Okay, now I'm confused

[Luka's Dad]

Sorry for starting another thread about my DS, but this is a bit more general, and not following on from my last posts.  (Sorry also if any bits are repeated from my previous post)

My wife and I have gone over Tracey's books, and I have read the sleep interview posted here and now we are both utterly confused as to what we should be doing.  It doesn't help that Luka has now been overtired and not sleeping well for about 38 hours.  We would really appreciate it if someone could lay out in simple terms what we should be doing.

Our understanding of EASY is as follows (with some questions which I feel are pertinant to our particular bundle of joy).

1. Luka is 5 weeks old so should roughly be on a 3 hour cycle.
2. When he wakes up in the morning, we feed him.  This will take about 40  minutes to an hour.
3. We try and do some activity, but invariably this will only be enough time for winding (which we are terrible at), and a nappy change before the first yawn.
4. We take him upstairs to bed, swaddle him, hold him for about 5 minutes and put him in his crib.
5. In theory, we shh/pat for a while (hopefully 20 minutes) and he drifts off to sleep for an hour or two.

So that's the theory, am I correct so far?

In practice, things fall apart at stage 4.
- Should we swaddle him straight away or do something else to calm him down?
- When we do swaddle him, he usually starts crying so we have to go straight to shh/pat
- After he quietens down we continue to shh/pat until he looks like he is asleep.  Is this correct? At what point should we stop, as we have done shh/pat for over an hour before and he still looked unsettled.  Being bent over his basket for so long is doing some damage to our back (which were never that great before hand).

So some follow up questions:
a. If he has done an hours feed, no activity and it has taken an hour and half to get him to sleep, do we wake him in 30 minutes time for his next feed?
b. If he wakes after 15 minutes do we feed him or try and get him back to sleep?
c. If it gets to the state he is in now, where he is too tired to eat (he falls asleep at the breast and can't be woken), and is too tired to sleep when not at the breast, what on earth do we do to get back on track?

The interview was somewhat confusing as we thought that the EASY system was tied to clock watching and doing things at a certain time (infact Tracy states this exact thing), yet in the interview she says that with regards question a, we should wake him, question b it depends on hunger ques, and question c goes unanswered.

Any clarifications would be greatly appreciated as the confusion is starting to stress us both out somewhat, which isn't good for anyone.

Oh, I just remembered another question:
- We fell off the wagon today as Luka had been screaming for an hour straight I suggested that we used a sling to calm him down then took him for a walk in the park.  There is a fear that this lack of consistancy will undo the work we have done so far.  Can someone please confirm that we haven't messed things up completely (even if it's a lie), as parts of Tracy's interview would suggest that we have put ourselves back at square one!

[Jaime]

1. Luka is 5 weeks old so should roughly be on a 3 hour cycle.
2. When he wakes up in the morning, we feed him.  This will take about 40  minutes to an hour.

very roughly.  in fact, many breastfed babies eat more often - like 2-2.5 hrs.  i remember my dd ate every 2.5 hours for the first few months!  keep in mind too that EASY is a suggestion for the order of things.  you have to tweak things a little so they fit your baby best.  the main idea is that they learn to not associate eating with needing to go to sleep - that is a hard habit to break later.

3. We try and do some activity, but invariably this will only be enough time for winding (which we are terrible at), and a nappy change before the first yawn.
4. We take him upstairs to bed, swaddle him, hold him for about 5 minutes and put him in his crib.
5. In theory, we shh/pat for a while (hopefully 20 minutes) and he drifts off to sleep for an hour or two.

So that's the theory, am I correct so far?

yup.   :wink:

- Should we swaddle him straight away or do something else to calm him down?
- When we do swaddle him, he usually starts crying so we have to go straight to shh/pat
- After he quietens down we continue to shh/pat until he looks like he is asleep.  Is this correct? At what point should we stop, as we have done shh/pat for over an hour before and he still looked unsettled.  Being bent over his basket for so long is doing some damage to our back (which were never that great before hand).

i would probably swaddle him straightaway and move into shh/pat if necessary.  yes, you do shh/pat unitl he seems to be asleep at first.  once he's built the association, you will be able to back off a bit & not do it for so long.

for your back.... if you can, put the mattress on its highest setting and don't raise the side bar.  usually, then you can pull up a chair right next to the crib & lean in to do the shh/pat.  not quite so tough on you then.

