nursing / sleeping schedule change

monkey_pants · September 2011

I used to just watch for sleepy signs but I'm trying to do the up for 2hrs, nap, up for 3 hours, nap, up for 4 hours, bedtime schedule with DD. It's made it easier to put her down for naps, but over the weekend it also made her drop a daytime feeding and move it to 4am Here's roughly what we did, estimating nap times which were a bit different every day:

8:45 - woke up (later than usual but she's been doing it for a few days), nurse #1

10 - breakfast

10:45 - nap

12:15 - woke up, nurse #2

1:30 - lunch

3 - nurse #3

3:15 - nap

5 - woke up

6:30 - dinner

7:30 - bath

8 - nurse #4

8:15/30 - bedtime

I know this is more like 2-3-3.5, rather than 2-3-4 btwn naps. I think she's waking at 4am to eat because we cut out her 5th daytime nursing. Maybe I should nurse her at 5pm? But that's only 2 hours from her last nursing. She's taking better naps than usual and sleeping a really long time at night so I feel like I just need to tweak this plan a little to cut out that 4am feed. Any ideas?

rmm17 · September 2011

5 hours between nursing #3 and #4 is a really long time for a baby her age (at least it is for my LO). The rest of the day you aren't going longer that 3.5 without nursing. I know you are giving her solids at 6:30 but "food before 1 is just for fun" according to my dr. and LLL. When i give Ace solids at dinner i always nurse either right before or after. If i were you i would nurse between 5:30-6:30.

Where did you hear about the 2-3-4 plan? That sounds interesting. We usually just wait 3 between each but i wonder if that would work better.

monkey_pants · September 2011

rmm17:
5 hours between nursing #3 and #4 is a really long time for a baby her age (at least it is for my LO). The rest of the day you aren't going longer that 3.5 without nursing. I know you are giving her solids at 6:30 but "food before 1 is just for fun" according to my dr. and LLL. When i give Ace solids at dinner i always nurse either right before or after. If i were you i would nurse between 5:30-6:30.

Where did you hear about the 2-3-4 plan? That sounds interesting. We usually just wait 3 between each but i wonder if that would work better.

I agree that solids are just for fun for now, however I'm amazed by how much she eats, usually her big meal is breakfast. Maybe I'll try nursing her before dinner and see how that goes.

Two friends with LOs the same age recently both told me about 2-3-4. DD was kind of close to that already, but I was always watching her for tired signs to put her to sleep. If she's acting really sleepy and it's before the allotted time, then of course I'll put her down to nap. However watching the clock seems to help because I think I was expecting every yawn or eye-rub meant she was ready for a nap and it didn't necessarily always mean that. I think that 2-3-4 comes from The Sleep Lady book, but I haven't read it.