please help with shh/pating 12 week textbook baby

[Resh]

Hi

  I am a new mom here. I have a 12 weeks old girl. Untill 8 weeks I had low milk supply issue and she was always hungry, so I could not put her in a proper routine as I would be feeding her all tht time. Now the milk issue is sorted out but we dont have a routine. From birth itself she is a very short napper. She naps for 5-10 minutes and overtired. Now she sleeps for 30-45 minutes. In night she she sleeps for 10-11 hours but wakes up for feeding every two hours after the first 4 hours. In day also she is eating every two hours. So I can fit her into  a 2 hour easy and I think it is ok for now though I would like to extend it to 3 hours once this routine is established.

As I used to feed her all the time she got into the habit of falling asleep at my boobs and if she wakes up afetr 10 minutes I used to put her back into sleep by feeding. Now I have started to break the habit and satrted shh/patting her. She is a typical textbook baby and I dont have any issue to identify her cues. So as soon as I detect the first sign I put her to bed, swaddle her and start shh/patting. But she cries and resist the swaddling. Within 2 days I have succedded to shh/pat her on my shoulder without any crying. I dont even have to shh and I pat her only for 2 minutes or so. After that she falls asleep on her own but on my shoulder. I tried to sh/pat on my lap also but she is resisting. So basicaly now I am puting down her asleep on bed and swaddlw her. I fear this will create a new habit or prop and my goal is to make her learn to sleep on her own so that could help with ehr night wakings also. I guess at some point after picking her up and shh/patting on my shoulder I need to put her down again. But at what point should I do it to avoid crying.

SOrry for the long hystory, I wanted to make everything clear. Please advice

[Resh]

Hi

   I am feeling quite discouraged. Today I tried to put her down after shh/patting for a few minutes over my shoulder and when she was completely calm. But when I put her down she becomes stimulated and starts to coo and play and it took me more than 45 minutes to make her sleep for both the naps today. I feel it is too much for 30 minutes nap and feel tempted to nurse and make her sleep in 2 minutes. Should I shh/pat her over my shoulder for a few days before starting putting her down drowsy?

[wifetob]

I'm sorry I have no advice but wanted to let you know I am having similar nap time issues with my 15 week old. She used nap very well until about 8 ish weeks where she started getting overstimulated and couldn't settle downstairs with my toddler. So I resorted to rocking to sleep for a while. I am trying to get her settled into a nap routine, upstairs in her bedroom in her cot. I am trying to use the ssh pat to settle her. She does seem to be responding to it in that it does settle her and doesn't frustrate her. The thing is we re still very much good with bad and with a 2 year old I sometimes give up and maybe resort to the buggy etc when it's taking too long. So I'm in a muddle too.

Have you tried ssh patting her in the cot on her side? This is what I do and then I ease her back to her back when she is relaxed; sometimes she wakes when I do this but sometimes not.

[Resh]

Thanks for responding. She is not very comfortable lying on her side, so I pat her on her thighs.  At what point you start shh pating? When she starts the first signs of sleep or a little later? My problem is that if I start at the first signs she still plays and coos while  I sh/ pat and it takes ages for her to come to the sleep mode and if  I start later (when she starts fussing) she doesn't like to lie on her cot and starts to get frustrated. 

Yesterday all her naps were very short as I was taking 45 minutes to make her sleep, and by the time she falls asleep it is almost the time she is hungry (she is still on 2.5 hours easy).  So either I need to feed her after the activity AESY instead of EASY or I should try to put  her to sleep early to account for the 45 minutes shh/pating , but I don't think she will settle so early.

Today I sh/pated her completely over my shoulder and put her down when she was asleep. Even then she woke up when I put her down and started crying, so I shh/pated again over my shoulder. But the whole think took only 15 minutes. So I think I will stick to it for the time being and allow her to fall asleep on my shoulder. But I am not really sure if lying on my shoulder will become another prop to break later

[Buttonbobs]

Hi there and welcome to BW. Could you post a day or two in EASY format so we can take a look at your routine?

[Resh]

Until 3 days back (before I started shh/pating) her EASY routine was like this:

( Not exactly to the clock, but she follows the interval and order - there may be 10-15 minutes difference)

Wake up/Eat --  7:00
                   A     7:30-8:30
                   S      8:30 - 9:15
                   E      9:15
                   A      9:30 - 10:45
                   S      10:45 - 11:30
                   E       11:30 -12:00
                   A       12:00 -  1:00
                   S        1:00 -  1:45
                   E       1:45 -  2:15
                   A       2:15 - 3:15
                   S       3:15 - 4:00
                   E       4:00-4:30
                   A       4:30 - 5:30
                   S       5:30-6:15
                   E       6:15 - 6:45
                   A       6:45-  7:45
                   S       7:45
Night wakings around 1:00 and 4:00 for10 minutes feeding and sleeps immediately after.
From 5:30 to 7:00 she keeps feeding and sleeping  (in 10 - 20 minutes interval she wakes and go back to sleep after sucking for a few minutes - We co-sleep)  I guess this sucking is just for going to sleep

I tried to dream feed at 10, but she seems to be in deep sleep and does not open her mouth

But to my shock her schedule got totally messy after I attempted shh/pating (could be a coincidence). She was sleeping only for 10- 20 minutes ) Yesterday it was something like below:
 
Wake up/Eat --  8:00 (She woke up a number of times the previous night, so she slept a little longer in the morning )
                   A     8:30-10:00(I started shh/pating at 9:15, but she slept at 10:00)
                   S      10:00- 10:20
                   E      10:30 (I started stretching this to 2:30 hours also) 
                   A      11:00- 12:45 (started shh/pating at 12)
                   S      12:45 - 1:00
                   E       1:00- 1:30
                   A       1:30 -  3:00
                   S        3:00 - 3:10
                     From this point She was overtired and cranky. She kept feeding and falling asleep in my arms till 5 :00. She slept finally at 9:00 after lots of carrying around  and  kept waking screaming till 12:00.
One problem here was her sleep time overlapping with next feeding (as I was taking too much time to put her to sleep) , but she was not much hungry when she woke up. Should I alter E time to before shh/pating?

