Hello everyone! This is my first post on here. My husband and I have been trying to teach sleep to our son Dominik for about 2 weeks now. He is our fifth child. We sort of used the Baby Whisperer on our first daughter, and haven't in a few years. Dominik will be 3 months on Monday of next week. He is a touchy baby with some elements of spiritedness. I started letting him cry it out per Babywise about 2 weeks ago, but my husband and I quickly determined that wasn't for us. Then we tried learning more about this. At first, Dominik screamed for about 20 minutes then went to sleep, swaddled, on his tummy, with us patting his back and "shhhing" him. Then for a couple days I was able to get him down for most naps with just a couple minutes of crying and he went right to sleep. But then nothing was working again and it was a long time, half hour or so before he went to sleep. Right now if I swaddle him, lay him on his tummy he cried through shhh / pat for 8-10 minutes, then I pick him up and soothe him if I can, and then lay him back down and he goes to sleep in a few minutes. My husband's approach is to swaddle him, gently lay on him (to keep him still, carefully of course), blow in his face until he stops crying and then he goes to sleep, within 20 minutes or so. Currently Dominik sleeps in our bed, all our babies except our first have, although we're trying to get a crib up for him in our room this week. Dominik is getting the hang of the 1 1/2 hr naps, at night he lays down to bed between 7 and 8 hopefully, but in the morning he seems to be waking up early, like around 4, and I can't get him swaddled or nursed back to sleep, so we don't sleep much until we get up around 6 or 6:30. When I was trying the cry it out method a couple weeks ago, he would cry about 20 minutes then go to sleep and was sleeping for 6-8 hours at a time! That was also at my girlfriend's house where we were visiting at the time, in a crib in the room adjoining mine.
So, I'm just asking for any suggestions, thoughts, what you think we're doing right, what you think we could improve. Prior to all this Dominik was only getting one long nap a day. Now he is getting around 3- 1 1/2 hour naps a day, so I'm sure he is less tired than he was. But any suggestions would be appreciated! Especially in regards to teaching him sleep. That seems tricky!
Thanks!
