This method assumes everything is perfect.

[lagori]

Hi,

Posting here a little out of frustration, also with some hope of finding out what others have done.

We are onto our 12th day of the Tracy Hogg method of putting our baby down and - whilst my wife is keen to see this through - I can see some real issues with what the methodology suggests. I've just gone through two of the Baby Whisperer books to seek advice on what to do with a baby screaming uncontrollably at nap time (as we have been experiencing for the last 25 minutes solid). More information below, but if anyone has some ideas on what to do when a baby is just crying and crying and crying. When sometimes she can't go down and other times she can. Any help is appreciated.

With our 14 week old little girl we have paid significant attention to her 'cues' and judging when she is tired / hungry etc. On this most recent nap today, she started to rub her eyes and look a bit glassy. She was upstairs with my wife inside 3 minutes, blinds down and being held ready to sleep. She is now crying - alot. On looking at the book? The closest answer is basically 'maybe you are missing the cues - try to do better in spotting them'. No real insight as to what to do once the child is screaming that is best to back up the plan.

Its similar for the babies stimulation - ensure that activity time is stimulating, but not too stimulating.

Overall she is an excellent sleeper, just terrible at going to sleep. At the moment its taking anywhere from 20 minutes to 2hrs + to go down, sometimes screaming, other times perfectly happy. We've tried varying the time she goes down in the day and at night (by a margin of over 2 hours), ensured best we can that she is relaxed and has a pattern that repeats before going down for the night. My wife has a patience threshold far greater with this method than mine and she wants to keep going until the baby 'clicks'. I'm skeptical after reading the plan. It essentially points to the idea that once we have watched the child like a hawk for days spotting cues, we will be able to react accordingly. Whilst this is sound and makes logical sense, I'm not sure that its particularly insightful.

One expects some difficulty for anyone learning a new skill and it makes sense that going to sleep is another skill for our baby to learn. Every child is different and there is no one fits all approach. That said I find the answer to most of the questions I have is essentially 'do better'. If they are screaming - you left it too long, or possibly not long enough. If they are bothered, you may have over stimulated, be careful to get that just right. Hungry all the time? Maybe, but also maybe not so look out for the cues.

Basically if you can time everything to perfection, it will be fine and the baby will go down easy.

I really hope there is something I am missing and that everyone who has had success went through something similar. Thanks for any insights.

[anna*]

I can hear your frustration, I remember feeling the same way when my first was a similar age.

Babies do cry. I think everyone here will acknowledge that, and sometimes their cues are unreliable or even just plain non existent. I don't think it's the case that all babies will go down peacefully for a long nap if you 'just' get the timing right or read the cues right. But of course a book can't cover every single possible cause for nap time fussiness, or 'just crying and crying', by its nature it has to talk in generalities.

3-4 months is a horrible time for naps, perhaps you could post the routine you're getting (not what you're aiming for) so
E - eat, what time
A - awake, what time, how long
S - asleep, what time how long.

If she's regularly crying for a long time before naps it could be that she's over or under tired. When she does eventually fall asleep is it in her cot or in your arms/fed to sleep etc?

[lagori]

Thanks Anna.

Agreed, generalities are all thats available, but as confirmed in your post, crying for babies is very much one of those.

For example, when a baby is crying solidly - maybe hitting the reset button is the right thing to do and go back to eat? Maybe just plowing on is the right thing to minimise going to far backwards in the plan? Should you give her a pacifier or similar - or is that just introducing a prop? You can understand why talking in past tense (she was over / under tired - you got it wrong) is not a particularly helpful thing for the books to say in that moment.

There still seems to be quite a bit of variation on the timings, but here is yesterday:

E:8.40
A:9.10 - 50m
S:10.20 - 40m

E:11.10
A:11.30 - 1hr
S:12.40 - 25m

E:14.00
A:14.20 - 20 minutes
S:14.40 - 1hr5m

E:17.10
A:18.00 - READY FOR BED ROUTINE

E:18.40
A: normally a book as part of the routine - she was dozing off before we could even get to this point.
S:19.00 started to put her down. Asleep at 19.04 for 15 minutes, then awoke, frantic for 25 minutes. Eventually went down after some more crying at 20.45

Overall about 2hrs 10m sleep in the day - sometimes we get 3 hours out of her, other times we get a little more than 1hr 30m.

The gaps here are because we had to leave the house yesterday so in the car etc.

She wakes at around 7am, but rarely for more than 30 minutes (her cues suggest she is tired again, so we put her back down, rather than force her to stay awake). At night, we've tried starting earlier and earlier to catch her before over tired, but most of the time - regardless of starting at 18.00 vs 19.30 - she goes to sleep between 20.30 and 21.00. In doing so, she generally is just about asleep on us (probably 8 out of 10 asleep) and then into the cot as quickly as we can.

[anna*]

For example, when a baby is crying solidly - maybe hitting the reset button is the right thing to do and go back to eat? Maybe just plowing on is the right thing to minimise going to far backwards in the plan? Should you give her a pacifier or similar - or is that just introducing a prop?

I totally understand your frustration. I don't know if you're looking for advice on the above or not, but basically all you can do is try to listen to your baby, and find something that works for the whole family. Baby may want to feed to sleep, which is fine if mum and baby are both happy with it, and it may or may not become an issue in terms of self soothing, later. Likewise, a pacifier can be a really useful sleep tool, but it can also become a prop. Some babies have a pacifier for sleep and it never becomes problematic - others won't accept a paci at all - others may struggle with it as a prop so the parents take the decision to wean it. The underlying ethos of Babywhisperer is not that all babies will do c if steps a+b are followed, rather its about TRYING (we are all, always trying, some times with more success than others) to understand them.

