Baby Whisperer - Pick Up/Put Down method

Has anyone had any experience/success with this method of training babies to sleep? I started with my 7 month old last night. It's quite traumatic for baby and parents!!! Please share your stories if you have any...

Hi, hang in there :)

pu/pd didn't really work well for us, shush pat was better, but holding my son's arms down (like being swaddled without the blanket) without eye contact or talking worked really well for us from 6mths to 9mths. Our son was swaddled as a baby and we found that he was waving his arms and fussing and making it more difficult for him to fall asleep. Haha there was even one night when he first learned to clap and kept clapping while he was trying to sleep!! at 9mths i found myself holding him down for close to 2hrs!! (read my post about it here: http://milkmonsterlaughs.blogspot.com/2007/10/sleep-dance.html) by 10mths i was pregnant, alone (hubby was traveling for work) and suffering from all-day sickness and really suffering at bedtimes so out of desperation i tried Crying it out (which i previously said i would never do). Here is what happened:


1st night - I stayed in the room with him. I put him down, turned off the lights, I would then lie down on the bed, he would stand up and cry, i would wait 10mins put him back down and tell him it's bedtime, i repeated this for 2hrs until he finally fell asleep. it was brutal...hubby was on webcam the entire time for emotional support.


2nd night - after discussion with hubby we both agreed that me being in the room was harder on the baby bc when he saw me, he would cry harder. so we decided for me to leave the room. he was down in 30mins


3rd night onwards baby was down within 15mins. same for nap time.


I have to clarify that during this time i never let him scream-cry (which i would come to him right away and lay him down) he looked like/sounded like this: http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=3565875192&oid=2298578326 (my friend very kindly took a video of her son falling asleep so other moms could reference) i didn't take him out of the crib even when i was comforting him but i would hug him while he was standing up before i put him back down.


in retrospect, the arm holding worked really well but only until i became the distraction.


now my son just turned 1yrs and often will talk himself to sleep and on one or two occasions will be asleep before i leave the room.


having said all this i still think each parent should only do what they are comfortable doing. had i not been feeling so sick, i still may be doing a 2hr bedtime routine, who knows. just my experience for your reference. good luck and hang in there! Who knew it would be so tough! haha and apparently it just gets more challenging...??? lol

We did the old fashioned:

- Let baby cry 8 minutes.

- Go in very briefly and quietly and say shhhh. Do not pick put.

- Repeat until baby falls asleep. This can take a good 40-50 minutes the first days.


Worked fine with our kids. Of course, the withering arguments between their parents weren't always so much fun. ;)

Did any of you have a nanny at any point to look after your kids or calm them?

what do you mean? in general? during the sleep training?

Not sure who the question from purefit is directed to, but no, I don't have a nanny/helper. just me!! haha which would explain my desperation at times :)

"Did any of you have a nanny at any point to look after your kids or calm them?"


Not at night no. But yes our babies have had nannies/helpers most all the time. Mummy working and all that.

I just breastfed my girls to sleep. They stopped when they were two. So easy. After that one wanted me to sing her to sleep (maybe two songs) and with the other I'd just sit there for a minute and she'd be asleep.


Look at Elizabeth Pantley's website for some other ideas.

Hi Sashimi


We also utilised the baby whisperer ideas, especially the part of telling our our little man what we were going to do, step by step (even when he was a baby).


Yes, eeekkk we chose to let our LM cry for 40 mins the first night (this of course doesn't kill him - though DH and I felt like we were being tortured) then the next night, he cried for only 20 mins, then 10 mins, then just a few.


Sure its really hard to have several evenings of what feels like hours of crying, however from that day on he knew what to expect and saved his crying for the times that were important.

When he did cry we timed the crying, for us it made us realise than although 10 mins feels like a 15 long minutes its just 10.


For us it was important to establish a night routine that could be fufilled by us, or nana or aunties (we were at home at the time) the bonus is that if you can guide your sweet babe to learn how to fall asleep by him/herself then you are giving them a valuable tool.



My suggestion is, whatever you choose, stick with it for your/hubbys' and babes' sake, otherwise your sweet baby will simply get confused and will not know what comes next.


Hubby and I agreed this is what we would do, if you cant get hubby to agree then I personally would send him out until you have the routine sorted. Baby Whisperer also has a website with

Q & A forums these may be of help for you.


I hope this helps, you are certainly not alone. Everyone has their own way, whatever you choose will be perfect for you and your babe. Good luck

well we are on night 4 and there was absolutely NO crying at all!!!! is this too good to be true??? i am prepared for some possible regression, but even if so, it is just amazing how much babies understand. :)

It always takes 4 nights, max. That's it! (I did it with my first, but with my second, like Ruth, I just BF her to sleep. So much nicer for everyone...)

Yay sashimi!!

"It always takes 4 nights, max. That's it! (I did it with my first, but with my second, like Ruth, I just BF her to sleep. So much nicer for everyone...)"


Our first took 12 nights. Our second took 3 nights.

I stand corrected. But that's the first time I heard of it ever taking it that long. Must have been brutal for you!

"I stand corrected. But that's the first time I heard of it ever taking it that long. Must have been brutal for you!"


Yes. ;) Our daughter is waaaaay stubborn. Also three months later she started doing it again. But it was easier to "fix" that time. She still tries crying when we put her in bed from time to time, for old time's sake.


We really wanted to give up a couple of times. But it was worth sticking with it. For her sake and ours.

pick up put down really works. its a bit back breaking in the begining, and baby actually does get mad when you put him down, but 3 -4 nights and he was falling asleep without crying. i used it for night time.


nap times are still a bit hard. he gets rocked or breaststfed(on weekends or whenever iàm home : (( )