spirited baby yawns after 15 mins

[usakiwigirl]

Our 10 week old, spirited/touchy baby loves being awake and playing after her feed, but she starts yawning after only 15 mins of activity, and if we wait, we miss the window, and she's hard to settle.  We've had her on a 3 hr. EASY schedule for 3 or so weeks now and only had a couple of perfect nights of sleeping for 6-7 hrs. The past few days nights. she's been waking up at 1am, and howling for 45 min.  We've tried the shush/pat and she only howls louder.  So, we feed her and she stops crying.  She then wakes up again around 4am, same routinue.  We can't tell if she's going through a growth spurt, because it's the same time every night, so is it habitual waking, or hunger?  But, she does seem to eat alot.  Also, are the short activity times giving her too much sleep time during the day? 

[Intransit]

Hi USAKIWIGIRL,
I know the beginning can be tough! My son was the same in respect to missing his window--and would also be so hard to settle, in fact he is 10 months, and this is still the case. 10 week is still young..and I can remember DS  at 3 months yawning after 20 minutes of awake time. Is it 15 minutes of awake time inculding or discluding the eating time?
 Since you are doing the 3 hr easy...are you also doing a dreamfeed with your LO? It is hard to tell sometimes if your LO is just making a habit out of waking, or if they are really hungry!
Also, it is only week 3..and ths can take some time for them to adapt..but the nights you did get 6-7 hours of sleep are great!! \
I look forward to reading your reply!
HTH a bit

[usakiwigirl]

SJEB,
Thanks for your quick reply,  The 15 min. of activity don't include the feed which ususally takes about 15-20 min.  We've been doing the dream feed consistantly.  We spent a few days trying to "tank her up" with 2 hour feeds before that, but she just spit up a lot more and it seemed to make things worse.  She's currently on Zantac for acid reflux. Last night she woke up about 20 min later than usual and went back to sleep right away (with the use of a pacifier) and then she slept until 4, and fed.  It was a much better night! I'm new here, so I'm not up on all the acronyms..  what's HTH?  Thanks

[Intransit]

Hi Usakiwigirl,
HTH--hope this helps---I realized the when someone asked the same question as you!
So, the actual awake time would be 15+20(approx) making it 35 minutes....I might suggest just trying to lengthen it 5 minutes every few days. If your LO's cues are telling you that DD is tired, then sleep is the best thing for her I would say...but as she gets older the time should/will increase. I do not have any experiece with reflux and how that can affect etc..maybe someone reading this does?
As far as the mentioning of the pacifier--I will confess that when I began EASY--I began using a pacifier as well. He still uses it to fall asleep sometimes..but its out in a matter of minutes. I do not think it is a horrible thing to have them use it -if it is for the sake of a better thing ie getting lo's to sleep longer or go longer between feeds. Sometimes they just want "to suck" on something and that helps soothe them. The problem arises when the paci becomes a prop, and they can't be without it..ie waking up because it fell out etc.
Again HTH!!