Do you put your baby down to bed awake?

[MintSource]

I keep reading that this is crucial and would love to hear from those who have experience of putting their baby down to sleep while s/he is awake.

Baby Mint is running us ragged right now. He's 15 months and goes from bath/sleepsuit/milk to my arms (not rocking, just holding) and is asleep within about two minutes. Should I put him straight down after milk?

Do what works best for you at the time. Don't worry, he won't need you to cuddle him to sleep forever.

I think the issue is if you baby can not get themselves to sleep out of your arms. A sleep cycle is 40 minutes (I think) so if she's not waking you up this often in the night she can clearly get herself to sleep without your arms!

If she is waking a LOT in the night maybe it is time to try letting her fall asleep on her own (although for me that meant hanging over the cot half cuddling half not for a few nights).

I LOVE cuddling them when they are asleep which is rare as my son is 4 now.. Enjoy them while you can!!
K

No, my son is almost 12mo and I have never put him into his cot awake. I used to bf to sleep, now DP or I give him a warm ff bottle to sleep after his bath.

We have always coaxed him to sleep in the (mine and DP) big bed, then carry him through to his cot.

He has never had a problem sleeping through, except when teething.

Do what works for you.

My son is 9 months and if I put him to bed in either his cot or Moses basket he would just lie, talk and eventually cry. I bring him into our bed, lie down with him, feed him (bf) and he goes to sleep. Dh transfers him to a cot and he stays in there between 1-5 hours!! He spends the remainder of the night/morning in bed with me. I can't be bothered with anyone who tells me I should sleep train my baby! I just ask if they think I'll still have to cuddle him to sleep when he's at university

I've always put mine down awake from 6weeks onwards. I have found if I don't they wake in the night for resettling as well as feeding which is really tiring. I'd rather just get up for feeding. Depends if your baby sleeps in a manageable way for you- if not then it's worth a try but if you're happy don't worry.

My DD just started putting herself to sleep last week at 18months. She's started pointing to her cot when sleepy and asking to go in.

I always fed DS to sleep and I spent so long worrying whether he'd ever be able to self settle. When he was tiny he often ended up in our bed as it was easier to BF him to sleep (after vowing I'd never co sleep!) Now he's ten months, I sit him in his cot with a small bottle of milk and leave him to it. He falls asleep and wakes 12-13 hours later. I guess I'm saying don't overthink it. If it's working for you, don't worry about it! You won't be needing to hold him to sleep when he's 18.

I'm sure if you read a load of books they would say you should but I really would not worry about it at 15months!

I'm a CM and have looked after hundreds of children over the years. My DD settles herself sometimes and not others. However she isn't running us "ragged" like you said yours is.

Does your DC sleep solidly once they are off or are they up and down? Do they nap?

Fully agree with helpful hiker- do not panic over something you read, no two children are the same parenting books should be burned

Yep put both down awake 4 month old from day 1 and probably a little later with 2 year old but still less than 3 months.

Hi, my DC are 6 and 8 years now. We always put them to bed awake, from about four months when they'd found their natural pattern and we knew they were tired. I happened to read the baby whisperer book which ( despite the horrendous california title) gave v sensible advice about putting the baby to bed awake. There's also also a version of the book for toddlers.
I'm glad I found the book because I hadn't a clue and that time and it really helped us, they've always gone to bed awake and are happy alone in their rooms. Good luck.

We trained dd at 10mo, we sat next to the cot with a hand on her chest. She has a dummy, so tbh there was very little point because she would still wake up for that! She's 2.5 now and we still stay with her to go to sleep otherwise she would mess around.

I never did with mine. My sister in law tried to 'help' us do this when she came to stay but I knew I could never stick with it. She was like super nanny with her kids.

Too much crying so we ended up asleep in the same bed many nights at that age. No problem for us until they got far more wriggly and kept waking me!

What do you mean he's breaking you?

My DS (nearly 10 months) goes to bed awake and settles off to sleep pretty quickly with a dummy.

