Pat Shush Questions

[jennicb]

Hello,

I am eager to teach my 6 week old how to get herself to sleep and to be able to conquer the 45 min nap monster that is appearing. I have been trying to read all the posts on the pat shush technique but am a little confused. I am sorry if I am asking questions asked before or if they are silly. I'm not sure if it's just because it's late at night that I'm getting confused by there are some things that I'm just not getting.

1. Why is rocking your baby to sleep (for example) considered a sleep prop but patting them to sleep isn't??
2. Why do you pat and shush until baby is in a deep sleep? I thought you were teaching them to put themselves to sleep so wouldn't you just p and s until they were sleepy and then leave, returning to p and s each time they roused?
3. When do you know that you have successfully taught baby to self soothe to sleep, thus no longer needing to p and s?

If anyone has any further info on the p and s technique I would GREATLY appreciate it!!

Thanks so much,
Jennifer

[Colin Macs Mom]

Hi there -

1. see here https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=64108.0

2. Can I ask where you read that you should pat/shh until LO is in deep sleep? Sorry that's not ringing a bell for me. If it makes you feel better, I never did that, only until DS was calm. see here https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=26671.0

3. You should only be doing pat/shhh if LO is upset. If he/she is calm then you should leave them be. So, it will be pretty obvious when she is self-soothing and able to sleep independently.

[jennicb]

Thanks so much for responding Jessica.

Maybe I misunderstood how long you do pat/sh for. It's just that in Tracy's sleep interview she talks about doing it for 20 mins and that a lot of people don't do it long enough. I also read somewhere else on the board that doing it for 20 mins take bub to the 3rd stage of sleep....which when I read about the stages of sleep the 3rd seemed to be what I called "deep sleep". But as I said, I am a bit confused on this and needing help. Mia is my third baby and my two boys were awful sleepers so I'm desperate to "get it right" with this lo.

Thanks for your help,
Jennifer

[jennicb]

Me again....

Actually, I just re-read the article you sent me Jessice and it says:

"The key is not to stop just because baby has calmed down, keep it up.  And stay with him, don't leave, until he's melted into the crib!"

and

"Stay with him until he's in stage three - deeper into sleep"

Help!!!

[Colin Macs Mom]

Well I think that with a LO as young as yours who isn't necessarily old enough to have mastered independent sleep, it would be important to keep it up. Over time she will learn from the process and begin to calm faster and then not need it at all.   I can imagine it's hard to do with two other LOs though... if that's the case then I would just do the best you can and put as much time into it as you can. There are some folks over on the Two Under Two board that have discussed using BW and sleep training (or lack of!) with second and third babies so that may help you out too.