4 hour easy needed? Am I ruining my child?

[joyfulmom]

Hi, My 19 week old son has recently decided t transition from 4 naps to 3 ( two 1 1/2 hour and one 45 min) on his own.  He is currently doing Albuterol treatments twice a day (once in morning and once early afternoon).  He is sleeping pretty well at night, waking only once or twice for about a minute with no intervention required.  Anyway, I wm still feeding him before that second nap at around 1:00 which is less than 3 hours between feedings and makes it 5 feedings a day.  I like ot have longer afternoon nap because I have a 3 year old who naps then.  I have found he sleeps longer when I do this but he usually goes down (awake) right after the bottle and burp. 

Here is our current routine:
7-7:30 Awakes , bottle
8:00 Rice cereal after albuterol treatment...just started cereal.
9:00 nap
10:30-11:00 Awakes, Bottle
1:00 Bottle..about 5 ounces
1:15-1:30 nap
4:00 Awakes and Bootle
5:15 Nap
6:30 Bottle
7:00 Bed

Usually awakes for about 1 min at 4:00  The longer naps are long because I do W2S, he has always done 45 minute naps and I am currently training him to go longer.
He drinks about 7 to 8 ounces at a time except for the feeding before the 1:00 nap.

My question is ...I'm I ruining him by feeding him this much..is the 4 hour schedule really necessary?  Am I teaching him to snack? 

Thank you
Stacey

[LŠuren]

Hi Stacey

Tracy recommends a 4 hour schdule as a guideline for LO's over 4 month old.

Personally speaking DS changed to a 4hour EASY at 3 months and at 5months was wanting fed every 4.5 hours (still with 4 bottles).  At 6 months he dropped the catnap, he reduced to 3 bottles at 8months and dropped to 2 bottles just before 10months. He has made all these changes himself and I have followed his cus and acted upon them.

This is a 4 hour EASY inc. feeds

4-hr EASY

E: 7.00 wake up and feed
A: 7.30
S: 9.00 (for 1.5-2hr nap)
Y: your choice
E: 11.00
A: 11.30
S: 1.00 (1.5-2hr nap)
Y: your choice
E: 3.00
A: 3.30
S: 5.00 or 6.00 or somewhere in between – catnap
Y: your choice
E: 7.00 (cluster feed at 7 and 9 during a growth spurt)
A: bath
S: 7.30 bedtime
Y: the evening is yours
E: 10 or 11pm dreamfeed (until 7 or 8mths or whenever solid food is firmly established).


Is you LO hungry at 4hours or does he want feed before that?

[joyfulmom]

He ususally wants to eat right at the 3-3 1/2 mark.  In fact he wakes from naps right at the 3 hour mark to eat.  When I would lay him down at 1:00  he would wake at 2:00 even with the w2s.  That is why I started feeding him before that nap.  Now he will sleep until 3:30 or 4:00.  Also, he is actually eating the baby food now so hopefully he will not need the extra bottle soon.  I may start feeding him at dinner now too.  Currently I am feeding him solids only after his morning bottle.

Thank you for the encouragement.

[LŠuren]

If you are happy on your current routine, stick with it - anytime soon your LO is going to go through more changes and your routine will change again.

As long as you follow EAS or EASA, it means you are not feeding to sleep.

[joyfulmom]

OK so the day after I started this post.  My son decided not to sleep well at the early afternoon nap.  It was almost like he was being over fed and getting tummy achs.  So since he is eating his solids now (at least 2 Tablespoons at a time, morning and Dinner), I started trying the routine you gave me.  The only problem, he is waking after an hour of napping and playing. 

Do I keep him in there?  Did you notice your lo naps messing up when you went to 4 hour shedule?  Do I need to feed him when he wakes up?

This is our current new routine:
7-7:30 Bottle
8:00 Solids and asthma treatment
9:00 Nap--1 hour, plays until 10:45
11:00 Bottle
12:30-1:00 Nap--45 min or 1 hour--only plays until about 2:30
3:00-Bottle and astma treatment
4:30- Nap for 45 minutes
6:00- Cereal
6:45 Bottle
Bed right after bottle and burp

Thank you for your help with this.

Stacey

[LŠuren]

Stacey

Yes, my DS routine definitelty went up in the air at the 4hr transition 

Your routine look perfect apart from the napping issue, if your LO is always waking after 45mins to 1hr then I would suggest extending the naps using w2s https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=64168.0, try and observe his naps so you can see HOW he goes to sleep. https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=649.0 

https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=64159.0 - 45 mins naps

Hope these help you a bit with the naps  if you have specific nap questions the ladies on the sleep forums are fantastic and can help you out.

Let me know how you get on.