How long does it take to get to 4 hour EASY?

[CT Mommy]

I am currently on day 12 of Tracy's transition from 3-4 hours and am wondering just when is this going to kick in!! 

I kid you not, since birth, my ds has been on a 3 hour EASY schedule which was a shock considering he was born one month early.  He ate every 3 hours like clockwork--24 hours/day.  We didn't have a long stretch of sleep at night until he was about 3 months but it lasted only a few short days.

Then, it seemed like out out of the blue he started taking 30 minute naps and waking every three hours at night again.  I started to move him to the 4 hour EASY.  But, when will I see real results?  What am I doing wrong?

My ds used to take 30 min naps, 5 times/day and now we are to 3, 45 minute naps, which is a slight improvement.  He also used to eat every 2.5 hours and now we are to about 3.5 (and 4 in the a.m.), which is also a slight improvement.  But, he is still waking every night 3 times.  In fact, he usually wakes BEFORE the dream feed, at aroun 1:30 and then again at 4:30.  I have been feeding him at the 10:00 dream feed time and then again at 4:30, but have been putting him back to sleep for the 1:30 time slot.  We have been at this for 12 days!!

I feel like I have been doing everything right--letting him fall asleep on his own since birth with sshhh/pat, sticking to EASY and now this transition plan.  It only takes hiim about 5 minutes to fall asleep after I lay him in his crib (swaddled with paci), but doesn't seem to be able to stay asleep longer than 3 hours at night and 45 during the day.  HELP!

Nicole

[Deb_in_oz]

ok - your ticker is not working and i am unsure how old your lo is - can you give age and corrected age.  and can you give me the full day showing all wake times, sleep and eat times, what is his tempement

[CT Mommy]

Sorry not sure why my ticker is not working...I'll fix it when I have more time (that will be in about 18 years!!?!?)

My ds is 18 weeks old, corrected age of 14 weeks.  I took Tracy's quiz and he is more of a textbook baby then anything else and his personality is very easy going, calm and he seems to be pretty independent, given his age (he can play for along time by himself...etc.).  He's a very smiley and talkative and laughs alot (until now when he is so sleep deprived during the day). He has been 100% breastfed since birth and always a very fast eater--at birth he could drain both breasts in 20 minutes.  His feeds now are VERY short--about 10-15 minutes.  This would cause me significant concern except that he left the hospital at 5 lbs 7 ounces and now weighs 15 pounds!  In fact, he doubled his birthweight by 8 weeks!!

Overall, I am feeding him 7 times/day.  Tracy's goal schedule is a 5 feed/day schedule.  My pediatrician has suggested starting solids, but my lo is not ready (cannot hold head up, sit in high chair etc.) and I would prefer to keep him exclusively breastfeeding as long as possible.  Another friend suggested a bottle of formula for the dreamfeed, but I have enough milk at this point in time.

This is his current schedule--I am pretty much trying to adhere to Tracy's suggestions, except I cannot get him to go back to sleep during naptime.  Once he wakes after the 45 minutes there isn't enough pu/pd or shh/pat possible to get him to sleep.  So he is up sometimes 3 hours or more between naps which is exhausting for both of us.

Awake--6 a.m., put back to sleep
E-7
A
S-9-9:45
A
E-11:00
A
S-12:45-1:30
A
E-2:30
A
S-3:15-4:00
A
E-5:00
Bath/PJS- 6:00
E-6:30
S-6:45/7:00

He usually wakes around 10-11 and I feed him then

He wakes again around 1:30--I do not feed him, sshhh/pat to sleep
He wakes again around 3:30-5:00--I feed.
He wakes again around 6:00--sshh/pat to sleep
I wake/he wakes at 7:00

Sorry this is so long--I hope this provides a better picture of what is going on--I feel pretty defeated and am working so hard for what seems like so little result.  Can you help me?

