When did you start transitioning your lo to a 4 hour routine?

[jolenelim]

Were there any signs? Tracey mentions that bigger babies might need to transition earlier? My DD seems BIG to me. 

My DD is one week short of 4 months and just 2 days ago started napping just for 45 mins instead of 1.5-2 hours. Could it be that she's not that sleepy? I don't think it is because she's over-stimulated - I tried putting her down earlier. And she's been on EASY the day she got home from the hospital. She's sleeps through the night from 7 to 7 (plus a dreamfeed at 1030pm) UNLESS she's on a growth spurt. She stays up for a maximum of 1.5 hours before getting over-tired. I usually put her down 15 mins before that.

Should I look at lengthening her naps or activity time first? You'd think I should know this like the back of my hand since my DS is only 19 months... BUT MY MOMMY BRAIN IS WORKING OVERTIME! 

Please help. I know I'll have to transition her soonish anyway...

[LŠuren]

Hi Jolene

Here are the signs; https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=63161.0

Also remember you DON'T need to go to a 4hr EASY, you can stay at 3.5hr for a while, just follow your LO's cues.

[becky1969]

HI! I transitioned my LO at 12 weeks almost exactly. He was a big baby (I think 14 lbs). The signs we needed to switch were short napping and not feeding well in the AM, but then downing the late day bottles. He clearly wasn't hungry early on, but then was starving by the end of the day. After we switched to 4 hour EASY, it just took a few nap lengthening techniques (WTS and holding his legs down thru the jolts) to help him break the short nap habit. A week of transition time was all we needed.

[Harvey and Theos Mam]

We changed to the 4 hr EASY just before 4 months.

Theo did start to become a 45 minute napper at around 4 months and so when i looked at the book for help it said that we can fall behind with our routine and start to miss cues. Tracey says that we can get a little too confident and forget to put 100% in and take our LO's and their routines for granted.

In our case it was very true, we just followed the routine we already had and wasn't paying enough attention to Theo's new needs.

HTH

[jolenelim]

Thanks!! I started stretching her wake time to 1hr45mins yesterday. And today, she naturally stretched her wake time to close to 2 hours!! YAY!

[*Mona*]

we started, cold turkey, yesterday [dd's 3 months 1 week+]

I was having terrible problems with putting her to sleep, she didn't feed well [not at all hungry in the morning, starving in the evening, waking up a lot at night], and suddenly I realized she can easily handle 2 hrs A time. so I thought there was no point in changing her routine gradually.
some time before I was wondering if she was ready for 4 or 3,5 hrs EASY but just couldn't do anything as she started teething [we had 3 days of a real nightmare!] and had some tummy problems the same time.
and now, I must tell you, she's so much happier already! and today she slept until 7:15  real shock to me! with a DF at 11pm and more a snack than a feed at 3:30.
I hope it will continue working for us.

good luck to you !!!

[estherofi20]

I changed DS routine to a 4hr one at 12WO, 'cause he just wasn't hungry at the 3hr mark, and his naps started to be a mess, so i did it cold turkey from one day to another, it was a bit rough the first days with the longer Atime, but i distracted him by walking him around the house, wich he totally adores!, and then it all fell  into place again!

[jolenelim]

Okay, so I've started stretching DD's A time to almost 2 hours now, but she's still napping 1 - 1.5 hours which makes it pretty much still a 3 hourly routine!!

If I give her some A time BEFORE feed, then wouldn't that mess up the length of her A time AFTER the feed ie. she'll need to go down earlier?

I SWEAR I had the same problem with DS's transition, but I can't remember a thing!!