9 week old not napping well. Help!!!!

[amazering]

So my husband and I are trying to get the baby started on an EASY schedule- but we have a lot of difficulty getting him to fall asleep on his own.  I’ve read pretty much everything on the sleep and easy boards, but need some clarification... so it’s said the baby should be set down at the first yawn. But it also states that we should help the baby relax and unwind.  If we try and spend 5 mins holding him to relax him, he’s passed that 1 yawn and nearly falling asleep in our arms.  So how do we handle this? Also, is it normal for the baby to resist the pat and shh and cry because we won’t hold him to sleep? We’ve gotten him to sleep shushing and patting before, but a lot of the time if we manage to get him asleep doing this method, even with us shushing for about 7 minutes after he’s fallen asleep, he wakes up either wide eyed and cooing or he wakes up crying and we have to pick him up and start all over again. We’re lucky if he sleeps 30 min to an hour.

[creations]

Hi there
What you are describing sounds perfectly normal for the age of your baby and for having just started the shush/pat method.  It takes time.

Yes you need to get baby ready for sleep at the first yawn but getting ready for sleep includes all the help you give to settle and show him the way.  If he wants to get right into bed that's fine as some babies don't like to be held for a long wind down, if though he wants a wind down this can take a while. It takes 20 minutes to fall to sleep going through the stages of calming, the seven mile stare, the eyes nodding.

In the early stages of shush/pat you can hold baby in arms and shush/pat all the way to sleep if needed, then put down and continue in the cot until after the jolt, after he has melted into the mattress, after he reaches deep sleep.  If you stop too soon he will likely jolt awake and you will need to begin the process again.  It takes 20 min to reach the deep sleep phase.  It can feel like you are there most of the nap but in the early stages it does take quite a lot of help to teach LO to sleep. all the work you put in now pays off later when he is able to self sooth and sleep well without so much help.  As time goes on though you will need to put LO down before he is asleep so that he learns to nod off on the mattress but  you will continue to help him, shush/patting or just patting and picking up to fully calm him down when needed.

I can continue to support you with this on your EASY thread here:
https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=288873.msg3176353#msg3176353
so that you don't have to spend your time updating 2 threads and so that any supporters can have all the relevant information in one place.