Sorry for the long reply

[Ev0411]

Hi. I'm no expert but I did just recently go through a similar situation, also on a 2.5hr easy, also a textbook baby. Just wanted to say that although I did spend a fair bit of time Shh-patting my dd in her cot (when she was calm) I also gave myself a break and often just put her down already asleep (20mins of holding on a pillow on my lap, no rocking, etc) it gave me energy to persevere at other times. I'm just saying its ok to sometimes do what u have to do to just get through this time when they feed so often and we r so sleep deprived. Good luck

[wifetob]

Resh hope your getting on ok. I also found that if I bring Emma up too soon I am ssh patting for ages and it gets very frustrating. Plus I had a few naps where she dozed on the ssh pat and when I stopped she wanted no more sleep 

Anyway I find if I bring her up a good 5 to 10 mins after her cues it goes better, maybe 5-10 mins ssh pat. That being said I am still just finding my way through things. My biggest thing is getting her A time nailed. I think she can manage A of 1:45 mins when we are in the house by ourselves and we seem to making good progress on those days (today is a good day, yesterday not so good). I think her A time will need to change when my little boy is around as she seems to get over fussy very soon and I miss her window. I need to find ways to ease her stimulation. That's a whole new ball game but for now I am happy to be making progress by ourselves. I will continue to struggle through the other days.

Could you try ssh patting her shoulder? When Emma is very upset going into the cot I have her completely on her side to settle her. Sometimes easing her back to her back wakes her. Now I'm trying to move the ssh pat to her shoulder. Remember you need to ssh very loud, almost overcome her so she can't concentrate on her crying, that might help her relax.

Hgs to you I know exactly how tough it is.

[Buttonbobs]

Hi there, hugs honey, it sounds like things are a bit tricky at the moment. 3-4 months can be a time when sleep goes a bit wonky as there are fairly large developmental changes and LOs also can transition to longer times between feedings. The following link summarises the average A times for different ages and it seems like your LO was going to sleep on your old pattern but sleeping undertired (UT) 45 minute naps. This is usually indicative of a need to increase the A time. I think it was this reason that she was cooing and playing as you put her in the cot - not really ready to sleep yet. Sometimes LOs can be confusing and will show tired cues at the point at which they are used to going for a nap even though they are not actually tired. You may need to go by the clock a little as you extend the A times.

Average A times and "Is my baby ready to increase A time?"

 As you can see there is quite a big leap around the 3-4 month point. The difficulty is now that having not napped very well for a while, it now seems that she could be OT (overtired) and naps have become very short. 20 min naps for us were always discomfort of some kind, do you think she could be uncomfortable for any reason (wind/reflux/other)? This could also be why she is waking and demanding comfort from you in the early hours of the morning.

Also 20 mins can be a time for jolts that wake LOs up. Is your DD swaddled?

Could you try holding through the jolts (HTTJ)? Have a look at this link How do I address habitual wakings? (wake-to-sleep and other methods)

This may also be a useful link - about extend A times and also times between feedings

Time to Transition - 3hr, 3.5hr or 4hr EASY

Bear in mind that it can be quite normal for BF babies to take longer before they can last the additional hour between feeds, but if it seems to you that she is less hungry when you're offering feeds in the day you could see if she might transition to more like a 3.5/4 hour EASY.

Sorry this is quite a long reply, have a read of the information I have linked to and let me know if you have any more questions or observations.

[Resh]

Thank you so much for all helps  .  I have some success  finally

Today I shh/pated her over my shoulder for 10-15 minutes and she fell asleep. But when I put her down she woke up completely. So I decided to do it on the cot to avoid the transfer. For the second nap, I started shh/pating and if she starts playing I let her to play. She started getting fussy a few minutes later and we repeated this for a few times. When I make I contact with her she starts smiling and I thing that stimulates her instead of relaxing. So I put her in my lap on her tummy and shh/pated, she fell asleep in 5 minutes! I feel so happy. I am not sure if that was just by chance or I can get it done again. I am keeping my fingers crossed for the next nap.
She is still sleeping, not sure how long she will sleep . She is sleeping on her tummy. So I hope she may sleep longer.

 I swaddle her normally as she can never keep her hands still. But she has started sweating (I double swaddle as she kicks out of it easily)

After the 20 minutes naps she wakes up smiling so I guess she could be undertired. I will work on increasing her A time, once I succeed in shh/pating. I guess if I could increase her A time that would help in increasing time between feedings also (now it is 2 - 2.5 hours). 
Thanks again for all the support

[wifetob]

Well done that's excellent. Any progress is good progress. At least you have found a way to relax her using the ssh pat. I'm sure over the coming days you'll see a big improvement.

[Buttonbobs]

It usually is the way that an A time increase will help with the ease of falling asleep and also stretching the feeds out a bit. Happy and smiling after 20 mins does sound quite UT, so fingers crossed. Let us know how you get on x