shush pat works well but wakes hourly -help

[Babooshka1]

my 7 month old boy is going off to sleep well with the shush pat technique. I have stopped night feeds with great success. however he keeps waking hourly. i feel this technique has taken over breastfeeding as a prop to get to sleep. How can i get him to self soothe and not rely on shush pat??

[mariloulou]

Can't advise but wanted to say that I have also tried shush pat and found that DD
still woke hourly and needed shush pat repeating in order to get back to sleep, so like you, it felt like a prop. Ive found a dummy alot less work for now! My DD is only 5 months so haven't tried any real sleep training yet but will be following this thread to see what others suggest. Have you tried any other methods? PUPD? CC? I think I read shush pat may be more effective on younger babies? I can't quite remember.

Good luck though x

[stowbeau]

Really sympathise, I'm also having this problem, I can't get 8 month old DD to sleep longer than about 2 hours both for daytime naps or at night.

With day time naps, her morning nap is in pushchair - I've got to the stage where she's put down sleepy & goes to sleep with minimal intervention - sometimes she will sleep without help, other times she'll get very frustrated & I'll jiggle the pushchair very very gently and she'll fall asleep.

She will always wake after 35 mins if left. If I gently rock the pushchair she will sleep for another hour. But the dilemma is - if I don't rock her past the first part of the sleep she won't go into a longer sleep - but by rocking her I feel quite sure that it's a sleep prop which is then causing night time wakings in her cot where she's not able to self soothe.

At night with do shush pat - very minimally - and she usually goes straight back to sleep.

If we leave her and hope she self settles she will work herself up into such a state that she won't go back to sleep easily.

Driving myself a bit nuts with what to do the best.

Hoping someone who's transitioned from shush pat to nothing can share some advice!

[FATEdestiny]

Children cannot self-sooth until school age, they will need some form of comforter or 'prop' to sleep before then.

The dummy comes into its own to allow for independent self-soothing in this way.

Children can be left to cry until they accept that they will not get the comforter or prop they need to get to sleep, they will eventually give up crying and accept it. So I suppose in this way self-soothing is possible.

But a dummy is a lot less distressing and a million times easier.

[LibrariesGaveUsPower]

Is he waking hourly from when he goes off?

If the hourly waking start later, at 7 months he could well still need a night feed