Support for Raising Spirited Babies Part 3

[Ethan's Mom]

Hi Ele75, you're absolutely not alone. Most of moms in this thread fight with wind down :-). My baby boy, now 5mo, is also a good night sleeper at your lo's age ( back to sleep easily at night after i nursed him ), refused pacifier, but the main problem for my son is fight with wind down ( specially the time he is going to nap ). I know he has been so tired, but just seems can't settle. At 3mo, I tried this step  :
a. I take him to his room 30 minutes before his nap time ( activity time max 1.5 h include wind down )
b. Change his diaper and rub some eucalyptus oil ( warming oil ) on his belly while saying "sleep tight tightly, baby.. "
c. Put him in his crib ( at the beginning he would start to get cranky, and I'll play a lullaby hanging toy on his crib to distract his crying )
d. Read some short stories ( 6 stories ) - If he get  fuss by the time you read him a story, look at his eyes while keep reading, my LO get distracted by that
e. Swaddle him tightly, if he refused at all, swaddle with one hand out with his lovey / blanket to cuddle with
f. Draw the curtain and play a white noise / lullaby ( move out the hanging toys on his crib )
g. Shush and pat his chest in his crib. My LO will eventually crying so bad at the beginning, but I would keep doing the shush pat til finally he tired & drop off ( prepare for 30 minutes crying the first 3 days ). I didnt pick him up as it made him more stimulated.
h. Wait for 20 minutes the first 4 days just in case he wake up and you need to do more shush pat ( but keep your hand on his chest )
i. You can walk of the room and pray that he would have 2 full cycle nap :-)

Hope my tips would help you. Just remember that he will be getting better time by time if you're consistent. Hang in there, you're not alone :-) . Wish you a great day ! PS : I went to Italy several times and enjoy the food a lot ! :-)

[ele75]

Thank you Ethan's mom. I'll follow your suggestions these days!

Just one more question... my son follows the EASY routine so he eats about every 3h, then play and then some sleep. But every days he eats at different times, so the time of the sleep routine for the night is always different. Is that right? Will he become more regular?

[A pair of Charlies]

Hi Ele75

Here's our winddown routine for naps. Hasn't changed much since he was around 4 months old. It was previously longer but I found that my DS got more and more wound up the longer and more 'active' WD was.

So, I cool off our activity time (stopped needing to do this around 8 months I think, unless OS or OT) before I take him up. Say 10 mins before WD starts, I move away all the noisy, flashing, exciting toys so he's got more peace. No gyms etc. Oh, and I kept all the exciting noisy flashing toys and gyms off limits for the first A of the day for the first 6 months or so (found we were in hell otherwise with OS destroying naps).

Next, take him up to his room and change his nappy. I keep it really low key, no whizzing mobiles or anything; just calm and quiet. Then, we have a cuddle while I put him in his sleeping bag. Go to the window together, say bye bye to the sky, clouds and stars then draw the curtains. I put on music (plays constantly through nap; white noise works for loads of mums), and then we hold for a moment, a cuddle til I feel he's relaxed and then I lay him in his cot. Sometimes he doesn't relax - the longer I hold him the worse it gets, so into bed he goes.

At 3 months, I was shh patting etc to get him to sleep.

If your LO is doing a full-on back arching screaming thing, then maybe OS or OT, so might be worth introducing a little cool-down at the end of your A time and perhaps bringing nap time a little earlier for a day or so to see if it helps at all. Also, any chance he could be hungry again by the time he's going down - 3 month growth spurt could be at play. Are you BF or bottle?

More ideas on shh patt here, if it helps: http://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=141531.0. I've a long post on this thread somewhere which walks through what worked for me. I think PUPD is for 3 months and needs a consistent approach. But PUPD is really when shhpatt isn't working.

And you're not alone. I'm sure Sherry can vouch for the 9 months of support she had to give me until we cracked independent sleep!

Charlotte

[mom2james]

Ele, how are things going? Where in Italy do you live? I spent 4 months in Orvieto Italy in 1999. It's so beautiful in Umbria!

