In all my numerous searches for sleep solutions, I keep coming across the advice to "pat" your baby, not to pick up. That the patting should be comforting enough to get them to fall back asleep? wth? I've tried this tip many times and it's never worked. K freaks out, gets pisses, curls up, and slams her legs back down, or rolls all over the place. What is up with this "patting" business. Does it work for anyone? I'll gently put my hand on her, pat her, stroke her tummy... Am I patting her wrong?
-
I always read "pat" as soothing touch without picking up. For my LO, for whatever reason, it is allowing him the grab my hand and move it to his face. I think you should do anything that comforts your LO.
-
My DD really responded to patting on the butt.. but only when my DH did it. Eventually we just abandoned the patting when we did CIO but for a while it did help a lot.
-
Haha, all babies respond differently to different sleep solutions! With B, I could pat his little bum and he'd fall asleep. Unfortunately, he would only sleep if he was next to me. E has been much more independent and she hated the pat. She would fall asleep by herself usually with her pacifier (until she was 6 months then she had problems and we tried a few other solutions).
-
Seriously! Patting never worked for me, it just made DD more worked up!
-
I've never tried it with my LO but back when I worked at a daycare we would pat the toddlers back to sleep if they were stirring from their naps. Most of the time I think rubbing their backs in a circle and light pats worked.
-
Sometimes it works for us. Other times he doesn't want to be touched, so I'll pat the mattress in front of him to get him to lay down. That one has helped him to fall asleep fairly often too.
Mostly I pat him when he's upset and needs to be soothed. It's really cute that he does it back to me when he's ready to go to bed.
-
I tried patting to sleep one time when LO was a newborn and she looked at me like I was wearing crazy pants and cried hysterically.
Now, at 8 months, I can go in and rub her back or pat her belly if she wakes up in the middle of the night and it works great but I thought the 'pat to sleep crowd' were nuts before that. Up until a month or two ago bouncing on the fitness ball was the only thing that worked.
-
Patting only works for us if she is really drowsy and not terribly upset. Once she stands, it is game over! I often rub her arms and legs instead of a full on pat, though.
-
I pat her behind and it used to work when we co-slept. I'd have to do it to calm her down before. Since she's gotten older and transitioned into her own room, I've noticed that she gets worked up when she sees me! So instead of having a bedtime routine where we'd read to her, it works best if we quickly put her down, turn on her night lights and quickly walk away. If I attempt to read to her, there's a big chance that she'd wake up! But we're only able to do that recently. Before I'd read to hear each time.
-
Patting only works for us if LO is 90% asleep.
-
Patting her bum gets her to fall asleep in the ergo. Doesn't work in her crib or my bed.
-
Never works for us!
-
Patting doesn't get Xander to fall back to sleep, but if he's crying, it will often soothe him just to know mommy or daddy are around and care about him. Then we abandon him again to fall asleep on his own.
BUT Xander's always been good about falling to sleep on his own, so take what I say with a grain of salt!
-
Never ever works for us either. Glad to hear it works for some babies...I was beginning to think the people who offered that advice were insane
-
I pat DS's butt to put him to sleep, but once I lay him down in his crib, the patting doesn't work. Inserting the pacifier helps him go back to sleep though.
For my nephew, the patting thing worked.
-
Patting only worked for us as step two AFTER we'd already picked him up and calmed him down. NEVER worked for us as a first step remedy!
-
Patting works if they're already sleepy/drowsy. It doesn't work as the first step. But as the final step (to get them from 50% sleepy to 90% sleepy) works really well for us!
-
Patting works now as a toddler. When she was younger, it only worked the way @mrsjyw describes.
-
Patting NEVER worked for us...not initially, not drowsy, not anything. All it did was remind him that we were there, and not picking him up, and that just made him angrier.
-
@Elderberrygin: LOL! That's K exactly. Like WTF are you patting me for crazy woman? Pick me the F up! *Wild eyes*
@mrsjyw: Yes, I can see that. But "they" say just to pat and not pick up. haha. joke's on me.
@shinymama: Ditto.
-
@shopaholic: never worked for us either. I have a coworker who it did work for but her DD took forever to fall asleep with patting and she would often pull out a mat so she could lie down on the floor next to the crib and pat her back for hours. (?!?!?) um, that solves nothing, IMO, lol
-
E doesn't like to be patted! She turns her body, looks up at me, and cries even more, like WTF mom?! So i usually pick her up and bounce her just a few times to calm her and then I pet her eyelids and rub her head....it's usually enough to get her to close her eyes. It's like....a one minute routine. Then i can lay her back down and she's usually ok.
-
patting or rubbing dont work over here either
-
Patting doesn't work but rubbing does, but only as a routine thing, not a calming thing.
I have done naps at a center with kids who LOVED being pat to sleep, infants and toddlers alike. I think if you don't do it early on (like when they start rolling onto their tummies) it won't really work (for most kids.) They get into their routines!
-
@shopaholic: I rubbed his back and stroked his hair. It never worked to get him to sleep, because it was too much movement, but it did help get a screaming cry down to a just a little moan. I'd stop and he would lull himself to sleep very son after.
-
The way I understand it, patting eventually becomes a sleep cue. So you have to do it every time they're falling asleep at first. So it doesn't really "work" in the beginning because you're working on having them associate patting with sleep. But once they do, I hear it works really well. It definitely works on both of my kids. But we patted them to sleep every night since they were babies.
Reply
Subscribe to our newsletter
- Google Plus
- Stumbleupon
- Twitter
- Facebook
- Pinterest
- Favorite0
26 comments