How much A time for 11 week old?

[Carmela's Mom]

I just want to make sure I'm on the right track!

[frankiesmom]

My ds is 12 weeks and has had a 1.5 hour awake time for a few weeks.  Now, we are transitioning to a 4 hour EASY, so I am extending awake time to 1.75 hours.  What are you doing?
Kim

[Carmela's Mom]

We were doing 1.25 but he's just not hungry at the 3 hour mark.  So I am trying to get him to eat every 3.5 hours which means lengthening his A time to 1.5 I guess.  I'll try it for a few days and see how it goes I guess. 

I'm also concerned if we do a 3.5 hour EASY that he won't get as many bottles in the day and will start waking in the night. 

[frankiesmom]

In her book, Tracy says that feeding fewer times during the day will actually decrease night wakings b/c they will eat more at a feed and therefore actually get more calories.  Once I lengthened time in between feeds, ds went from 2 night feedings to one.  So, it is probably worth a shot.

[estherofi20]

Hello there,

When my DS was 11WO, he stopped beeing hungry at the 3hr mark and his naps started to be a mess, so i decided to change him cold turkey to a 4hr routine, it was a bit bumpy for the first few days 'cause of the extended Atime, but i distracted him by walking him around the house, wich he loves, and thankfully it all began to fall back into place. So at 12WO, his Atime inlucing a feed, was 1.5hrs, then i started the wind down so add 10min there, so in total he had 1 hr and 40min of Atime, and then he slept from 2hrs 20min to 2hrs, more or less.

[Carmela's Mom]

I think he needs more of a 3.5 hour EASY but my problem is that he wants to nap more than 2 hours at times....what should I do then?  When I wake him, he doesn't want to eat.

[estherofi20]

in my case i did follow a 4hr EASY, and i remmember i used to let him sleep 2hrs and 20min tops. So our day used to go like this:

7:30 wake up and eat
8:00 till 9:00 activity
9:00/9:10 wind down
9:10/ 9:20 sleep
11:30 eat
12:00 till 1:00 activity
1:00/ 1:10 wind down
1:10/ 1:20 sleep
3:30 eat
4:00 till 5:00 activity
5:00/ 5:10 wind down
5:10/ 5:20 catnap
6:30 bath and massage
7:00 bottle and book
7:30 bedtime
11:00 DF

so you could aim to something like that.. more or less... 'cause some babies need to sleep a bit more, my DS is one of them....

[Carmela's Mom]

Ok when I extend DS's nap to 1.5 hours, then he only takes 30-45 min nap!  So he wants to eat every 3.5 hours most of the time but can only stay up for 1 hour and 15 mins tops.  What should I do???

[estherofi20]

when you say that he can only stay awake for 1hr 15min, does this include the wind down?

[Carmela's Mom]

I really just have a short wind down.  I take him to his room and put him in his crib.  Pat his back while I sing two songs.  Is that not enough?  Is that the problem?

What is your wind down?

[estherofi20]

Well now my wind down is much shorter 'cause he can go to sleep by himself, but i remmember it used was pretty long, i used to take him to his room, sit on the chair and read a small book in really soft voice, then i would swaddle him, put him in the crib, close a bit the curtains (not all the way, just a bit), give him his paci, and then if he started crying i would start the pat-shush. But i guess singing two songs is pretty much the same as reading a small book, so... i don't think that is the problem.

I guess in your case what i would do, is at the 1hr 15min he has been awake, then i would start the wind down, this will only buy you a few more minutes 'cause of course you don't want him overtired, but little by little he will be abble to extend his awake time. And if he is awake that amount of time, he is acctually "napping" for 2hrs 15 min, rigth? my DS used to need larger naps than recommended too.

[Carmela's Mom]

Now yesterday he went back to feeding just about every 3 hours with one long nap where he fed at almost 4 hours.  Not bad.  So today I am going to follow his lead and maybe he's not ready yet for a 3.5 even?  I'm not sure.  I will say that he napped crappy yesterday.  Had one long nap but the rest were 35 minutes each BUT he fell asleep at 8:30 last night and now its 7:30 a.m. and he's STILL sleeping!

[estherofi20]

Hmmmm i was remmembering what Tracy said on her book about transitioning, and she did suggest to observe your LO for a few days and write his times, so i think its agreat idea for you to see his leads, and in like 3 days or so decide what to do according to what the result were... have you seen the transition plan? if not here is the link: https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=63161.0

[frankiesmom]

I am having the same problem with ds right now.  He was starting to fight naps and take 45 minute naps and so I am transitioning him but he is taking a long morning nap at 9 and then the rest of the day is 45 minute naps.  Not sure what to do about that. 
The part in Tracy's book about how to transition them makes no sense to me, because if you look at it, she tells you to feed them at certain times when they should be asleep based on what she says for her nap times.  Don't know if it is a typo or what.

Kim

[Carmela's Mom]

Frankiesma you seem to be right on target with your DS.  I don't know if it was Tracy or another book I read, but I always heard that the first nap is the first one to be established, then the second nap (and third if there is one) will come later.  So I think the fact that he goes down at 9:00 everyday is excellent.

My son woke up at 8:00 this morning.  At 9:15 I brought him to his room and he was hard to settle down.  Not sure if he was overtired by then or maybe even not tired enough yet, but he's sleeping now.  I can almost guarantee that this nap will be a 45 min nap and his next nap will be over 2 hours. It seems after his second bottle is his longest nap (which right now does work for me since my 2 year old goes down around that time as well) so maybe I should keep it the way it is and not complain?