touchy baby - sleep and routine problems. please help.

[Daisy_6]

Hi

I speed-read BW after going through yet another meltdown. My baby is 14 weeks and is a touchy baby. I felt comforted after reading the book and angry at the advice I'd been given since having my son, which lead to the routine mess I am in now (so accurately described by Tracy as a on-demand mother).

My problems are:
1. Nurses to sleep, so hard to do EASY (more like ESAES at the moment)
2. Cannot go to sleep in own bed by himself
3. Fights the swaddle but sleeps better with it due to crazy startle reflex
4. Always need to be held

My days have become basically staying in my room in the dark trying to get him to nap, all day in PJs, taking 3 hours to settle him for bed (feed, put down, he wakes, feed, repeat), no time for anything and totally exhausted.


My husband and I decided to start our baby on EASY, from last night. It basically ended 7 hours after starting bedtime and he fell asleep at 1am after passing out from fatigue on my shoulder. During this time, he spent most of the time on our shoulder as he wouldn't stop crying and I was hoarse from all the sshing. He slept till 6 this morning, I fed time and he fell asleep and I put him back in his bed, and he woke up at 7.30. We weren't sure whether to start the day since he had so little sleep, but went with it. I fed him and as usual he fell asleep for 15min, and I started doing A when he woke up. I could tell he was still tired though he was smiling.

When I tried to initiate S, again I fed him till asleep, and he woke up as soon as he hit the bed, and would not stop crying. Ssh/patting did not calm him, not even when I picked him up. He is sleeping now on me because I feel really sorry for him for lack of sleep, and it would be the only time I can type this.

I feel I have done so many things wrong and caused all of these bad habits and I am at a loss how to start rectifying them.

I know its way early days to see any results, but I do wonder if EASY and ssh/pat will work in the end for a baby with his temperament? We believe we caused his bad habits and its our job to teach him properly, but really don't want to cause him so much stress if there is a more appropriate way.

Please help us, I am worried I will suffer from pnd if this lifestyle continues and my husband is worried sick about me. I will very happily pay for a consultant to meet my baby and suggest a way forward for us. I feel so incredibly helpless now.

Thanks ever so much.

[ecb01js]

Hi hun, massive hugs xxx

First off, I am no expert- (I still regularly send a BW SOS to this board and I'm 2 years in with number one and recently had a second tricky baby) but I related to your post so much I thought I would share what I did.

With dd1 we created all sorts of 'bad habits' we ap'd all the time until we realised we were creating more problems than we were fixing.
I wasn't comfortable with a cold turkey approach to solving the feed to sleep issue- I felt that it was all she knew and I needed a gradual weaning approach.
I began to feed until she was seriously sleepy then popped a dummy in and let her sleep swaddled in my arms for as long as that nap lasted. Once awake we attempted another feed (in a traditional easy way) followed by activity for however long was age appropriate and then swaddled, little feed in dark, popped in dummy and held her. Lather rinse repeat.
Now, I know many people are against dummies but over the course of six weeks or so, dd1 weaned herself off it.
As she settled into our new routine, I was able to go from feeding her to sleep for short crap nap..
...to swaddle,short feed and dummy for reasonable nap- at this point we began transferring her to cot once she was way past drowsy, she was pretty much asleep, I just made sure I stroked her cheek and told her I loved her so she stirred ever so slightly.
...then to swaddle, dummy for whole nap
....then to swaddle and just dummy to settle- lo spat it out in sleep
....to swaddle and not entertaining dummy at all by four months.

She didn't have the dummy at any other point but I felt it as necessary in the short term to buy my sanity!

I'm sure there are others who may have more advice- as I say no expert, but that's how I muddled through that particular issue!

Xxx

[ecb01js]

I've just re read your post and had another thought- have you considered reflux?
Dd2 did the short comfort feed, screamed on being put down flat, only slept upright for first three weeks- regularly took five or six hours of screaming to eventually pass out at night. She was diagnosed with silent reflux stemming from milk allergy after a night in hospital after she screamed herself blue.
She was essentially wanting to feed all the time as whilst the milk was going down, the acid couldn't come up. Laying her flat causes the the acid to slosh back up her oesophagus and causes burning pain. Shh pat causes her more pain as reflux baby need to be help upright and have their back rubbed for 30
Mins after feeding, patting exacerbates problem.

Not necessarily what is going on for you but would be worth ruling out as if baby is in pain they will never settle

Xxxx

[Ima shel Alon]

^^^You've already got some great advice, I'll just add some thoughts.

I second the Reflux. There is no harm in checking because if if he DOES have Reflux it changes things a lot WRT feeding and sleeping.

I also want to second the gradual approach. I don't think it matters so much which way you are going forward, either what pp suggested or what ever suits you, but it's important that you have a plan and stick with it. If you are going to Shush-pat your baby for 2h and finally give in and do whatever you used to do before to get him to sleep, then you just let him scream for 2h for nothing. That's why a gradual approach might work well for you with a touchy baby.

My DS was extremely touchy. He seemed to handle things ok, but EVERYTHING OS him and it was so hard for him to WD. The only way for him to fall asleep was to be fed to sleep and for the first 5m to sleep in his buggy. And I thought that if I know HOW he can fall asleep then what does it matter if I feed to sleep or sit next to him and Shush-pat or give a dummy till he's out.
But I only did it because I was happy to. I think if it stresses you to think that you are gonna have to feed him to sleep for the next year then don't do it.

I found things got so much easier when he was older. At 5.5m we weaned NF gradually (he was still feeding every 3h at night), after that we managed to move to the crib for naps with Shush-pat and when he was about 1yo he didn't take a bottle anymore before his nap.
So I know, this is all late, but for us it worked well. And at the end of the day that's BW and that's what Tracey wanted. She wanted calm parents who have control over the way things go with their babies.

Maybe you'll find some helpful info here: Starting EASY - all you need to know and more!
and this: Gentle Removal Plan
And this is the link that saved me when I was ST my baby: A Special Sleep Interview with Tracy Hogg

HTH Hang in there, you can do it.