[KellyC]

Hi Nicole

Well done on having so much stamina!  I've found that sticking to a rigid timetable doesn't work - my DS who is also 18 weeks can't tell the time and hasn't read my BW book so we stick to the EASY routine by doing things in the right order and by watching his cues How long do you try to get your LO back to sleep when he wakes early from his naps?  I seem to remember in Tracy's sleep interview that the maximum you should keep going is 40 minutes and after this time leave the room for 10 minutes or so and do something very low key and then try for the nap again when he seems tired.  I would watch your DS very closely for his tired signs and put him to bed when you see them, which might even be 1 or 1.5 hours after the end of his last nap.  I suspect staying up for 3 hours between naps to fit with the ideal schedule is making him very over-tired.

Good luck

Kelly x

[Deb_in_oz]

I think Kelly has said a lot of it really well.

IMO i think for a (corrected age) 14 week old who was feeding every 2.5 + hours he's not ready for the transition, nor does he need it yet. I would go back to 3 hour feeds + DF/regular feed between 10-11pm + probably 1 overnight feed and try to work on getting the naps back and hopefully when he is not overtired he will eliminate the 1:30 waking and improve the length of that stretch from DF to 1 night feed (that one between 3:30-5am)  and then to wake up feed...

i think if you find that he wakes at 7 and feeds well i woudl try putting him down at 8:30 instead of 9 and see if you can break the overtired cycle.  If he does 45 min and you spend 20-45 min trying to extend, then get him up if it does not work. but from that point on you need to watch him for cues because if you try to follow the clock and keep him up for 3 hours to compensate and "get back on track" i think it will backfire and continue the short naps.

Many babies need a shorter A time first thing so you may find he needs 1hr 30 (or less) for first A time and then extends them through the day in 15-30 min increments until his last A time before bed is likely to be the longest. so you could have varying lengths of EASY cycles - follow his cues and aim for 3hr feeds (if a nap/A time is shorter or longer and the cycles end up as 2.75 or 3.5 sometimes that is fine - just keep the order of E/A/S and avoid feeding to sleep)

once the overtired cycle is broken and he is napping better and only waking from hunger at night we can look at how much to extend his A times and when/how to transition him to 4 hrs.  even textbook babies who were born full term average 4+ months for the 4 hour routine, so at 14 weeks i think it is too early for him.  HTH  Please ask any questions you have and i will try to help / explain myself further.

[GabrielleD]

I tried to put DS on a 4-hour schedule around the time he turned 4 months old as indicated in the book. He wouldn't have it. However, he automatically put himself on a 4 hour schedule around the time he turned almost 5 months old. So I guess every kid is different, and when your LO is ready for a longer time between feeds he'll let you know.

[CT Mommy]

Thank you for all of the great advice and suggestions.  I am new to my town and don't have alot of moms with young children to talk to, so I really appreciate the time you've taken to help me.

I have some questions regarding your thoughts on EASY.  You see, my lo ate every three hours at birth and would nap several hours at a stretch.  Then, he started to stay awake longer and his naps eventually shortened to 30 minutes.  So his three hour schedule looked like this:

E- 7:00
A-
S-8:30-9:00
E-9:00
A
S-10:30-11:00
E-11:00

and so forth.  So a 2 hour schedule, if I keep things in the same EASY order.  This schedule made him gassy--he also constantly spit up.  It also reinforced the 30 minute napping regiment, which lasted at least 2 months.  Since he was taking short naps, has eratic night wakings and is 4 months old, I decided to try to transition to 4 hours.   I have stretched his naps to 45 minutes, which is the good news, but I have to keep him up 2 hours to do so.  If I put him down after 1.25 or 1.5 hours, I will get LESS than 30 minutes sleep, usually around 15-20 minutes, which certainly cannot constitute a nap.   How can I break the cycle?  If I put him down earlier the naps seem to actually get shorter!!  And, if I keep the routine consisently EASY, then he ends up eating every 2 hours.  Right now I am doing EASYAEASY.

Also, trying to extend his naps has been an abysmal failure.  When I go up to get him from his 45 minute nap, he is smiling and happy.  Then I try to get him back to sleep.  I do not pick him up and just sshhh/pat.   Both of us walk out of the room hysterically crying.  I also have a 23 month old, whom I cannot really leave downstairs alone to spend 45 minutes trying to put him back down.  I could try to rock him or nurse him, but I know that is the start of accidental parenting.  Should I give up on the nap extension?

