Just started EASY - need help with routine

[ANS]

Hi,

I just started 3 hour EASY yesterday.  My routine was as follows:

E 7:30 - 8:00
A
S 9:10 - 10:15 (she only had 30mins of actual sleep, the rest was trying to get her to sleep)

E 10:30 - 11:00
A
S 11:55 - 1:30 (slept in lots of 40mins, I had to resettle her in the middle)

E 1:30 - 2:00
A
S 3:00 - 4:30 (she took a bit of time to settle at the start, but I didnt have to resettle her after 40mins)

E 4:30 - 4:50
A
S 6:00 - 6:40

E 7:00
A Bath
S 8:30 (by the time I settled her she was asleep at 8:30, she then woke again at 9:20 I put dummy in.  I then heard her around 9:50 but she resettled herself)

I gave her a DF at 10:15, she didnt wake at all thru this.  However she then woke at 11:50 (I put her dummy in), again woke at 12.30am after 45mins, I put her dummy in and then she woke at 2am.  We fed her at 2am and she was back in bed at 3am, and the next we heard of her was at 6:30am.  We fed her again and then she slept until 7:45am.

My question is that she isnt ready for her next feed until 9:30, so what do I do with all this extra time in between???  I ended getting her up and playing until around 8:30 and then put her back to bed.  She eventually went to sleep at about 9ish and I woke her at 9:30 for a feed - was this the right thing to do???

I am also really concerned about her waking up after 45 mins.  This has only started happening recently and I think I can trace it back to when we stopped swaddling her.  Trouble is that when we swaddled her it would take us AGES to get her to sleep because she tried so hard to get her hands out.  When we stopped swaddling, she fell asleep relatively easily however now she wakes up after 45 mins, I presuming because she is hitting herself in her face.

Any suggestions??

I am actually going to try and swaddle her today because we have finally found a dummy that she likes so she no longer needs to suck on her fists, so maybe she wont mind being swaddled with a dummy - I hope so anyway.

[angelina and andrew's mum]

hi ans, how old is ur lo? 1 suggestion is that her A time might be too long and/or to stimulating. what kind of A time does she get? i dont know how u feel about this but i will suggest it(get advice from other people as well) my lo done the same when she got her dreamfeed so i decided to cut it out and see when she would wake up for a feed.(normally if i gave her a dreamfeed she would be up every couple of hrs-sometimes every hr after that!) she now goes from bedtime(7.45) to either 1.30am or 3.30am(it worked better for me not to give the dreamfeed-not every1 does. its every1's own personal choice)   

[rebecaq]

Hi Ans,

I agree with angelina's mummy, we didn't do the dreamfeed here either. I did however, clusterfeed him everynight before bed and it helped to get him to sleep a long stretch.

I notice that when she wakes in the night you keep popping in her dummy. This can easily become a prop.

About her routine shifting today... EASY is a routine, not a schedule to follow strictly. Try not to watch the clock so much, but more keep the E-A-S pattern going all day long. Babies ahve so much going on internally that it helps them to have a predictable day on the outside. Helps them to keep calm if they know what to expect. It's also a great tool to avoid accidental parenting (like rocking to sleep, or using the breast to sleep) and encourages independent sleep. You can sccot thing forward or back according to when she woke without any problem

Have you tried swaddling her with one arm out? As they get older this becomes a great kind of swaddle.

Let me know how your day has been.

- Beca

[ANS]

thanks so much for the adivce Angelinas mummy and rebecaq.  Last night we did the DF again and she woke up 2 hours later, so I am going to drop it tonight.  Even if she wakes up at the same time, at least I can feed her as it would have been quite a few hours since her last feed instead of 2 hours.

Yesterday morning we had a win with her nap and she slept for 2 hours (and I had to wake her).  I have swaddled her again and I put her to bed with her dummy and she seems to like this.  I snuck in to watch her when she transitioned through to a deeper sleep, she still had her dummy in so was quite happy transitioning.  I am worried thou if she didnt have her dummy in how she would go.  I am worried that it is a Prop now, but its so easy to pop it in  .  Would you suggest the shhh/pat instead if she wakes up due to her dummy falling out?  Should I take her dummy out of her mouth once she has fallen asleep?

My LO is 10 weeks old.  Yes I think that maybe she is having too much awake time, but her ques are quite hard to pick up on the start and then she is overtired.  But I think I got her down at the right time this morning, she settled quite easily.  As I type this she is coming up to her 45 min mark, lets hope she makes it thru    For her awake time I sometime play with her making faces, or she does tummy exercies or stares at the TV or a picture I have drawn for her.

Also I have just recently moved her from 4 hourly feeds back to 3 hourly.  I have found that her little tummy can only handle a certain amount of milk whether she has gone 3 or 4 hours without a feed, so subsequently she is hungry at 3 hours.  she only averages 90ml (3 oz) per feed.  Is this too little amount?  Its very hard because everything I read says she should be 4 hourly and taking at least 120ml (4 oz).  I worry that the 3 hourly feeds encourage her to wake up 3 hourly during the night.

[angelina and andrew's mum]

anita-ur doing great.xx when i first dropped the df with angelina she was waking up twice a night-this has evened out to once a night(the going to one feed happened in a week)-and it is a feed. i still find it hard to read dd's sleep cues-normally not that many so i do tend to clock watch for that. as for the 3oz-ur dd lets u know when shes had enuf-every baby is different, so dont worry about that. angelina only takes 4-6oz at every feed and shes 4mnths-they all go at their own pace.
 thats really good about the naps-the key is to stick with what u know works.  i cant offer advice on the dummy(dd would never take one) but hopefully one of the lovely ladies or gents will be able to advise on this. keep us posted.xx

[rebecaq]

Hi Anita,

You're doing great! 2 hour naps are wonderful!!! Hope you took a nap yourself   As for the paci, don't worry about it being a prop. The way you are using it is fine. It becomes a prop if you keep popping it back in everytime it falls out. Does she wake when it falls out? If so, try shh/pat to soothe her. If she doesn't , then let her be    There's no need to take it out when she falls asleep, it will eventually fall out by itself.

At 10 weeks, A time should be at around 30-45 mins, so I think going back to 3 hour EASY is the way to go 

Sounds like things are going fabu!

- Beca

[angelina and andrew's mum]

hey anita, how u getting on?

[ANS]

We are doing MUCH better 

For the last two nites my LO has gone down at 7pm (with her dummy), both nites she has woken around half an hour later.  The first nite it took about 1 hour to get her back to sleep with shh/pat, last nite it only took half an hour, and she slept through until 11pm, fed back to sleep straight away until 3 fed and then asleep again until 6:30.

We have decided that she is allowed to have her dummy when she goes down for a sleep, but if she wakes at anytime she isnt allowed to have it again and we shhh/pat her back to sleep.  Do you think this is ok??  Im still worried that for the naps she will continue waking at the 45 min mark looking for her dummy, or will she eventually realise that she only gets it to go to bed and thats it?

Im so happy that I found this website.  The information and support is fantastic - thanks so much 

[angelina and andrew's mum]

thats great anita, ur doing really well.xxxx i think the dummy situation sounds a good idea, if ur lo only gets it for bed then i think she'll soon realise that its bed time. maybe beca can give advice on that one?just keep doing what ur doing with the naps and eventually shell learn herself how to get through that 45 min sleep cycle. im so happy u and lo are doing great.xxxx