https://boards.hellobee.com/ Pregnancy, Baby and Parenting blog, by Hellobee en Wed, 10 Jun 2026 20:04:30 +0000 https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/balancing-eat-awake-sleep-with-poor-daytime-naps#post-1547564 Sat, 05 Apr 2014 01:11:06 +0000 birdofafeather 1547564@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@illumina: this is what we did. Fed right after she woke up regardless of nap length.</p> <p>@citymouse: at 9 weeks, he's much too young to be forming any bad habits, truly. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/balancing-eat-awake-sleep-with-poor-daytime-naps#post-1546810 Fri, 04 Apr 2014 14:52:23 +0000 shellio 1546810@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>Our wake time was about the length of yours at that age. And DS was not interested in nursing until it had been 2.5-3 hours since he last fed. We also dealt with short naps. Honestly we tried to stick to a more consistent schedule but if he was awake 45 minutes, most of that nursing, then play/diaper and put him back down, then he slept for 45 minutes, he would not even latch on after waking back up. So sometimes that meant having him awake longer than we'd like so I could nurse him again before nap (because he sometimes didn't go to sleep if he were hungry), and sometimes it meant we were able to do a waketime without a feed and then feed him upon his next waking. At this age he took 5-6 naps a day, that's how much of a problem the short naps were. :( I wish I had better answers for you but essentially all we did was try to figure out what would work best each time. I'm sorry, I know how rough that is. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/balancing-eat-awake-sleep-with-poor-daytime-naps#post-1546706 Fri, 04 Apr 2014 14:11:40 +0000 daniellemybelle 1546706@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>At that age our WT was almost completely spent feeding. So basically we would feed her (took up to 45 minutes), change her diaper &amp; "play" for maybe 10 minutes, and get ready for a nap! If it was a short nap she might not eat right when she woke up so it would be more like AEASY, but we would still have 5-10 minutes of "A" before napping. Usually at that age, just a diaper change is enough of a break between nursing &amp; sleeping.</p> <p>As an aside, I did EASY pretty religiously from the beginning &amp; for the first 3 months LO was a pretty good sleeper, but we hit the 4 month regression &amp; no amount of good habits can help us! So just know that being diligent about your routine &amp; avoiding bad habits doesn't guarantee perfect sleep! </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/balancing-eat-awake-sleep-with-poor-daytime-naps#post-1546681 Fri, 04 Apr 2014 14:03:59 +0000 Adira 1546681@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@citymouse: If you feel pretty confident about when to feed him, you may need to just scrap EASY and do what makes sense for your LO. Depending on his naps, sometimes he'll eat right after a nap and sometimes he'll eat right before one. The same thing happened with Xander. I just always did a diaper change after eating so we wouldn't get into the habit or feeding to sleep!</p> <p>Good luck! &lt;3 </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/balancing-eat-awake-sleep-with-poor-daytime-naps#post-1546643 Fri, 04 Apr 2014 13:49:04 +0000 citymouse 1546643@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@Adira: @illumina: Oh, whoops! Read that comment wrong! We do know he is getting enough, truly. He will barely eat a full feed if we try to feed sooner than 2.5-3 hours. We've tried! We are FF. But! I will start leaving the diaper change until after the feed is over! That makes sense to me. At least that is an "awake" activity! </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/balancing-eat-awake-sleep-with-poor-daytime-naps#post-1546562 Fri, 04 Apr 2014 13:24:23 +0000 Adira 1546562@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@citymouse: Yes, I agree with @illumina: Until you really know when your LO needs to eat/sleep, I would just always feed right after a nap, even if the nap was short or long and then follow up with the diaper change after that. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/balancing-eat-awake-sleep-with-poor-daytime-naps#post-1546558 Fri, 04 Apr 2014 13:23:16 +0000 Adira 1546558@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@citymouse: So here's an example of what Xander's day looked like at 8 weeks, if this helps you at all:</p> <p>6:00 - wake for the day, nurse<br /> 6:25 - activity time<br /> 7:30 - sleep (50 minutes)<br /> 8:30 - nurse<br /> 8:45 - activity time<br /> 9:40 - sleep (45 minutes)<br /> 10:30 - nurse<br /> 11:00 - activity time<br /> 12:10 - sleep (1 hour 25 minutes)<br /> 1:45 - nurse<br /> 2:30 - activity time<br /> 3:30 - quit nursing session<br /> 3:55 - sleep (25 minutes)<br /> 4:50 - nurse<br /> 5:05 - activity time<br /> 6:30 - nurse<br /> 7:00 - bedtime routine<br /> 7:30 - sleep (1 hour 40 minutes)<br /> 9:20 - nurse<br /> 9:30 - sleep (5 hours 20 minutes)<br /> 3:00 - nurse<br /> 3:50 - sleep (2 hours 35 minutes) </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/balancing-eat-awake-sleep-with-poor-daytime-naps#post-1546534 Fri, 04 Apr 2014 13:18:33 +0000 citymouse 1546534@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@illumina: Okay, that makes sense. TBH I dont know why we haven't been doing it that way... (bangs head on wall) </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/balancing-eat-awake-sleep-with-poor-daytime-naps#post-1546522 Fri, 04 Apr 2014 13:15:55 +0000 illumina 1546522@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@citymouse: the only other thing I would suggest is to feed right after he wakes and do the diaper change after that. Regardless of whether the nap was 1/2 hr or 2hrs I would offer food right after the nap and she would accept. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/balancing-eat-awake-sleep-with-poor-daytime-naps#post-1546506 Fri, 04 Apr 2014 13:10:54 +0000 citymouse 1546506@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@illumina: The max he can handle is 45-60 mins for the middle two naps of the day. The last WT is typically over an hour (he takes a cat nap after his 4:00 feed) and his very first WT of the day is about 45 mins. </p> <p>@illumina: @Adira: @Elderberrygin: It's hard because if he doesn't nap for 1.5-2 hours, then his "wake time" is him crying until we get him, diaper change, and then feed. By the time the feed is over, we've basically used all his wake time minutes. So then when we feed, (he doesn't need to eat when he wakes early from naps) he gets so sleepy. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/balancing-eat-awake-sleep-with-poor-daytime-naps#post-1546472 Fri, 04 Apr 2014 12:58:54 +0000 Elderberrygin 1546472@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>At that age, LOs maximum wake periods were way too short - around 45 minutes - to really do EASY. It wasn't really until four or five months that it was feasible. I just put her down for naps whenever she was tired, which ended up being a LOT of naps as she didn't consolidate sleep for a while.</p> <p>Before four months if you're worried about "bad" habits I'd just go with tired signs and make sure you're not nursing to sleep, which is the main aim of EASY. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/balancing-eat-awake-sleep-with-poor-daytime-naps#post-1546443 Fri, 04 Apr 2014 12:51:20 +0000 Adira 1546443@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>With Xander, I tried to follow EASY, but he wouldn't always go down for a nap when I wanted him to, or his nap would be too short and he wouldn't be hungry after, etc. The main thing that I tried to do was I wanted to make sure he didn't get into the habit of nursing to sleep. So regardless of anything else, I would feed him followed by an activity (which might just be a diaper change before his nap).</p> <p>In the beginning, I would just nurse him whenever he woke up from a nap, even if he had just eaten an hour before. But eventually I just figured out that he could go 3 hours between eating and be awake for about 2 hours before he needed a nap. So if his nap was only 30 minutes, it totally threw off EASY, but it wouldn't really matter at that point because I knew, in general, when he was due for things.</p> <p>Hope this helps! </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/balancing-eat-awake-sleep-with-poor-daytime-naps#post-1546442 Fri, 04 Apr 2014 12:50:29 +0000 illumina 1546442@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>How long is LO's awake time between naps? I think around that age awake time for us was still ~1hr. We did EASY and it worked really well though as it took her around 30-40mins to eat, there wasn't much of an activity besides a nappy change. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/balancing-eat-awake-sleep-with-poor-daytime-naps#post-1546427 Fri, 04 Apr 2014 12:46:40 +0000 citymouse 1546427@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>What trumps what? </p> <p>DS has been having some rough naps. He is almost 9 weeks. It seems like every other day (M/W/F kind of thing) is a bad day for naps. We started sleep training around 6 weeks, just trying to get into the EASY routine. Then moved on to attended CIO. His night time sleep is pretty good I think for his age. He has one 6-8 hour stretch (7:30 PM- 1:30/3:30 AM) and then another 3.5-5 hour stretch (Day starts at 7:30 AM). </p> <p>So what do you do for naps? Try to stick to EASY, or put down as soon as you can while watching for sleepy cues. It's so hard trying to balance not being overtired, therefore he won't nap, with EASY and trying to create good habits. This has been going on for about 2 weeks now, so habits are something I am concerned about. Not like it's a fluke kind of thing. </p>