Also, we did not do the dream feed before trying to implement the 4 hour EASY and he woke at 1:30ish and 4:30ish to eat (so he slept at least 5.5 hours straight).  We did the dreamfeed at 11:00 pm for one week and now he wakes around 9:30/10:00 to eat.  Now he wakes THREE times/night on his own to eat and only gets about 4 hours straight.  Should I eliminate the dream feed and go back to the other two night feedings instead of trying to eliminate the 1:30?

Again, any thoughts you have is sincerely appreciated.

Nicole

[Deb_in_oz]

when you were feeding every 2 hrs was it because he was hungry and taking a full feed or just because you understood easy to mean feed after every sleep?   feeding too frequently can certainly cause gas and spit up as his tummy gets overfull. in the case where a lo is taking short naps you have to tweak EASY to go with the flow a bit more to find the middle ground so you are still feeding when lo is actually hungry and watching cues for sleep etc.  so sometimes when things get a bit wonky you end up with some EASYAEASY parts meaning that after the short nap with no extension you wait until the hungry time / 3 hrs to feed which means some A time after the nap, then a feed, then some more A time and then the next nap

I will get LESS than 30 minutes sleep, usually around 15-20 minutes, which certainly cannot constitute a nap

this says to me either 1) he is overtired at 1.25 - 1.5 hrs and needs even less A time or 2) he needs help to get int ot he deeper stage of sleep. if this is the case there is detailed advice in the sleep interview posted in the sleep/nap boards or in the latest book. i know itis tough to do sleep training with another lo underfoot - i sytruggled with it myself a smy 2 are 19 mo apart.  what i woudl do when we were struggling is to time DVD/TV watching for when i knew i would need to give Liv my undivided attention for her nap, so if i was aiming for a nap at "X" time I woudl line up alex's DVD for when i put Liv down and tel her i woudl be in Liv's room and to watch her show... then go and spend the next 30-40 min with Liv (and when she was on track for naps i did this for extensions) i figure the extra DVDs are the price i ha to pay to buy that (mostly) uninterrupted time - sometimes alex woudl barge in but that was unavoidable. i did the best I could with what time i had.

We did the dreamfeed at 11:00 pm for one week and now he wakes around 9:30/10:00 to eat.

this happened to us (and quite a few other posters) and we just fed when she woke at 9:30/10 and skipped the Df that night.  you could try to wait it out and see if it goes away soon.

[CT Mommy]

Debra et al-

I was feeding him at 10:00 b/c that is when he awoke from his nap and I was trying to keep him in the EASY routine...this child will eat no matter when I feed him, so he would eat, though he wasn't that hungry.  I created a snacker!!

After getting your great message, I looked at the naps section and read, for the first time, about wake to sleep.  I have never heard of this before, even though I spent hours upon hours on this website with my dd, and was RELIEVED to know that the 45 minute naps was a result of biology and not my failure as a mother!!   :?

I am going back to the 3 hour schedule and am going to give the wake to sleep a go; My dh will be home for a 3 day weekend this weekend (MLK Day) and I will be able to focus on the nap training.  In the meantime, I am going to focus on the afternoon nap (when my dd is napping) for the next couple of days.  Looking at all 3 naps is overwhelming to me at this point.  Coincidently, yesterday afternoon, I put him to be after A time of 1.5 hours and he slept for 1.5 hours straight!!  I was so happy I almost cried!!  He also SLEPT through the 9/10 pm feed last night and woke at 1:30 and 5.  So, I do not think I am going to continue the dreamfeed.  It didn't seem to work for him and it certainly wasn't working for us.  I would rather go to bed early and wake twice then feed 3 times and not get any sleep.

I tried only `1.5 hour A time this a.m. and mid-morning and got the usual 45 minutes, but I am still gloating at the 1.5 hour nap yesterday afternoon!

Any other thoughts are welcome.  I appreciate your help and will keep you posted!

Nicole