OK, so we proceeding with sh/pt for our 7 week old. I was concerned that it was becoming a prop, so we are offering minimal assistance now, a few minutes of pt/sh and mostly a hand on the back or nothing at all. It is going pretty well. I knew I had to change my strategy when she started picking her head up and looking around as soon as I stopped patting, like, hey, why are you stopping?
My issue is--when we put her in her crib after watching for sleep cues, and winding down, she is very clearly drowsy. She then closes her eyes in the crib for a moment, opens them again, and will happily lie there looking around, making little happy spit-bubble noises for 15-20 minutes until she starts fussing. Then we step up and do pt/sh, and she will generally fall asleep within 10 minutes, but most nap times she'll wake up about 30 minutes later and need to restart the whole process. This is a change from a few days ago, we were patting and shhing right away from the time we put her down until she was in a deep sleep, and she would stay asleep for 1-2 hours.
DH takes this to mean that she is "not tired", and maybe it's true that she needs less naptime now that she is sleeping better at night. I have to admit I go by the clock more than sleep cues for the most part because she doesn't exhibit many. Within 45 minutes of waking up, we are putting her back down and that was working well up until a few days ago.
Should we continue to start pt/sh as soon as we lay her down? It would certainly speed the whole process of naptime. Also the 15+ minutes of just laying there are cutting into what should be her naptime.
Anyone else face something similar?
