially due to his early morning feed. And it seems he only lasts maximum 1h 30m up once he wakes for the day. The next wake time he can do 1h 45, then the next is usually about 1h to 1h 30m if we want to be able to get him to take another nap. It's just so messy.
I kept logs for about 2 weeks and he averaged 3 1/2 - 4 hours of naps during the day from between 6am - 6.30pm, and would sleep about 10 1/2 hours at night.
I just wish I could get him more consistent, and I know it would work out much better once he sleeps through completely IE not having the early feed.
I had tried implementing the DF hoping to eliminate the 4-5am feed time, but it didn't work. He's ended up doing both if not waking more often. So the last 2 nights without out, he's managed to sleep much better. I'm thinking it may be partly due to exhaustion as he'll be awake from about 2pmish until 7pm with only a 30 min catnap. But at the moment, if that helps train his body to sleep through this might be a good thing. If I do put him in his cot he screams and nothing will settle him, he's happy when we get him up and continues playing. Sometimes he's grizzly though.
I've read your PM and I agree with what you say about the naps during the day effecting night time. I'm just wondering whether it's the problem here, or if it's just the way things have to be until he can sleep longer.
My concern about waking him at 2amish for a feed is that it may start a habit I will then have to break. At least like thismorning he made it until 5am. I'm hoping this may extend naturally.
When he wakes up sometimes in the early hours he'll talk away, and I don't know if I'm better to go to him then and feed so he goes back to sleep straight away, or leave him until he cries. This can take up to 45mins of him talking before crying.
Do you have any other ideas that may help, or am I doing everything already that I can.
Thanks for your help and for the PM. I'll re-read it and see if there's anything else I can get that may help also.