Shh pat and teaching independent sleep with 2 other LO's at home

[ENMS]

Hi! I'm a long time BW but I never really had to do shh pat with my other 2 kids - we did PUPD with DD1 at 4 months and DS was an independent sleeper early on.

DD2 is not an independent sleeper. For a while we were able to put her down drowsy and awake but this is getting harder and harder as she is more aware of her environment! I don't have the older 2 every day but I do have them with us a few days a week and I am struggling with shh pat / independent sleep with them being at home. I really don't have the time to spend 30 minutes in DD2's room for every nap and I am not sure what to do. I thought of waiting and doing PUPD at 4 months, but that's 2.5 months away and I'd like her to be an independent sleeper sooner than this.

I guess my question is, will shh pat take less and less time as she gets used to falling asleep in her crib? Right now we sit in the chair and she is very, very calm. When I start to see her close her eyes, I put her down in her crib and then do shh pat. It can sometimes take 15-20 minutes until she then falls asleep.

Vacation is coming up, and we're not going anywhere but the kids will be here full time and I am not sure how to approach it. Part of me wants to just wing it and not worry about independent sleep, but another part of me thinks we should work on independent sleep the first week to sort it out and then enjoy the rest of the vacation. With PUPD I feel it is easy because I know it will take a few days but then she will be ok. But with shh pat I don't see any 'progress', she seems to continue to need me, will it be this way for a while? I know she is still tiny and needs us, but I also don't want to ruin the kids' vacation by spending all of my time doing shh pat in DD2's room, yk?

[MasynSpencerElliotte]

Mine were a bit older (5 & 7) when DD3 was tiny but I did not want to spend a lot of time shh/patting...so I usually spent the first nap trying to get her to sleep in the crib and then every nap after I would spend 10 min trying to get her in bed and if not I wore her in a wrap. Eventually I cracked the first nap and by 4 months she was on two naps anyways and I always did apop for the catnap. I have actually never used pu/pd but I did use shh/pat with DD2 and the key is to keep reducing the timings, but it took a few weeks of work for her (very touchy kid though!).

[Sleepykaz]

Hi there, am in a similar situation! DD1 has just turned 2 and DD2 is 10 weeks. Do you have anyone who will look after your older ones for a few days? That's going to be my plan next week so that I can dedicate the days to getting naps sorted.

In the last few days I have cracked NW's as obviously DD1 isn't around then, and if DH is around at BT I can get her to fall asleep independently then too.

DD1 still naps so my next missions is to work on naps during that time.

Hopefully once she's consistently self settling at BT, NWs and during DD1s nap she might be able to get herself to sleep for her other naps

Hope this helps!

[ENMS]

Thank you ladies.

Heidi you make me feel much better! I've been doing something similar, but I'm not as consistent as you yet - it's a good idea to set which nap I want to work on, hopefully soon I can work on the first nap but for now with short A times it's difficult as we're sometimes out to drive DD1 to summer camp.

I guess I'm just not too interested in investing too much time into this right now... after all it is summer!

Sleepykaz I hope you get it sorted out with someone looking after your older LO this week - I admire your dedication!

[MasynSpencerElliotte]

I picked the first nap because the timing worked...it happened right after the school run (our school is literally a 2 min drive and luckily she never would sleep in the carseat!). In the fall when her A times are longer you might have more luck sorting things out anyways!