Pick up put down help please!!

[amazering]

My son is just over 4.5 months old. He’s generally an okay sleeper when he doesn’t jolt himself awake (he’s in a Aussie swaddle because he hates his arms swaddled down).   He does what we call a full body crunch randomly and it wakes him up.  We used to be able to hold him through his jolts, but now we’ll make it about 10-15 min into holding his joints and he’ll begin to squirm extra hard and wake up (we’ve tried various ways to hold him down).

July we also had my MIL visit us, and even though we told her we had a routine for him she still insisted on holding and rocking him to sleep.  My husband was not very assertive in having her do it our way.. and he even began reverting to rocking and bouncing the baby to sleep, to which I’ve recently discovered because the way I had been putting him to sleep has become ineffective and the only way to get him to fall asleep is to hold him to sleep now. Which of course is now affecting his waking up during his REM transitions... sometimes we’ll get lucky and he’ll sleep straight through and take a great nap or sleep through a good chunk of the night.

But more recently he’s waking up and requiring to be held for almost an entire sleep cycle.  God forbid we set him down if he’s not ready... and even trying to pat shush him doesn’t work as well now. I can sometimes get him to fall back asleep on his side doing the pat shush method. But after 20-25 min if I try to roll him back over he cries.  It takes almost an hour, and occasionally 2 hours to get him back to sleep in the middle of the night. It’s exhausting and we NEED to change this before it becomes a deep rooted habit for him.

So I spent the last two days reading about the pick up put down method. I got him down for his first two naps finally. I just don’t know if I’m doing it right.

For his first nap, I went through our wind down routine which has been the same since he was 9 weeks old. He started to get drowsy before 5 min had passed so I told him “it’s time for sleep now” and set him down.  Of course it’s a new thing to him and he started crying.  So I picked him up after trying to pat him in the crib (I tried to pat his front side and calm him in the crib first). Held him for a max of 3 minutes or if he stopped fussing first, repeated the phrase and set him down.  Pretty much on repeat till he finally fell asleep. 

The first time he fell asleep totally on his own. It was about a 40 min nap because he religiously wakes up at that point.  So I tried to PU/PD again for the rest of the time until it was time to eat (he’s on a 4 hour EASY).

2nd time around for his nap, I did everything the same. The only thing I did different was instead of patting his front side, I rolled him onto his side to get to his back and shush pat.. but I don’t know if that’s “allowed” while following the PU/PD method.. he again woke up 40 min in (we’ve given up on holding him down through the jolts as it simply does not work anymore) so I went in, held him for three min and he was still crying. Set him down, rolled him onto his side, and he was out in 20 min. He slept for about 2 hours 45 min (which on our good days, wether he slept through his own jolts or if we held him and it actually worked we normally got at least one 2-2.5 hour nap, sometimes 2 naps at that length, though it really varies greatly... sometimes we only get two 1.5 hour naps, or one 1.5 and one 2-2.5 hour... his EASY is kind of unpredictable day to day but we’re so used to it that we generally are able to get him in bed close to the same time every night. He normally takes 3 naps, the last one being a catnap).

So he pretty much caught up for the most part sleep wise and woke up just before his next feed.  He normally takes a cat nap for the last nap of the day and then we go through his normal bedtime routine before finally getting him to sleep.  So for this last catnap, I went to put him to sleep using the PU/PD method.. again rolled him on his side to pat his back to try and comfort in the crib. He fell asleep.. but if I tried at any point to roll him back over he would start crying... so this time I had to stay in there and keep him on his side... which is what I want to get away from. 

I also am not sure how to handle him doing this PU/PD method for overnight if he wakes up.. I just assume I do exactly what I did during the nap times?

I don’t want to make him spend the next week crying his heart out and breaking mine to hear it if I’m doing something wrong. I’m determined to change this and both my husband and I are GOING to stick it out regardless of how long this takes.  Because the outcome will be better than what we’re having to do now. Please help!!

[creations]

Hi there
WE generally don't advise PUPD for babies this young although Tracy did say it was for babies over 4 months. We see it as a last resort method.  As you've already started I would probably just not time the holding. So rather than 3 mins keep hold of LO until he calms, there is no timing on PUPD for young babies.

