Please help.

[Maryellen]

My son is 8 weeks old today. I got the Baby Whisperer book for Christmas and put him to bed that night in his own crib (he had been sleeping with me) and the next day, I tried to start him on a routine. It was (and continues to be) a disaster. He wakes up at a different time each day. I try to read his tired cues, but it seems illogical to me that he could be up for only 45 minutes and start yawning again, but after a few meltdowns, I tried to put him down as soon as I saw the yawns, but even then he cried so violently that I gave up. 

I'm so frustrated I cry every day. I used to sit and breastfeed him all afternoon and evening and I hated never having a moment to do anything (like eat or shower) but now, I try to leave him without feeding every half hour and he screams desperately. The only time he goes to sleep is if I feed him, and I know it's a bad habit, but this kid is so willful I find myself fantasizing about putting him up for adoption!! I can't even imagine "activity" time because he's always freaking out.

I need help desperately.

[maggieruth]

i can't really offer a lot of help but wanted to offer hugs and support to you!  i am not good with routines but am lucky enough to have a pretty happy 7.5 month old.  as a consequence i only looked at routines when i needed to and found that at around 10  to 12 weeks all of a sudden my son sort of had a routine that i could follow loosely to keep us both happiest.
how much of the book have you had a chance to read?  (i know that when i get desperate i wade in with about half the info i need and knowing how busy my son kept me i am wondering if you are the same)
i would suggest getting a good supportive pillow that you can bf your son with and viewing that time as reading time!  read as much of the book you need to to feel ready to really OWN a routine that will work for your family and impose it when you are ready.  (following routines that someone told me i should always got me into trouble, i had to have them all figured out in my head first and be really ready... now even sometimes i wait til i am ready to start a routine - for example- although my son's cot is being delivered late this week he won't go into it until saturday night so i am ready for this transistion!)
also, newborns are entirely different creatures than babes who are 5 or 6 months old!  they can be pretty exhausting and ungrateful but they DO get better!  (don't adopt your lo out just yet!  i think we have all been there)
you must truly be desperate if you have read all this rambling and i hope it helps! failing that someone articulate may come on and give you some even better advice!

[sarah brown]

Hi

Sorry to here your so frustrated, My son is now 23 weeks but I was the same as you in the early days I was seeing the cues but telling myself that he couldn't be tired after such a short time, sometimes only half an hour and family and friends would all have an opinion on how much sleep they need and what would wind me up was when people would say are you getting him to sleep again like I was doing it for my sake or he's a grumpy baby when I tried to keep him on the go on thier advice :x

When I read Tracey's book it was like someone swithched the light on (My DS has been on easy for around 4 weeks now) and I could see all his cues and they all made sense...Anyway I'm going on a bit but all I wanted to say is stick with it, I agree with the post above you need to prepare yourself to start the routine I had Tracey's book for two weeks before I started and read the relevent parts twice just to make sure and I also warned all family and friends that they wouldn't see much of me for the first two weeks while I dedicated my time to it (again I saw the eye's rolling) But as you know from the sound of your post for the sake our sanity it had to be done and I spent the first few days crying, initially because Ollie cried so much, and then cause he didn't    Good luck and I hope you start to see the results soon.

Sarah

[~Angie~]

Hi,
I also want to add my sympathy. We had a hard time getting our daughter on a routine and am still struggling with it. One thing that is helping us is to have a set wake up and bed time. No matter how many times we are up in the night, I try to have my daughter up between 7:00 and 7:30. I feed her and then have activity time. I try to keep her total time awake to 1 hour. So, if she is up at 7:00, she has a bottle (30 minutes) and activity (15-30 minutes) and then back down for a nap at 8:00. She also does not show very many tired signs, but is easier to get to sleep if I don't go past an hour. Our entire day follows this same routine of eat, activity, and sleep. There are no set eat or nap times, just the same cycle of eat, activity, and sleep. This way you don't fall into the habit of nursing to sleep.

As for getting your son to sleep, make sure and have a routine for this as well. Every time you put him down for a nap, follow the same steps. We start by swaddling. We then go to our daughter's room and rock and sing. I do this only until her eyes are heavy. Then I lay her in her crib. I stay with her until I know she is alseep. When we first started this, it was very hard to get her to sleep on her own. We had to pat/shh for the full 20 minutes. (This method is described in the book.) But be consistent and stay with it and it will work. It took about two weeks of staying consistent and our daughter now goes to sleep all by herself.

