Thank you for taking the time to respond! My gosh, I have been going crazy. Websites are great and helpful...makes me feel better...so I don't feel like I'm failing if my boy doesn't follow the 3-hour routine. I have so many questions/concerns...I hope I don't bombard you with too much.....thanks again for everything!
I DID hold him/rock/bounce him to sleep for the first 9 wks of his life. We had a lot of problems in the beginning...he had eating trouble, then bad gas trouble (which JUST seemed to clear up finally). He was also diagnosed with reflux and colic. At one point we were in the hospital overnight due to excessive vomiting. So basically, this is my excuse for holding him all the time!
He always appeared to be in pain. Now he is just fussy and cranky and I know it's because he hasn't been getting the right amount of sleep.
Lately, the problem has been that if we stay in the room with him for the first 20 minutes, he will wake up and look at us and then it's all over because he wants to be picked up. This is so frustrating! He doesn't respond much to the "pat" but the "shhhsh" part is definitely a cue that calms him down...but like I said, not when he's already settled in the crib...he just looks toward the source of the shhh sound, sees us and is up.
As far as the dream feed... well, we have never had an opportunity to try because after his 2nd nap of the day, he is up all night until around midnight (we DO try to get him to sleep all through this period, he is just that overtired). Then he sleeps until 6 or 7am (which is great...and this is new since starting shhsh-pat last Friday). I will try the dream feed if/when I get the chance, but we are still working on getting him to sleep in the afternoon/early evening.
Ok, so I think as far as getting him to sleep in the afternoon, I'll just have to try to get him down a bit earlier than I have been. Maybe I'm missing the window. His activity level is actually LESS in the afternoon so I thought I was catching him in time. I'll try to be extra careful tomorrow and see what happens.
Also, about swaddling...we bought the miracle blanket and it seems to work wonders. I swaddle him EVERY time he needs to sleep (trying to establish a wind-down). When I unswaddle him, he can't get enough stretching (especially his arms). Can this be harmful to his development at all? I worry because before we didn't swaddle him like that and he was used to having his arms free ... I just feel so bad because he struggles against the swaddle to hard sometimes when he is crying/fighting sleep.
OK>>>>>>>>> enough for now! Sorry to write so much. Thanks again for any comments! This is such a great forum to express concerns...so thankful I found it!
~Kelly