Author Topic: Alter EASY to adjust for over/under sleeping?  (Read 1250 times)

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Offline scotpiper

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Alter EASY to adjust for over/under sleeping?
« on: August 05, 2006, 21:42:17 pm »
I'm just starting a 4 hour EASY with my 6 month old DD. I'm confused. She has a habit of waking up around 6am, refusing to go back to sleep, breastfeeding and wanting more sleep within an hour or hour and a half. During that time, I usually get her up, eat my breakfast and give her her reflux meds, which have to be taken with applesauce. Do I incorporate that quirk into her EASY routine? She also ate and then fell asleep in her stroller during our walk this afternoon and didn't want to nap when we got home, so I let her have a bit of tummy time and then she went for a nap about an hour later than planned. She then woke up with gas an hour and a half later and was obviously still tired, but was crying due to the gas pain and wouldn't lay back down. I gave her some gas drops, fed her a half hour later and took her out to relax on our deck. She just went back down for a nap, an hour an 45 minutes after getting up from the last one. She was up every 3 hours last night. It is our 3rd day on EASY and we're still fine tuning it and breaking the breastfeed to sleep habit as well.  ???Does the EASY routine allow flexibility for this type of thing happening?

Offline Lªuren

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Re: Alter EASY to adjust for over/under sleeping?
« Reply #1 on: August 06, 2006, 07:46:30 am »
Hi there scotpiper
It sounds like you starting EASY has coincided with your LO's 4 months growth spurt - you can find more infprmation and a case study here https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=67976.0  I though if this post as soon as I read your story, as I think they are pretty similar.

Six Weeks to Four Months: Growth Spurts


Now many of the early feeding wrinkles are ironed out. Your baby is probably a bit more consistent, eating and sleeping better—unless of course she’s plagued by gastrointestinal problems or she’s very sensitive to her environment. In that case, hopefully you’ve learned to accept her temperament and are more tuned in to her cues by now. You also know the best way of feeding her and keeping her comfortable after meals, and you’re using your common sense to make life a little easier for her. At this stage, I get variations on the following two complaints:

     I can’t get my baby to sleep more than three or four hours during the night.

     My baby was sleeping for five or six hours during the night hut now she’s waking up more frequently, but always at different times.


Parents think they’re calling me about a sleeping issue, but to their surprise, both problems are related to food at this stage. By eight weeks, many babies—my babies—are sleeping at least five hours through the night, if not six. Naturally, it also depends on birth-weight and temperament, but after six weeks, we should at least be moving in that direction, encouraging them to sleep a good stretch at night. And with babies who have already started to sleep longer stretches, night—waking is commonly due to a growth spurt—a period, typically lasting a day or two, when your baby’s body demands more food. The ol’ Baby Whisperer has a few little tricks up her sleeve just for either situation.

If your baby is average-sized or heavier and has never been able to get to sleep more than three or four hours, I first ask, How many naps and for how long is your baby sleeping during the day? It could be that her daytime naps are robbing her nighttime sleep (an issue I cover on pages 177—178, where I advise you to never let your baby sleep for more than two) hours at a time during the day). But if her naps aren’t too long and she still can’t put more than three or four hours together at night, it probably means she needs to be eating more food during the day and to have a full tummy when you put her to bed. If you haven’t already done so, I would suggest tanking up (see page 93 and 195).

In the second situation, where a baby has been sleeping through for five or six hours and now starts waking at different times, it usually means that she’s going through a growth spurt. Growth spurts happen for the first time between six and eight weeks and recur thereafter about once a month or every six weeks. The one at five or six months is usually a signal that it’s time to introduce solid food.

Growth spurts can occur earlier in bigger babies, which can he confusing. A mum will call and say, “My baby is four months old, he’s 8.2 kg (eighteen pounds), and he’s eating 250 ml (eight ounces) at every feed, but he’s still waking up once or twice in the night. I’m not supposed to give him solid food in the night.” In that case, you have to use your judgment. You can’t give him more liquid and he obviously needs more to sustain him.