Well, the cold seems to have passed and we're back on track with the schedule. Last night was a bear. James went down at 7:30 with no problem but about 20 minutes later a thunder storm rolled in and woke him. He went back down at 9pm and slept unti l10:30 (his usual DF time). Then back to sleep and woke up screaming at 2am. It was not a usual time for him to nurse and he didn't seem hungry, so I held him and comforted him for a while, then did pu/pd and replaced the paci for about 45 minutes when I fell asleep on the couch in his room. I woke up at 4am and went back to my bed and he woke at 4:40 screaming again. I changed his diaper but didn't want to feed him because I'm really trying to get beyond the NW. He was not desperately searching for my boob like he does when he's really hungry. I finally distracted him with a light up turtle to get him to calm down so I could evaluate the situation. Then I offered him some water from a sippy cup which he took gladly. Then I put him in his crib with his lovey and he quietly played for 20 minutes and then went back to sleep until 6:20 when he woke, and I fed him and got on with our day. I had some trouble getting him to sleep at 8:30 for nap time. He was rubbing his eyes but having trouble settling. I think this is because we've been off the routine for a few days. So finally after about 30 mins of sh/pat and pu/pd he settled to sleep on his side.

I need to go in at 9:20 to try the W2S for the first time. I'm so nervous about it, so let's pray it works!! I think I'm going to try to stir him because knowing my LO, if he opens his eyes and sees me at all, he'll start to smile and wiggle around and it will be all over. I'll let you know how it goes.

Oh, and my real name is Becca. :-)

[AshleyB]

I work at a high school and there has been a huge baby explosion the last few years--several births a year. When talking to all the new moms, I've discovered that they read absolutely no parenting books (other than "What to Expect") to prepare for new parenthood. Now, of course, they're just baffled by their baby and don't know what to do. None of them have any kind of routine. I feel bad for some of them, especially the ones who seem to have Touchy or Spirited babies. The mom of the Touchy baby says she can't wait to come to work to get a break from the crying. I feel SO bad for them! They don't even know about swaddling. I have recommended BW to several of them, but I can tell they really aren't interested in reading any kind of book. I guess they would just rather get up with their baby five times a night for the next three years. What's so clear is that their problems stem from accidental parenting and a lack of understanding of their child's type. One of them had an angel baby first time around and now doesn't know what to do with any other kind.

When I got pregnant I read, probably, five books leading up to Chandler's birth. And since then, I've read more. I also do a lot of internet research trying to choose the best/least expensive products for my child. It blows my mind that these moms (and some dads) don't do any of this. They just take everything as it comes. Every time I have a baby product at work, like a diaper or some baby accessory, they always say to me, "Where do you GET these things?!" Of course, the answer is always "online." I don't have time to shop at stores, do you?

Do you find that the people you know are stumbling around in the dark as far as their babies go?

[sherry lynn]

Ashley - MOST DEFINITELY!!! My sister was one of those young girls. Her first pregnancy was in high school and she just winged it. And she just had her third 4 months before I had my first LO. And I would try to talk to her about helping the NW etc. that she was going through, trying to tell her that it could be better, but she was just so used to it, and was of the mind that her LO would grow out of these things eventually. In part that is true. But then I was talking to my mom about my LO sleeping and what not and how excited I was that he was having such good nights and she said that mom sister's five year old still gets up in the night often. WOW!! I didn't know that. But my sister is ok with that. So...... But she is also always talking about how tired she is.

The same is true of my neighbor. She was a freshman in college when she got pregnant. And I would talk to her about putting her LO on a routine, but it really doesn't fit there life style. So sometimes there LO goes to bed at 10 at night. But my neighbor is very lucky because her LO is an angel baby, so she just thinks I'm completely CRAZY about Lyle and his sleep. But she doesn't understand that my life would be a living hell with out BW. It really and truly would.

[sherry lynn]

Oh, I wanted to add

PU/PD is for LO over 4 months.

