Pick up Put Down - A Revelation

So a new year, a new us.  A marginally better sleeping baby and a feeling that the only way is up!

After going insane with different combinations of rocking/singing/feeding, I decided that enough was enough and some action needed to be taken.  My husband had the best part of two weeks off over Christmas and I asked him if he would join me in trying the pick up put down (pupd) method properly while he was off.  I knew it was going to be hard which is why it was important for him to be onboard and not at work.  He was more than happy to give it a go.

A really good summary of the method including age adaptations can be found here:
http://www.babywhispererforums.com/index.php?topic=208990.0

The first two nights we did it, we set a time limit - 40 minutes.  If it hadn't worked after that, I would try feeding him again.  My husband did all the pick ups and our son cried for 40 minutes constantly, save for the temporary moments he was in my husband's arms.  It was heartbreaking and we gave up after our allotted time, I fed him and he went to sleep.  He did sleep for longer than previously though, which was an improvement.  Another major improvement is that he is no longer getting into bed with us!

Then Christmas came and it all went a bit to pot.  I got away with feeding him to sleep a couple of nights and well, basically got lazy.  But in the middle of the night, on Christmas Eve-eve I had tried everything and he still wasn't sleeping.  It was 1am.  I decided that pupd was my only option. Two and a quarter hours later he was asleep! It was hard work.  But the relief I felt watching him fall asleep in his own cot was worth it.

From then on, I included pupd in my repertoire of sleeping making.

A couple of days later, I bought 'The Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems: By Teaching You How to Ask the Right Questions' by Tracey Hogg and Melissa Blau.  I quickly realised that we weren't being consistent and to do this properly, we needed to do pupd for all sleeps including naps.

To start with, we concentrated on bedtimes.  My husband and I acted as a tag-team.  We agreed which person would start, decided on a maximum amount of time that person would try for (45mins) and went for it! The first night it took an hour and a half.  The second night it took 50 minutes.  We came home from being away and I was amazed that I could put my boy down in his cot after his feed and watched him settle himself to sleep.  I thought we had cracked it!

Yet life is never that simple.  A regression was warned about and it came.  He settled but then kept waking up.  It started to take longer and the crying worsened.  But we stuck to our guns.

It has been a week now, we have moved his cot into his own room and he is taking anywhere between 20-45 minutes to settle.  I have realised that he needs wind down time in his cot.  We listen to music, read a story and I stay with him whilst he tosses and turns.  When my husband does it, there is more resistance but it is improving with each time.
We take it turns, or have two nights on, two nights off as the Baby Whisperer suggests.  This means that we share the load and our son gets used to the fact that mummy or daddy might put him to bed.

I am also using it to settle him in the middle of the night instead of feeding him all the time.  Currently he feeds at 7pm, falls asleep 8-8:30pm and then wakes 10:30-11pm and I feed him again.  He has woken around midnight a few times and I have used pupd to resettle him in about 10-15 minutes.  2am-3am he wakes again and I feed him.  4:30-5am he wakes again and I feed him.  He then wakes up properly between 6-7am.  So he is having three middle of the night feeds. I want to slowly reduce it, but need advice on where to start. It might be easier to cut the 2-3am feed first as he will still be sleepy enough to want to go back off.  We will see.

A couple of days ago, we also started using pupd for naps.  I got very demoralised after an hour of trying and crying that he wouldn't fall asleep. My husband took pity and took over and he was asleep within 10 minutes.  Since then, I have persevered and although it takes time, it is working.

This morning, it took twenty minutes of winding down and comforting (a couple of pick ups included) for him to fall asleep.  He managed one sleep cycle, which isn't enough so I put on a brave face and went back in to do pupd to extend his nap time.  Another twenty minutes later he had fallen asleep again.  So far, he has slept for another hour.   I can hear little sighs over the monitor now though so he is either transitioning into another sleep cycle, or he is about to wake up.
 (- He must have been transitioning, because he is still asleep 20 minutes later!)

I have to admit that I really wanted a method that involved no crying at all.  Unfortunately, it has been unavoidable because he has to express the fact that he is frustrated about falling to sleep.  Our job has been to be there for him, supporting him through the frustrations.  However, it has been hard to witness our son crying.  He rarely cries and we are not used to it.  But we have learnt the difference between him shouting and crying.  I have also learnt how to comfort him without picking him up or with minimal picking up. The great thing about pupd is that you never have to leave your baby by themselves.  You are there with them, encouraging them to relax and sleep.  Your baby never has to feel abandoned.  

The key thing I have learned in all of this is about not overstimulating my baby.  I understand better that my little 'duracell bunny' can't really keep going; he just needs a wind down.  I will continue to use pupd and hope that eventually his ability to self settle improves and his daytime naps are consolidated.

This will be good for my son but I must admit, it will be good for me too.  I don't want to start back at work in a messy state of sleep deprivation.  And before I do go back, I want to spend my awake time enjoying my son and not wishing he was asleep!

2016 is the year of sleep!