Wednesday, April 6, 2011

E.A.S.Y.

So I've been following the EASY (Eat, Activity, Sleep, You) schedule from the Baby Whisperer book.

His schedule usually goes thus: Eat for 10 minutes; burp for 5 to 10 minutes; play, be toted around, tummy time, etc. for about an hour until he gets sleepy; nap time.

The only problem is, that he gets hungry every two hours almost on the dot, meaning that his naps are only about half an hour long before he wakes up starving. Or, if he stays awake longer, when it's time for him to go to sleep, he's hungry and doesn't want to go to sleep until he's fed. If I get him to go to sleep without feeding him, his nap is even shorter and he's even MORE hungry, and MORE vocal about it, when he wakes up.

What I'm wondering is, should I switch it around to be AESY so he gets better naps, or should I just tough it out for another month and hope that solid foods will keep him full longer? Or should I scrap the whole thing and just feed him when he's hungry, and let him sleep when he's tired?

5 comments:

bdoyle said...

I say feed him when he's hungry and let him sleep when he's tired. But then again, I'm a bit of an anarchist. :) But really, Hudson put himself on his own schedule basically and he took amazing naps by the time he was 3 months old. I'd feed him, let him sleep as soon as he seemed sleepy, he'd wake up 2-3 hours later and then I'd feed him again... Do what feels right.

Carrie said...

i had this same problem when baby's wake time increased because her nap time didn't decrease but she was still needing to eat every four hours (my rule, not hers. we know my baby doesn't care about eating but i have to schedule when to feed her so she doesn't wither away). you could do what you suggested and try that out for a while to see if it works. i still follow eat, activity, sleep but i nurse her again before putting her to sleep as well (it's normally only on one side though because she gets tired so fast and starts to fall asleep). so now that she's doing solids it's "wake, nurse, solids, play, nurse, nap." it kind of feels like i'm always feeding her but she's not chunky enough to where i'd feel comfortable doing it any other way.

sorry this is so confusing. go ahead and give me a call, email, text, fb message, etc. if you want to talk it out or get more ideas.

but i think your aesy sounds good too if you can make sure he'll get a full feeding before dozing off. i did wake, activity, eat, activity, sleep for a little while (well, sometimes i still do just for kicks) which cuts down on the number of feedings but interrupts play time. which is no big deal. unless we're out. then we switch things up.

i used to be much more structured but i do a lot on the fly now. can you tell? ;-)

Carrie said...

longest comment ever. do i get an award for that?

Chelsea said...

Did you really just ask for advice on taking care of your baby? Because you know you're going to get TONS OF IT! But you don't have to waste your time reading everyone's, because mine is the best.
I think the purpose of EASY is to make it so they don't get to the point where they ONLY sleep when you nurse them to sleep. If this routine is a set routine but it's not working for you, then by all means, shake it up. Just make sure that the purpose of setting up a routine is still being met.
We just fed Penny when she was hungry, let her sleep when she was tired, and she turned out super cute. :)

Keith said...

I agree with Chelsea, you don't want to feed your baby to sleep.

We've been (kind of) doing Baby Wise. It sounds pretty similar.

We love the 3-month picture collage.