A shh pat dilemma

[S082018]

My little one is almost 19 weeks and we have made huge progress in that he is no longer being rocked/held to sleep.

I put him down wide awake, place him on his side and pat him until he is almost asleep. I always stop when I feel he is getting drowsy and most of the time he will do the rest of the falling asleep himself.

The only problem is, he is now relying on that to fall asleep each time he wakes and he is still getting up every 1.5-2 hours at night!
He is also waking up after 30-40 minutes in his daytime naps and will need patting back to sleep again every time.

I'm really pleased he doesn't need to be held and rocked to sleep and more but I do feel I've created a new association.

How do I break this association now and reduce my input? I feel like I'm going back to square one again. 😫

I’m not an expert but I’m obsessed with sleep at the moment and have been doing a lot of reading, and from what I’ve seen, you essentially need to wean them off it by making the pats lighter until you get to just having your hand there until nothing at all.
You could also try doing one or the other (shh or pat).
If you google little ones ssh track, their website has a link to their free Spotify album which you could leave on as white noise?

Ah no advice OP, but solidarity. We've moved from rocking/cuddling to sleep to settling in the crib and don't get me wrong, it's much better.

But I don't understand how you make that final leap to them actually going to sleep on their own (without you making them drowsy first) which I think should then enable them to link their sleep cycles.

I think as the previous poster says, if you keep up the other sleep associations (white noise, swaddle/sleeping bag, dark room) the idea is they'll work it out...but I don't know when that happens...

@sunlightflower - that’s still good progress! How old is your LO and how did you do it?
We’ve just taken a step back in a feed to sleep association this evening as DS turned into an overtired nightmare who was crying too loudly to hear lullabies etc

@elw85 she's 18 weeks. She's not rolling yet so I'm still able to swaddle, I think that helps. I roll her onto her side and pat quite firmly in the middle of her back, if I can I then lay her onto her back before she actually falls asleep.

I tried it a few weeks back and it did nothing but then suddenly started working! I'm sure it will probably stop again soon.

Worth saying she does also have a dummy and I play white noise too...she's a tricky one to get to sleep.so I've tried everything!

@sunlightflower - it’s so tough isn’t it? I think I’ve gotten him into his slumber buddy but I’m not sure if it’s consistent!
And he still falls asleep on me. He’s coming up for 12 weeks though so don’t want to do anything too formal yet.

@ELW85 thanks for your response. When I think about it, I only really need to shh for a small amount of time. I then just focus on the patting as I have white noise playing all night long.
I think I'll work on making the pats lighter from today. We have had two days off track due to the little ones third lot of immunisations but I'm hoping we can get back on track today with his naps and settling him down tonight!

@sunlightflower I'm waiting for the day that it clicks into place! I have been trying to settle him in his crib for weeks and all of a sudden one night it just happened and I couldn't believe it! I guess nothing is impossible 😊