But we also didn't really use it until about 11 months when he started standing in the crib. For us though it has taken 1.5 hours sometimes for it to work, but I'm so thankful that I didn't give in and I stuck to my guns because most times now it only takes bout 3-4 times. I do want to add that they do get VERY VERY angry about it. But my thinking was..... what other option do I have really. He doesn't even respond to AP and CIO isn't an option, so that was the only way I could think of to "help" him to sleep.

[ele75]

Hi, I live in Sardinia, do you know it? It is not near Umbria, but I like it very much.

Here the things are the same. Very few of my friends with LOs read some books on children, but all of them seem to have all angel babies and sometimes I feel alone... Their LOs crying for sleeping is more or less "Wee", while MY LO crying is "WEEEEEEEEEEE WEEEEEEE WEEEEEEE!" with -first of all- lot of tears. However, as their babies grow, the problems are arriving for them too.


P.S. I'm BF

[sherry lynn]

Hey Ele I read a great National Geographic article about Sardinia. It was about how so many people live to be some of the oldest people on Earth there. It looked stunning in the pictures.

[mom2james]

I am so tired. Today was a COMPLETE disaster. only 1.5 hrs of sleep in 13 hours of awake daytime. I'm about ready to crack up if this doesn't get better soon. I'm giving it until friday and if it doesn't improve I'm going to have to look into something else because I cannot go on living this way.

[AshleyB]

mom2james: When Chandler was younger, we had MANY days with two 45 minute naps, and that's all. It was a hard time to get through, but Chandler grew out of it. I'm not sure what "something else" you could find that would change your baby and his sleep habits at his age.

[sherry lynn]

Becca - huge {{{hugs}}} I've also had periods of that madness as well. I felt like I would crack up too. I also felt the same, I have to try something else. But at the end of the day, I had the same thought as Ashley.... not really sure what that something else is. I have bought several books on sleep for babies. And nothing else proved as successful as BW. Actually usually by the time I would be finished with key parts of another book Lyle would be "out of" whatever phase he was in at the time. There is always light at the end of the tunnel, and it's usually closer than we think it is
I hope you have a good day. Good luck.

[mom2james]

oh my gosh, thank you ladies for your support. There has been an amazing turn of events here! Last night James slept from 8-9:30p woke up to feed then I laid him back in his crib with lovey and he cooed and talked for 10 mintues then feel fast asleep. Then he proceeded to sleep until 6am!!!!!!!!!! I cannot believe it and I'm in total shock! Then he just took a 2.5 hr nap from 8:30 - 11:00. It's freaking amazing!!!!

[marlowsmom]

Hi Ladies!
I'm new too but I've been reading the boards and I've gotten lots of great ideas!   I have a DD and she is 6 weeks old.   We've been doing EASY for 3 weeks now and we've encountered a few bumps in the road (i.e. stomach virus and some BBQ that I ate that disagreed with her for two days) but I stuck to the plan as best I could.    My question is how long did it take you spirited baby to finally catch to EASY?   At what point did you see that they were able to go down without much help from you?  Thanks!

[AshleyB]

Marlowsmom--You're probably a long way from that point, IMHO. One of the things I wished someone had told me when my baby was first born is that infant sleep just can't really be controlled very well that first 3 months. There's a developmental leap that has to occur. The best you can do is provide an environment conducive to sleep, swaddle, and use the shh/pat technique. With spirited babies, this trying time can sometimes last even longer. We struggled with EASY until 6-7 months.

Don't get me wrong: It got better every month. I think 3-4 weeks was the worst for us, then there was a big leap forward at 10 weeks, then at 4 months, then again at 7 months.  I don't think she has EVER been on a perfect EASY schedule because she was a short napper. We went EASAEAS for months.

I remember thinking that I was somehow failing at this, but now that I look back, I realise that a strict EASY just wasn't right for my LO. However, the basic philosophies in BW have worked very well. Try your best to be on EASY, but don't beat yourself up if it isn't perfect.