6wk and nap battles

[mermaid]

I discovered Tracey's books a couple of weeks ago, I had fallen into AP of rocking my baby to sleep, I couldn't get him to fall asleep in his bed.  Also sometimes after night feeds I was resorting to rocking him to sleep.  So I have been trying to implement E.A.S.Y for roughly the last 10 days.

The first two naps of the day are OK.  I BF him for about 40 minutes, then within about 10 minutes he will yawn once or twice.  I will then move into the bedroom, which is darkened, then swaddle him and sing a song, and hold him with his head at my shoulder.  He will never settle of his own accord.  Instead of relaxing into sleep, he will start to fuss and fidget, then this builds into a cry, and he flails about (sometimes biffing me in the face with his head!) and I start to shush-pat, until he falls asleep.  After he's been asleep a couple of minutes I put him into his bed, usually he has managed to work one hand free with all the flailing about, so I try to tighten up the swaddle around his free hand as I put him into bed.  If I don't do this, he will wake up with the jolt in the next 10 minutes.  Sometimes he will wake with a gas pain (I am guessing it is this from the initial grimace and legs kicking, before he actually cries).  If he wakes up and starts to cry, I can never soothe him in his bed, I have to pick him up and start all over again.

So the above is the process I'm following, which I've gleaned from reading Tracey's books, but what is getting me down is the afternoon naps.  Yesterday I settled him within about 15 minutes for the first two naps of the day.  But the afternoon nap was a disaster.  I persisted with shush-pat for 1.5 hours to no avail.  I don't know what else I could have done.  He had a clean nappy, he had been fed, he didn't actually start crying until I tried to settle him down for a nap.  He was yawning beforehand so in theory he should have been tired.  But the way his cries escalated as I was doing the shush-pat, made me wonder if I was doing it wrong, or if there is only a certain amount of time I should do this before doing something else (I persisted because of Tracey's advice to not cave in and do something else like BF or rock to sleep).  It felt like what I was doing was no better than controlled crying, the only difference being that he was in my arms.  Yesterday I gave up about 30 minutes before his next feed was due.  As soon as I gave up and let him lie on the blanket in the living room, he stopped crying and was quite happy until the next feed.

Today when the afternoon nap was not happening, I gave away shush-pat after 15 minutes.  Instead I walked up to the shops with him in the sling, and bought myself some comfort food (chips and chocolate).  On the way there, he was bright and alert and looking around at everything with great interest.  On the way back, he fell asleep, but woke up again at home after I transferred him to his bed (and after I had settled myself on the couch with my comfort food!).  The next nap, again I stopped shush-pat after 15 minutes, and instead went for a walk down to the beach and he napped for 1/2 an hour in the sling.

Tonight getting him to sleep for the night was terrible, it took 1.5 hours, and three separate sessions of shush-pat on the shoulder, he also started doing a new thing, sucking on his fist, even though it was shortly after BF for 45 minutes.

Once I get him to sleep, they are not short naps, I will always have to wake him for the next feed.  Also night time is fine.  He wakes twice but goes back to sleep very easily, I might have to swaddle and hold him on my shoulder for a couple of minutes, but there is no crying.

It's just these afternoons that are getting me down, and the amount of time I am spending holding a hysterically crying baby flailing about in my arms.  I don't know if I am reading the tired cues correctly, or why the shush-pat sometimes takes so long, or even if I'm doing it wrong and making things worse.  I am looking out for yawning initially, and then after a while I will see staring eyes and jerky arm movements.  But I am trying to put him down after a couple of yawns and before the staring eyes and jerky arms.

Why does he fight each nap? It just seems to get worse as the day progresses.  I am located in Melbourne, Australia.  Are there any "baby whisperers" available for consultations here?  I feel so far away from my original aim of teaching him to go to sleep in his bed.  All I've achieved in the last week is that I am no longer using a rocking chair.

[~*~Little Miss Sunshine~*~]

Would you mind posting your routine for us? 

I know that when I was doing sleep training (started my ds around 6 weeks), the same thing was happening.  I could have written your post.  I remember several days of 1.5 hours of shh/pat to get him to fall asleep.  And I too gave in to comfort food (chocolate chip cookies) on many occassions.  I don't really think you are doing anything wrong.  Sleep training is a LONG process....and it isn't always so fun (OK it is NEVER fun) but just be consistent.  But, don't drive yourself crazy.  If you need to get out of the house and ds is due for a nap, take him along, but just make sure he gets a nap while you are out (and try not to do it all the time).  It really will refresh you!