Lots of LOs do just sleep better on their side and previous generations put LOs to sleep on their side or tummy and propped them if needed to keep them like that, the thing is SIDS guidance advises against side and tummy sleeping as sleeping on the back is safer so we all put up with a harder way to get (and keep) our LOs asleep these days.

I wonder if your LO would respond more quickly to being rocked in the cot?  Lay on his back and put a firm hand on his hip or nappy area and move your hand in a small rocking motion to jiggle.  This might help him as he is accustomed to rocking in arms.  You can also change the rocking in arms to be a more similar movement (smaller).  I did this with my DS and it can be weaned just like patting by reduction over time.

You can also do W2S (wake to sleep) through the 40 min sleep transition by starting the patting or rocking with firm hand at 30 mins and continuing through the wake up and back to sleep.

Have you checked you routine?  Trying to get LO to sleep at the wrong time adds to the difficulty.

[amazering]

We always roll him back over onto his back once he’s fallen asleep to avoid the sids risk.  We haven’t bothered with w2s because of how squirmy he gets during his transitioning.  Like, it’s unreal how much he twists and moves around even with us holding. I think we both assumed he’d just kick around and wake himself fully, since even when we held him in our arms through a sleep transition he would immediately kick his legs the second we put him down regardless of how long he’d been asleep for.

Since starting PU/PD I’ve been trying to do the rocking motion in crib to calm him and it doesn’t seem to work although I’ve only tried it after he’s been crying and not initially after setting down. It seems the quickest way to calm him is to roll him on his side and pat his back. But sometimes we have the issue where we’ve done this for 20-25 min, and no matter how slowly we roll him back over he half wakes and cries. So we’re trying not to continue being a prop by needing to keep a hand on him after he’s fallen asleep.

Initially laying him to sleep in the past, though we did have to hold him to sleep, within minutes he was passed out and we didn’t have to stay in the room for the initial 20 min window. Only when he woke early from a nap or night sleep we’d end up in there for 30 min+.

As far as routine goes he stays awake for about 2 hours before getting sleepy. We wait for his cues though. Sometimes he’s sleepy a few min before or a few min after and that’s when we’ll move to get him in the room.

It’s completely random how it affects his sleep. Sometimes he’ll sleep through his own jolts. But more often than not we expect him to wake 40 min in.  When we go to hold him down it seems he’s extra determined to wake himself up.

I can post a few of his EASY days if you want to see, though they vary a lot.

I really dislike the PU/PD method but it’s the only way I read that will stop him from using us as a prop and teach independent sleeping.  As it is I feel like I don’t know if I’m doing it right. When he’s calm enough is it okay to turn him on his side and pat shush to sleep? Or does that take away from the whole purpose of doing the PU/PD? I honestly feel like half of our struggle is the fact that he refuses to stop kicking his legs so much. I don’t really know what else to do. :\

I also have no idea how to go about this method overnight.

Thank you for taking the time to respond!

[creations]

Sounds like turning him from his side to his back is what is disturbing his sleep soI'd probably just put him down on his back and pat him on the hip or nappy area, not hard on the tummy of course.  It may well take some time for him to get used to it if he is more comfortable on his side though.
When he's crying you do need to PU and calm fully in arms before putting down again.  When you put down you continue with shush/pat or patting or rocking with a hand right away, not waiting for crying.  Having a hand on him when he falls asleep (even if still patting or rocking) is not considered a prop because it is easily weaned.  The more support you can give to reassure him now that it is okay to fall asleep on the mattress the better really, the idea is to build his confidence that he is safe and get him used to the feeling of his weight on the mattress.  Weaning the hand on him is relatively easy in comparison I'd say.  Putting a hand back on when it's needed is something that will continue for years, it may change and adapt over time but there will be a need for a long long time to have a way to comfort your LO.  My DS is 7yo and recently had a virus, the only way to sleep was sitting up or he coughed so much he couldn't nod off but of course he found it weird to sleep propped up on pillows, I used my soothing method to help him relax even though I would usually just kiss say good night and leave the room.  Over this illness he's had the soothing but still told me when he is ready for me to go. Other times though I've needed to stay until he is asleep.

The wriggling around is a tricky one. Babies often like to be swaddled as it helps to contain their wriggles.  Lots of babies wriggle to self sooth too.  My DS's self soothing when he was a baby was the most un-relaxing movement ever. I've read descriptions of other babies self soothing with lots of movement too, leg banging, arms thrashing.