Hello everyone! The last few weeks of my last pregnancy (my third child), I read the Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems and Secrets of the Baby Whisperer. I figured if we started EASY from the very beginning, we wouldn't have to worry about accidental parenting messes to clean up and everything would be a breeze. I got into some really, really bad accidental parenting with my second child (nursing to sleep, sleeping with Mommy). By the time he was a toddler, he still couldn't sleep without nursing and life around bedtime was generally a nightmare. I was determined that when our third came along, we would NOT be doing that again.
Ha. EASY isn't so easy even when started from the beginning. Our third baby came along the end of January and I tried for the first few weeks but it just didn't seem to be going well. These last several days I've pretty much given up (at least temporarily). I'm so tired that I am getting back into some accidental parenting just to get some rest. I don't want to go down this road and I was hoping you all could help me get things on track.
One of our main problems is that the shush/pat doesn't seem to be helping my son to acquire any kind of self-soothing sleep skills at all. I realize he's only a tiny fella now, but I kind of thought he'd be gradually learning how to soothe himself after a couple of weeks. He didn't seem to be able to do that at all. I tried to do the 4-S bedtime routine as well during that time. We didn't always get it perfectly right (I have two other children ages 5 and 2, and sometimes I have to deal with them while I'm trying to put DS3 to sleep). Perhaps I'm not doing the shush-pat right, I don't know. When I was doing it, it would seem like I was shushing and patting FOREVER, and when I thought he was finally all the way asleep, a little bit later he'd be crying again. Frustrating! I don't have the luxury of hours to spend doing shush-pat, especially when the other children need help with bedtime things too. Not only that, after a while I get so tired.
The accidental parenting we've been getting into since I gave up shush-pat are: pacifier use (although I'm not 100% sure that's become a prop just yet), nursing to sleep, needing to be held to sleep well, holding/nursing to sleep and then laying him down in the bed and having him wake up a few minutes later crying. He especially loves to be held while sleeping.
One thing I did notice is that sometimes at bedtime he seems uncomfortable/upset about something. He did this even when I was paying close attention and trying to have him in bed "before the third yawn", so I don't think it was over-tiredness. He cries and kind of scrunches up his body in the middle, kind of like how you or I would bend over a little at the waist if we had a bellyache. He usually doesn't seem gassy when he does this, and isn't pulling his legs up to his stomach. Sometimes he'll poop after he's been fussing like this but not always. I don't know if BMs moving through his intestines just bother him a lot or if it is something else. He does it a lot at sleepy-times, especially after I swaddle him. Perhaps he just doesn't like swaddling? But other times, he seems OK with swaddling.
I have a hard time reading his cries sometimes. Also, he does seem to need to eat more often than 3hours. He takes short feeds, but is gaining weight well so his pediatrician says he must be getting enough. Sometimes he will want to eat every hour but more often 1.5 or 2 hours. Occasionally he will go 3-4 hours at night but usually more like 2-3.
He still sleeps a lot but occasionally will have some awake time, sometimes as much as 30 minutes or so after his meal. He doesn't seem to want to be awake at night, so I've been letting him sleep as much as he wants during the day also.
I can't figure out his personality type yet - he's not old enough to answer some of the questions, and the ones I can answer are all over the place. So I don't have that insight yet to start from. He doesn't seem overly grumpy or touchy (maybe a little sometimes), but he certainly doesn't put himself to sleep easily like an Angel baby would.
Any help you all can give me would be great. I know we're getting into accidental parenting, and I so don't want to go there. Is the shush/pat sleep skills "training method" supposed to be so grueling at first? I feel kind of lost. I want to do EASY, and I ESPEICIALLY want him to be able to sleep independantly (no more props!). He is 4 weeks old tomorrow.
And sleeping on my lap right now.
Thanks in advance.
army_wife
