teaching baby to fall asleep on her own

[nicg85]

My dd is 7 weeks old and since she was born I've always let her fall asleep on me first before putting her in the Moses basket. I don't think she would fall asleep if I put her in her basket awake. Am I wrong for doing this? Will she always rely on me to help her fall asleep if I carry on doing this? Do you think I need to start letting her fall asleep on her own? Any advice would be appreciated. Thanks :)

[Touchacat]

You can always try it but at 7 weeks she's pretty young and will probably want comfort and security to fall asleep. Don't worry about it too much, just enjoy the snuggles at this stage. I have my six month old asleep on my lap as I type

[lilac3033]

Don't worry about it now. She's tiny! DD was like that, once she got to like 4 months I started trying to change it. She won't always rely on it, check out the idea of 4th trimester. It will probably reassure you that she's totally normal!

[nicg85]

Aww thanks that's put my mind at ease. I love our snuggles but was reading something on the internet that from 6 weeks I should try letting her sleep on her own. Thanks for your replies

[We3KingyOfOblomovAre]

I can't remember when I started. But with both ds's I put them down for the night, but also for day naps when they seemed sleepy. That seemed to work ok. It's a no crying technique, but kind of encourages self settling. You could at least try that?

[thenewaveragebear1983]

Try it. She might, she might not. Don't let her scream if she starts, but often I lay my ds (11 weeks) in his crib while I tidy up or put washing away upstairs and he falls asleep. Its easier if they're scheduled to some extent so you know if they're likely to be tired or not. While I wouldn't suggest it for every baby at this age, if they can get into the habit young it does prevent having to sleep train when they're older.

[LaurieLemons]

No harm trying it, she won't make the connection for a long time so don't worry . They normally suggest putting them down when they are sleepy but not asleep iyswim.

[kaymondo]

I started putting both of mine down awake at around 8/9 weeks. If they cried I would comfort them (picking them back up if I had to) but as soon as they stopped crying would put them back. After a few nights of them going in and out the crib a few times they got into it and would just drift off with me sitting on the bed. After a few nights of that they were happy for me to leave them. I know I was lucky really and this approach may not work for everyone but worked for us. Getting them to sleep on their own in the day was much more of a struggle though! Now having dc3 and, as this will be my last, I'm going to enjoy the sleepy cuddles as long as I can!

[IndomitabIe]

I thought about doing the same when DS was tiny. But it was ludicrously traumatic (and ineffective) for all of us.

I went back to work before he was 6 months and I desperately needed as much sleep as I could get. It became apparent that feeding him to sleep got us all back to sleep much, much quicker.

So we went with it. And sometime after his first birthday he stopped falling asleep and instead would be happy to be put down in his cot. He did it himself when he was ready.

And not too long after that he (finally) started sleeping through.

Maybe if I had persisted we could have got him sleeping through sooner, but it was so awful I couldn't do it.

[nicg85]

Majority of time she falls asleep whilst feeding so it's hard to put her down when she's sleepy. Also she nods off very quickly. One minute she can be wide awake and the next she's asleep. I will try putting her down whilst awake soon as I don't want her to rely on me to get to sleep. Thanks

[CityDweller]

I really wouldn't worry about this yet. DD always fell asleep on the boob, so was fed to sleep and put down asleep until I started gently teaching her to self-settle at about 6 months (which she got within about a week). DS, on the other hand, rarely feeds to sleep and is quite happy nodding off on his own (he's 10 weeks old). It's just the way they came!

[nicg85]

Thanks citydweller. Maybe it's because girls like more cuddles with mummy than boys do

[Gillian1980]

My DD started going to sleep drowsy in her cot from about 12 weeks ish. Once she worked out how to suck her thumb she was sorted before that she wanted cuddles as comfort.