We are all 1 trying to love and support our children and 2 love and nourish ourselves. Easing into a new schedule when your little one shows signs of being ready is very smart. Given that breastmilk or formula should be the majority of a babies diet until a year these schedules are awful. This is coming from a mom of 6. Not sleep deprived by the way because my babies nurse to sleep and sleep with me. I acknowledge normal biological functions of tiny humans and go off what they need vs trying to shove them into a malnourishing schedule.
I love the EASY routine. He no longer seems to do well on the three hour schedule, groggy when I would wake him and not eating vigorously. Is he too young? Thanks in advance. Best wishes. I have two questions though; 1. What about tummy time? I bottlefeed my baby and was wondering if, when clusterfeeding, I would give him a full bottle each time or a bit less? If you wait about minutes after the feeding, baby should be ok for tummy time. You can do other activities until then like sitting up and talking to baby , diaper change, etc.
Then at the second I do the other half 10 minutes on other breast and this seems to work for him. Your baby may be different. My lo is 10 weeks and often sleeps through the night or wakes up once. However, I have two questions:. Is a 9pm bedtime reasonable? My husband gets home from work pm and wants time with her. LO will only sleep when being held and often needs to be rocked. What do you recommend we do? Hi, my 14 week old is on EASY.
Ok, my biggest stress and frustration is how do I get my baby to fall asleep? Hi Dasha, My baby ate every two hours in the early days too. I just followed a 2 hour EASY routine. Her longest naps were always in the morning. I stuck to the routine, but really struggled with putting her down to sleep. She would usually only sleep for minutes at a time during the day.
If she fell asleep while feeding the second time, I would still change her diaper to get that short activity in. It was a tough phase, but only lasted about a week, then we started putting her down in her bassinet for naps.
Now she is 5 months and is on a good routine. She naps for 1. She goes to bed around 8 and wakes up around 7 am with a dream feed. The best thing I recommend is to not watch the clock, but stick with the order of things. I have been reading my tail off looking for the certainty and safety of routines and schedules for our babies as it relates to feedings, timing, and sleeping methods.
At night she wakes up every 1 to 1. Would you have any suggestions? I have a 3 and a half month old. Any suggestions? Thanks for the sample schedules. I have a How do I know when he is ready for the 4 month schedule and how do I get him to follow it, when during the day he typically feeds 3 hourly? He does well at night with 1 or 2 feeds and his awake time during the day is really only 1. He does some sleeps well during thre day and others he will only nap for 45 mins.
He is restless at 5. He is on the 90th percentile for weight. My 8 week old baby was started on easy last week and we have had great nights so far. She is typically going down at and sleeping until 3. Before we started this we would be up times a night or more. I feel like I spend my entire day battling naps with her. We are trying shush pat which occasionally works but it seems she gets very restless at times as well. We try to have her swaddled by the second yawn. Then she fusses and I find myself pacing and patting which I know is not correct.
We do this times per nap and sometimes just give up. What are we doing wrong? This is so frustrating because I know she sleeps better at night when she naps during the day. I see on the 3 hour EASY for 6wk-4months that the last feeding is 10pm dream feed. Then the next feeding is 7am. What methods do you suggest to get a 6wk old to sleep without nursing from 10pm to 7am? Our son is 6wks old and we follow this schedule but he never goes through the night without two feedings usually one around 1AM and another around 4or 5AM.
My baby is 3 months old. My husband and I are struggling with naps during the day though. Sometimes she only even sleeps for like 20 minutes!!!! Also, in order for her to take these naps she normally needs a small bottle. My little guy is 11 weeks old. We are on EASY. Any thoughts? My little girl is 12 weeks and absolutely hates her crib which is in our room but she would sleep on the couch, rocker and carseat with ease.
She feeds every 3 hours 4oz — 5oz and she naps 2 — 3 times a day for an hour and some on average. She bathes at pm and at 6pm. I try putting her to bed at 7pm but this girl resists! She will not sleep in her crib at all.
If she falls asleep in the rocker and I try to transition her to the crib, she will get up and cry. I have tried the crying method and that did not work at all. Poor thing had red puffy eyes and was sobbing uncontrollably. What I did notice though, when I put a pillow in her crib and had her elevated, she slept sooo much better!
