To ask EXACTLY how you put your 6month to 1 year baby down for a sleep?

[StinkySaurus]

I have an 8month old and if you read the sleep board you will know she isn’t a great sleeper so I would really appreciate an insight as to how you all put your babies down for a nap and nighttime sleep.

What I have found on the internet and speaking to people always sound so vague. So I would really appreciate if you could share detail. So for example.... how long do you stay in the room when you put them in the cot? Do you put in the cot completely asleep or wide awake? Do you let them cry when they first go in and for how long?

Sorry for posting here but I’m desperate and tired and could really use the AIBU traffic. So wise mums and dads , please share as many details as possible and hopefully it will enable me to get some much needed sleep!

Thank you so so much!

Stinky - if you are sure you are getting the timing right for the nap and she is definitely tired, I would do your routine, put her in the cot awake and then shush/pat/jiggle her in the cot. She will cry because it isn't what she wants or is used to but she is fine with you there. If she gets really distressed pick her up and cuddle but put her back down as soon as she stops screaming.
If you are consistent you should see a big improvement within a week.

I feed him to sleep and then put him down in the cot and leave right away. I don’t believe in any of this ‘bad habits’ rubbish about sleep. During the day, he’ll sleep in the pushchair or car as needed. We don’t really have any strict routines and I’m busy enough and doing the school run and etc that he just cat naps as and when.

Day time naps were different to night time. DD hated sleeping in the day, still does in fact. But she desperately needed it. So I would wrap her tightly in a blanket, hold her really quite tightly (not enough to hurt her obviously!) Otherwise she would just flail around and her limbs would keep her awake! Dummy in, only for naps or of particularly tired so it was associated with sleep time. No eye contact otherwise she'd just babble at me. So hold her tight, dummy in, head turned away and then she'd get one hand out and play with my hair, off to sleep. In cot. Happy days. If any of this was deviated from, you could be fighting desperately needed sleep for hours. She would drop off in car or pram but would never have a good nap there.

Night times, introduced routine early, same every night, bath, pjs, into sleeping bag, bottle (replaced with story eventually) and into bed sleepy but awake. Sometimes she'd have a little whinge and a wriggle as she thought she was missing out on something but within minutes she'd settle down. If I ever did have to go back in to hee, I didn't get her up, just put hand on tummy, shh, shh, shh and left her again.

DD is 9 months and I've been doing the same thing since she was about 3 months. We do bath, bottle, story and then I put her in her cot while I talk to her softly, give her her muslin comforter then pat her on the tummy and say "night night DD", turn off the lamp while patting her and say "night night DD" again and then walk straight out. For the first month or so she would often whinge a bit and we would go back in and pat her again, saying "night night DD" until she calmed down - sometimes we had to do this a couple of times - but now she hardly ever gets upset, just turns over and goes to sleep.

Day time naps are a different story! I still cuddle her go sleep during the day.

I used pick up put down, takes some stamina and a plan to put it in place but once it kicked in it worked like a dream.

Whistle stop tour is you put baby down awake, if they cry you lift them and settle them - but dont let them sleep on you, when they have stopped you put them down again. Rinse and repeat.

The point is that they are learning to self settle, after a week or so we could put him down awake and leave him to settle with no crying.

Has your baby always slept badly? Mine sleeps beautifully, longest stretch is 7 hours now (4.5hrs 7.30-12 + 7hrs 12.15-7.15), naps are about 1hr (9.30am), 2hr (1.30pm), 30min (5pm). Then he doesn't for a few days or a week because he has a cold or he's teething or he's trying to learn how to say new letters or he's trying to crawl all over the bed... Then he goes back to sleeping well, with continuing improvement. I think if you've found something that works sometimes then stick with it and just ride out the short times when the baby needs you. A cuddle from Mummy won't always be the cure to all their problems, it's nice to offer it while it is.

