stuck in the 3-4 hr EASY transition

[waterdragon]

I' m Just wondering if People could give me and idea what week they could go to 2 hrs A time

I am stuck . My lo is almost 16 weeks . A has jumped in the past week from 1 hr 20 to 1.30-1.40

We are doing a 3 hr easy

She is really not interested in every second bottle and the cat nap is very hard to get . She is a poor napper , will wake 70 % of time during naps . will mostly self settle but can take 20 Min's to do this .

The problem is we cant go to a 3.5 hr EASY because
A. she will nap a max of 1.5 hrs after being awake 1.5 hrs
B. I have a collection to do between 5.15-6.15 pm so   this must be a cat nap time

I have looked at the 5 Min's increment plan but the nap extension 5 Min's at a time is not going to work because she will wake at 1.5 hrs and be ready to get up. I feel we wont get a longer nap until she reaches 2 hrs

So there is probably no solution to my dilemma but time ......how much time are we talking???

She will be 4 calander months  in 2 weeks. Its a real pain doing the 3 hr at this point. Because her naps are so disturbed she often gets a 40 min sleep , wake 20 Min's, sleep 30 min , so its not even a full 1.5 hrs

What week do you reckon I'm looking at and will I just be able to make a 1 hr 40 min jump to 2 hrs  over a few days???

[timmysmommy]

I am right here with you!  T will be 4 months in 2 weeks.  I started the 5 min increments on Monday, but he seemed to want to stay up longer by Tuesday, so we jumped right into 3.5 hr Easy.  He struggles with naps anyways, but we were getting the 40s 20A 30S you discussed.  Today I am just too tired to pat shush.  He put himself to sleep on nap #1, but woke after 40 min.  I just let him get up.  He stayed up another 1.45, then I put him back down.  He needed a few min of pat shush, but went down.  After 40 min, he woke, I tried to pat shush- but he wasn't crying- he just had his head up and was looking around(tummy sleeper).  So I got him back up.  He stayed up for 1.45, and went down on his own.  I am waiting for him to wake at any moment at his 40 min mark.  So I'm thinking if he can stay up 1.45 on a 45 min nap, maybe he is ready for even more A time?  I don't know if he is ready for feeds to be that far apart as I am BFing- so I don't think I will be able to do a true 4 hr Easy just yet.  I'm not sure what to do.  I'm just glad I'm not the only one.  Someone HELP us please! I have read all there is to read on the nap boards too- since I've been struggling with 40 min naps for 8 WEEKS now

[waterdragon]

YES PLEASE......someone....
(your baby is so cute)

[Yazzie]

Hey there waterdragon, it was such a tough stage as well for us transitioning to a 4 hrs EASY, could you post your current routine to get a better idea?

Also, in order to move to 4 hrs A time and if A times haven't caught up enough yet, you may sometime find yourself doing something more like AEAS, till A times catch up, kwim?

[waterdragon]

ok current routine
 wake between 7.00-7.30
 a time will stay same  ,

so for  today

wake 0715
E 0730 (4 oz) A 1 hr 40 min
S 0855 (woke at ~9.30 self settled after 15 mins woke at 10.30
E10.30(4.oz) A 1.30
S12.00 - woke at 1.20  ( no waking during this nap of 1 hr 20 mins)
E1.30 (6oz)
S3.00(I think this A time of 1hr 40 mins was too long) Woke at 35 mins tried to self settle for 20 min herself couldnt and got upset .I put her in the swing and kept her activity very quite till her next feed due
E4.30 (2.5 oz)
cat nap 5.40-6.10 (will never be any longer even in the car)
bath
E 0730 (5 oz)
bed at 7.20 sleep 7.40
then usually feed at 11.30pm (big one ~6-7 oz)
night feed very dilute feed now down to 3 oz( (of 3 scoops in 5 oz water) of this about 0430....I wake her ..its a new stratagy to eliminate night feed because it was getting to 0530 and she was finding it difficult to go back asleep / or waking earlier

As I said before I am sure she can go 4 hrs between feeds so NAPPING is really the only issue here.

[Mommy Mertel]

Have you just tried to keep her up for 2 hrs?  1.5 hr nap I believe is considered enough to do another big A time.
We did this here-just jumped to 2hrs. and all is good now.  DD will take 2 big naps (1.5-2.5hr) and then a CN which I do earlier, but I know she could probably go until the 540 time

You may also see that helps with the NW.  We too were getting funny NW before we jumped to 2hrs A.  All NW disappeared when she got enough day A time.  We did the jump right about 14-15wo

Just a thought...   

[waterdragon]

I am tempted but the fact that I get 30 min wake ups with 1.40 mins ...??will she just end up OT +++

I know i made a huge jump with DD1  form 1 hr 15 mins to 2 hrs over 3 weeks but she was 22 weeks at the time so it was age appropriate....

