I was wondering how long it took people to establish their EASY routine. I started the routine with my 6 week old DD about 20 hours ago and there has been mixed results.
First off some background - when we were at the hospital, the nurses told us about the 'second night syndrome' where the babies realize that they're not in the woumb anymore and tend to be fussy and want to be held all the time. That was so true for our DD. We were able to lull her to sleep in our arms, but a few minutes after being put down, she'd wake up screaming. After a couple of days of being home, a nurse came to visit. I told her that our baby was still needing to be held all the time, around the clock. She said that she heard that from all parents and that its completely normal. Fast forward 6 weeks - I'm still having to hold my baby most of the time. We can get her to sleep in a vibrating baby chair. But if you put her in a crib, even if she's in a really deep sleep, she'll wake up within 10 minutes and cry. I have literally slept sitting up on the couch holding her for the last 6 weeks! I don't think this is normal...is it?
Anyway, what prompted me to try to start the EASY routine was that I have to go back to work part time in two weeks (my dad and his wife will take care of her) and then back to work full time in 6 weeks, at which point she'll go to daycare. At daycare they put the babies for their naps in cribs. My DD can be very sweet and her smile melts my heart, but I can't stop thinking that I'll bring her to daycare, she'll cry the whole time when they try to put her down for a nap, she'll be miserable and everyone will hate her.
So I started EASY last night. I did the cluster feeding and put her down in the bassinet. Of course I had to do the shush-patting to get her to stop crying. I held her, shush-patting and when she was calm, I put her in the bassinet and continued. She cried and I had to start all over about 4 times. I think she finally went to sleep after an hour of this. She slept through the dream feed, but fussed afterwards (she has reflux). I had to shus-pat her for about 45 minutes to get her to go back to sleep. She awoke twice in the night to be fed (I had to feed her - she wouldn't take the pacifier and was getting way riled up), and I shush-patted her for about 30 minutes each time. I know people might think that not having her sleep through the night was a downer, but really, I'm thrilled that I didn't have to hold her all night. For me the fact that she slept in the bassinet is a huge success. I can deal with lack of sleep for now.
Buoyed by that success, I decided to try getting her to take naps in the bassinet. The first nap was ok. It took 45 minutes of shush-patting to get her down and she had a short (maybe 30-40 minute) nap. The second time was a nightmare. I shush-patted her for an hour and a half. She just kept getting really upset and crying. By the end of it, I just gave up. It was cruel and unusual punishment for the both of us. I put her in the vibrating seat where she slept for an hour and gorged myself with chocolate to make me feel better.
So my question is - am I expecting too much? Should I just try to get her down at night and hold off on the napping for a while? Or should I just try to get her in the bassinet for one nap a day and then slowly increase that?
Also, with the shush-patting, how long does one usually have to continue that? I'm sure that I can convince my dad to do that when putting her down if she can't go down without it in the next couple of weeks. But I'm sure the daycare workers would be adverse to such a ritual when they have other kids to look after.