Could it be that she got so accustomed to the rocker that she needs that elevation to sleep? At night, she feeds every 3 hours. I did notice a lot of spit up but then someone mentioned I should burp her in between a feeding.. She still spits up occasionally. I am so concerned. I would so appreciate it. I look like such a hot mess right now because of the lack of sleep!! I love your blog and have really enjoyed reading it! My lo is 11 weeks old and over the past 2 weeks seems to have fallen naturally into a 4 hour schedule.
She weighs about 12 pounds and eats 6 times per 24 hour period. So my question is — Is it okay for LO to be on a 4 hour schedule even though she is only 3 months old?
I have an 10 wk old who was doing really well with night sleep, hrs at the start, and has since gone backwards. She is now waking every 3hrs or less. We feed her a bottle around 7pm and she takes oz so I know she is full. My husband puts her down when she is done eating, sometimes still a little awake, and she will settle herself to sleep. She wakes up every 3hrs or so and cries out. Is she just toying with me and not really hungry every time? Should I try not to feed her everytime she wakes?
I have a premie baby born at 33 weeks. The hospital had her on a 3 hour schedule: ESY 6 am, 9, 12, 3, 6, 9, 12, 3 E included Burping She came home at 36 weeks and we tried to stick to this schedule and it was working until last week 37 week. Now she is all over the place, mostly every 2 hours she wants to eat and about one time a day, randomly, she is up and stays up until the next feeding, no S and no Y.
There does not seem to be a schedule…and we are past the growth spurt that happened She is gaining so no issue there. She is a bit hard to burp, but she does burp—in fact burping is pretty much the only A that I have in the line up. She seems to be a happy spitter, not reflux The good news is: She is in the crib and goes down well. Question are 1 What is your recommendation for us? Basically how it. Maybe I need to insert the A into the schedule so she has time to digest?
I just want a more constant schedule, but am I asking too much or am I setting up bad habits. Mostly I do not want to set up bad habits. What we do now is: She wakes, change diaper, feed, burp attempt for up to min, put her down, she spits up a small puddle, pick up, clean off do not change sheet or her , she sleeps 2 hours, leaving me 1 Y hour.
I can cluster feed, but again is cluster feeding ok for me to implement. Question-can you explain the dream feed. What does it mean or what are the instructions for doing one? Great article — my baby is 5 weeks old and we have been using the EASY schedule with some success — she has given me some hr stretches so hoping nights will get better soon. So lets say baby eats at 4pm so after 4 is there any activity time between 4 and before catnap around pm?
Thanks so much for all the info. Thanks for all of the helpful info you post and the perfect balance of humor you add in.
Have you or other readers had luck getting their baby on a routine in a gentler way? More like gently but firmly guiding them vs rigidly requiring them to get on board? Thanks for thoughts! Remember flexibility is ok as long as consistency is there.
Babies, children and even adults really love predictability and routine! Good luck! This information is really helpful. Thank you so much for sharing all of your knowledge to help others regain some of our sanity, too!! My 10 week old daughter follows EASY really well during the day for her first three naps. She goes to sleep on her own as long as I have her in her crib within an hour of her last WT.
But after 4 until we finally get her to bed around 9 after A LOT cuddling, sshing and begging, she is a wreck! The only way I can get her to nap for a bit is by wearing her. Do you have any suggestions for encouraging the afternoon naps and making bedtime a bit easier?
We are at a total loss to understand her scheduling needs in the afternoon! Thanks in advance for your help. I have just started my 8 week old daughter on EASY. She was loosely on a eat, play, sleep routine for about a week beforehand. Yesterday was our first official day and she napped 3X for 45 mins- 1 hr and 1x for 2 hours. Last night I fed her every other time she woke up and tried to pat and shoosh the alternate times.
She is currently in a bassinet next to my bed. I would love to know if anyone else had issues with night time sleep when they began EASY and any suggestions you have for me. At this point, she has only slept between 1 and 2 hours at a time at night since Sunday night and I am having issues with exhaustion. Any suggestions on what to do w a 6 week old that will not go to sleep at night from 8pm-3a. He was previously sleeping decently and waking every hours at night. You make it sound so easy and I stress make caus I know how hard it is to get a baby on a sleep routine.
My son is 8 months and 3 weeks and he is still not sleeping through the night. He never did!!! He catnaps all day and I just want to find a way to get my little one sleeping. With all this said, I just wish I had seen your page when he was much younger. Thank you for posting!! Be consistent and find a good rhythm for your family. Just started the EASY plan yesterday with my 7 week old son. When he wakes up in the middle of the night, am I not to feed him and only change his diaper?
