confused

[clare076]

I am still waiting to purchase a copy of BW (shortage of funds) but have started to try putting a 3 hour EASY into place. I always make sure we have activity time after feeding, then sleep but my baby fights sleep everytime I put her down. I assume I am missing the "window" and will learn all about that from the book, right?

Also we have A before S to stop association, but if baby has S then E, does baby start waking and then expecting food, and play resulting in catnaps or multiple waking at night. Have I got this wrong. My baby now has a problem resettling at night after her 1am feed, she wants to play for an hour. (spent last night smiling at me, although I tried not to acknowledge) I keep the room dark, don't change her nappy unless I really need to, and have limited interaction with her. She usually goes to bed at 8pm after a feed and a bath and sleeps until about 12.30-1am. (I have tried DF at 11 but she still wakes at this time) After this she wakes again for a feed at 4am and is wide awake at 5.30-6am. In theory this doesn't look to bad, but it is taking me over an hour to resettle her each time.

Any advice.
Shelby is 7 weeks old

Clare

[dannygirl]

 My DD use to do that. she would be up for an hour at each night feeding she would always laugh at me  and smile.  It stopped at about 8 or 9 weeks, started when she was about 4 weeks old. The only thing that I did was just left her in her bassinet and just rocked it and kept giving her the paci, I wouldn't pick her up unless she was crying.
 I wish I could offer more help but in all honesty I don't know if she stopped it herself or if my trying to put her back to sleep the whole time paid off. I also try to catch her before she wakes all the way, sort of like a dream feed.  I guess I would just say try to stay strong. It made me exhausted when she was doing this and I know how you feel.

[HeatherC]

Hi, Clare.  When you say your baby fights sleep, how does she eventually get to sleep, what method do you use to help her fall asleep, and how long does she sleep?  Regarding the association of eating after waking, babies her age naturally want/need to eat every 3 hrs or so, therefore, that shouldn't be a problem.  The way EASY works is to get your baby on a routine so that he/she doesn't require a feeding in order to fall asleep.  With the appropriate feedings and activity time, the baby should be ready for a good nap, and after that ready to do it all again.  A times change quickly as the baby changes.  At 7 weeks, I'd say including the feeding that A time would be about 1-1.25 hrs with about a 1.75-2 hr nap.  Of course, not all babies nap that long, and some nap longer.  If your lo wakes before the next feeding time, unless she is hungry, you would just have a bit more A time.
Can you give me a typical day's schedule?  The night play could be a result of many things, so if I know more about your day I may be able to help.

[clare076]

A typical days schedule usually starts around 5.30am, which I would be than happy to make a bit later if there is a way of doing so. Shelby is bottle feed EBM and usually only takes about 10 mins to finish a bottle. She is then usually quite happy to sit in her bouncer or lay on the floor for around 30-45mins depending on how long she was awake for before the feed.

 It will normally then take me about 20 mins to get her to calm down and start to drift into sleep. The whole time she is crying and getting quite worked up. This is before I have even put her in her crib. Once she is drowsy I can put her down and just stand there with my hand on her chest until she goes off, and she may sleep from 30mins up to 2 hours, but this is only after 10 mins of screaming.
It is almost like she knows that when I wrap her up and give her a cuddle it is bed time and a reasonable happy baby starts to scream.

I have tried laying her straight in the crib when I think she is tired, leaving her and going back in if she doesn't settle, rolling her on her side and ssh/pat, if she doesn't become hysterical and actually goes to sleep, she will usually only stay asleep for around 10-15 minutes before I have to do it all again.

Shelby usually wants to eat every 2.5 to 4 hours which seems ok for her age etc. She usually has a short nap after her first feed of the day, followed by a 1.5 to 2 hour nap. Then catnaps of 30-45 mins until around 3pm when she will again have another 1.5 to 2 hour nap.

I always give Shelby a bath around 7.30 as this usually relaxes her enough to have a good 5 hour sleep from 8pm-1am, (although again would prefer this was moved back to say midnight to 5am but not sure how to go about this) Then will have a feed and want to stay awake for up to 1.5 hours before going back to sleep, only to wake for another feed at 4am then no sooner have I finished feeding her the sun comes up and our day starts again..

I am exhausted. 

I purchased both books yesterday so hopefully I can start getting an understanding of how it all works, but if you can give me any advice before I get through the books I would appreciate it heaps.

Thanks
Clare