[mermaid]

I started out roughly doing the following:

8:30am Wakeup and BF - he generally woke up at this time, since birth
9:15 Activity - usually he's on the couch, watching me have breakfast, we gurgle and smile at each other
9:25/9:30 - morning nap
11:30am - I wake him up, for next BF
12:15pm - Activity, again only 10 -15 mins until he shows what I think are tired signs - yawning, then staring eyes/jerky arms
12:30pm - nap
2:00pm or 2:30pm, depending on how long he's been sleeping - I wake him up for next BF
3:15pm - Activity
3:30pm - Nap - this is where it all starts to go pear shaped, I don't know if I'm reading his tired signs correctly
It is all a muddle in the afternoons, but then usually:
6:00pm - Nappy free time, tummy time, bath
6:30pm - BF
7:15pm - Bedtime, and he sleeps till anywhere between 12:30am - 1:30am, then till 4:30am - 5:00am

Yesterday and the day before, I tried to move wakeup time back to 7:00am, and feed him at 7, 10, 1pm, 4 and 7pm.  I only tried to dream feed him once at 10pm, and he still woke up at 1:30am anyway.  I also did not bother to try the 4 - 6 - 8pm cluster feeding, since it could potentially take him over an hour to settle down to sleep, so I didn't think I could get him to take catnaps.  Both of these days, the first two naps went OK, he settled within 15 mins, it's the afternoons that get tricky.

Today was a bit all over the place again, because I had to deal with bureaucracy first thing in the morning, then we had a doctor's appointment just before lunch.  I tried to time it so that he could nap in the car, it sort of worked, he had a 40min nap, then a 20 min nap in the sling, then another 20min nap in the car on the way home.  After lunch I put him down for a nap at around 2:30pm, it took about 50 minutes and three sessions of shush -pat before he got to sleep.  Then I woke him for another feed at 4:30pm, and he fell asleep at the end, I didn't have the heart to wake him up, and let him sleep in my lap for about 45 minutes.  I next fed him at 6:30pm and again he fell asleep immediately afterwards.

But tomorrow I want to get back on track again with the 3 hour routine.  I am unsure whether to wakeup at 7:00am or 8:30am.  I am inclined to stick with 8:30am since that is when he usually wakes up of his own accord.  I am also contemplating getting a dummy (pacifier), since he started sucking on his fist yesterday, around the time I would start to settle him down for a nap.

[~*~Little Miss Sunshine~*~]

It doesn't much matter what time you wake him in the morning, as long as you are consistent (or within 30 minutes of each other either way)  At the moment, I would stick with 8:30 since this is what his body is used to.  If you would like to move the wake up time to 7 am, i would do it slowly.  For a couple of days, wake him at 8 am, then 7:30, the 7 am so it gives his body time to adjust, otherwise you might end up with an OT baby and we certainly don't want that!!  I think a pacifier is a great idea and it just might help to settle him more quickly.  I used one with ds from about 6 weeks to 3 months.  He did settle down faster, but it took him a while to get so he could hold it in his mouth.

It is very common for babies to get progressively harder to soothe as the day goes by since OT tends to creep up.  By the end of the day, your lo might be overstimulated. 

Let me know how things are going. 

[hannahbanana]

Whenever I hear a mom say her LO is "fighting" naps (the term I used for our situation as well), I think, "Is the baby tired enough?"  For us, that was the problem at about the same age.   I saw that first yawn and moved into action, like Tracy recommends...but it didn't work for us.  Once I started waiting a bit longer, listening for her tired/complaining cries, what I likened to when birds want you to put a sheet over them so they can go to sleep at night, it changed.  It sounds like your LO is Spirited, like my DD.  This may be the case for them.  Try waiting an extra 10-15 minutes before going into the nursery.  I found that I couldn't even go into the room too early, at first, or she'd freak out.