Thanks for your help! Could someone please tell me what happens after the dream feed? Should he still be waking up every three hours? Thank you so much for this, it really helps. I have a 10 week old daughter and she seems to want to eat every 2 hours. When she wakes up do you just wait until the next feed and play with her?
Any tips will help a lot. Thank you! Like for example this morning he woke up at 7 and played while feeding him 4oz he slept at 9 and i have to wake him up at to feed, so i woke him up, fed him,played, bathe him my mom wont allow me to bathe him at nights and fell asleep at 1 pm.
And he still asleep at 3 so intried to wake him up but he doesnt want to i fed him half awake and goes back to sleep its 5pm and he still asleep, im afraid that he will benawakenall night coz hes asleep all day, please help me.
Please please reply. Akiko 0 mins ago Hi! I have 8 week old baby, and im trying to follow this routine. I was having trouble because he sleeps all day and awake all night. Im confuse im following the 3 hour routine if it comes to E and he is still asleep should i wake him up?
Or feed him while hes still sleeping. Im afraid it would just make his nap longer. Please in having trouble any suggestion? My son is 12 weeks old and has been following the 3 week feeding routine well for a few weeks now. He is breastfed and takes a really good feed every 3 hours between 7 am and 7pm. He has three 45 minute naps in the day at 9am, He goes down to sleep in the evening between 7. So all going well — however — he still wakes for a full feed once in the night between 3.
Is there any hope of him sleeping right through the night?! To be fair he does sleep really well through the night either side of the feed and he takes the feed very efficiently, going back to sleep straight away until 6.
What do I do if my baby cries when I lay him down? He refuses to sleep in his cradle and cries when I lay him down for his naps. Will only fall asleep if someone is holding him or in his swing. He is 3. Nm- Your website is great! Lots of good info and laughs. Thank you. I have a 6 week old little boy. We are working on getting a routine down. So far he is doing good with a bedtime.
He goes down at 9 then sleeps till 7 or 8, waking up times. He will go down once or twice but not longer than an hour. I think he needs to sleep more for his development, how can I get him to sleep during the day?
Also he likes to graze, oz every hour or 2. Is this normal? I would like to give him 6oz less frequently. Thank you, Agatha. LOVE this blog. Or should I just feed him earlier than the 3 hours and try to stretch the next feed to 3 hours.
In other words, is it more critical to stretch out the feed times to 3 hours or have him sleep? Michelle — Congrats on your new little one! In just a few weeks, you may notice your little one settling more into a better routine and being able to consume more. Consuming more milk at each feeding can lead to a longer stretch between feed times… but of course it all depends on their little bellies developing and growing more.
Also, you want to gauge his wake up mood. If he seems grouchy and tired still when he wakes early, then he probably still needs some extra sleep time. Again, if he seems hungry when he wakes up… then definitely go ahead and feed him. Lovely site and posts! Sorry if this question has been asked before, but it seems like even with a dream feed at 10PM, going from 10PM-7AM is a long stretch.
My daughter is 3. What do you suggest I should do since the Ferber method is not recommended until months of age? Hi there. My baby has been on a three hour feeding schedule since the nurses in the NICU put him on one when he was a day old. We also found in the hospital that he would go for one 4 hour stretch between feedings at night. My question is about bedtime.
He generally gets up somewhere between 3 and 4 am for a feeding and goes back to bed until about 7am or am. Is this bedtime? Then the baby wakes up and eats at 8pm and goes immediately back to sleep.
Also, given that one of the positive aspects of the program is that the baby is not supposed to eat and then immediately sleep, thus breaking the habit of needing food to sleep, how does the second cluster feed and then immediately to bed arrangement fit here? Could you elaborate?
I came across your site through a Google search and love the easy to understand information. I have a 10 week old with reflux. He is on special formula for the reflux and a milk allergy. Because of the reflux we have to hold him upright in our arms for 30 min. He often falls asleep during that time since he is being comforted.
I also have a 4 year old, so we are often following her schedule for school, ballet, etc. Hi again! What would the evening feeds look like after 4 pm for a 7 week old without the clutter feeds? A 7 PM feed and then a the dream feed? Is it not a good idea to force a feed at some point because you want to go to bed yourself? Allison — You can try and do a feed before you go to bed which is essentially what the dream feed is supposed to be and see if that will extend the nighttime stretch of sleep.