Also set a bedtime routine. Ours is 6:30 bath, 7:00 bottle, 7:30-7:45 bed. Your routines can be anything you want them to be as long as they are the same every time.

I know this isn't much help, but hopefully it can get you started. This is my second child and trust me it does get better! 

Angie

[Deb_in_oz]

MaryEllen,

I think it is great that you got the BW book for Xmas and want to launch streiaght into a routine, but as PP said it is a good idea to read the book a few times and come up with a plan that will work based on your situation and lo.

I used to sit and breastfeed him all afternoon and evening

I try to leave him without feeding every half hour and he screams desperately

it is great that you were able to make a drastic change overnight (own crib etc) but if you were previously feeding to sleep all the time / feeding all day a possible option is to gradually reduce the feed to sleep to feed to drowsy and then feed and clear activity.  there are a lot of women on the breastfeeding board who have been through this transition and can offer specific support (havce a read of a few recent posts there as i know of at least 2 moms that went through it in December). it is confusing to him to suddenly have his "open milk bar" suddenly closed.  i woudl aim to have feeds 2 hrs apart and then build from there.  if the feeds are more spaced they will grow to be better/full feeds which will help sustain A time and naps....

 

I try to read his tired cues, but it seems illogical to me that he could be up for only 45 minutes and start yawning again

for an 8 week old 45 min is pretty much the norm/average for awake time. as angieb said even if the tired cues are not there at this age (often can come too late or we react too slowly to seeing them and end up with overtired baby who has a meltdown) itis best to stick to under an hour while you are setting up EASY and getting to know the signs (others besides yawning)


for setting up EASY at this age when you have had no routine i recommend an approach like angie b mentioned
 :arrow: set an awake time or range (like always up by 7 or between 6:30-7 etc)
 :arrow: focus on getting the order of events as Eat, Activity (can be short at this age), Sleep
 :arrow: read about shh/pat and setting the scene for sleep times (setting up their environment and having a windown routine)
 :arrow: establish a good bedtime ritual for the evening - for example you could do breastfeed, bath, cluster feed and massage, and then bedtime
 :arrow: spend time observing your ds to learn his temperment and read the sections of the book(s) that explain about how that temperment operates.

i can help you set up a routine if you like.  i think they 2 key things for you will be separating the food from the sleep and spacing out feeds; and cutting back A time until you find what works best for him. there are a lot of people here to support you throuigh this, please don't put pressure on yourself or EASY to think that it happens overnight - i woudl allow yourself and DS at least 2 weeks to get things on track and then work on independent sleep and nap length...

[Maryellen]

Well, thanks for the advice. I have tried most of what you said (yes, I've read the book through several times) and I feel frustrated because she seems so sure that if you just do what she says, you'll have this pleasant, easy to live with infant and all will be peachy and bright with the world. I feel like SUCH a failure in every aspect. The first time I tried the pat/shh thing (which really isn't that clear, I must say, even from the sleep interview), my son cried for 10.5 hours. Yes, 10.5 hours (I laughed at the idea of having to do it the "full 20 minutes" as angieb suggested. That would have been a dream come true!)

The one thing it's good to know is that 45 minutes is a normal time for a baby his age to be awake before needing another nap. I'll try to get him back down before the freak out in the future.

[JKHH]

Hello.

Hang in there! Things will get better. My daughter is now 8 months old. When we started EASY I found it took a while to get into a routine. I noticed you are from Toronto, if you want to call me and have a chat PM me.

Regards,

Janet

[julieb]

Maryellen, your adoption fantasy brought back memories for me!  :oops:   I think I was at a similar age and I was convinced I was the most terrible mother in the world because I couldn't help him sleep.