Routine is very similar to the ones a couple of other EBF poster put earlier. At home I change nappy, clean vest or strip to vest, feed to sleep on the bed and then roll away. At night only he'll have had nursery rhymes downstairs and if he grizzles we go straight to the last one Rock a Bye Baby that he knows is the last before bed so he chills out. He wakes up slightly after half an hour to an hour, I race upstairs and turn him over so he knows I'm there, then he just keeps sleeping. If he has difficulty going to sleep because of wind / cold / whatever then I'll feed and then rock to sleep, put down and rub his back. When I go to bed I'll feed him most nights when I jostle him awake and then he'll sleep through until morning.

If he wakes up any more then I turn him over (he sleeps on his side or turns on his tummy, so I'll turn him to another side or his back) and rub his back. In a growth spurt he sometimes wants feeding again but usually not since he hit 6 months; if it's teething time then I'll put on anbesol liquid or if he can't have his last feed then he gets nurofen. In a bad patch he wakes up wanting a hug / turning over / feed at say 3 and 5, but we cosleep so it's not too bad.

Out and about he gets a feed then into his pushchair half asleep and walk, or put him in the sling and walk; if he stays awake in the pushchair then he gets some songs. Nap schedules change a few times at different ages, I found it hard working out when he wanted to nap when he moved from 4 naps down to 3 at about 6 months. I just kept an eye on his cues for a couple of weeks and then adjusted his schedule around the new times. We now start breakfast roughly 8.15-9, lunch 12.15-1, dinner 5.15-6; he's 7.5 months old.

Mine has just turned one. Until she was around 10 months I would feed (bottle) and rock her until fully asleep and then pop her down. Then one night she suddenly was too big to be rocked and just wouldn’t let me rock her. PANIC! Since then I have bottle fed, cuddle, and then in cot with dummy in the mouth and one in each hand and off she goes. Sometimes a bit of whingeing but if she is tired she knows bed is a good thing and will usually go within 10 mins or so.
Prior to this she will have a bath, some weetabix (in the bath) or some toast (in the living room) and then jarmies, sleeping bag and bottle in her bedroom.

All babies are different tho!

Naps are similar, but now no bottle, just watch for cues (eye rub, certain type of whingeing, yawning) and then I tell her it’s sleep time and give her ALL THE DUMMIES, and a little cuddle/stroke and off she goes. Has to be definitely tired though!

DD1 you could just put in her sleeping bag and she would go to sleep.

DD2 from about 4-7 months I had to cuddle/rock her to sleep. Now she just gets put in her sleeping bag, has music light on and I leave the room. Sometimes she will roll around in her cot before finally sleeping, orhers she will roll straight to her front and go to sleep.

Forgot to add she is 8 months

Do you feed to sleep or does she have a dummy or anything like that? If she's waking up every hour it sounds like she's fully waking up between sleep cycles which is often (I've read) to do with having needed help to get off to sleep. There's an interview with the head of the St Thomas's sleep unit where he says "Don't do anything at bedtime that you are not prepared to do five times a night, including at 3am" - so like, background stuff like white noise, a blacked out window, a binky like this little charmer that's been stuffed down your top for the day so it smells like you - all those things are great if they help because they'll still be there in an hour and a half. Motion, dummies and milk are bad news because you have to be there to do it. There's still some babies of that age who wake up hungry in the middle of the night, specially if they're inconsistent eaters, but it's then usually like one time right in the middle of the night.

Mine took a bit of settling until I used a sleeping bag at 4 months.Put it in the cot,put her on it and do up.On the second night when I put her arms in she stretched them ,turned her head to one side and slept.We never looked back.We did have a dimmed light but I always turned it off when I left the room.

^Naps - put her in her cot, with a blanket and a comforter. Give her a kiss and leave the room immediately, pull door shut.

Bedtime - put in sleepsuit and sleeping bag. Has a bottle in her room in the dark. Burp. Put her down and walk out, pull door shut.^

This ^ since about 2 weeks old, now 2yrs and still the same minus the bedtime bottle

Italic fail!

