PU/PD - help?

[Biscuitsandtea]

Hi,

I have a 4 month old DS and wanted some advice on the whole PU/PD thing.

I've just read (some of) the baby whisperer sleep book - am just finishing it off but I have some questions.

DS2 settles himself well at night and normally can be put down in his crib and will go off to sleep without any intervention. If he does require intervention it normally turns out to be a wind related problem . So getting off to sleep is fine.

He isn't too bad at getting off to sleep for naps, but I suspect in being distracted by ds1 I often miss the cues that he's tired so I'm going to try and make more of an effort to put him down for a nap rather than suddenly thinking 'oh you sound tired' and having to get him to settle from there.

However the main reason I was reading the PU/PD stuff was because of waking in the night. He had started to go all the way through the night, from when he goes down to bed (so feeding approx 7:30 ish just after ds1 goes to bed) and was even self settling himself sometimes when he woke. But now he seems to wake up at about 4:00am every morning. He'll normally snuffle for a bit and suck his fists but then gradually wakes up and gets a bit crosser about things. At first I thought the fist sucking = hungry but I think he does this to self settle too as I would hear him doing this when he would then drop off again and go through to 6-7am.

Now I know that one waking at 4am ain't bad, but I'm very confused as to whether he is waking out of habit at 4am or is actually hungry. I know I should know this by now but I find it really hard to tell. I guess just like us sometimes they don't even know themselves if they are really hungry? If (actually when!) I feed him at the 4am slot he seems to have a reasonable size feed but it's not as long as he'd feed for in the day. But it is more than a little 5 min snack iyswim?

So I suppose my first problem is I don't even know whether he's hungry or not and I've no idea how to get to the bottom of it. I know he can go through to 7am but then I don't know if it's a wee growth spurt or whatever?

Then my next thing is I'm not sure I actually quite get how to do the PU/PD thing .

My reading of the book suggests that I should first of all try a bit of shush-pat? And that comes with its own question - how the flip do I pat him on his back if he's laid on his back?

If that doesn't work should I then be doing the PU/PD thing? So this works by pick him up as soon as he cries? Put him down as soon as he stops? Well he tends to start crying but stop instantly when I pick him up so he would literally go up and straight down then? But isn't that confusing for him? And (having vaguely tried it tonight) he just cried as soon as I put him down. Well he'd literally be going up down up down up down . How's he supposed to drop off like that?

And I'm not entirely sure what I'm supposed to do once he's down again? If he cries pick him up? If he just grumbles go back to shush patting? How long do you shrug pay for - until he's asleep? Wouldn't that take a jolly long time?

I know I have a billion questions here but I'm all confused and would appreciate some advice! I probably have a billion typos too but stupid iPhone app won't let me go back through what I've written when it's the first post of the thread so apologies.....

Anyway, thanks for reading, especially I'd you've got this far through all my ramblings

I've often recommended PU/PD to people as it was very effective for sorting out my DS's sleep, but that was at age 8 months, and he definitely was not self-settling before that. But it sounds like your DS is self-settling much of the time, so he doesn't need to learn to do that. I would guess (although it's just a guess) that he is hungry at 4am, especially if you hear him trying to get back to sleep before he starts crying. Maybe it's the dreaded 4 month growth spurt? So maybe give it a month or two, and if he's still waking at 6 months, when he should be able to go through without a feed, then do PU/PD?

Re your questions about PU/PD, yes you do pick him up as soon as he cries (full-on crying) and put him down as soon as he stops. And yes it's OK if he goes up and straight down again (and up again!). The key thing is to listen for when the crying changes to a kind of monotonous grizzle, which is a cue that he's trying to get himself to sleep. When you think he's doing that, you can just stand nearby saying 'shh'. I wouldn't confuse matters with patting, that's for the younger age babies. The first time you do it it might take 20 or 30 pick-ups, but the second time it will be fewer, and you'll notice the difference the second night, and it will be even quicker the third. You're teaching him that you will comfort him if he's upset, but that he needs to get (back) to sleep himself. It's vital to be as consistent as possible.

Finally, I'm no expert, so for better advice you could try the Baby Whisperer message boards, for more detailed advice.

Thank you flimflammery - that all sounds v sensible. I suppose it could be a growth spurt? I think I'm going to try and get more food into him during the day today and see how it goes. The. As you say, give him a fe weeks and see if he grows out of it . Thank you for answering my questions though