The tips others have already listed are very helpful.  I would like to echo starting a set wake up time, starting pat/shush, keep activity time short and sweet (no fancy toys!!).  None of these things will work overnight or even days.  But at this point, what do you have to loose?  It takes just as much effort to do it the old "wrong" way as it does to do it the new "right" way right?  So give it some time.  After what you described before you came to BW, I honestly believe your LO is in a perpetual state of overtiredness.  It's gonna take at least a few days to undo that and get him refreshed enough for any of the other stuff to start "working."  If he's yawning after 45 minutes, start putting him to sleep 15 minutes earlier.  If you see a yawn, he's going dangerously close to "overtired."  So start with shortening your activity time and getting him to sleep.  If he's getting better and longer sleep, he may have better feeds which will hopefully get him to last 2, 2.5, even 3 hours between.  Then you can work on the other stuff.

Hang in there!  I PROMISE it does get better.

[Maryellen]

I really, really appreciate all your feedback (if for no other reason than it's helped me learn I'm not the only one who feels like I'm fighting a losing battle with this routine business). I honestly thought, after reading the book, that Josh would instantly take to this new method of doing things and my life would be transformed into a dreamlike version of motherhood. Ha!

So I've taken your advice to heart. I set the alarm for 7 this morning (though, my exhaustion caused me to sleep right through it until 7:45!) and I think I fed Josh in my sleep. So when I got up, he was already awake and kicking me. At the first yawn, I swaddled him (which started the fireworks already) and tried to sing/rock him for five minutes, but he was hysterical by that point. I put him in the crib and stood over him, patting his back and doing the long shhhhhhh sound for about 38 minutes before he stopped fighting and dropped off. I thought Glory! and then about five minutes later, I heard him sqwaking and my heart sank. But he didn't start to cry again, so I left him. He's lying in there now sucking on his fists and rolling around but he's not crying. If he starts to cry, should I feed him or try to pat/shhhh him back to sleep?

[julieb]

How long has it been since you fed?  Did he take a good long feed in?  Depending on your answers, you may want to feed him again.  Otherwise, the crying may just be tiredness.

He's learning a new way to go to sleep, so he's prolly upset, "This is not the way we do it, Mom."  Hang in there.  My LO started to squawk when I started swaddling.  I tried doing it with the lights on still and it worked much better.  I guess it tricked him into thinking we WEREN'T going to sleep.  Then I'd sit with him and go through our routine (using pat/shush), turning off the light and placing him in the crib once he was sleepy.  Then I'd continue the pat/shush for 20 minutes, until I was sure he was asleep, and slowly taper it off.

Must run, DS is up...

[Mom2katiebug]

Maryellen - Just wanted to tell you that I too thought things would just fall into place after reading the book several times before having DD.  Problem was, she hadn't read the book so she doesn't know that it all means, what cues she's suposed to give me, etc.   :lol:   That's what I tell myself when she behaves in a non-BW way!!

It does get better and I've found most things have worked for DD at some point along the way.  Pat (of pat/shh) started working at about 8 weeks; and Shh just started working a few days ago when she got really interested in sounds.  The wake to sleep to extend the naps hasn't worked for us yet, but maybe next week or the week after...

I agree with the PP and just try to be a little patient with yourself and your LO as you go through all of these changes.  And, don't feel too bad about adoption...I've often wondered how much my adorable DD would fetch on EBay!

My DD is 10WO and can handle about an hour of A time total (including feeding time and diapering).  Sometimes she can go longer if she's really interested in her surroundings, but for most days, I watch her like a hawk and at an hour we start go winddown.  So, 45 minutes at 8WO is probably right. 

We had good intentions, but bad actions as new parents so we've been breaking some habits and it's been tough on us and Katie.  When we did our first full-on awake in crib, letting her fall asleep on her own, she cried for 40 minutes.  I was going to go an hour before caving in but didn't need to.  It helped me to actually say what I thought Katie was trying to tell my by crying ("I don't understand why we're doing it this way!" or "Why can't you rock me to sleep like before?" etc.)  It helped me and DH remember why we were doing it - that we were actually helping her not torturing her.  And, now she will cry if I'm too slow in the winddown and try to rock her too long.  She cries to be put in her crib so she can fall asleep. 

We are fighting short naps.  Sorry to say that they started at about 8 weeks, so this may become your next hurdle to deal with.  If so, know that you are not alone.  Many, many of us are there or have been there.  At least we have the support of these boards.  Sorry so long, but I wanted to just lend some support.