I have been so focused on sleep training my lo that I started to realize that what I am doing may be becoming a prop. Looking for insight...
DD is 6 wwks - been sleep training for 4 weeks. She sleeps swaddled and on her back so doing sh/pat on her side, etc. is extremely hard and if I move her in order to reach these areas, it just puts her into a fuss. So from about 2 weeks to 5 weeks, what I would do instead is shush and rub her chest/stomach and this would work about 40% of the time, but hey, I took it! If she got really carried away with the crying I would pick her up to calm her down and lay her right back down once she settled, continuing sh/pat if needed.
I have noticed within the last week she is much more aware of her surroundings and me so now when I try and sh/pat her she sees me and gets really excited, eyes wide open. Nice to see but not when I want her to sleep. So, I have been resorting to the picking up to calm her down instead (not sure what else to do) and now I am worried that she is going to get in the habit of expecting me to pick her up?
Any thoughts on this or what else I could do to help extend her naps? We were on 45 minutes A time a week ago (and decent naps) and changed to 1 hour. Went OK for a couple of days but now we are dealing with serious OT I believe and nasty 45 minute naps. Sometimes she will put herself back to sleep for the next cycle but this is really a 50/50 shot and it sometimes can take her a good 20-30 minutes to do this.
Thanks so much!