I am actually totally embarrassed since I know better after reading Tracy's book- I am currently using lots of props.
You see, I have weaned my baby off the paci one month ago. At the time of the process, we had started using shush/pat but he seem more annoying by the shush than anything so we had only pat. With time, even the pat seemed not to have any effect so we stopped. During the process of weaning, since we were also teaching him to sleep in the crib, we were putting him drowsy but awake in the crib. Between the stress of not having his paci and learning to fall asleep in bed on his own, I noticed that he started to develop crib phobia. That is when I started to hold him and rock him a bit (someone suggested in the post) - it did work. The problem is that now he is having a harder time falling asleep and it takes me long time, sometimes rocking for an hour in my arms before he actually falls asleep (he is also a 3 month old who weights almost 17 lb), so you can imagine that my arms are about to fall out by the end of the routine. I do have a bedtime routine: bath, eating and sleeping. Lately, since I have gone back to work - he resist sleeping more than before. So when I get home in the afternoon, sometimes he is overtired and when I put him to sleep he sleeps over his bedtime. I have woken him up and do the bedtime routine, but then he is so sleepy that he wants to sleep and not eat. He fights me so I have to put him to sleep and then feed him semi-sleep so that at least he goes to bed with a meal in his belly.
I know you are wondering why I do not do something about the rocking. I want to eliminate it. I have made several attempts to put him awake in the crib, he cries each time really badly. Since I have gone back to work, it is hard to work on anything since I know that my parents will do what they want. They do not have the Patience that it's needed for it to work.
Well, in regards to his waking. This weekend, he did better since on Saturday night, he got up at 2AM but when back to sleep after whimpering for a while. He woke up at 4:30AM. Last night, he did not wake up until 4:30AM. His waking up time is actually 6AM, now I do not know how to extend it. I am still trying to figure out if this habitual waking so that I can use wake to sleep.
Thanks