Hello Ladies!
My brain is kind of in a haze and I need your help on a couple of issues.
I started PU\PD with my almost 6 month old yesterday. Long story short, I went from having a 4 month old who'd been STTN for 2 months and who I could just put down in his crib and let him fall asleep on his own to an almost 6 month old who I had to rock for 45 min before he'd fall asleep and who would only sleep if he was in someone's arms (naps and nights). Suffices to say that besides a mess of AP brought on progressively by a growth spurt, wonder week, two teeth and a pretty intense cold that left him with trouble breathing when he was flat on his back and A times that were too short, I decided that I wasn't going to spend another night sleeping in the rocking chair with my son in my arms.
Anyways, so far things are going reasonably well, I went from needing 20 minutes and about as many PU/PDs to get a 25 minute nap out of the little guy for the first nap to needing 15 minutes and only one PU/PD for a 45 minute nap for the most recent nap. He's a thumb-sucker so it helps, he only needs to stop being ed off to remember putting his thumb in his mouth
. The first night was harder and it took me 40 minutes before he fell asleep, but this is with very minimal PU\PD. I only pick up when he's really frustrated otherwise, I find that his crying just escalates once I've put him back down.
I do have a couple of questions though.
I know that ideally, I want to be prolonging the nap with W2S or HTTJ, but that's not always possible. If he wakes up early from his nap, how long should I be trying to prolong the nap? Today, I only tried for 15 minutes because I had my older kids at home exceptionally (usually they are at daycare). When I turned off his white noise and took him out of his room he was happy as a clam (still is an hour later).
Also, how should I be applying PU\PD for MOTN wakings? Yesterday, for instance, I nursed him at 6, he was sleeping by 7, he woke up at 10 (I nursed him as he hadn't nursed for 4 hours, he fell asleep at the breast and I put him back in his crib sleeping). He woke up again at 0:30. I tried PU/PD for 90 minutes and although he had managed to fall asleep 2-3 times, he was always waking up 5-10 minutes after despite the fact that I kept a hand on him). By that time, it was 2 am so I nursed him (because he hadn't eaten for 4 hours and he'd spent the last hour and a half crying so I figured he'd be hungry). He fell asleep at the breast again, then slept until 6. This feels counter-productive though, because, essentially, he was nursed back to sleep both times he woke up, which, in essence, was one of the major props I'm working on fighting. But then, I can't expect him to sleep through without nursing, right?
Thoughts?