Encouragement and advice needed with 9 week old babe

[Blue_eyes_lu]

Hello all.  I have a sweet, adorable 9 week old who I feel like I am failing miserably.  Honestly, I have read TOO MANY baby sleep books/blogs/articles/forums, and there is no consistency between experts, and I find myself second guessing everything I do.  I am trying for a general EASY routine, but almost never get more than a two-hour EASY cycle due to short naps.  My LO is currently held/shushed-patted and rocked to sleep, held for 20 minutes till she gets through the "jolts," and put down after she is in deep sleep.  not ideal,i know, but we had her in a rock-n-play in her early weeks, which made it difficult to shush-pat to sleep.  For night wakings she basically nurses to sleep, though I hold her for 20 minutes upright after due to concerns about reflux.  I try for one long nap/day, in which she just sleeps on me.  I am trying so hard to get her to at least fall asleep in her crib, but have had pretty minimal success, and find that my attempts just make her overtired and result in shorter naps and more frustration on both ends. I try really hard to refrain from feeding-to-sleep, though do resort to this on occasion if she is quite overtired. 

So, I have tried to do our WD routine for naps (song while swaddling, turn on white noise and close curtains, commence shush-pat while being held), soothing her to near sleep or even eyes just closed, then putting her down and continuing shush-patting.  I am sometimes successful getting her to about 10 minutes, but she inevitably wakes up, gets ticked (or is sometimes then just really awake and will not close eyes with shush-pat), I pick her up, and re-start the process, ultimately just rocking her to sleep by 2 hours of wake time.  I continually shush-pat for the entire 10 minutes to get her through the jolts (and would continue through the 20 minute mark if we ever got that far).  Then she'll only sleep for a total of 25-30 minutes.  If I just begin by doing our "normal" rocking/patting, she will nap 45-50 minutes, with the occasional (1x/week or less) spontaneous long nap that isn't on me.  I am unable to re-settle her most of the time, though I only attempt for a few minutes.  I have a toddler and simply can't spend limitless amounts of time trying to coax baby to sleep; I already feel like I spend most of my day trying to get her to sleep and toddler is definitely feeling neglected.  Any tips for better success getting her to fall asleep in her crib?

I'll also note that my husband has been successful re-settling her in the middle of the night with shush-patting on her side, but neither of us has been very successful getting her from awake to asleep with shush-pat in her crib.   

Also, after a craptastic nap (like 30 minute naps), is it ok for her to have a shorter wake time?  We generally start putting her down at first noted yawn or when getting fussy after one hour mark, typically about 1-1:10 minute wake time before first yawn, usually can have her asleep by 1:20 mark by old methods.  However, after a short nap, she starts showing signs much earlier, but then is often very hard to put down for another nap.  Once we have one crappy nap, it is really hard to recover, generally resulting in MANY short naps throughout the day, and me being a hot mess. 

For example, this is our day today ( a particularly rough one).

Wake 7:10
nap 8: 37
Wake 9:07 (attempted to resettle, unsuccessful)
sleep 11:03 *had begun tempting to settle about 30 minutes earlier, difficulty getting her to sleep
Wake 11:30 (again attempted to re-settle, unsuccessful)
sleep at 12:18
Wake at about 1:00, unsuccessful re-settle
Attempted nap at about 2:00; unsuccessful,
Sleep at 2:30 for 10 minutes, unsuccessful at re-settling so attempted to feed to sleep; fell asleep on breast and stayed asleep for about 10-15 minutes, unable to resettle. 

When she sleeps for such a short time (ie. 2 10 minute naps in an hour of trying), I don't know when to try again, as she obviously is tired from the beginning of wake time, but was impossible to resettle.

My poor little babe has only had about 2 hours of nap time today (its now 3:30 in the afternoon) none of it very restorative due to only getting one full sleep cycle in.  I feel like all I do is try to get her to sleep, and all of this work has resulted in a whopping 2 hours.  I am exhausted, and makes me terrified to return to work in three weeks, as I know it is unreasonable to expect my daycare provider to put this amount of effort in; and I'm worried she simply won't sleep at daycare. 

