Pick up / Put down - Please explain

[SalBow]

Hello everyone,
Could someone please explain the pick up/put down method for teaching your children to sleep. Is it really that simple or do I need to buy the baby whisperer book?

Have you used it? Did it work? How long before you saw results?

Is there a minimum time before picking up again? Eg DS starts crying on his way back down to the mattress!
Do you leave the room between?

Thanks !

Thanks for the encouragement!

I think I will try it to push the night feed back a little and then hopefully DD will last longer into the morning. If she feeds after 4, she tends to sleep until 7, but if she feeds before then, then she's awake at 6 blowing the loudest bubbles you've ever heard. So if she wakes early, I'm going to try pu-pd and see if she'll go back to sleep for a bit longer. Not sure, but have been thinking that 4.5 mths might be too young to drop the night feed. (not that it will reeally be my decision in the end...)

I'll also try it for the daytime naps because I've got into a very bad habit of putting her in her buggy and pushing her backwards and forwards until she falls asleep. It would be MUCH easier just to put her in her cot.

Thanks for posting the link - I've found the website now. I didn't know she had died.

We did PUPD from around eight months with DS and yes it did work for us. He goes through patches of great, good and poor settling. I think this is normal and reflects different development patterns e.g. teeth, lonliness, unable to drop off (active!), too much more intersting going on downstairs. We did it to train him to fall asleep on his own. i don't like the idea of CC.

youve given me the incentive to give it a go...please cross your fingers.. my ds has been a nightmare but because of health reasons tended to be held upright to sleep then had eczema which woke him probably about 5-6 times a night but now we ve cracked the eczema with creams etc i m ready to get him to sleep properly, hes very affectionate and touchy/feely baby who like s to be near me when hes going to sleep [and when hes asleep!!] so don t know how long it will take... he screams and cries when i go to get his milk in the night and he sobs until i get back...hows he going to manage PU/PD?
when you pick them up how long do you hold them for before putting back in the cot and what do you do when they instantly jump back up and stand screaming at the cot edge?

banbio6, i am interested too as i do the pu/pd but not as sucessfully as some
could you try taking him to do the milk? he might stay sleepy on your shoulder- i take my ds down to get stuff -extra water etc as he also bellows and then is really awake.

when he gets back up to standing or sitting, i just lie him down gently and say no, sleepy time etc. the only time it hasn;t worked is if he is too awake from yelling or is very wet. or ill. once, somehow his mattress was wet and it took me ages to realise

i darent take him downstairs he d think it was playtime and start getting v.excited..hes a very happy excitable baby who once he opens his eyes hes raring to go!!even the health visitor remarked how alert and active he is!!!at 9 months hes turned into houdini and can get out of his highchair straps, buggy straps..standing up looking very pleased with himself and then the other day he proudly showed me how he could take his arms out of the car seat harness
my other two kids never thought of doing this!!1 hence the idea of getting to lie back down looks grim..and he doesnt do the sleepy head on my houilder he usually shouts at the top of his voice and points to everything in excitement!!!

I would try it for a bit and if it is really not working modify what you are doing. DS did start crying sometimes after being put down. It was not like clockwork! I would be downstairs, he would start to cry, i would go up and pick him up, cuddle, stop the crying and talk quietly to him about what i was doing. Then i would gently put him back down, stroking his head, then stop stroking and leave the room (sometimes sit outside for a while, then creep off!) Sometimes he would cry and i would leave him, then he would stop again. i repeated this pattern. DS was often very attached to his milk, and i never overcame this, he alsways cried when i went to get it, he has grown out of it now! Good luck.

Can someone explain exactly how to do PUPD??

Hi Salbow. Worked for me. Still use it with DD now age 3 when necessary (although a slightly different version). Definitely worth reading the first book cover to cover as it puts PUPD in context. I also found her other methods absolutely spot on. Everything I have tried has worked - and sometimes in less than 3 days (BW believed that all behavior can be changed in 3 days - for good or worse). Good luck. Hope it is all going well.

Not read whole thread but just to add a difference of opinion. When ds was little we did CC for about 2 days to get him off to sleep initially and it worked like a charm. PUPD never worked to get him off to sleep because it would make him cry even more - he basically wanted to be left alone and constantly picking him up was the last thing he needed. But if he woke up in the middle of the night and was struggling to settle again I would use PUPD, after cuddling him for a bit longer for reassurance.

I know loads of people out there say you shouldn't pick them up at all and just stroke their head or whatever but I don't think you should be too rigid about whatever you do. Is it really that unreasonable to wake up wanting a cuddle sometimes?? Can you imagine if you woke up in the night and reached out to cuddle your dp and he said - er - sorry, not til 7am on the dot??

WE did use the PUPD method flexibly, and read a section of a book i owned, which advocated doing the minimal when babe woke e.g. stroke head, tuck in, talk quietly to reassure (this didn't work for use - the talk bit roused him), offered water, kept it dark, if nappy needed changing did this in a dull light.

Book was a Yehudi Gordan birth and beyond - some great and not so great bits! Don;t thin k you need to buy a book.

I think that all methods need to be a bit flexible, that is why i like Tracy Hoo. She explains when it is OK to relax the rules a little and when it is really important to be consistent (and why). It really made sense to me but made both me and DP feel in control rather than either my DD or the book. It is not necessary to buy the book, just to read it. Any library will order any book for you if that is an issue. I definitely still think it is worth a read and I really don't read that many books at all, let alone non fiction stuff.