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Parenting after 35
How long do you let LO "fuss" ?
Christiana has had a hard time getting back on our time zone since we got home 1 1/2 weeks ago, so I called her Ped to get some advice. He said to let her "fuss" for 15 min or so before soothing her at night so that she knows it's bedtime.....15 minutes seems like a lifetime to me, but then I looked at the AAP website and it said the same - that it is good to let baby fuss for a bit to let them learn to self -soothe.
Would love your opinion?
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Re: How long do you let LO "fuss" ?
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She was STTN before the trip and now is up every few hours or so - sometimes missing paci, etc. I honestly don't think I have given her a chance to self-soothe as I am always right there when she makes a peep!
It's hard to know when to follow your gut or when to do something that might not feel good to help her learn??
She will sometimes fuss for a few seconds, but if she cries, I go in and comfort her - or sometimes she just needs to have her paci back. I have also needed picked her up, rocker her until she calmed, then put her back in the crib. It didn't make it so she wouldn't go down, which was what I was worried about.
I hope I don't get stoned for this but we do let her try to work it out on her own in the middle of the night. Our pedi encouraged this early on. She explained that most babies wake occasionally through the night just like grown-ups do. That gave us the confidence to not intervene immediately.
Ada does STTN but periodically she fusses in her sleep - if I go in to check on her most of the time she is still sleeping. Usually when there is noise from the crib DH and I lay there until one of us whispers "is she dreaming or is she serious?" We seem to know the difference in her cry if she is up and she means business!
No stoning or flaming here. My pedi also recommended "judicious use of reasonable *parental neglect*". He said it tongue in cheek, but told us not to rush to her. However, if she fusses more than a few seconds, she generally means it and will escalate to crying. Then we open a whole new can of worms. Usually by the time I get to her when she fusses at night (I wait a few seconds hoping its she isn't serious too, but she usually is), she is starting to cry. I do hear her talking to herself sometimes, so she can be happy and put herself to sleep - but only when she doens't cry. She is usually hungry and nurses really well when she wakes. We're working on that.
Never stoning or flaming here - this is why I love this board. thanks for the advice ladies!
You know, she really doesn't "fuss" for too long before it turns into crying. Crying, we wait 3 to 5 minutes before going in. But if she's just in her crib "talking" and making noise, it kind of depends on what we see on the monitor. If she's kind of just laying there, we leave her be. If she's rolling around a lot, it's usually a diaper issue and we go back in to check. If she keeps standing up, we also go back in to lay her back down, cover her with the blanket, etc., to reinforce that it's time to go back to sleep.
Good luck!
I think there is a significant difference between "fussing" and crying. I let my DS fuss for up to 10 minutes or so. But if he starts CRYING, I check on him. Most times a pacifier helps him calm down?he spits it out as he falls asleep and does not need it TO sleep.
During the night, he'll fuss (and he also STTN) and it wakes me up. But sometimes he's not even fully awake. Usually will put himself back to sleep within minutes. Occasionally he'll CRY in his sleep but he never actually wakes up. I've learned to just watch the monitor and wait it out. I don't run into his room any more and, thus, I'm able to fall back asleep more easily.
I'm TRYING not to run in at every squeak.
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If she is in the crib, until it stops or escalates into crying, neither of which takes more than a couple of minutes. We wait maybe 3-5 minutes (less if it is the middle of the night and I want to be asleep) to see if the crying subsides, and if not, one of us gets her. Usually, one of us will check on her if the fussing just stops and does not escalate.
If she is in our bed, we pretty much react right away because she is right there.
I am totally evil mommy here - DS doesn't outright cry much at all. If he does in the middle of the night, it usually lasts maybe 30 seconds. Not enough time for us to even get to him, frankly.
However, when it does last longer than that in the middle of the night, I have found it is MUCH worse when we go in to "soothe" him - he gets more upset when we leave and is up longer. So in the middle of the night he has to be REALLY upset before we go in. Lately he has been rolling over onto his belly and he gets upset when he wakes up and finds himself there. We've been using a video monitor (a baby gift we didn't think we'd use) to see if he's on his belly. If he is on his belly, we wait a minute or two to see if he calms down and falls back to sleep (which he is starting to do) and if he doesn't calm down after a couple minutes we go turn him over. If he is not on his belly and it's not time for him to nurse, we'll usually let him cry a little bit. Again, though, we've been lucky - we've never had a night where he just won't go back to sleep.
I will admit that we are *trying* to get him to sleep later in the morning (he is usually up at 6) and we often let him fuss for 20 minutes or maybe a little more as we are frantically trying to get some of our mornign routine done before we get him up. He doesn't seem any worse for wear when we get him, though, he just gets all excited and does his little happy dance, so it doesn't seem to be hurting him.
Sorry, I know this was kind of rambling.
DD -- 5YO
DS -- 3YO