Mine wouldn't sleep alone until 18 months. Between 6 months and 15 months I would breastfeed him to sleep and then lay him on the sofa next to me so that I could resettle him with just a hand the minute he started stirring. If I had put him in a cot he would either wake as soon as he touched the mattress or when he stirred (which was every bloody 15 minutes) he would have fully woken by the time I got to him. So, next to me on the sofa until I took him to bed with me and we co slept.

Naps I breastfed him to sleep then held him in my arms for up to 2 hours. Yes my house was a tip....

God I miss those days! haha

I fed mine to sleep for every nap and night time sleep until she was two. It was fast, simple and it worked without anyone getting in a tizzy.

My advice would be to do what works, try not to think about what others are doing and don't stress it'll be forever- it really won't.

@choccyhobnob and @m0reginplease, this is just what I needed to hear! Thank you.

And thank you to all others who have replied. Mumsnet really is a fabulous please. Thanks

@choccy if you don’t mind me asking, how did your LO become able to sleep alone? Did you help them do it or did they independently seek to do it? Thanks!

@stinksaurus no offence to the previous posters but when I used to read all those things about routines and how their babies slept for 4 hour stretches when mine woke every 90 mins for 18 months I just wanted to sob.

And apparently I just had to PERSIST with CIO and eventually he'd learn to self settle and I was failing him by not teaching him to sleep by himself..

Nope, nuh uh, wasn't going to do it and he eventually slept for 4 or 5 hour stretches in his own bed (NEVER the cot) and napped for 2 hours in the pushchair and he finally started sleeping through the night at 2 years old.

I'm not saying that what anyone else does is wrong just that it DOESN'T work for every child and however you get yours to sleep is absolutely fine and they all sleep eventually! As soon as I chilled out and accepted that there was nothing wrong with cuddling my baby to sleep and going to him when he cried and told everyone else to kindly fuck off with their advice on how to 'fix' him it all seemed much easier!

Good luck with whatever you decide to do

Ooh sorry I was in the middle of a speech!

At 15 months I got him to sleep in my bed then rolled away and put bed guards up and a video monitor for the evening and then he would sleep with me all night just feeding laying down then at 18 months I thought I'd try him in a toddler bed and did the same thing. He just started going longer stretches all by himself x

My one years olds routine has been the same for months now. Bath, clean nappy and pjs on, take him to his bedroom, short story with lullaby music on in the background, give him his bottle, star light projector on, wrap him up cosy, dummy, kiss goodnight and leave the room. He has a good wriggle and a babble (doesn’t cry) for maybe 10 minutes then he’s asleep.

Milk, put in cot, walk away. Start from after the sleep regression at 3/4 months. They get used to it very quickly. Best bit of advice was from baby whisperer I think: so nice to rock them to sleep when they’re newborns but imagine having to do it when they’re older and expect it and weigh much more!
It feels a bit unnatural and there is some crying but not too much upset. They are used to falling asleep anywhere from the newborn stage so really not painful at all. It really helps to get them to sleep through too. My brother on the other hand rocks his 2 year old to sleep and it takes AN HOUR every night! Really good muscles now though haha

I have had judgy looks and comments from other mums when I’ve mentioned DD is fed to sleep, she always has been and she is now 11 months. Naps and bedtime I sit in a chair in her room and feed her to sleep then put her in the cot and sneak out. HV told me off at her 8-12 month check up because apparently it’s bad for her teeth. I still brush them twice daily, I really don’t think it’s doing her any harm!
We have the same evening routine and if we ever deviate from it she always wakes up in the night, she is definitely a creature of habit. At 5.30-6pm she has her dinner (feeds herself and gets very, very mucky!) Straight upstairs, stripped off and in the bath. After her bath we don’t take her back downstairs, she goes in to her bedroom, pjs, clean nappy, lotion etc, sleeping bag on and feed in the chair with a story until she drops off. She is so used to this she cries desperately as soon as we try to get her dressed now and tugs at my top because she just knows it is time for bed! I never really believed the whole “routine is key” thing until I experienced motherhood for myself!

@StinkySaurus you're doing great. I went through long periods of never believing mine would sleep through, or go to sleep without milk. She is a fab sleeper now and got there all on her own. Just trust your instincts mama.