So some follow up questions:
a. If he has done an hours feed, no activity and it has taken an hour and half to get him to sleep, do we wake him in 30 minutes time for his next feed?
b. If he wakes after 15 minutes do we feed him or try and get him back to sleep?
c. If it gets to the state he is in now, where he is too tired to eat (he falls asleep at the breast and can't be woken), and is too tired to sleep when not at the breast, what on earth do we do to get back on track?

honestly, i was rather crazy about night sleep, so i would have woken my baby to get the next feed in.  and then i might have tried to put him down earlier for his next nap.  other moms might say to let him sleep an hour. 

sometimes, you just have to throw in the towel for the day.  if you can get a decent night, you can start fresh the next day with the sleep training.

usually, the last nap of the day can be a "freebie" - do whatever it takes to get them to take it.  this should not affect the rest of your sleep training - i didn't believe that at first, but it was totally true with my ds.  it's the first nap to go, so whatever you do seems to be okay (sling, etc.)

HTH 

[Luka's Dad]

Thank you for all your answers.  I'm glad that we are pretty much doing what we are supposed to.  Unfortunately it leads to the question of why isn't it working for us?  Putting him down takes on average 45-50 minutes and can take longer.  We kind of go to pieces when it gets to the stage that if we hold him he screams and if we put him down he screams.  It seems like nothing we can do that fits in with the BW ethic actually helps him get to sleep.

A couple more questions:
- Is there anything we can do to get past the point where he will seem peaceful, then 5 minutes later he will start fussing with his eyes closed, then this will slowly develop into another full blown screaming fit.  This is sometimes preceded with a 'jolt' as expected, but sometimes it will just seem that he has got incredibly uncomfortable and he'll start wriggling around before screaming.
- If he is over tired and he needs a good feed, how on earth do we stop him falling asleep at the breast? (Possibly a question for the EAT forum)

Thanks again,

Tom

[deb]

I don't really know why, but pat/shh never really worked for Natalie. (although I suspect having a noisy older sister demanding my attention NOW didn't help matters... :?) At some point, if swaddling her and putting her down didn't do it, I gave up and slung her if my back could stand it.

Something else to think about, in addition to the sane sensible advice you've gotten so far, is whether your little one might have reflux? When Josie was a baby, she'd wake EVERY time she was horizontal - she could be SOUND asleep in our arms, the sling, the car seat, wherever, but woke INSTANTLY when put in bed flat on her back. Her reflux was causing burning pains in her throat and chest, and we just didn't know it at the time. If I'd even known baies got reflux, that would have been a big clue there. Not all reflux babies spit up, so that's not necessarily the giveaway you'd think it is.

Then the reflux waking her would make her overtired, and she would need a comfort feed so the milk would stop the burning, and she'd fall asleep nursing, then wake again when I put her down.... you get the whole sordid picture, because that was my life for 3 months.

Once she was diagnosed and medicated, her sleep improved, and so did her mood, and so did ALL our dispositions. We also tried to keep her upright for 20-30 minutes after each feed, even if it meant holding to sleep, and we dropped one end of her crib mattress so she was sleeping "uphill" a few degrees. With Natalie, she just slept on her tummy from Day One; many refluxers do better on their tummies for sleep, but of course that goes against most current medical advice so you'd have to be comfortable with it.

Anyway, check out the Reflux 101 post at the top of the Reflux board and see if anything there rings a bell. If your baby has reflux, sleep training needs to be altered till it's treated, or at least your expectations are going to have to be adjusted.

[Jaime]

Unfortunately it leads to the question of why isn't it working for us?  It seems like nothing we can do that fits in with the BW ethic actually helps him get to sleep.

keep in mind, luka is verrrry young still.  even with doing all the 'right' things, it can take quite awhile for them to finally "get it".  my own ds started getting all crazy around 10 weeks - and didn't stop unitl 16 weeks  :shock: .  that is when things finally started to work for us.

definitely check out the reflux board as deb recommended. 

If he is over tired and he needs a good feed, how on earth do we stop him falling asleep at the breast? (Possibly a question for the EAT forum)

do the best you can to try & wake him back up.  if all else fails, try and rouse him a little bit right after he finishes, and then put him in bed, to try & help avoid the eat to sleep association.  and if NOTHING works, try letting him sleep for a few minutes & then put him back on to feed again.

all that being said, even though you are putting in so much work now, the payoffs are wonderful.  i now have 2 kids who are fantastic at going to sleep & staying asleep all by themselves.  you will get there too.