The question  that helps me determine whether a baby is having a growth spurt is: Does she wake at the same hour every night, or is her waking pattern erratic? If it’s erratic, it’s usually a growth spurt. This email illustrates a typical scenario:   

“I’ve just started my seven-week-old Olivia on E.A.S.Y., which she has taken to really well. But since we’ve started, her sleeping schedule at night has become more erratic. Before she would wake up at 2:45. But lately she seems to have no consistency despite her eating and sleeping at relatively the same time during the day. We have kept a log and we can’t really find anything that we are doing differently each night that would cause her to sometimes wake up at 1 and other times not until 4:30. Is there anything we can do to promote her to sleep until at least 2:45 like she used to?”

In a case like Olivia’s, I knew it was definitely a growth spurt, because she had been a pretty good eater and sleeper all along, and her parents seem to have instinctually had her on a routine. Another real tip-off was that although she usually woke at 2:45 A.M., her mum noted, “since we’ve started, her sleeping schedule at night has become more erratic [emphasis mine].” Because her waking happened to coincide with the parents’ putting Olivia on E.A.S.Y., they naturally assumed her sudden sleep distur¬bances had something to do with the new routine. But in reality, their baby is just hungry. And the reason Mum and Dad can’t figure out anything they are doing is that this is about what Olivia’s body is doing!

Let’s say that we’re talking about a baby who’s never slept well. She still wakes up twice a night. She, too, might be going through a growth spurt, but she also could be getting into a very bad sleep pattern, and Mum and Dad  reinforce it by feeding her when she wakes. So how do you know the difference? One clue is the waking pattern: Generally, habitual wakers get up at almost the same time every night—you can almost set a clock by them. Babies who wake erratically are usually hungry. But the best clue is food intake: When Mum tries to feed her, if she’s
having a growth spurt, she will take a full feed because her body needs the extra food. If she doesn’t take more than a few ounces, it’s pretty conclu¬sive evidence that we’re dealing with a bad sleeping pattern, not a hungry baby (see pages 191—192 for more on habitual waking).

The prescription for a growth spurt is always the same: increase food during the day and, if you haven’t already started doing so, add a dreamfeed (see Cluster & Dreamfeeding FAQ - https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?action=post2;start=0;board=11 ) at night. With bottle-fed babies, we increase by 25 ml (one ounce) the amount of formula you give during the day. With breast-fed babies, it’s a little trickier, because you increase the feed time rather than the amount. 

So if your baby is on a three-hour routine, bump it up a hit to every 2 ½  hours. With an older baby Who’s on a “4/4” routine (page 33), you have to go back to feeding every three or 3 ½ hours. Some moms find this advice confusing, like Joanie, a mother in Florida, who told me, “That feels like we’re going backward. I finally got him on a four hour routine. I explained that this is just a temporary measure. By feeding more often, she was letting her body know that it had to manufacture more milk for four—month—old Matthew, and in a few days, she would be producing enough milk to satisfy his new needs.

Growth spurts can disrupt your baby’s routine at bedtime, during the middle of the night, or when you put them down for a nap. Even parents Who are aware that growth spurts periodically occur may not realise that the so-called sleep issue or a bad case of cot-phobia is really about food. One mother, whose son David was six weeks old, had been working with the EASY. method for three days. The first two days, she wrote, worked like a charm. We followed the routine, and I was so proud that he was able to fall asleep in the cot consistently (with the help of a dummy). However, today (the third day), he has been crying pretty hard from the moment we enter his bedroom and begin our routine before his nap. He has been eating more frequently since last night, and I suspect he’s in a growth spurt. Can this resistance to his bedroom he related to growth spurt?

Absolutely. Little David is saying (through his tears), “ I don’t want to go to sleep. I want more food. So feed me.” If he isn’t fed, he’ll start to associate hunger with his bedroom. Babies are primal creatures, but they also very quickly learn by association. If you were sent to your room before you finished your dinner, there’s a good chance you wouldn’t want to go to your room, either! You’d see it as a bad place.


taken from Secrets of the Baby Whisperer



Also here are some pointers on what to focus on now you have started EASY;-

We concentrated on the following things:

1) getting the awake time to come after eating (even if that meant just a quick diaper change and back to sleep). Activity time was very limited, very short.

