12 week old on EASY, trouble starting shush-pat for naps

[pumpkinpie1]

My 12 week old was roughly on a 3 hour schedule before but we were using serious sleep props for naps - carrier/walking and nursing. It kept getting worse so we knew we needed to start teaching her to sleep with the shush pat.

We're on day 2 and I'm not sure if I'm doing this right. Our schedule today -

7:00 - 8:00 pm wind down and bedtime routine
8:00 pm - 3:45 am sleep
3:45 - 5:00 am feed and settle back down
5:00 - 7:30 am sleep

7:30 am - 8:00 wake up, feed
8:00 activity
8:45 started nap routine - book, draw curtains, white noise. As soon as the swaddle goes on she starts crying. Walk around/hold her for a bit but crying continues. Try to sit but she fights and cries. Put her down and shush-pat for 30 minutes until she falls asleep.
9:15 - 10:00 sleep
10:00 - 10:30 try to get her back to sleep with shush-pat and extended pu/pd without success
10:30 -11:00 feed
11:00 - 11:45 activity
11:45 try to put her to sleep again, same problem with crying after swaddling and she won't settle
12:15 - 12:45 sleep
12:45 - 1:00 try to put her back to sleep unsuccessfully
1:00 - 1:30 feed
1:30 - 1:40 activity but she's tired
1:40 - 2:40 try to put her back to sleep. Again she won't settle. I put her down after 5 minutes of screaming/crying. Pick her up after about 5 more minutes of crying, on and off again.
2:40 - 3:20 sleep
3:20 - 3:50 feed
3:50 - 4:10 activity
4:10 - 6:10 finally break and put her in the carrier for a good nap

That leads us up to now...I'm don't feel like I'm doing this right since she won't settle for the sit stage. She becomes an overtired fuss monster by the afternoon and it's increasingly difficult to get her to go to sleep and stay asleep as the day goes on. Please help!

[pumpkinpie1]

I'm thinking she might be overtired, either from me waiting too long or from walking up during sleep transitions. Question - should I try to do anything to get her drowsy before putting her down (awake)  and shush-patting? And then work on weaning off that later?  Or should I continue to put hey down even when she is crying? Eventually she tires but I'm worried she's getting too worked up and wearing herself out.

[Bella89]

Hi there and welcome to BW forums:)

First of all, you're doing great! Teaching your baby sleep is never an easy task:/

On the shush-pat matter this is the link that explains a lot about how to do it:
Shush-pat - How to

But it will not help you put down the baby if it's not the right timing. SO you have to know 2 things: how and when to do it

About when... I feel like she was OT the whole day, because she was trying to fight naps as they were so early after WU. She got so tired that had finally take a good afternoon nap:)
I don't think the reason she fought these first naps in a day was OT. She had a great night, slept a lot so she simply had time to rest and needed some more time to play:)

At 3 months A time should vary between 1-5 and 2h. Sometimes if you stretch that wind down to 45 min it has the opposite effect, it makes them agitated. What I am trying to say is, sometimes starting wind down at 1.5h mark can take 10 min till eyes closed, but starting at 45 min can take 1h and give you no results:/ Try starting sleep routine at 1h-1h15 min. We'll see how it goes:)

Also, if LO doesn't want to sleep for 20 min of shush and patting, it's good to take them outside of the room for 10-15 min and try again. It seems like less torture for LO and the mother:) I know something about it. I never knew if it was hard on me or my DS :p

[pumpkinpie1]

Thanks for your reply! I think I was confusing in my post - I am starting my wind down and nap routine around 1:15 A. Like she woke up at 7:30 and I tried to get her to nap starting at 8:45. She extends the put down into 45 minutes because she cries and focus sleep. Do I continue to put her down if she won't settle in the sit phase? Won't taking her out of the room and starting again cause her to get overtired?

[Bella89]

Oh, I get it now! Ok, do you think you could add an extra 15 min to that A time?

Won't taking her out of the room and starting again cause her to get overtired?

I assume that after 15-20 min she is still fighting nap and cries. 15 min of crying and fighting can be tiring as well. That short out of the room trip is to change her surrounding and take her mind off crying for 15-20 min. It is just an idea. Something that helped a lot when I was putting DS down for 45 min and someone pointed it out

[pumpkinpie1]

Ugh today was worse. Should I really keep her up longer if she's yawning? She stared yawning today when she'd only been up one hour? I did the wind down and tried to put her to sleep for an hour before finally nursing her to sleep. She only got 45 minutes of sleep.  Carrier nap in the afternoon. In the evening I wound her down and got her to sleep but she kept waking up with gas. After an hour of on and off crying and screaming I gave up. She's awake now. This is our third day since starting shush - pat and there's no hope in sight.

[Bella89]

I'm sorry you feel so helpless Hugs to you honey

There is nothing you should do. Please, do not feel like you're doing something wrong. We're trying to help her here and that calls for tries and mistakes.
You can always try not keeping her up so long and see if it works. If so, great! If not, we can then try something else and add some A time. Do only what you feel good about and what you feel comfortable with.

Do you think it can be something else bothering her? You mentioned gas... Is it common with her?

[pumpkinpie1]

Yes, gas is a common issue for her

Things are getting better slowly but she's still crying and fussing at nap time. I've had some success extending her naps by putting light pressure on her and shushing during her sleep transitions. If we're able to get her down in 20-30 minutes with shush-pat, when and how do we start backing off so she learns to sleep more independently?

[Bella89]

Look into here:
Shush-pat - How to

There is a section about leaving the room. The idea is too provide less and less shush/pat. Sometimes it's happening by itself. It takes 20 min, 15 min, 10 min...