Sleeps during day, plays in the middle of the night help!!!!

[Kaiden's Mommy]

My son is 10 weeks old and goes to bed between 7pm - 8:30pm.  He wakes up in the middle of the night for a feeding, however remains awake to play for a few hours. this means we are up from approx. 2am to 4am.  He has 2 hour naps (2 to 3 naps) througout the day and is very tired by 7pm.  This would not be a problem except play time for him is in the middle of the night.  What should I do? Should I keep his naps shorter by waking him up?  I have heard different ideas, such as waking him from naps to feed him, so that he doesn't sleep through his feedings. Also to keep him awake until 11pm.  This is hard as he is so tired he becomes extramly cranky and crys non stop until I soothe him, which cause him to fall asleep anyway.  I have tried to put him on a daily routine but unable to due to his weird sleep pattern. PLEASE HELP.


Dana

[GG]

No, you should not keep him awake until 11 PM.  At 10 weeks, he should be getting 15-18 hours of sleep per day.  Would you say that he's getting that much?

Could you post a sample routine?  It would help me see what his day is like.

[Kaiden's Mommy]

We have not had him on a routine as I had no idea what it should look like. I am hoping to begin the 3 hr Easy.  We began a night routine to see how it goes.  Begining tonight:

From 5:45pm til 6:30- short nap.
6:30pm - bath
7:00pm - Ate
7:30 pm - bed.

11pm- change and  dream feed


He was going to bed very early (6:30pm approx) as he was extreamly tired and we were unable to keep him up.  He was sleeping until 12am or 1 am then waking himself for a feed.  WHen he woke he was no longer tired because he had slept for 6 hours.

He does sleep 15-18 hrs daily, just not at the right times.  He likes to sleep throughout the day.  I am going to try the 3 hr Easy and hopefully that will put him on some sort of routine.  I hope this is the correct thing to try.  I have been reading the message boards all day for some insperation.

Dana

[Kaiden's Mommy]

I have started the 3 hr EASY and so far it is working well.  It looks like this

E:7:30 wake and eat
A:8:00
S:9:00

E:10:30
A:11:00
S:noon

E:1:30pm
A:2:00
S:3:00

E:4:30pm
S: 5 or 6pm (cat nap - 40min to 1 hr)

A: 6:30 or 7:00pm - Bath
E: Eat
S:8:00pm

DF: 11:00pm

my question is: He is unable to fall asleep for his naps until 25 min. past the hour. (i.e 9:25am or a little later)  So when I want to feed him at 10:30am.  Should I wake him to begin his next feed and activity. I do not want him to sleep all day because I will get him backinto the routine of playing in the middle of the night.
I was told to never wake a sleeping baby, but is his case he will sleep past his eating time if it takes him a bit longer to fall asleep.  What should I do?

Thanks
Dana

[GG]

If he goes to sleep 25 min later, then let him sleep that extra 25 min.  It's pretty hard to keep a baby on a strict schedule (how strict are you about your schedule?  Do you do everything at exactly the same time every day?).  They are only little humans after all.     :wink:

The important thing here is to keep the routine so that he knows what to expect during different parts of his day.  If you see that things start to get off by too much (say, 45 min??), you can scale back on a nap here or there.

The routine you posted is great!!!  Keep it up but do give him some leeway in terms of the times.

[MCGoldsmith]

Hi Dana...
The routine does look great! It may take some work but I think you will see it is so worth it. I would just add that-- and I'm sure you already know it-- but when he wakes in the night be sure and keep lights off. When my ds would wake we wouldn't even talk w/him. (it's hard.. as sometimes he would be smiling bc he wanted to play and it was all I could do to not crack a smile)  Just try resettling him and putting him back down. This way he knows its still sleep time.
Good luck!

[GG]

(it's hard.. as sometimes he would be smiling bc he wanted to play and it was all I could do to not crack a smile) 

Boy, isn't that the truth?  That smile warms my heart even in the middle of the night and I can't do anything about it but smile to myself afterwards!!  ;-)