2) getting a good feeding schedule going, every 2.5 to 3 hours during the day, and letting him sleep as long as he wanted to (could) over night.

3) If we were coming up on a feed time (meaning it had been 3 hours or more since the last feeding started) and he was sleeping, we would gently wake him up to eat and keep the majority of the feeds during the daytime.  We only did this during the day - not at night, of course. At night if he woke, we just fed him, we didn't try to eliminate any over night feedings at this time.  DO feed the baby at night if he/she wakes at this young age.

4) Cluster feeding at 6:00, 8:00 and 10:00 (approximately) and starting bedtime routine. We started to tweak his schedule around 6-8 weeks so that he was in bed for the night by 10:00 (so that meant starting his bath at 9:00, and if he was asleep he got a bath and a feed anyhow before being put in bed - we chose to "wake a sleeping baby" in order to preserve the bedtime, but if you are not comfortable doing that, don't. Over the next two months bedtime moved up gradually to 9:00, then 8:00 and is now at 7:00. So the routine which we still do now - bath, massage, jammies, bottle, bed - just got started earlier and earlier as his nighttime sleep requirements got longer. We added on to the front end of his sleep, as is usually the way with babies.

5) kept a log of eat, activity and sleep times so we could observe any patterns that were emerging and see what worked.

That's the way the early days went in our house. We had fussy evenings, and irregular naps, and a lot of crying and choas, but we did the best we could to keep things predictable for him.

We were also committed to progress, keeping an eye toward the future and so in that way we were "starting as we meant to go on."  We didn't try to start at the end - you have to go through many steps to get a baby on a good routine.  Try not to get too stalled at any of the steps along the way and you'll be fine.

originally posted by Theosmom_



For the 6 am waking situation, the best way to deal (if you do not want to have 6am as your wakeup time);
The best thing to do in this situation is to offer either a top-up feed (to last until 7am or the wakeup time you decide) and then a full feed at 7am. OR a full feed at 0600 and a top up when you wake your LO at 7am.  Then you would feed at 11am - presuming you are on a 4hr EASY.



To start implementing EASY, I would;

1. Set a time to wake your Lo up each morning and a bed time.   We usually say 7am wake up and 7pm bedtime and a dreamfeed at about 10.30pm.
2. Stretch your LO to 3hrs between feeds.  (or 4hr, as I am not sure how old your LO is)
3. Get your LO down for naps in each EASY 3hr cycle, (or 4hr, as I am not sure how old your LO is)
4. Finally, get your LO to nap for longer than 1 sleep cycle (45mins) as often as you can, using various sleep methods i.e. shushpat, wake 2 sleep...  (your goal is 3 naps each lasting between 1hr 30mins to 2hrs)
5. Keep a log, you can download an E.A.S.Y. here --> https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=6208.0

You can also find very helpful EASY FAQ's to help you here https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?board=82.0
« Last Edit: August 06, 2006, 08:50:50 am by Calums_Mum »
Lauren x