With your EASY, A is much better understood as Awake time, rather than Activity. So it is everything - including waking, feeding, and wind down to sleep. With this in mind I've updated your timings just to make it easier for me to see what's going on, I hope I have got it right.

E:8.40
A:8.40-10.20: 1hr40
S:10.20-11: 40m

E:11.10
A:11-12.40: 1hr40
S:12.40-13.05: 25m

E:14.00
A:13.05-14.40: 1hr35
S:14.40- 15.45: 1hr5m

E:17.10
A:15.45- 19.04
E:18.40
Asleep at 19.04 for 15 minutes, then awoke, frantic for 25 minutes. Eventually went down after some more crying at 20.45

Does that look about right?
Have a look here: Average A times- BOOKMARK ME! this has the rough A times by age. Your A times seem on the low side, you might try adding just 10 mins more A time. The exception to that is the long A time before bed, which probably meant she was going down overtired, hence waking crying a couple of times before finally settling for a longer stretch.

She wakes at around 7am, but rarely for more than 30 minutes (her cues suggest she is tired again, so we put her back down, rather than force her to stay awake). At night, we've tried starting earlier and earlier to catch her before over tired, but most of the time - regardless of starting at 18.00 vs 19.30 - she goes to sleep between 20.30 and 21.00. In doing so, she generally is just about asleep on us (probably 8 out of 10 asleep) and then into the cot as quickly as we can.

So what time does she 'properly' wake for the day? If she's not starting her day til 8.30-9am or so, the 7am waking is really more like a night feed, and then 8.30-9pm to sleep is appropriate (12 hr night/day). If you want her to go to bed at 7pm, I'd concentrate on making her start her day properly at 7am. It might take a few days to shift her clock.

[deb]

I can't stay long but I had to tweak EASY w/my first and almost throw it out w/my second. #1 was too Touchy (and I was dealing with post-natal depression), #2 was too Spirited. Took me a long while to make it work for us, and it wasn't a lot like the books, not for long stretches, but better than nothing in the end, and I had lots of guidance and support here.

Have you done the personality test on yours? Touchy and Spirited are generally harder to get down IMO, and they do cry more due to overstimulation more easily.

Also worth considering a food allergy/intolerance; if baby is sensitive to dairy, even BFing when mom has dairy can cause enough discomfort or pain to cancel out any attempt at EASY. Finally, reflux was a HUGE problem with my #1; we FINALLY made progress on EASY when she was diagnosed and treated, around 13-14 weeks, actually.

Back later!

[weaver]

Great advice from PPs, I just want to add that the key idea of BW is listening to your baby. Can't emphasise that enough! All the material in the books is aimed at giving you tools and helping you troubleshoot. There will always be tweaking needed. Crying is communication so try to work out what baba is saying.  Definitely agree with doing the personality test. Sorry you're feeling frustrated, Tracy always advised a period of observation, then making a plan, then implementing it. You'll get lots of help with both here

[lagori]

Appreciate the insight all.

Anna - I will take a look at the book of her timings and yes, will ensure that we try to keep her up for another 10minutes or so where pertinent.

[trimbler]

Hi there and welcome You've already received great advice from pps, so I'm just here to say yes I know exactly what you mean, had just those same thoughts, especially with my first! The books can make it all seem too easy and I have to say I got on much better second time around, once I'd adjusted my expectations. I'm sure there are some babies who have a much easier time settling for sleep, but I think many of us who ended up on these forums did so in desperation because ours weren't!

Just bear in mind that your goal right now is teaching her to sleep independently, but that doesn't mean she'll be able to do that all the time just yet. Some LOs may at this age, but many others just need our help with soothing for a few more weeks, then we gradually need to do less and less until eventually they 're able to fall asleep without our help...until teething strikes, or a sleep regression, or it's time for a routine tweak, or... But once they've learned that skill, it's generally easier to get them back on track again after a regression. There's a lot of developmental stuff going on at this age, as well as growth spurts and a need to increase A time, so don't expect perfection. But every time you or your wife is at your DD's side helping to settle her to sleep, without leaving her to cry by herself, you are teaching her that she is safe and secure, that you are with her when she needs you, and helping her to learn how to soothe herself by showing her what it 's like to be soothed, if that makes sense? You might find this an interesting read: Research on why 'cry it out' and 'controlled crying' is NOT recommended! So this work that you're doing is all valuable, and it sounds like she is starting to get it, actually, if she sometimes goes down happily and it sometimes only takes 20mins, that's great! What you should begin to see is that this happens more and more, but it will take time.

The other thing I wanted to mention is that it sounds like you're both doing a really great job watching her cues and responding to them. However at this age, many of us find that cues start to get less reliable - for example she may just be giving you tired cues because she's used to going to sleep at a particular time after her last nap, but in fact you need to keep her up just a little longer in order to help her to get a longer, more restorative nap. So keep logging her timings and see if you can spot patterns - eg she might take a great first nap if she has an A time of around 1h45, for example, so try and stick with that. Or she might scream her head off if her A time was more than 2h15, so in that case you'd probably try and avoid that and get her to bed earlier, even if she hasn't shown you tired cues - perhaps she'd just got really interested in something else and didn't realise she was tired. Does that make sense?