I just started the EASY schedule with my 8 week old and it is going great! The only problem I am having is putting her down at nap time. I can not swaddle her because we discovered her rolling on her stomach. I have a routine for bedtime but not nap time. Do you recommend one? If so, what is a good routine for nap time? Christine — A naptime routine is an excellent idea! Maybe dimming the bedroom lights drawing the blinds, etc Play some lullabies and flip through some picture books.
No need to read or sing a lot, but the idea is to signal to your LO that sleep time is coming up next. Babies and children thrive on predictability, consistency and routine… so when they can sense what is next, it naturally makes the transition more relaxing and positive!
Thanks for the all the info on this blog, it is great. My 7 week old is on a pretty good 2. Problem is she is on a A, E, S, Y schedule. How do I go about changing that? Another problem is she feeds better that way because she gets sleepy when she is nursing.
Any advice would be great! Great site!! My daughter is just shy of 11 weeks and is not following in his footsteps! I was hoping you might have some advise for me. She is currently getting approximately 7 feedings a day about 4 oz each. I nurse her at 5 and 8 am and then she gets 3 more bottles of breastmilk and 2 bottles of formula. Her last feed is at approximately pm. She has been able to stretch from pm to 2 am a few times but thats about it. So she is consistently eating on this schedule: 2, 5, 8, 11, 2, 5ish, ish, 10ish.
I would give anything to be able to drop the 2 am and 5 am feedings. So my questions to you: Am I better off skipping the dream feed and letting her do that early stretch? My son is now almost 3 months old. He still seems to want to eat every 2. However, he is starting to take longer naps and we have read that he should only be taking 3 naps per day so we are thinking we should transition to fewer, longer naps.
This also sounds appealing because it will give us a bit more freedom to get out! Fortunately, thanks to doing EWS since week 3, he doesn't need to eat to get to sleep but I do appreciate having the routine and I do think he is accustomed to eating when he wakes.
Any advice on how to make this transition? Thanks, Christy. Christy Satterfield, If you want naps to be longer I'm not sure if you are waking and limiting naps or if she simply takes shorter naps you'll have to either move feeds further apart or change up the ews routine. At 3 months, healthy babies generally do totally fine at eating every three hours. You can just gently and slowly extend them out a few minutes at a time each day.
As feed are extended out, you'd have naps go until the next feed which would be longer. As far as if naps are short and you need to extend those out, look over the short nap post. Rachel, I just discovered this post at a after admitting to myself that I have a major problem! I have a 9 month baby who does not know how to put himself to sleep!
He eats solids and is at a healthy weight. He only nurses before his morning nap and his bedtime, with an occasional afternoon feed here and there, and at night because I'm so exhausted from hearing him cry when he wakes up! I said, he associates my nipple as his sleep tool. I don't believe in letting him cry it out and the crib is in our bedroom no option there. Please help! He should be sleeping through the night! Hi Rachel! This is a fantastic website - thank you for it.
We have a nearly two week old and the 7amam-1pm-4,6,8 clusterpm feeds are working well. I'm a bit confused about how the night time feeds fit in at this stage.
She fed in the night at am and am. My concern is she will try to drop the 7am feed. Do you have any advice? Thank you so. Hi Rachel - so sorry, the above post about the two week old and night time feeds was from me, Liz - I messed up the username bit! Thanks in advance for your help. Hi Rachel, We typically do 3 hour cycle, but my question is there any interference if we wait 30 minutes before feed after being awake?
I wonder if its causing issues with 45 minutes intruder. Just trying to rule it all out. Wake time is 1. Diane, No problem not feeding right after waking up. The older baby gets the better baby will do with hrs between feeds. I can't tell you if baby is waking due to hunger, you'd have to trouble shoot that and see what happens. Thanks for the reply.
After trying to feed earlier Also, I'm guessing I didn't give her enough time to fuss it out. She has learned quickly. Today we had a couple of naps after the 45 minute mark by implementing the two changes. Tonight, i set her down for bedtime awake So we'll see how things go. This week we have a curve ball though.
She goes to daycare and the room will not be dim. Hopefully she learns quickly to put herself to sleep for naps there. Any helpful tips with transition to day care would be most appreciated!
I think putting her down awake has helped a ton. To implement this routine Marsha, Yes, you do wake baby from a nap to maintain the 3 hour. But you can adjust it around a bit to fit your baby's natural rhythm best. For example, if she is more sleepy and naps better at one part of the day, you could do 3. I like to stick closer to 3 as baby is learning to figure out night and day, but after that the pattern and making sure baby gets enough daily food is most important.