Offline scotpiper

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Re: Alter EASY to adjust for over/under sleeping?
« Reply #2 on: August 06, 2006, 15:37:01 pm »
Thanks, Calums Mum,
DD is 6 months old next week and has reflux and colic. We actually think it has been out of control reflux and sleep deprivation instead of colic, as the worst of the colic symptoms have finally subsided since she started a new reflux med. She had been crying hysterically for up to 5 hours every night after sleeping for only 30 minutes and then waking up every hour and only really wanting food 1 of those wakings. She also had been taking only 1 or 2, 30 minute naps a day...if we were lucky. A friend lent us the Baby Whisperer book and after reading the sleep section, we knew we had to try it. We are 3 days in and even with our EASY being a bit confused, sleeping has gotten better...especially naps. Night1(start): 3 hours of hysterical crying and trying PU/PD. It turns out DD doesn't want to be picked up as she struggles against you every time, so now we crib comfort. She finally slept a 5 hour stretch and then another 4 hour stretch. Day1: naps were 1 hour, 2 hours and 1 1/2 hours. Night2: 40 minutes of hysterical crying and then awake every 3 hours. I finally fed her after the 3rd one. Day2: naps were 1 1/2 hours, 1 1/2 hours and 30 minutes (to make up for the one where she awoke early with gas pain, I think). Her naps shifted later due to falling asleep in the stroller. Night3: I put her down this time instead of my DH(I had been doing naps and he was doing nights, since he has a higher tolerance for hearing her cry and doesn't smell like milk). 5 minutes of fussing, awoke 20 minutes later, slept for 2 hours and then slept for 10 hours straight. She absolutely doesn't like the wind down period of sitting still in the rocker before naps and bedtime. She fights you as soon as you sit down, so we get back up and put her in her crib. Apparently, she considers her diaper change before sleeping as her wind down! It seems as though her 6am wakings have been due to pooing herself awake. She didn't poo this morning and slept until 8:30 from 10:30 last night. This morning, she got up at 8:30, breastfed, sat in her highchair while I ate breakfast and cleaned the kitchen, had her reflux med and clearly started demanding sleep at 10:00, even though she never yawned or rubbed her eyes...all vocal. ::) I changed her diaper, turned on her white noise, held her for a second and laid her in her crib. She fussed for a minute, rolled onto her side and went to sleep. That was 1 hour and 15 minutes ago! ;D She doesn't seem to have time for alot of cuddling like alot of babies. She's constantly in motion when awake and sometimes when asleep. We even tried massaging again last night and she would barely hold still for it. I thought massage was supposed to be relaxing. It seems to have the opposite effect on her. She is much better natured after only 3 days now that she isn't sleep deprived, and my DH and I feel like we have a plan that is helping (even though our EASY needs fine tuning) and that makes us feel better. We still have a delicate balancing act with her feeds and the reflux. We can't feed her within 30 minutes of her reflux med, we can't fill her up to much at any given feeding(smaller feeds, more frequently) and she can't lay on her back too soon after a feeding or she starts choking/hiccuping/spitting up, even with her head elevated. So, I'm not sure we can do a dream feed with her. Luckily, she is capable of going 12 hours between her last feeding at night and the first one in the morning, most of the time.

Offline scotpiper

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Re: Alter EASY to adjust for over/under sleeping?
« Reply #3 on: August 06, 2006, 16:13:48 pm »
So...I'm supposed to pick a morning wake up time and if DD hasn't woken up by then, wake her? Also, if she seems to be taking an overly long nap and is heading into a feeding time...wake her? I keep saying our EASY is in need of tweaking, but looking back over our "everything" log (which we've kept since she was born, due to health problems), she seems to actually have herself on a 3.5-4 hour EASY most days. Huh.... :o She also picked her own bedtime, 7pm, although, some nights, she wants to sleep earlier. Do we try to keep her awake on the nights where she's obviously tired earlier? How do we deal with the 1 evening each week where we will be putting her to bed 1.5-2 hours later, due to family commitments? Let her sleep longer during the day, if she will or just get her back on track the next day?

Offline HeatherC

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Re: Alter EASY to adjust for over/under sleeping?
« Reply #4 on: August 06, 2006, 17:09:36 pm »
I think it sounds like you're doing great!  There is obvious improvement in her sleep habits.  Well done!
Most tend to stick to a consistent wake and bed time, give or take 15-30 mins.  Usually, the lo will set this time on their own and you'll find they are the consistent ones.  Tracy did recommend to wake for feed times, b/c you don't want too big of a chunk of sleep in one period or it could through off the rest of the day and the night.  Again, you can be flexible, though, especially as your lo ages.  Once she's well established in an E,A,S pattern, you might find that you won't have to wake her too often.
Keeping a baby awake to the point of overexhaustion is not a good idea.  If, however, you have a regular commiment of a late evening each week, you could offer an extra 30 min catnap in the early evening, or try to have somewhere for her to go to bed when out and try to transfer her back to sleep once home.  That's something you'll probably have to experiment with.  If, however, she does go to bed late, she may want to make up for that lost sleep the next day.
Kelsey, Feb. 4, 2005
Landon, Jan. 2, 2007