Why isn't pat and shh a prop? And are DD's naps too long??!

[NetMouse]

I read The Baby Whisperer when I was pregnant and was very impressed with the ideas. However have been finding the reality a bit harder!! DD is now 3 weeks, and she's got a 3 year old sister who needs to be kept in the picture too. I've been reading this site for about a week now and have bought Tracy's second book for more hints.

Two issues have been bothering me:

1. For the first couple of weeks Annabel was very sleepy, so most of the time we managed to put her down and she'd settle quite easily - maybe pick her up once or twice. The exception was evenings if she'd been awake for a bit longer, or if she'd got overstimulated, when she was completely impossible - so I ended up feeding her to sleep a few times. In these cases, if I ever got her calm enough to go in the cot, she would (either immediately or up to 20 mins later) open her eyes and start screaming, and we would have to start again, over and over again.

In the second book, she explains "pat and shh" in a bit more detail.  In the last few days, I've been doing that with some success and have often managed to get her to sleep in her cot even when she was quite fussy. The downside is that she seems to be needing it every time she goes to sleep now, which means I'm up a lot longer at night and away from her sister longer in the day. I wonder if Pat and shh has become a prop in itself, or whether this is just a symptom of DD getting a bit older and more awake?

My main question now is how long I can expect to be doing the pat and shh routine, and how you go about phasing it out? I know it's early days - but with an older sibling, it's very tempting to wonder if we'll be able to do it all quicker sometime!!

2. Often she'll sleep for 3 hours in the daytime, going 4 hours between feeds. At night she tends to do this too, although it can be shorter or even longer.  Yesterday, she was suddenly much hungrier towards evening and had a very frustrating time on empty breasts between about 8 pm and 12 am. I wonder if I should actively be waking her up earlier in the day, to see if she'll feed more in the daytime. I haven't found anything about shortening routines in the books yet - everything seems to be about how to make them longer!

Thank you very much for reading!

[Kiwi_one]

Hi there Just noticed that you haven't had any replies so far so I thought I'd help you where I can. I'm afraid I didn't start BW till my DD was 4 months old so don't have personal experience right from birth.

 From what I've gleaned, it's entirely normal to spend a good amount of time doing pat/shh this early on. A lot of babies require some help to get to sleep and you need to be with them through the whole 20-minute process of falling asleep to ensure that they make it to deep sleep and stay asleep. It sounds as though you have no problems getting long naps, which is fantastic! We could only have dreamt of long naps. I had no idea what I was doing so had my DD up 1.5-2hr at a time, she would fall asleep on me, and I would hold her for her entire nap which was often as little as 30-60 minutes.

There's a post on the FAQ of the props board explaining why shh/pat isn't a prop so I won't repeat what's already been said Just be assured, it's not. You phase it out by gradually taking it away. At first you shh/pat until baby is deeply asleep. To phase it out, you start to shh/pat until they're drowsy rather than deeply asleep. Then you only use it as a settling technique. I'm not sure if there's a specific age to phase it out, I think you just have to go with your instinct as to whether your baby's ready.

It is important that feeds are 3hrly so I would wake her to keep to the routine. Feeds go to 4hrly around 4 months. Occasionally, it's okay to leave them to sleep 30min longer but I wouldn't make it a habit. They really do need all those feeds to get in the calories and it helps to set their bodyclock. At this age, you'd only expect bub to sleep through one feed at night, so she would go up to 6 hours between two feeds and then go back to 3hrly feeds.

Do you have any idea yet what personality type she is?

[Jiinx]

Hi hun,
 You're getting fantastic advice here. Just wanted to post some links they may help you out:

http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=26672.0
this one explains why sh/pat is not a prop and goes into detail for babies under 3 months.

http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=63933.0

Like pp has mentioned. It's important to feed them every 3 hours and to stay on a 3 hour EAS (or less if she's hungry!)...this will ensure they are getting enough calories during the day so they can do most of their sleeping at night, for however long they can do.

Setting up a routine right now is just about getting you and your baby comfortable with a pattern. There are so many growth spurts scattered between them being born to 6 months, that it's difficult to have them on a precise sort of order, yk?

I think you're doing a really wonderful job and it's VERY difficult in the beginning. Sleep training is about the hardest thing I had to do but it was really worth it. Right now, you can mimic the way she slept in your womb by: swaddling (it was tight quarters in there!), a sound machine (to mimic outside noise that she heard) and keep it as dark as you can in her room.

Hope that helps?

[NetMouse]

Thanks very much for the replies! Kiwi_one - I did the same kind of thing as you were (at the beginning) with my older daughter, and ended up in a terrible mess... glad you happened on BW in time! And thanks for the links, Jiinx. There's so much good info on this site!

Funnily enough, having said Annabel goes 4 hour stretches, today she did mostly 2 1/2 hour ones. So I guess it's just changing all the time! She was also easier to put to sleep, not always needing the full sh/pat routine.  

In fact very often when she jerks awake, it is because of tummy issues. She can be quite a fussy feeder, bobbing on and off the breast and screaming. At these times she's also very burpy and sicky. She will often scream, on and off, after feeding, which makes us wonder if there's anything else going on (reflux maybe?) which we could maybe do something about. She seems to get waves of pain, every couple of minutes. However at other times, she can feed quite calmly and happily. Maybe an issue for the breastfeeding board...

Thanks again for helping!

[Jiinx]

hmm..there's a lot of good info on the reflux boards, hun.

If she's acting fussy during a feed and immediately right after, it could be reflux. It could also be a flow problem and she's getting too much of your milk and getting gas bubbles.

