Is it Eat Sleep Play, or Eat Play Sleep with an infant?

[BabyBearsMom]

Asking for a friend. She is having trouble figuring out when to incorporate tummy time for her twins (4 wks old). Her pedi recommended that they start tummy time, but they wake up very hungry (and get cranky waiting for food) so no time to do it between Sleep and Eat. But if she does it after eating, the kiddos are too wired to go back to sleep. We always did Eat Sleep Play with DD and it worked well. I seem to remember that there came a time when DD didn't wake up starving and we started to do play time then, but that sleep deprived time is very fuzzy for me. What worked for you?

[wellyes]

In my experience:
Eat Play Sleep, and if the baby is the type who just needs LOTS of sleep that's fine.

[maydaymommy]

In my experience:
Eat Play Sleep, and if the baby is the type who just needs LOTS of sleep that's fine.


I agree.

I think that some of the baby "experts" encourage that separation between eating and GOING to sleep.

However, these babies are so new!

Anything that works goes in my book & I like holding/feeding to sleep.

[rin]

I think the recommendation is Eat Play Sleep, but I confess that never worked for my DD. She loved to nurse to sleep, so we really did Play Eat Sleep, which worked for her. I know there are recommendations not to do that, so that they don't need to be nursed to sleep, but I guess it always worked for us so I didn't stress about it too much.

[elektra]

Well at four weeks it was more like, eat, eat, eat, sleep, eat, eat, sleep, cry, eat, play, sleep, sleep, eat....IYKWIM.;)
But the way it's supposed to go if you want to try and set up better sleep habits is eat, play, sleep, with the basic thought being that the baby learns to go to sleep on their own vs. needing to be nursed to sleep. I have heard that it can be easier with twins to get them more on a schedule but really at 4 weeks, I would tell her to give herself a lot of leeway with the eat, play, sleep thing. They are so young! Hopefully a twin mom could give better specific advice.

[vonfirmath]

Eat Play Sleep -- basically breaking the connection between eating and sleeping so the kid can learn to go to sleep without that crutch

At 4 weeks she's still in the stage of teaching her kids this pattern. "Play" may be grinning at the kid before putting them back down to sleep. I find the best time for tummy time is right after eating when they are the most content. Sometimes it didn't happen if the kid was too tired.

[luckytwenty]

This is from the Baby Whisperer: Eat, Activity, Sleep (EASY, with the "Y" being "you" when the baby finally goes to bed.) Activity can be a diaper change. It's just to prevent the baby from falling asleep while nursing or taking a bottle.

But FWIW, my theory is "whatever works" in the first six weeks, then gradually going towards this. Anything goes in the very beginning!

[Katigre]

I just did tummy time after every diaper change - I'd flip the baby naked onto their tummy with a pad underneath and give them 5-10 minutes of tummy time. It worked really well.

FWIW, my babies did eat-sleep-eat-play-sleep or some variation like that (they usually nursed to sleep and again at waking up at 8 weeks old - I think they were both eating every 1-3 hours at that point).

[roseyloxs]

This is from the Baby Whisperer: Eat, Activity, Sleep (EASY, with the "Y" being "you" when the baby finally goes to bed.) Activity can be a diaper change. It's just to prevent the baby from falling asleep while nursing or taking a bottle.

But FWIW, my theory is "whatever works" in the first six weeks, then gradually going towards this. Anything goes in the very beginning!

:yeahthat: In the beginning activity time can just be a few minutes or as mentioned above just a diaper change. This routine worked great for us but I wasn't religious about it. If my babies were hungry, I fed them. If they were sleepy, I let them sleep.

[Minnifer]

This is from the Baby Whisperer: Eat, Activity, Sleep (EASY, with the "Y" being "you" when the baby finally goes to bed.) Activity can be a diaper change. It's just to prevent the baby from falling asleep while nursing or taking a bottle.

I'm sorry, this part always cracks me up - as if there's any "you" time even after a baby goes to sleep - bwahahahaha!

With DS, I've just been winging it - and play after eating isn't so good for him b/c there's nothing like trying to get a reflux kid down on the floor to play shortly after eating (back OR tummy) - just.doesn't.work. :)

[BabbyO]

DS2 hates tummy time so we just fit it in when ever he's in a good mood. I don't really pay attention to whether he's just eaten or slept, or what. If he's happy, we try to get a few min of tummy time. That's about as long as I can push it before he starts screaming.

[theriviera]

I just did tummy time after every diaper change - I'd flip the baby naked onto their tummy with a pad underneath and give them 5-10 minutes of tummy time. It worked really well.



Except I only did it when I remembered. At that age, "play" is often just the diaper change.

[luckytwenty]

I'm sorry, this part always cracks me up - as if there's any "you" time even after a baby goes to sleep - bwahahahaha!

With DS, I've just been winging it - and play after eating isn't so good for him b/c there's nothing like trying to get a reflux kid down on the floor to play shortly after eating (back OR tummy) - just.doesn't.work. :)

Even funnier is that she calls it "EASY." That is one time when babies are anything but! So sweet, so tiny, so precious, so capable of destroying any semblance of routine in your life!!

[hoodlims]

I think it is easier of you try to think of it as EASy - Eat, Activity, Sleep...not sure if Y stands for anything.