I put my 5 month DS down awake for the night and for (most) naps. He usually goes to sleep within a few min.

We started doing this after he was getting really bad wind pains from about 6 weeks and waking all night, so had to burp him lots after each feed which then woke him up, so he was going into bed sleepy but awake.

My DD is 7 months, and we do bath, pjs, milk, cuddles, bed. I carry on with cuddles until she's asleep and ten put her down. But when she wakes up in the night (usually only once around 3/4am) she rolls around and chats for about 10 mins and then just puts herself back to sleep. So she's capable of self soothing, the cuddles are just a nice, calm addition to her bedtime routine
I think all babies learn to self settle at some point without sleep training - does your DS settle himself trough the night?? If he does, the. I don't see why you need to stop bedtime cuddles

Never could put my DS down awake, so never did. He fed to sleep and then I would transfer him, until he was about 11 months and just stopped feeding to sleep. He then was happy to be put to bed awake but drowsy and then slept through from that day on.

What aspect of your DSs sleep/bedtime routine is causing the problems?

Not managed it yet with 5 month old. She cries and cries otherwise.
Toddler yes - she had a long phase of needing a hand held through the cot though.
I'd have thought that him being asleep within two mins of you holding him is good, unless you're having to do this if he wakes frequently in the night?
I have always marvelled at those who can put tiny babies down awake and they go to sleep - those babies brains must be wired very differently to mine!!

Nope never. I don't think there's such a thing as too many cuddles is there?

My first needed 10 mins of hand holding. The other 2 settled themselves from awake but tired. The youngest goes to sleep as soon as the light goes off.

I've never been able to put my dc to bed awake.it's either after feeding or cuddling them do they fall asleep.now i have a dd23 she is only just learning that the cot bed is her bed.i don't mind cuddling them because they grow so fast,u will soon be missing it.i would suggest you do what is most comfortable to you.

Yes I have put down awake since 5 months old. Before that I fed to sleep but started not letting him fall asleep on the boob and settled him in the cot with a back rub instead. I think it's much easier to teach this when tiny rather than as a toddler when they are set in their ways and strong willed.

I think if you have a baby who happily goes to sleep when you put them down awake, then it's a great thing to do. But if your baby doesn't know how to go to sleep on their own (which I think is far more common!), I don't think there's much you can do to teach them to fall asleep (you can teach them that there's no point calling for you if they want help at night but that's not something I wanted to do).

I'd read the same thing about babies not being able to get back to sleep in the night if they're in a different environment to when they fell asleep, but DS started being able to resettle himself (from fully awake) in the night about 11mo while I was still bfing him to sleep at bedtime. He's now 15mo and if put in his cot awake at bedtime will quite often roll over and doze off.

Wow. Thanks so much for all the great responses.

He sleeps brilliantly from when he goes down at 630pm until around 3am, which is something to be grateful for, I know.

In answer to the questions about how he is running us ragged, he tends to wake each night and have trouble getting back to sleep in his cot.

One night this week, he woke at 3am, I brought him down to the living room in dark and he went back to sleep on me - out cold - but when I tried to put him back in cot, he cried and sat up. So l lay on sofa with him on me and he slept until just after 5am. Sometimes I can sleep like that, sometimes not.

Another night he woke around 3am, DH did same thing and after the cot refusal DS did not want to go back to sleep, waking up properly within about 20 minutes and walking around/playing for the next three hours, despite my DH's coaxing.

I think we are getting up with him far too quickly when he wakes and of course it's disruptive to go downstairs to another room (we need chair in his room I think).

So I tried something new last night for the first time. I put him down in usual way but in early hours when he woke I let him make some noises (there was an initial cry out but not crying) and some babbling and I did not go in. He woke a couple of times doing this and then was back asleep within a few minutes. So we all got a good night's sleep . Going to try again tonight and hope it's not a fluke.

Obviously, if he is really crying, I will still go in but it has showed me that nothing terrible happens if he squawks a tiny bit and babbles "Mamamamama" and we don't leap to attention. In fact, it seems better when we don't.