I would really like to drop the prop :-) and teach him to self settle, not just for naps, but also in the early morning. Tell me how to do it please!!
The big thing that changes is how you respond to him. And honestly for this you must be *ready* because as Trimbler says it is not going to be easy and he is going to be very frustrated and cry, he needs constant support through that and if at any point you choose to take him to your bed and nurser him to sleep again then all this teaches him is to cry longer and louder until you do as he wants (his habit, go to mummy's bed, feed to sleep). It puts all of you through a horrible time for now result or reason.
The thing is that you need to separate hunger from the prop yourself. The bit I pointed out in your earlier post where he had fed only 1hr earlier you were feeding with the idea of putting him to sleep with it and this is where you would need to change your approach. Let me be clear though, no one here is going to frown on you if you decide to continue with this EW prop of feeding and co-sleeping, only that you need to be clear in your mind what you want.
I would say if it has been 3-4 hrs since last night feed then feed and put down in his own cot to sleep. When he protests you stay with him and try to settle him, pick up if needed but don't take him out of his room, settle in the cot if possible, if he is playing with your hands use voice. Expect the first day for him not to go back to sleep at all (always better to keep expectations low and anything else is a result). For now I would have a window of 'morning' so here are a few examples:
- if you have been in there trying to settle him from 4 or 5 am and it gets to 6am then lights on and it is morning
- if you have been resettling and he eventually falls to sleep at say 6am or even 6.50am you wake him up at 7am and start the day, regardless of how tired he is (first nap you could reduce the A by say 15 mins but not massively)
- if he settles and sleeps until anything past 6am you get him up as morning. So lets say he sleeps from 5.45 until 6.15 and you were able to leave the room, when he wakes again it is now morning, great him with a cheery good morning because he has slept on his own for part of that difficult period.
Hope this helps to describe the 'window' of morning, it means morning can begin between 6 and 7am depending on how that section of the night goes. If possible you'd want to leave the room during a non-crying few mins so that you can return at his call with a morning greeting rather than a whispered night time soothing.
There are different approaches to the first A and nap times when doing something like this. Many count the first A from when LO woke up (so 5am - 8am) and whilst this helps to avoid OT it can also perpetuate the EW. Tracy described in her book example of getting a LO into routine by keep the A and nap times set (or pretty much) for a few days regardless of LO getting OT. In this case you would give nap pretty close to 10am (WU should be 7am so nap is at 10)...or you can kind of split the difference. So you might give first nap at a 'set' time of 9am following a WU of 4,5,6am anything after 6am you give the nap closer to 10am.
I'm not giving you a straight answer because I believe it is quite a personal decision on how you want to approach it.
Another thing you might consider doing, if you suspect LO will be OT (from a long NW due to weaning the F2S and co-sleeping) then when you put down for the first nap you leave the room as usual and when he falls asleep you go back in quietly to ready yourself to resettle and OT jolts, these can be at 10min, 20 mins, 30 mins...and you may well get a full nap without helping him or you might need to help. This is fine to help, it all teaching his to sleep at the right time and in his bed.
hope this helps!