[Mommy Mertel]

I only suggest it bc in BWSAYP, Tracey suggests that you need to be on 4hr EASY at 4 months (16wks) and after rereading it a thousand times to me it not only means 4hr feeds, but 2hr A.  She even states in the PU/PD chapter on advancing A time in a 4mo that you WILL get OT, but if you work through it, it resolves more problems than it makes.

For both my kids this was true-but I will be fully honest and say I only had a few OT naps of 30 min which I could easily extend whereas the other naps were becoming clearly UT and I could not extend and I also had a hard time getting them to sleep at all!! 

If you have the book, you may want to revisit the 4mo EASY stuff.

I guess what I am saying, is it may be age appropriate for you to jump A time.

[waterdragon]

OK,
sorry to nit pick, but is it 4 calender months (18 weeks ) or 16 weeks which is nearer 3.5 months?
I only have the other book which doesn't go into detail of the transition.
I though I read some where in the 4 Th month a window opens up to extend A time  so I thought between 18-22 weeks?
I also see on the A times post, 4-5 months is about 1hr 45 -2 hrs . So again I assumed probably 4.5 months???

Sorry to sound so fussy.Its just that since 8 weeks I have dealt with very disturbed naps 30/35/40/50 Min's and am sick of it ..I cant afford it to get any worse.

Did you have general nap problems before the transition? I do remember things did improve with DD1 after the transition but have lost all faith!

[Mommy Mertel]

I will be honest and say I don't know the right answer to your question.

All I know is this...around week 14 both my kids were horrible nappers.  Someone suggested I raise A time with DS and it helped him.  Then when DD was struggling, I went right to raising A time and it sloved her sleeping problems.  There are of course good days and bad days, but overall we are right on target.

I can say with some certainty, if you tried raising your A time it will not be worse than what you are dealing with now.  Sometimes the devil you don't know IS better than the devil you do know.

HTH

[Yazzie]

Hey there hun, reading along and can see that Sarah is giving you some really good advice, just have to add that this stage was really tough for us as well, and I was soo scared of OT that it took me quite a while to really push A times and see improvement, that said, those recommended A times are just "recommended", some babies follow them to the tee, while others have lower or higher sleep needs, so that's something you need to always put in mind

[timmysmommy]

Just wanted to say that I am going for 4 hr easy today.  So far he was up 2 hrs and I've extended 2 times for our 2 hr s time.  I"ll let you know how the rest of the day goes.   I wanted to add that there are a few things that help me extend.  First, I don't pick him up out of his crib  (he gets more upset when I pick him up, then once he calms down and I put him back down we have to start all over again.) I pat shush him in the crib.  Secondly I do have a cd I use to extend- happiest baby on the block cd.  I couldn't get by without this.  The hairdryer sound when turned up really loud calms him instantly when he is going ballistic.  It's the only thing I've found that works.  Anyhow, I turn it on and hit repeat and pat him.  He will go back to sleep within 5-10 min. I know this may be considered a prop, but pat shush just didn't cut it for extending naps.   Good luck!!

[waterdragon]

Hi timmys mom

Please let me know how you go.I also use a white noise CD for extension but its not working at the moment...ie not having the same effect.

I take it you got 45 min wakening then to be able to extend? I am sure we will get 30min because when I pushed her to 1 hr 45 it was 30 mins and couldnt settle her.

Today not going well , she woke early took ages to get back asleep and it has thrown the whole day out. Decided it was not the day for a big change.

[Mommy Mertel]

Awesome Amy!!

I think when you are teaching sleep sometime whatever works is what is best!  They have to get the idea that they have to sleep...so you have to APOP to make that happen.  Then you can work on getting rid of the props.

Good Luck

[timmysmommy]

So yesterday I put him on 4 hr easy.  It went pretty well.  He stayed up 2 hrs no prob then I put him down for 1st nap.  Went down pretty well- 10 min or so of pat shush in crib.  Had to resettle after each 40 min but it was prett quick also- about 10 min.  I used my cd to help me resettle with some patting.  Next nap he slept for 80 min then needed resettled- only took minutes.  Then he took a 40 min catnap and that went well.  Things fell apart at bedtime Asa friend stopped by so I cut his bedtime routine short and tried to get him to bed ob time, but he was up another 1 1/2 hrs.  He also slept through his 1:45 nw.  All in all the best day I've had in weeks- months maybe lol!  We are still having some ew.  Today was 6:30 and I waited until 6:45 to get him out of bed and feed.  Today is going well.  Needed some very light patting to resettle.  He is like a different child!  I hope you find something that helps you soon!!!