When more naps equals less sleep at night

[tmhill]

My three month old just started day care.  He is going part time.  The two days he was at day care last week he slept GREAT through the night.  Only waking up once.  He also didn't sleep much at day care - his adjusting to a new place was difficult on his sleep schedule. 

Once he was back home (he's at the sitters three days and week and with us four days a week), staying with me, he was getting back on schedule.  But waking more frequently at night.  In general, this is the schedule that I keep with him.

6:30/7:00 wake time (I try to get him to sleep until 7:00 - it doesn't always work)
7:00 eat
8:00/8:30 sleep - generally only sleeps for an hour
9:30 wake
10:00 eat
11:00 sleep - between 1.5 to 2 hours
12:30/1:00 wake
1:00 eat
2:30 sleep - usually between 1 to 1.5 hours
3:30/4:00 wake
4:00 eat
5:30 cat nap until 6:00 - usually wakes up grouchy
6:00 - 7:30 bedtime routine - usually eats between 6:30/7:00

At each nap time he is tired.  But at night he wakes frequently.  Sometimes to eat - and he downs 4 ounces.  Sometimes we think he's hungry and only eats an ounce or two.  But generally wakes every three hours.  Last night he was up about every two hours.  I don't do a dream feed with him.  It's something that has never worked out.  He either only eats 1 to 2 ounces and totally falls a sleep and doesn't suck at all OR he wakes up totally and scream cries and he's hard to get settled down. 

I need to mention, we have had a lot of feeding problems with him.  It takes a LONG time to feed him.  He fights through a lot of his feeds.  We struggle to get him to eat four ounces.  Sometimes he doesn't eat the four ounces.

My son will be 4 months old on October 1st.  When do I start getting him on a four hour routine, and when to we start pu/pd instead of shhh-pat to get him to sleep?

Let me know your thoughts.  I usually read a "range" of the amount of time a baby needs to sleep in a 24 hour period.  What if my baby needs less sleep?  I'm not sure how to work that.

Thanks,
Kara

[~Lori~]

This started happening to my DD when she was 3 months old too...her naps were finally going well, and then she started waking more during the night!  What this told me, was that she was ready to be moved to the 3 1/2 hour EASY.  Everyday, I would add 5 minutes to her awake time, gradually getting to 1 1/2 hrs awake, 2 hrs sleeping.  My little one is now 4 months old and we are working towards a 4 hour easy now.  I found that once she was awake a little more during the day, she stopped waking more at night.  However, the first little while on the 3 1/2 hour EASY, it was a hard adjustment as she still was sleeping a LOT during the day.  However, we started putting her to bed earlier and thus no more evening catnap and that helped too.

Hope this helps.

Lori

[coby1756]

I was going to suggest maybe a need to to move to 3 1/2 hr or 4 hr schedule, like the previous post stated.  I found with DS I needed to move to a 4 hr schedule quite early and this REALLY helped the feeding situation.  Before that he would scream and cry through most meals.  I thought I was going crazy as I was BFing and couldn't tell how much he was getting.  Took while to clue in.  He was a very alert baby and hardly slept (though I tried my best!) so the more awake time helped too.