Reflux is cyclical, I'm afraid. Some days a baby could be absolutely fine and the next day be off again. Some feeds are fine as well. I find with reflux, more often than not, they tend to want to feed when they're sleepy/calmer..as the esophagus is more relaxed and thus the food doesn't burp up or flow up and burn them you know? It's similar to us getting reflux..that burn we get? Except with los, their esophagus isn't mature yet and that burning will make eating very painful. Only with proper medication can the throat heal and eating will resume normally and so should a routine.

HTH!

[Yazzie]

Hey there hun and welcome to BW ..I originally wanted to post this AM, but got busy with a ton of stuff.....I see you've got some really good help from Jinx, so hope my post below will still be helpful..

Agree with pp that sh/pat isn't a prop, but rather a tool to teach babies to go to sleep, I also started BW-ing with ds when he was about 4 months old, so went through the whole letting him sleep on me and such, it does take time for babies to learn independent sleep and every baby is different from the other, but as time passes you'll hopefully find that you need less sh/pat & it's phased out as the baby starts to sleep on his/her own, but you're starting early on, so things should be alot smoother for you

Here are 2 links about sh/pat:
http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=64275.0
http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=64275.0

About the feeds, I also recommend feeding her every 3 hrs during the day, but @ night you let her feed when she wants to, this would help her distinguish between day & night, during the day we eat & play & at night we sleep, of course she will wake up @ night for feeds, but keep them very low key, if possible don't turn on the light, just feed & put her back down. Here are two links about recommended amounts of day & night sleep, as well as sample routines for this age:
http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=85134.0
http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=164027.0

HTH

[zoem]

My LO is 4 months and I started BW as soon as she was born. I have been doing shush/pat for all this time and wondered, just as you are wondering, why it wasnt a prop and if I would have to do it forever. However, about a month ago my LO started to not need shush/pat as much so I started stopping when I could see that she was nearly dozing off. Then I started using it to just settle her and now she hardly needs any shush/pat. Just when she is overtired and even then, it is just for a few minutes. Just be patient and you will see an improvement and your LO will stop needing it as much. I thought exactly the same as you a few months ago!!

One question - do you swaddle? At first, I used to try shush/pat without swaddling and it really wouldnt work since her movements would bring me back to square one and I was there for hours. I think its important to swaddle for it to work when they are so young.

[NetMouse]

I do swaddle, but as I mentioned before I think it is tummy issues that keep waking her up, more than anything. There is a definite cycle to it that repeats every couple of mins, all through the 20 min light sleep phase. She seems to be sleeping peacefully but then suddenly starts squirming about and fighting the swaddle.  She often cries briefly and opens her eyes and would definitely wake up completely if it wasn't for shh/pat. Often there is tummy gurgling or a bit of sick. The next minute she'll be sleeping peacefully again.

I have the feeling this is familiar from dd1 (except on my knee!), so i would be very interested to know if anyone else recognises this pattern. 

[Jiinx]

It's so so common, as I'm sure you remember, for los to have trouble with their tummies and have gas. Gas was a nightmare with us. Their tummies are still getting used to digesting and excreting ..

How is she doing today?

[NetMouse]

Yesterday was good, but today ended badly. We went to my mum's house this pm (5 mins in pram ) and she had two 45 min naps in a cot there. I was careful to keep her awake time as low key as poss, and was quite pleased with the experiment until this evening, when she wouldn't settle and cried for about 3 hours solid.  

I'm a bit worried, as we've had this before when i've taken her out, and soon i'm not going to have as much support as in the early days any more. It's just not possible to stay in the house all the time with a 3 year old...

[Yazzie]

Can you post your routine for yesterday, and it'd really want you to relax, she's still very young and it may be too much expecting her to fall right into a routine easily, there naturally will be hiccups, but I also understand it's not easy with a toddler around.

So, post your routine and maybe even usual times that you guys are out and let's see how we can figure things out

[NetMouse]

Hard to find time to look in here! Thanks for your kind offer of help, Yazzie.

I think the problem on that day was partly just that she was in a different cot, and it was a bit too light and interesting to go back to sleep. It meant that she ended up having 2 extra feeds and short naps - and another when we got home.

In general, our typical routine seems to be around 6 feeds a day - sometimes more. I tend not to wake her for feeds, as I've found that she feeds better when she wakes by herself. Sometimes I've woken her after 3 hours and she's been too sleepy to feed and not very hungry.

Our challenge from next week is that afternoon nursery school is starting again. When I'm by myself, I will need to feed DD1 lunch at 11:45, then change her into school things and put on her eczema cream. Afternoon nursery starts at 12:45. (5 min car ride).

Pick up from school is 3:15. (Sunlight in the pram seems to bother Annabel a lot.)

Supper is a 5:15, then bath and bedtime for Steffi until around 8 :00 - when I am also fairly often alone.

That just sounds completely impractical with the current naps in cot / shh-pat regime. I am considering a sling for Annabel, if she likes it, as I just can't imagine how else I could get everything done for Steffi. I wonder how much of an adverse effect it may have on night sleep if she were to end up sleeping for a good part of the day in a sling?

A fairly typical day was yesterday:

6:15 E wake and feed.
7:10 S
9:40 E
10:50 S
1:10 E +A
2:45 S
4:15 E
5:00 S
6:15 E (but then wouldn't settle - fussy until 8:00 then more feed)
8:00 E
8:35 S
10:30 E - dreamfeed
2:45 E (cried for ages and wouldn't settle again)
9:00 awake.

[Yazzie]

Her day generally looks ok, but that bump @ 06.15 and inability to settle probably cause OT, which could have also caused the NW, @ this age you should always consider gas, things were just terrible gas-wise with ds till about 4 months, but gripe water always seemed to help.

I'd suggest trying to establish a 12hrs day, like 6-6, as for day care, could you plan dd2's day so that the drop off & pick up of dd1 is within her A time?

Try to check the sample routines, I'm sure they'll give you some ideas:)