Pick up/put down seemed to be working and now it's not

[jennamichelle539]

My son just turned 6 months old and we started PU/PD a couple of weeks ago. We are only using it for night sleep right now and still holding him for naps. We are on the 12th night and it's really frustrating because it seems like it started to work and now it's just getting worse. Here's a summary of how long the initial put down took each night:

Night 1: 50 minutes
Night 2: 10 minutes
Night 3: 10 minutes
Night 4: 10 minutes
Night 5: 1 minute
Night 6: 15 minutes
Night 7: 20 minutes
Night 8: 10 minutes
Night 9: 5 minutes
Night 10: 20 minutes
Night 11: 20 minutes, then woke again and took 45 minutes to get back down
Night 12: 10 minutes, then  woke again and took over an hour to get back down

I know you're supposed to give it 2 weeks to work but it just seems like things should be a lot better at this point and they're not. He wakes 2-3 times a night (we're not even trying to work on night wakings yet) and we give him a bottle if it's been more than 2 hours. He drinks formula at night and breastmilk from a bottle throughout the day. He takes 3 naps a day and typical awake time is about 2 hours and 20 minutes, naps vary between 45 min-1hr 20 minutes. I try to keep him awake for 3 hours after his last nap of the day but he seems so over tired he starts crying a lot of times during his bed time routine. Bed time routine is about 20 minutes and is bottle, bath, pjs and lotion, bed time story.  I just can't figure out what we're doing wrong. I'm going to give this method two more days so I can say I tried it for 2 weeks but it's been really difficult and frustrating watching it work and then regress.  I'm just not sure if we're doing something wrong on our part or if this method is just not going to work for our little guy. Any advice is appreciated, thanks!

[Moon92]

Hi I am new to this too, we just started but I read a lot about it and they say you notice a regression at some point before it consistently gets better. Maybe is it now for you ? I would give it a few more days and check if teeth are coming

[creations]

Hello and welcome to BW forums

It looks to me like your LO's A time is probably not long enough before naps and then perhaps too long just before bed time, the last A time could be too long due to having had a short nap rather than a long nap and ending up over tired at bed time.
The guidance A time at 6 months is more like 3hrs and you'd be aiming for two long naps of 1.5 - 2hrs each.  The 45 min naps you are seeing may be due to being UT (under tired) so can't transition from one sleep cycle to the next, a series of UT naps can then lead to a one off long nap because of accumulated tiredness.  Being unable to transition between naps can also be because LO doesn't know how and may need help to transition or some sleep training for naps rather than just night bed time.
To me it looks like the PUPD was working but the routine wasn't quite right.
I'd suggest increasing the A time in increments, not all in one go, so I'd go straight to 2hr 30 on all A times (including before BT, not 3hrs), then after a day or 2 increase to 2hr 45 and leave it there for a few days, see how naps go.  After say 3 days you may need to increase to 3 hrs.

At the same time you can use W2S (wake to sleep) to help LO transition between sleep cycles, here's a link, look at naps option 1:
https://babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=223809.0
If you feel you can't do W2S for every nap then choose one nap per day but make it the same nap each day if at all possible because habits build per nap.
Use W2S in cycles doing it for 3-4 days then hold off for one day to see what happens, if LO wakes then try to resettle and the next day start another cycle of 3-4 days W2S again holding off on day 4 or 5 to see what happens.

As you increase the A times I would suggest for now not to increase the last A time beyond 2hr 45.  Waking after BT suggest OT (over tired) soI'd keep the last A shorter to avoid this. See how it goes, you can always increase back to the 3hrs if you feel it isn't working out.

I hope this helps. Let us know how you get on.

[jennamichelle539]

Thanks so much for the advice! At first I thought it was a small regression or "extinction burst" but then it just never came back around and I thought the regression was only supposed to last for 2 or 3 days. I'm going to try increasing his AT little by little and see what happens with that. Some days we only get 2 naps in and it seems like he sleeps better at night on those days so we probably need to make that transition.

[creations]

OK. Let us know how it goes.