[lcpopelka]

FYI-- My husband and I tease that the SY of EASY stands for Scream and Yell.    While the process does work, it can be very nerve-wrecking and a downright downer at times.  Stick to your guns though.  If your LO doesn't respond well to the patting of shh/pat, try just putting your hand on your LO--for my DS the patting was just too much!

Dumb question, do you shh/pat with your LO in your arms or in the crib?  I couldn't tell from your original post.

[mermaid]

Thanks everyone for your replies.  I still haven't been able to get E.A.S.Y happening for me.  I am still spending a significant amount each day with a hysterically crying, flailing baby in my arms.  Last night it took 1.5 hours for me to put him down for bed last night, and today has been hellish tring to get him to have naps, each attempt has taken nearly an hour.  I just can't see any signs of tiredness in him, except for those yawns a few minutes after I've fed him, followed by the staring eyes.  I've tried putting him down about 10 - 15 minutes after the yawns with mixed success.  Sometime he'll only cry for 5 minutes, other times over an hour.  Right now I've left him crying in his bed because I was so fed up with holding him, I wanted to just hurl him against the wall and smash him to pieces.

I've also tried a pacifier a few times, and he just keeps sptting it out.  As for patting him in his crib, I am about a million miles from getting him to settle himself in his crib, I have only been able to put him down after he falls asleep in my arms first, so I've been doing the shush/pat with him in my arms.

Something just seems really wrong to me, I don't see any difference between controlled crying and what I'm doing right now, except that he is crying in my arms, and crying himself to exhaustion.  It's been over two weeks now and I can't see any improvement.  The other frustrating thing is that everyone tells me how quiet and placid he is.  It's only this sleep/nap time that he cries like this, it's like this has become part of the routine.

[~*~Little Miss Sunshine~*~]

mermaid  - I am so sorry you are still having a rough time!  I completely understand your feelings of wanting to throw him against a wall.  I certainly felt that way a few times with ds, but I promise it DOES get better!  Is there any way you can have dp help out with the training, just to give yourself a break?  And if you are finding it to be too much, take a break for a couple of days.  Get him to sleep any way you can....the more relaxed you are, the easier it'll be for ds to relax.

[bla04017]

MERMAID!!  I think we have identical twins!  My son is 6 wks, and does the same thing!!  I just learned about the EASY recently and have only tried the shh/pat a couple of times.  However, I'm not quite as persistant as you are, because I haven't gone 1.5 hours with it.  20 minutes kills me and doesn't seem to do anything for the baby.  Before I tried this, I did controlled cry because I didn't see the point in holding him if he was going to cry, why not just let him cry in his crib??  The most he'll cry is like 20 minutes (with me continually checking on him)... but he wakes early from his naps a lot. 
If anyone has suggestions on how to make this shh/pat better and work I'd appreciate it too... Mermaid and I are in the same boat! 
Mermiad, please keep posting and let me know how things are doing!

[hannahbanana]

I had to practically yell the shushes and the pats were almost thumps.  Then, once I had her attention, I eased off.  The older she got, the less vigorous things had to be, because she was used to it.  Also, I started patting both her back and bum at the same time, so that it took over her entire body...but this wasn't until after 3 months...but it worked well.

[mermaid]

I'm starting to feel better about things now.  The really hysterical extending crying seems to have stopped now, and the flailing/thrashing about has lessened to a wriggling/jerking.  If I try to put him down after a few yawns, and it's either the first or second nap of the day, he will fall asleep in my arms after about 10 to 20 minutes of shush/pat, with him making quieter whimpering noises and wriggling / kicking about until he becomes drowsy.  If I leave it later, he starts to grizzle, and he will cry when he's in my arms, but not really bad hysterical crying, and he seems to take less time to fall asleep.  He shows NO signs of drowsiness!  It's like, one minute crying then next minute DONK on my shoulder, asleep.  The trick seems to be in how long I leave it before putting him down.  If it's too early, I spend longer holding him which is killing the tendons in my arm, however he is more mellow and it doesn't feel like such a battle.  But here's the trick, if I leave it longer, but not long enough, he is tired enough to be cranky but not tired enough to fall asleep (even though he will be yawning as I swaddle him), which is when shush/pat is ineffectual and he gets really frustrated and cries heaps.  