I have a five month old and we've been using EWS since day 1 and it works great! He eats at 7, 10, 1, 4, 7 and 9 with naps right before all feeds except the last.
He's wanting to have longer awake times now and also seems to want a longer morning nap. How do I transition? Do I feed less times a day? I don't want his bedtime to get later and don't want to disrupt his nice pattern of sleeping through the night! If I transitioned to a 4 hour routine I'd feed at 7, 11, 3, 7 and 9 with the same number of naps but 5 feedings per day instead of 6.
Is it better to cut out one feeding like this or keep 6 feedings and cut out one nap? My 2 week old sleeps like a champ during the day, usually I have to wake him for his 3 hour feeding. He is exclusively breastfed although I also pump and my husband usually gives him a middle of the night bottle.
He doesn't have much awake time during the day and in fact I have to work at keeping him awake during feedings rubbing his was, ticketing his feet. I don't know how to keep him awake during he day without making him fussy or cry. At night he' a mess waking 1. How do we start the EWS? And how can I fix his night time sleeping? I'm experiencing the same thing with our 4 week old. She will have a hard time sleeping and will sometimes be up for hours I really need some answers.
Good cycles during the day btw. Don't expect much awake time during the day besides a feeding and diaper change. He's so little that the main thing that will help right now is just time. Do your best to help him sleep comfortably at night and it will improve in a bit.
Hello, I just found this blog, and I am so thankful I did! Lots of super helpful information. My 12 week old daughter is still very inconsistent in her naps, Sometimes, she will sleep 2. I read the above section about what to do with short naps. But then other times, if she takes a nap that is the appropriate length, I feed her right when she wakes. I am concerned about the inconsistency of this, Please help!
Rachel, my baby pretty much put herself in this routine around 10 weeks old, and not until after that did I find out this was a real thing! I was so excited that she was already doing this. Most of the time she would even put herself to sleep without any help if I timed it just right, but now she is exactly 4 months old and out of nowhere she will not put herself to sleep anymore!
I follow her cues and put her down when she starts getting sleepy, and usually she starts sucking her thumb and goes to sleep, but recently I put her down and she just arches her back and starts screaming, even if she was perfectly content before I put her down! Lately she only goes to sleep if I bounce her around or feed her again.. Why has she suddenly gotten so bad at going down for naps? Here I thought I had a perfect routine, and the past few days I've been so distraught..
Is there anything I can do to get her back on track with her naps? Thanks for your post. My son is 8. I know nap times can be inconsistent till about 3 months ish so what do I do for that extra minutes until it is time to feed again?
This is confusing me and I am having trouble keeping the 3 hour schedule because of this. So obviously I am not able to just feed at 7 wake time , 10, 1, and 4. Because of not being able to hit these feeding times am I really messing him his internal scheduling up?? Your advice would be greatly appreciated! Hello, I've been following a flexible easy routine for around a month whixh has been going ok. He isn't happy to be awake for more than He will be up anywhere from pm until bedtime!!
Thanks, Shae. So I'm trying to do that EWS routine with my breast milk fed baby. She is 14 weeks old. Lately her naps have all been 42 minutes like clockwork. She sleeps wonderfully at night. But back to the naps Sometimes I'm able to string two of these 42 minute naps together. But not always. The issue then becomes staying on that EWS routine. So of course I feed her, but then her wake time becomes crazy long and sometimes she ends up falling asleep on the bottle, which is exactly what the routine tries to avoid.
RavenGrl23, It's really a matter of preference in your situation--whatever works best for you. The big thing is to try to not fall asleep while eating and learn to fall asleep on your own and get long periods of sleep at night. If eating every 2. Organized Mommy Store hosted by Amazon. Resources Amazon. About Me Josie I'm a natural organizer -- some would say obsessive compulsive. My friends make fun of me for having a spreadsheet for everything.
I can't help myself! Email me: josie at organizedmommyblog. Next to the instructions, a large part is also about getting a feeling for doing things as needed for your baby.
Tracy helps you learn that too. The E. Every day will be structured with a pattern of " E " Eating, " A " Activity and then " S " sleep which leaves time to yourself for " Y " You.
Tracy was very clear on the difference between a routine and a schedule. A schedule would involve fixed times and that is not what it is about: you can't fit a baby into a clock. Rather, the E. You do the putting down and picking up as often as need to get baby to sleep.
You may do that with a "Four S" wind down ritual of setting the stage, s waddling possibly, sitting quietly and a s hush-pat patting baby's back and making shush-sounds to help baby quiet down.
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