Where to start fixing problems for 2 month old? (Sorry, very long!)

[Ymang13]

Hi everyone,

I'm new here although I've been lurking for a while now. I've read the whisperer books and have tried to implement Tracy's suggestions as best I can. But I seem to be stuck at 2 major points and I'd love some advice from you smart people!

So the first problem is that our daughter A doesn't sleep in her bed or on her own. During the day she sleeps in my or DHs arms and at night she sleeps next to me in bed.

Second problem is that I have been using breastfeeding to calm her down so I nurse her way more often than every 3 hours. I nurse when she wakes up, and then again when I am Trying to get her to sleep.

I also think that her A times are too long, but even if I start to calm her down within 1 hour of waking she will take forever to fall asleep. This means that then I am sometimes nursing her on and off for an hour trying to get her to sleep. Which gives her gas, so she is sometimes awake due to that.

The only other way I've found to get her to sleep is to put her in the moby wrap or (less useful) the baby bjorn, and walk around until she falls asleep.

Sometimes I'm able to put her down after she falls asleep but usually doing that causes her to wake up, and then she doesn't fall back asleep at all or not easily.

So today for example I had a decent schedule but it was with using the wrap and holding her and nursing lots. Here's what it looked like:

S 8pm: sleep on daddy's lap on the couch while I get some sleep until she wakes, which is usually around
E 12:15 am: first night E, very short
E 3:15: second nighttime e, again very short
E 5:30: E, and then dozing and b/f off and on until I get up at 7
S 7-8:
E 8-8:45
A - 9:15
E 9:15 to 9:30
S 9:30 to 11 (in moby)
E -11:45
A - 12:15
E - -12:30
S 12:30 - 3 (first in baby bjorn, then right back to sleep after a short nurse when I took her out of it)
E/a: 3-4:15 (not very hungry when she woke so I did a then went back to it)
S:4:30-5:30 (after 15 minutes of walking, fell asleep in bjorn)
E: 5:30-6
A/e/screaming  6-7:45
S: 7:45 (down for the night...I hope)

Oh, I should mention that I have tried to get her to take a pacifier and even though I tried 12 different kinds, she refused them all.

I guess this is my fact for not "starting at day 1" but even then it took the boob to calm her down....

I'm thinking to start by putting her crib in our bedroom and getting her to sleep there at night, since she's used to sleeping laying down at night. Then...then I don't know! We had a lot of problems with her older brother and ended up using CIO but I really don't want to do that again.  I think maybe DH and I are both a little scarred from him crying constantly so we don't want that to happen again...

Please help me! What should I do?

Thanks so much for any wisdom!!

[Ima shel Alon]

Hi and welcome to BW!

First of all I have to mention that we, here in BW are very much against CIO. We believe that Tracey gave us wonderful tools, loving tools to teach our babies better sleep.
There is some information here that you might want to read:
Cry it out (CIO): 10 reasons why it is not for us
Research on why 'cry it out' and 'controlled crying' is NOT recommended!

It does sound like there is a lot going on, but we can work on all things or just on some of them, whatever you want. I think this is a good link: Three-day magic: The ABC cure for Accidental Parenting (inc. Troubleshooter) and at the bottom it directs you to the specific pages in the book where you can see specific strategies to different AP, IMO it can help you make a plan of how to tackle things.

Do you want to tackle everything together or one thing at a time? Do you want to space feeds, get her to fall asleep more ind. in her cot and have better naps? Is there anything else I missed?
It's really up to you and your LO if to tackle everything at the same time or not. Some babies respond ok to "cold turkey" and some need things done more gradually. Same goes for their parents.
IIWY I would defo work on spacing feeds, she is feeding way too often right now and I think it contributes to your difficulties loads. She might not make it to 3h, but that ok, just work on gradually spacing the feeds. I would also think that a good place to start is to feed just at WU and not at WU AND before nap.
If you want her to stop falling asleep just on you and in the sling then at this age your best way to do that would be to use Shush-pat (Shush-pat - How to). At her age, in the beginning of implementing EASY and Shush-pat one needs to stay with the baby till in deep sleep since they can't do it by themselves.
You can have look here at what her A times should look like: Average A times- BOOKMARK ME! This is of course just guidelines, but it can give you an idea.

There are also these two links that have good information in them: Starting EASY - all you need to know and more!
Sleep Training  - the early days

I am not going to lie to you, it's going to be super easy. You DO have a lot going on and it will take some time and work on your side, but it's possible. Believe me, I've been there. One of the things Tracey said in her books was "start as you mean to go on", that a key IMO. If you are ready then you can do it and we will be here holding your hand and giving advice.