He is nearly 8 weeks old now, and I decided to keep him up as long as possible at lunchtime today to see if he exhibited any signs of drowsiness before putting him down.  He was up for almost 2 hours and I put him down when he had been  making fussy / complaining cries for a few minutes, there had been no signs of drowsiness at all, his eyes were wide awake and alert the whole time.  I went through the naptime routine (move into the darkened bedroom, tell him it's nap time in a quiet low voice as I swaddle him, sing a song, then shush/pat), and he was asleep within a few minutes.  He did cry for a minute or two, but it wasn't the lengthy hysterical crying.

The drowsiness I was hoping to see some signs of during the day, I have really only seen at night when we have the night time feeds.  He is very drowsy after he's fed, he was a slow and sleepy feeder right from birth, so he usually falls asleep straight away after night time feeds, so I should be thankful for that, I am not sleep deprived.

I have also found for me that sometimes the shush/pat is stimulating my baby rather than helping to lull him to sleep.  So I stop for a minute or two and let him calm down, then if he resumes the fitful jerking, I start again.  Also with the hysterical crying, I found it was better to simply hold him and perhaps pat him gently and say something in a low and soothing tone of voice, and keep a grip on myself mentally to remain calm.

Anyway I have been persistent and it does seem to be starting to work now, I sense that he is getting to know the routine.  It's been frustrating, I am doing this on my own, no partner, and for me the hardest thing was trying to work out my baby's cues, and not sure if I was doing the right thing.

I think I might give up on trying to get him to nap in bed for his afternoon nap.  He naps quite happily in the sling so I will use this time to either walk up to the shops or walk down to the beach, I really need to get some exercise to work off the comfort food I've indulged in!  Plus he really enjoys gazing around at the great outdoors.

[hannahbanana]

I'm glad delaying the routine is working for you. 

I agree that you shouldn't fight it too much at this point.  When he's older, with a little effort, you can "undo" whatever you don't want to continue (i.e. naps in the sling). 

good job!

[bla04017]

So you just let him stay awake a little longer before putting him down and he was easier to get to sleep??  Sometimes I wonder if I put him down too soon too.  I do the shush pat with him in is crib and he is calm through most of it... he just has his eyes WIDE open and seems to just lay and look around.  However the whole time he is yawning...

Maybe I should extend his wake time too??

[mermaid]

I think as he's getting older, he needs more awake time.  He is 8 weeks old tomorrow and the last couple of days I find that he will fall asleep after almost 2 hours of awake time, including feeding time.  He doesn't show any signs of sleepiness such as droopy eyes.  However he will start yawning a LONG time before he falls asleep.  I think my lo just doesn't handle the transition between sleep and awake very well.  When he wakes up, he cries as well, as he is drifting into consciousness.

I tried once more to put him down today soon after seeing the yawning, which was after only just over one hour of awake time.  He took 45 minutes to fall asleep (all the time I was holding him), however there was no real crying, except for a half-hearted few seconds.  For his second nap, I waited until he'd been awake for almost two hours and he took about 10 minutes to fall asleep.  But there was more crying.  So, it's not easier in that it is less peaceful, however it takes less time.  But altogether, I am SO glad the hysterical crying has stopped.

bla04017, you're lucky that your lo is responding to shush pat in the crib.  I have only been able to get my lo to settle in his crib on a few occasions, and they were at night when he was already drowsy, and one other time when we'd been out all morning and again he was stil drowsy from having napped a bit in the car.  He doesn't sleep on his side so I can't really pat him, but I find he responds when I lie next to him with one arm over his body, and I hold his free hand (he likes to have one hand poking out of his swaddle).  But this has only worked when he is drowsy, and not after he has escalated to crying.

[hannahbanana]

Keep experimenting, while keeping Tracy's suggestions in mind.  You will find what works for you two.

But, as for being unable to pat because your LO doesn't sleep on his side, for the sake of shush/pat, I started using a sleep positioner to put her on her side.  (You could turn him after he's asleep.)  My LO slept like that until I unswaddled her.  Now, she chooses to sleep mostly on her, just a bit to her side to cuddle her rabbit.  Also, I've read (and experienced) that new babies respond better to sleeping on their sides, because it makes them feel more secure.  Once he's also, about 20 minutes into it, you can gently turn him and he shouldn't wake, if you want to have him sleep fully on her back.

Good luck.  I'm glad the screaming has stopped