Discouraged with how implementing EASY is going

[redmtq]

We have been doing EASY for almost 3 weeks with our 5.5 mos DD and are not seeing any progress.  This is very discouraging.  I thought by now that I would see some improvement, but really nothing.  We eliminated the pacifier at 7 weeks, don't cosleep, rock or use other props, so I think I expected this to go better than it is.  For the past 3 weeks we have been close to perfect on our consistency.  My husband has taken time away form work to help me with EASY these past weeks as we have an almost 3 yo DD, too.  He cannot continue to do this, and I cannot continue to leave my 3 yo unattended as I work to get the baby napping.  She is still up 3-7 times a night, wakes at 5 am and has not napped more than 45 min.  We attempt every time to get her back to sleep with pat/shh, but with naps, we can try for more than one hour without sucess.  We start trying for her catnap in the evening around 4:30 because it can take 1 1/2 hours to get her down, and then it is only for 20 min or sometimes not at all.  The only thing we have managed well is to get her onto a 4 hour eating schedule and she seems fine with that.  I know she is tired.  She probably gets a total of 10 hours of sleep at night and maybe a total of 2 hours napping.  Even if I stop doing EASY, I don't know what else to do.  We are so very tired.  I want to enjoy her babyhood, but this is very discouraging.  I feel as though I am just enduring until she gets older and maybe then things will improve.  I am willing to do the hard work, but without any changes, it it really hard to see the point in continuing :cry:

Thanks for listening,
Cathy

She was up last pm every hour from 10:30-2:15, then up from 2:15-3:45, then again at 4:45.  Tonight is about the same, just like every night.  I feel terrible-- for the first time since implementing EASY, I am not in her room with her.  She is upstairs crying and it is 3am.  She has been crying for 1/2 hour.  I see no progress at all :cry:   What to do?

[Noelle]

Does she get to sleep independently?  Also, how are her feeds during the day?  Could you post her schedule for us? 

{{HUGS}}

[redmtq]

I will be honest and tell you that since that 3 am addition to the bottom of my post, we have been letting her cry at naps and bedtime and going in every 10 min to reassure.  I know that this is not recommended.  I really love Tracy's books (all of them ) and want so much for this to work.  Her approach seems so balanced and rational to me.  So to let her cry without being in the room is not what I really want to be doing, But...having said that, the weird thing is that it seems to be working better.  I am wondering if the 3 weeks has built trust, but now I am worried about breaking trust.  Last night she woke only once at 2:20 to eat and then was up at 5:50 (fed her then as I wasn't postive if she was hungryand put her back down--she didn't go back to sleep but was happy in there until 6:30 when I got her up).  This is the best night we have had in her whole little 6 mos. life!  I have kept all other aspects of EASY in place.

Awake aobut 6 am
E 7
A
S 8:30

E 11
A
S 12:15

E 3
A
S try for catnap at 4:30

Bath 6:15
E 7
S 7:15-7:30

She is a distracted eater, but has a big interest in solids and the spoon, so we have been offering solids after nursing twice a day--she seems to really like it. I don't want to let her CIO, but the progress from that seems more noticable in 2 days than what has been happening in the past 3 weeks.  I feel so conflicted :? .  What do you think?

Cathy

[Monijaye]

Cathy

I'm new to this site but I can just tell you what we did with our 2 year old daughter.  We implemented the EASY routine when she was a few months old (maybe 3 I can't quite remember).  Although the implementation seemed to go well, she ended up napping for 20 minutes at a time and sometimes taking over 1 hour to settled before her nap.  She then started waking earlier and earlier over night until she was no longer sleeping through (she originally slept through at 7 weeks).  So we decided she needed to learn to put herself to sleep better and resettled herself when she woke.  So we did CC to teach her this but we kept with EASY routine also.  It worked after 1 night and she has been great since. 

I hope that helps.  We are just starting EASY again on our 4 week old. 

