We are having some feeding issues because she is so overtired in the day..she becomes very distressed and doesn't want to feed as just so desperate to feed.
I understand what you mean.
Have you tried feeding when first waking up, instead of upon waking? This helps because (a) baby is not tired for feed and (b) separating feeding and sleeping is a good long term habit.
A simple structure to your day that ensures regular feeds and sleeps is EASY:
E - eat. Start with a full feed upon waking
A - awake activity. Limit awake time to 60-90 minutes at this age
S - sleep.
Y - you time while baby sleeps.
Wake and then repeat the whole cycle over and over again all day long.
for the final nap of the day - should that be finishing an hour and a half before bedtime then?
It depends on the developmental stage your baby is at, in terms of sleep.
â– Newborn phase -naps are long, awake time short
â– Active sleep regression - naps reduce to one sleep cycle, usually 30-45 minutes.
â– Long naps - naps increase as sleep cycles in daytime naps link. Now longer awake times are needed between longer naps.
An average baby at 4 months would be at the short nap stage, but yours might not be average. You mention 45-1h naps, so it's difficult to say if your baby is linking sleep cycles or not, that is right on the cusp.
If your baby is still sleeping in single-sleep-cycle short naps, then I'd advise following EASY (with limited awake time) from first waking through to bedtime. You could maybe lengthen the last awake time by half an hour if baby is well rested and spied a lot in the day. Otherwards, just be flexible with the time of bedtime as the end of an awake time.
If, however, baby is starting to sleep longer and link sleep cycles, then longer awake times develop with kengthening awake times through the day. So it's not unusual to have a longer awake time before bed. This would be at about 5-9 months old, for your average baby. But as I said, your baby may not be average.