HOWEVER, some days she goes nowhere near the suggested times for activity and sleep, which then puts everything else out for the day! Alot of the morning she cannot last near 1 1/2 hours awake or activity time (that includes the settling down time) and by the afternoon, she seems to be able to stay awake for alot longer! Is it OK, as long as it all balances out in the end?
i think you are doing fine and advise you not to worry about "suggested times" and follow her cues. the main aims are to observe your lo and act on her cues; ensure she does not have eat-sleep associations; and to have her going to sleep independently.
it is also normal for a baby to have longer awake times as they go through the day - and some days that first A time can be quite short - i think sometimes they wake up needing more rest and only wake due to routine or hunger and then after a brief A time need some more sleep.
A times really vary from child to child so it is important to get to understand your lo cues / timings so you can gauge when it is necessary to put her down. i think that at her age you are best to follow that rather than times on a routine - at 8 mo i find i can try to stick to routine times with Olivia now but every few days she wakes earlier or needs that first nap earlier and i found i have to respect that and either adjust the rest of the day or hope she takes longer naps... but at 15 weeks (12 weeks adjusted for you) i did not have that choice, if i waited too long she got overtired and it backfired on me and made for bad/no naps....
Olivia could not do 1 1/2 hrs awake time until 4 - 4 1/2 months old!! at 3 1/2 months she had 45 min - 1 hr A time and we stayed on 3 hr EASY until almost 5 months. follow what you think works for her.
So, do we stick with getting EASY in the correct order or should we be more concerned with getting time between feeds close to 3 hourly???
mostly stick to the order of things, but try to get her to feed 3 hourly as often as possible (rather than aiming for 4 hrs) if she wakes after 45 min nap i woudl try to extend it / have her in the cot for 1 1/2 hrs "rest" in total. don't feel like every baby is awake 1 1/2 - 2 hrs and doing 2hr naps and sleeping 7pm - 7am THEY ARE ALL DFFERENT and day to day they can vary
Will she settle down into a routine as she gets older, doing things at similiar times each day?
some of this comes down to 1) do you make sure she is starting her day around a similar time every day (ie - not letting her sleep in until 8:30 some days and she wakes at 6:30 other days) and 2) as she gets older and is on 2 naps things really generally settle into a reasonable routine (if not sooner) she will get more consistent in her A times from day to day with occassional blips (hopefully). These 2 things come together IMO because then if she is consistently waking at a regular time - within 1/2 hr - as she gains consistency with A times you then know roughly when she will need her naps
for example - my daughter Olivia who was very inconsistent in nap[ lengths and A times etc settled into a routine of napping 45 min in the morning and 1hr 30 in afetrnoon and then a "catnap" that was generally 45 min - 1hr 30 (she just preferred to sleep more in the afternoon) and now that she is on 2 naps i am aiming for having her in bed at 9:15am and 1:15pm the rest is up to her - she is still inconsistent some days in nap length... but i know now that as long as she wakes around 3pm or later then she will make it to bedtime ok KWIM?
Can we even expect other Baby Whisperer techniques to work if we can't even manage 3 hourly EASY??
all of the BW techniques are not dependent on what hours you are feeding yoor child. you can sleep train with pat/shh or PU/PD, use SLOW and other methods to observe and learn your lo cues and needs, establish independent sleep, refuse to use CIO or CC keeping the trust bond with your daughter sacred, etc
Tracy was about a philosophy, not a routine. she wanted people to learn who their individual child is and adapt the routines to them and respect them.
we are trying to adjust her sleep patterns for the last week so that the 'long sleep' break starts later at night (rather than in late afternoon) by doing last feed/ bath and bedtime routine as close to 6pm as possible, followed by 9pm dreamfeed
the DF usually takes place between 10 and 11pm is there a reason you are doing it earlier? if she feeds at 6pm, unless she is waking for food at 9 can you wait until 10 or later? if she sleeps until then you may find that she will take more food and the top up effect may carry her later than a 9pm feed would.
Keep up the good work and she will be fine - trust that you are getting to know her and she is growing and will increase her E and A times soon enough.