Good luck

[LISABIGIONI]

Thank you for this post!!!!  I have always had my kids on EASY, I just didn't know it until I read the book, they always ate, played and I put them down about 2 hours from the time they ate, then I read the book, figured I was doing this so I could easilty implement the plan to get my daughter (9 weeks) to take better naps.  She was great until 5 1/2 weeks, napping every 2 hours for 2 hours and waking once during the night to eat (anywhere from 2 -5 am) then 5 1/2 weeks it all went to he**.  She was diagnosed with reflux and is on zantac since 10-31 and her night feedings are great, I do a df and then she gets up at 5:30 or so...(I always did this with my other 2 as well)...her naps got better and now again this week, since I have tried the pat/shush method and doing the 20 min. it seems she is falling back to cat naps!!!  I stand there for 20 min and then she only sleeps another 20, so then I was going in at 45 to try to do the wake to nap thing...and forget it...then next thing I know it is time to feed her again...so yesterday we couldn't calm her down..so I just put her in the crib, she cried another 5 min and went to sleep for another 45 min....I believe I let my other 2 cio at times and that is how they learned to sooth themselves, but then I feel bad, but I cannot fight her...she gets like mad and arches her back, digs her head in, throws her arms back and kicks her legs and it is hard to try to comfort her like that, and as for her not having the ability to concentrate on crying while I shush her, well, she seems to be able to do all 3 things quite well !!! then I have a cranky ed off baby to deal with while before I would get her up early and just walk with her or put her in the swing for a couple minutes or whatever I could to hold her off to the next feed, unless she was frantic for food, but I also had both my boys on a 3 1/2 - 4 hour schedule by now too, and she is just starting to do that and so I really don't want to start feeding her again before 3 1/2 hours unless it is a growth spurt...so anyway, the other books say don't let them cio until they are 4 months old, and I do try to go to her, pick her up and sooth her, she just won't let me, so then I let her cry for 5 min. go in pat her or try to sooth her again and if she won't let me I put her back down and yesterday within 5 min. she was back to sleep (after we tried to calm her for 20 min.) so I am giving up the pat/shush stuf and staying in the room for 20 min. patting etc.  I would rather have a full 45 min. of things I can do without her then just 15 - 20 and then have a screaming child.  She self sooths at night, she just needs to realize she can do the same thing during the day.  I am going to put the cd player on for her, I have a fan and the tv on in my room at night and she used to sleep in the den in front of the tv (my house is open and I want her to learn to sleep with noise around her...I have 2 boys too so she needs to block the other noises and sleep) so if I have some music on in the background maybe she'll do better at nap time....I will see, but I cannot continue the patting and all it makes me more frustrated..I am going to do what I did with my others, I let them cry for awhile to see if they would calm themselves and eventually they did, one figured out how to put the binki back in and my other found his thumb, she has put herself to sleep using her thumb, I watched her and at night (7 goes upan dthen I wake at 9:30 and 12:30 to feed) she has her thumb..I also have her sleep on her belly, she does better this way, always has, so did myother 2, and she does turn her head side to side, but with reflux I think it is better to sleep that way.  I do nurse her and have supplemented formula as well, and she does seem tohave some problems wtih gas and poopoing afterwards, but i need her to do this as when I go back to work, my dh will be having to give her a bottle and I cannot seem to pump enough bm for her, so she needs to acclimate to the formula...sorry this is long but I needed to vent, I have found that by doing this method, I have enjoyed her so much less and am more stressed out...I am going back to my own common sense and trying to trust my own thoughts about it rather then get help from all these baby books, maybe they work for some, but in reading all the messages here, everyone seems to go thru the 45 min. cat nap phase and everyone seems to have problems with this method, it looks as if it works less then it works...and beleive me  I have followed it and I am consistent!!!!  but I don't think my patting her is showing her how to self sooth it is making me the new prop and when I leave she wakes up...I cannot be the prop with 2 other kids, so if she cries, finds her thumb and makes herself feel better then that is what will help her sleep and then she'll be happier....I know the crying isn't hurting her, she is fed, dry and fine, so she is just tired and her crying is just asking for some way to put herself to sleep and she won't let me sooth her to do it, so she will have to learn herself I guess....thanks for letting me vent, I have been so frustrated since trying this method and it seems as if everyone changes it or ends up rocking etc until 3 months anyway, so she was so much easier to get to sleep when I was doing that.....thanks for letting me vent...by the way what do you do for gassiness???I was using gripe water until I started the zantac....

[Mom2katiebug]

Adele:  You mentioned that you used CC with EASY to help your LO learn to sleep independently.  What is CC?  Thanks.