The S in EASY

HessHall · March 2013

My DD is just over 3 months old. For the past three weeks while reading Secrets of the Baby Whisperer, I have started a loose routine, figured out when she is tired vs. hungry, gotten a bedtime routine going, etc. Overall things are going much better thanks to the ideas and guidelines from the book. The only part I'm struggling with is getting her to sleep. Once she is asleep, for naps or for bedtime, she is a pretty good sleeper. She has STTN since about 2 months, and continues to do so with the new routine, waking once to eat and then falling back to sleep without issue. In the early weeks it was nurse to sleep, now I've fallen into this bad habit of rocking her to sleep, walking around the room, walking up and downstairs sometimes, etc. while singing to her. It works, usually in under 10 minutes, but I don't want it to go on forever like this.

I don't feel like the book explains what to do for getting her to sleep. If put her in her crib while she is drowsy but awake, she cries. I let her cry for a minute or so, then pick her up to "meet her need" and when she is calm I lay her back down, then she cries again, and it will take longer to settle her down and so on. I will go through 7-8 cycles of this before I eventually rock her to sleep. I think she is too young for CIO, and I'm not sure how I feel about that anyway (I can hardly stand to hear her cry for one minute). I'm thankful she is as good a sleeper as she is. Are my expectations too high at this age to not be able to rock her to sleep? Any suggestions?

Starfish+77 · March 2013

I could have written this post myself for my 15 week old DD. We can't sit with her and rock her. She 'demands' to be walked around, shhhh, patted and the best tool for me is the bathroom or oven fan. There's no way I could put her dow

HessHall · March 2013

Starfish+77:
I could have written this post myself for my 15 week old DD. We can't sit with her and rock her. She

kateraid · March 2013

At this age I think it's ok to rock your baby to sleep still. 3045 minute naps are also normal since awake times are for less than two hours. Don't stress so much. I rock J til he's drowsy, lay him down in his crib and jiggle him while shhhhing and he nap

pb_bride · March 2013

You are describing my DS to a T when he was that age. Eventually, the bouncing/rocking for naps took longer and longer, to the point of me doing this for an hour before he would fall asleep, and he only slept for 20 minutes! Eventually I re

spainy17 · March 2013

This might not be something you want to try but I have been following the EASY method but with variation. I do EAESY... once she wakes up I start activity and feed if she fusses. I watch the clock and look for sleepy cues. Once it us time for her to go

Starfish+77 · March 2013

I have never done CIO before but intend to in another month or so with DD. I wouldn't mind if her naps were short, but when she wakes she is a mess and crankier than before the nap!

Sometimes I think going back to work and having daycare de

atrinh11 · March 2013

I just read your post and thought I might share my experiences, if they help at all. We were having huge sleep struggles at bed time. My LO would fight sleep like crazy, and make us do everything to calm him down. Simply rocking was NOT good enough, an