EASY - conflicts between E and S time

[MarlyHat]

Hi - My second daughter, Talia, is 16 weeks old. Born just after my due date so not premature at all, born at 9 lbs 4 oz so not small at all and is now almost 17/18 lbs.  We also have an almost 5 year old daughter. So Talia is a super happy, relaxed baby and for the most part poses no sleep issues.  Basically she eats (approx 4.5-6 oz per feed), plays and sleeps during the day though the order of EASY does not work for us all the time which is why I am here. Talia naps at different times each day and each nap is a different length. Generally her naps run from 50 minutes up to 2 hours though we cannot predict what we will get and when.  She does not need us to soothe her - she can be put down in the crib (where she has slept since birth) and will talk herself to sleep.  At night she sleeps a good 10-11 stretch with one or two wakeups at totally unpredictable times.  Sometimes it is because she has busted out of her swaddle but more often than not she seems ravenous at those times so we feed her and she goes back to sleep.  She seems to wake betweeen 5 and 6 am these days though I think it is because she has a dirty diaper that needs changing.  So to the problems:

1) She seems hungry almost every 2.25 - 2.50 hours - we can stretch her to 3 hours sometimes but she seems hungry earlier often.

2) She will only stay awake for anywhere from 60-80 minutes - but generally about 60-65 minutes before she gives us the cues.

3) The way the "routine" works is that she is waking up from a nap but it is too early to feed her.  Then if she stays awake for her hour or so by the time it is time for her to go to sleep she is cranky because she is hungry. So then we feed her and then she becomes overtired and it becomes a vicious cycle. 

So, even if we start with a feed as soon as she wakes up, there is no way to get to a 3 hour EASY, because when she wakes up it is too early for E and then when it is time for S she is ready for E - make sense?

I am concerned that she is going to start to associate eating with sleeping and that we have taught her to eat too often. She has her 4 month checkup next week so I will ask the doctor if she really needs to eat that often.

Any guidance would be greatly appreciated!

[Papaya]

Hi hun,

I think your LO needs an A time increase for sure The average A time for this age is more like 1hr45 Average A times- BOOKMARK ME!

I completely understand where you're coming from with thinking she can't stay awake longer than 80 mins or so, because I did EXACTLY the same thing at this age - and then wondered why my LO wouldn't sleep longer than 50 mins  At this age the old tired signs can become unreliable or mean something else, like needing a change of scene.

I would push out the first A time of the day and aim to have her asleep closer to the 1hr45 mark. When you get to the time when she usually starts to give her sleepy signs, have a change of scene and do something interesting but low-key to get her through the next 20 mins (walk around the garden etc). If she does a good nap here, great! Try the same A time again. If she still does a short nap, you will need to reduce the next A time so she doesn't get overtired - so maybe only 1hr15/20 (I suspect this is why you're sometimes getting a good long nap, because the shorter A time you're doing is what suits her after a short nap, if that makes sense). You might not see any difference straight away, or she may even start doing OT naps, but stick with it for 3-4 days to let her adjust.

I think your feeds will sort themselves out as the naps do - so when the naps fall into place, she'll naturally be doing a 3.5/4hr EASY. It makes sense that if she's awake, possibly crying, she'll be hungrier earlier but if she's sleeping well she should just be hungry when she wakes up. This was my experience anyway! (Although, is she bf or ff? Some bf babies aren't ready for a 4hr EASY until they are closer to 6 months).  When you do get short naps, it's inevitable that your EAS order will be messed up - it'll be more like EASAEAS. Just try to predict when LO will next need to sleep, and do the feed a little beforehand so you're not actually feeding to sleep

FWIW, when I FINALLY clicked that my 14/15 week old LO needed a major A increase, our whole routine fell into place within a week. Hope it's the same for you!

xx

[MarlyHat]

Thanks so much for the guidance! I tried the increased A time yesterday and it worked for the start of the day but then by the end of the day it was a bit off (probably because I left her with my husband who thinks all my sleep efforts are a bunch of hooey and just sort of does his own thing!). Anyway, today is off to a rocky start - busted out of her swaddle at 5:50 am so I fed her at 6 am. Put her down at 7:05 and she babbled until 7:20 (which leads me to believe she is capable of doing about 90 minutes awake).  But she only took a short nap - woke up at 8:05 so now we are all messed up - awake time first then eat and I'll try to squeeze in a short awake time before sleep. Does that sound right? I guess I'm always trying to balance not feeding her too early because she doesn't need to feed so often but it works better for EASY....arrrrgggghhhh!

[Papaya]

I meant to say too that those early starts could be UT - if you push out that first morning awake time as much as you can, it should help to push the WU a little later as well.

It is a juggling act with the E and S when naps are short. The other thing you could consider following a short nap is just a small top-up feed before the nap, and then feed as soon as she wakes and try to get back into your routine from there. How did yesterday pan out?