Should I start with trying to settle her in her crib at bedtime only, and then work into naps?  Now that we have had such a rough day, she is WAY overtired and I feel like throwing in the towel for the day, as it will be hard enough getting her to sleep even with our old tricks. 

We are also having this issue that she wakes up MULTIPLE TIMES after BT (shoot for between 6-7 BT, she naturally wakes at about 6:30 or 6:45 every morning).  It pretty much has to be this early because it is nearly impossible to get her to take a nap later than about 4.  She also WILL NOT fall asleep any sooner than 2 hour wake time before bed ( have tried one hour, 1:15, 1:30, 1:45; she always falls asleep very close to 2 hour mark).  Then she'll wake up either several times between BT and 9:30 or so, or she'll simply wake up every 2.5 hours the rest of the night.  When she has the multiple wakes between BT and 9:30, she then finally has one long sleep of 4-5 hours.  I can't tell which I like more, not that it matters because she is quite unpredictable. 

I think I just need some reassurance, because I just feel so defeated most of the time, like I am totally screwing up my child.  Admittedly,  I resorted to CIO with my first, which I'll say was VERY successful, but probably the most stressful thing I have ever done. I would really prefer to get her on the right track early.

Thanks for reading all of my rambling, I so appreciate a response to any portion of my post, I know I've got a lot going on.  Even words of encouragement are welcome, I feel like I am drowning.

[creations]

Hello and welcome to BW forums

I'm sorry to hear you're having such a hard time of it at the moment.  Having a new born and a toddler to care for must be truly exhausting.
Yes, parenting books can add to the confusion, they all have their own methods and times etc. Obviously here we believe BW is the best One of the reasons for that though is that it is a routine suited to your individual baby and not a one-size-fits-all routine.

Your LO is still very very young.  For comparison I started, very gently, trying to put my LO down for sleep from day 1 (not always successful but tried), discovered BW when he was 4-5 wks old and began to move him to the EASY routine and also follow tips for sleep training.  I only had one child to focus on and as independent sleep was something I was keen on I put in lots of time to it. Even so he was about 8wks before he was self settling for sleep and of course we did continue to have our tricky phases throughout baby and toddler hood.  The reason I mention this is to demonstrate that it takes time and lots of effort.  If she was used to sleeping in her rock and play or being rocked and/or fed to sleep then these things take time to change. The BW methods are not going to alter that in a short time but over a period of time when LO gains confidence and learns to fall to sleep independently.

It actually sounds to me like your LO might be struggling with the possible reflux. Most LOs will have a longer nap at some point even if it's in arms or rocked or whatever but it sounds like your LO is being disturbed in her sleep regardless of where you try to make that happen.  Have you taken her to the doc?  Have you asked for a meds trial to see if that helps?
Do you have a cot wedge and cot blocks to raise the head end of the cot so LO is sleeping on an incline?

The way things sound just now I think I'd be inclined to go wear LO and see if you can get some better naps in a sling when she is upright - it can also offer much more freedom to care for your other child, prepare meals or get out and about.  There is not "set time" when you absolutely must start sleep training and perhaps now is not the best time for you?  You could also begin with trying just one nap per day in the cot and make that your sleep training practise time, sling naps for the rest of the day. Many parents find this helpful.  If nothing else it reduces the stress over sleep and this in itself is beneficial for your baby, a happier Mummy is a happier baby - it can be extremely hard spending all that time in a dark room shush/patting.

In terms of the 2 hr EASY cycle - some refluxers need to eat little and often, this could be why your LO is needing to eat every 2hrs.  If though you feel your LO is not hungry at the 2 hr mark it is just that a nap ended it is ok to put some A before E so rather than EAS your routine  looks more like EASAEAS so that she can eat at 2.5 or 3hrs depending on her needs.

I hope something here is helpful for you.
Please do feel free to ask any questions you have or just post for a hand to hold. I know you didn't get a response for a few days to your first post but we generally try to make sure every thread has a reply after around 24hrs, sometimes things get missed.  There is a lot of support here.