Confused about activity time for 4 month old

[DebbieBirchall]

 

Hi ladies
I've not strictly followed Tracy Hogg but have kept the EASY routine in my mind when feeding Tom so that after a feed he'll have a play and then a sleep. Every month or so I check the Tracy Hogg baby whisperer book just as a reference to see how long he should be playing/sleeping for and in generel Tom seems to have followed the pattern in her book.
I have a question about her table for 'changing your four month old's day to solve sleep prolems at night' as Tom's sleep at night is still erratic after his growth spurt and jabs on Friday.

Its on page 230 of her 'The baby whisperer solves all your problems' book -

on the table it clearly says how long their activity should be for, because after each activity it states what time they should be sleeping at - until you get to the 4-5pm ones where it just says catnap next to sleep as opposed to a time when they should be having the cat nap. So now I'm confused as I wanted to know how long to let Tom play for before he has this cat nap - So for example if he his activity starts at 4.30pm (days 1-3) then what time does the catnap start at?

Hope this makes sense and someone can help me as I reckon this part of the day is where I'm going wrong with Tom. He is really good at getting off to sleep as we have a good routine off feed, bath, feed then bed but he's still waking me twice inthe night when he had been waking me only once for three wekks up until his growth spurt.

Sorry for the essay!

Love and Hugs
Debs and Tom
xxxxxxxxxx

[maggieruth]

hi Debbie
it sounds like you are doing a great job and i bet Tom is a pretty happy baby!  jabs and growth spurts are enough to throw any baby off routine and there is not a mum here who doesn't find that sometimes things just go out the window for a while.  i wasn't able to follow the babywhisperer routine to the letter because i found that my baby just does better sleeping a lot one day and not so much the next and on really exciting days (like visits out to family who live far away) that he doesn't sleep at all 
also, i think that that last few hours of the day are the worst for most parents as our lovely weel rested children change into more sleep deprived winges.
what i absolutely embrace is the general principle of EASY and use it to make even our crazy days (my son seems to LOVE crazy) as routine as possible.  you know your son best!  i would say use his signs of fatigue to tell you when he is ready for a nap and when he starts yawning or eye rubbing get him to bed before he becomes overtired.
when Tom gets up in the night, how do you help him back to sleep?  how late does he sleep til in the morning? what about a dream feed? 
let us know about these things and someone with a baby that actually follows a routine properly will likely jump in soon!
HTH!

[DebbieBirchall]

 
Sorry i haven't replied sooner as only just getting the hang of the boards.  Oops Tom has just woken up - will get back to you later
Debs
xxxxx

[Erin M]

Debs--
First off, definitely keep in mind (as you seem to be) that those schedules are just a guide.  Seems like there's been a lot of discussion about the chart on page 230, look at this link for further explanation:
https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=41061.0

Also, every baby is different - if you look at this link, here are a bunch of schedules that people have posted for LOs that are around the same age as yours.  Looking at them always helped me to find the routine that best fit my DD
https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=10385.0

HTH!