How do you get your newborn to sleep?

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Do you let them fall asleep on you, shush/pat or just wait till they randomly drop off and them bung them in the moses basket/cot? We do a mixture of all 3 for my 2 week old. Are we making a rod for our own backs for when she's a bit bigger? It seems she's just too little for even attempting a routine.

I think the truthful answer to your question is 'whatever it took'..... :) My DS, fortunately, was a good sleeper but, because he had guts like a hot-air balloon, some evenings it took a lot of winding and patting before he'd settle. Seem to remember walking about with him draped over one shoulder quit often. Other evenings it might take a walk in the pram. One memorable evening we all went for a drive in the car!!!

I think the one thing that helped, however, (and I know the word 'routine' is a bosom-hoiker around here) was to start the bed-time wind-down at about the same time each evening. From memory it was last feed, winding, bath, little song or story, warm and dry in sleepsuit then down in the moses basket .... that kind of thing. It sort of didn't matter what happened during the day, or even how often he woke up at night, but the bed-time ritual was a fixed point in the day and sticking to it, I'm sure, made my life easier.

I think when they are that small you just go with the flow. I started trying to do the Baby Whisperer routine with both of mine from the start. Just trying to have a rough sequence of eat, awake time, sleep time. At first it was very, very hit and miss and the key is to not stress out about it (like I did massively first time around) but go with the flow. If you can't get her to sleep easily today, nevermind, you just try again tomorrow. Gradually as time goes on you'll notice that she is managing to self settle more and more.

Also, try not to worry to much if during a growth spurt any progress you make with her sleeping seems to fly out of the window, and its back to square one. It does get better again I promise!

Remember your 2 week old is very, very little still. Things will change such a lot over the next few months with her sleep, don't worry about it, it sounds like you have started off brilliantly.

Also, I think starting young with a bed routine is invaluable, like Cognito said.

Fed her to sleep, more often than not! Don't worry about rods and backs at this stage. You may need to "help" your baby learn to self-soothe at some point, but I wouldn't worry about that yet.

DD had a dummy for a while, and swaddling her and giving her a dummy was another useful way of getting her off to sleep. (She self-weaned off the dummy eventually, albeit with some encouragement from me).

was a good alternative to feeding to sleep....

2 weeks is far too early to be worrying about sleep problems and making a rod for your own back - do whatever you need to do.

Routine is something that you can sort out later :)

With all my 3 in the first 6 weeks or so I just did whatever seemed to work as I got to know their rhythms. Generally after after a couple of hours they would seem sleepy so I would swaddle and feed and hold on my shoulder and pat rock etc, or put in bouncy chair and rock it a bit, then when they fell asleep pop into moses basket / carry cot / pram, or they were just toted around in the sling while they slept. Evenings tended to involve much crying (both of us!) and patting and baby on lap while I tried to shovel in some supper.

Each time, by about 5 or 6 weeks I had a pretty good idea of feeding and day time naps, and evenings became much more routine driven - feed, bath feed, swaddle, bed. There is a big change in the first 6 weeks or so. Babies just seem so much more robust by then and more able to adjust to some sort of routine that suits both you and them. Looking back I think the first few weeks are just to be survived any which way you can and then as the fog clears start working on a routine. If you want to start a routine then I'd suggest you maybe jot down feed and nap times in a note book for a week or so and then start to work on the day time nap routine first - once the naps are in place and you know when your baby is likely to be tired the feeds follow.

A bed time routine is good - I did it with all mine from early days - they just didn't comply, i.e. after the feed, bath, feed, into bed at 7pm bit they started screaming and had to come downstairs and scream / cry / feed for the next 3 or 4 hours until we all passed out exhausted! The good thing was that when they were that little bit older I was already in the bed time habit and one day (about 6 weeks for all of them) they miraculously started actually going to sleep after a final feed at 7pm meaning DH and I had our evenings back.

thank you for all your sane, rational comments. It seems lack of sleep/ feeling a smidge overwhelmed with all this responsibility was getting to me. Am stepping away from google and will learn to trust my instincts a little bit more xxx

This is also all v useful for a 38 week pregnant first timer!

Cuddles, just lots of cuddles! Or feeding. She tended to fall asleep on one of us mainly. At 16 months we still don't worry about rods and backs and all that yadda.

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