all the indepedent sleepers, how longs does it take?

[whattoexpect]

hello everyone. new to BW book and this forum. so much to learn!!

I am curious how long do independent sleepers take to fall asleep at naps and at BT.
How much time does your 4S/wind down take (what does it consist)?
And how long does tyour LO take to fall asleep after being put in the crib
what do they usually do in the crib before reaching the dreamland

I know it all varies but just want to see some examples

BTW, is there any video or sound recording on PU/PD and mantra cry? it's so much easier to see it in action than reading the book (the book is great but live examples shows so much more clearly)

Thanks all~~

[~Sara~]

Hi--welcome to both BW and the forums!  

To share my experience with my son: we started BW with him at 7 weeks.  He responded really well to shh/pat.  The patting was rhythmic, always the same; but he was flexible enough that the shushing could pretty much be at any rhythm.  For example, I could do a shh-shh-shhhh or a shhhhhhhh or a SHH-shh-shh (sounds like a waltz beat ONE-two-three).  The length of his winddown routine has changed a lot over these past 2.5 years.  When he was really young, it was about 10-15-20 minutes.  We'd sit and rock him for a little bit, swaddle, say goodnight to certain things (light, etc.), turn on the white noise, and shh/pat away on our shoulder and transfer into the crib.  As he got older (as in 4-5 months), we'd read books beforehand, do everything else and he'd only need maybe a couple of minutes max of shh/pat.  He'd go to sleep the rest of the way on his own.  At 6 months, we'd pretty much stopped needing to use shh/pat at all and we'd weaned the swaddle.  It was at this point that he was 100% fully an independent sleeper!   Hope that helps a bit...there's a process with lots of steps to get an independent sleeper, and it really depends on how old he LO is.  If you're looking for more detail about a specific age, let us know and we can get more precise

Re: PU/PD and mantra crying, I don't believe there's anything on this site.  But it does take practice to learn to distinguish between a mantra cry and other cries.  Fortunately with PU/PD, you're right there with LO so there's no CIO.  I could always tell my son's mantra because he would do a very rhythmic cry, pause for a little bit, then pick it up again.  It was different from his upset cry--which I learned from doing PU/PD when weaning the swaddle.

Now, all of this re: my daughter...well, we're still trying to figure her out, but she's not a fan of shh/pat (!) 

[creations]

Hi and welcome to BW

My DS likes a short wind down.  We play, read books etc right up to a few minutes before his S time.
Nappy change (we now go up a little earlier as he goes on the potty too so I allow A time for that).  Look out the guest room window at cars and people for about 1 or 2 mins.  When he turns his head away he is ready to go to his nap.
Walk into his pre-darkened nursery.  Put his muslin on my shoulder.  This is his lovey.  He nuzzles this and we cuddle and slow dance whilst I sing his sleep song.  This is the same song every sleep.  It's maybe 2 min.
He will be really drowsy by then.  I put him down and he just turns on his side and goes to sleep within a few seconds.

He used to stay awake a while longer than this and do a bit of chat and mantra, these days he doesn't really bother with that.  He might do some mantra whilst I am singing (sounds like a hum hum hum) and if he wakes during a nap or at night he will mantra a little.

I tried a longer wind down when he was younger but he went crazy annoyed that I was cuing sleepy time so early.  He really likes to make full use of his A time!