How do you put your baby to sleep?

[sthitch]

My LO is 10 weeks old and I have realised I’m probably not helping myself when it comes to sleep time. She has her bottle and as she’s dreadful at winding, she ends up on my chest for 20mins or so bringing up wind/sick and then drops off and gets put in her cot.

Thinking about it, she mostly gets rocked or cuddled to sleep throughout the day, something I need to reduce in order to help her to do it on her own.

So I was wondering, how do you put your baby to sleep? Also any tips on putting her down on her own? Occasionally she will wake when putting her in and will wiggle around for 15mins or so, lose her dummy numerous times and eventually drop off, does that count for self settling lol?

10 weeks is so so little still, she shouldn’t be learning to self settle at this age. Keep cuddling , rocking , replacing dummy etc. We were lucky, our DS1 started to settle himself at around 5 months.

Easiest tricks I learnt when transferring from one of us back into cot / Moses basket, was to ensure their bed was warm so it wasn’t a shock going from warm parents chest to a cold bed - especially if they had been up feeding for a while. Keep a hot water bottle on hand to pop in and warm the sheet before you pop her down.
Also, if you haven’t learnt it already, the floppy arm trick was invaluable to me! Don’t even think about putting her down again until that arm is floppy! When it is, she’s in a deep sleep!

My LO is 11 weeks and we feed / cuddle / rock to sleep , she is number three and we did it with the others too . Eventually when they were around a year or so they started to self settle . I've always been of the opinion that if it didn't take all night and it's the quickest route to sleep then do it

I found learning the signs for early tiredness cues really helpful - babysleepconsultant.com.au/tired-signs-vs-over-tired-signs/
Then I could put our LO down before he got over tired and fractious. He's 15 weeks now and his tiredness signs have become a bit more subtle but we're also getting into more of a routine now.

I used to rock my dd to sleep every night and then around the same age as your little one I decided I didn't want her to become dependant on getting rocked every night.

We decided to try letting her go off in her own so, we gave her her last bottle, winded her then put her down and left her in the crib. I stayed in the room with her and if she cried I picked her up but we were really lucky and she looked around a bit then fell asleep and she's done the same ever since.

They're all so different though, I wasn't expecting it to work tbh cause she was so young but thought it was worth giving it a try. Does she always struggle with winding or just with her last bottle cause she's sleepy?

I used to put both of my boys in their moses baskets during the day while they were awake rather than just when it was nap time. If i wanted a shower or to do cooking/ cleaning i would. I think it helped them get used to it and they would go in there awake and fall asleep after a bottle. My youngest had a dummy now and again for a few weeks, and they both always liked soft music being played

Rocking, boob and cuddling. They self settle when they’re developmentally ready to do so, so until then, just provide Love and comfort to help your dc to sleep.

What you’re describing with the dummy is what my DD would do from that age. From around 10 weeks old I would breastfeed DD in our room (where she slept in a crib) at bedtime and after winding, put her down to sleep. She’d inevitably wake as soon as she hit the matress so that’s when I’d use the dummy to settle her, rather than picking her up and rocking to sleep etc. I also played white noise. That’s not to say that would always work - some nights she would start to cry so I’d pick her up and rock her to soothe her and then put her down with the dummy again. I found she got better at just going to sleep with the dummy and needed picking up less and less as she got older. From about 4 months old she could reliably be put down fully awake at bedtime (with dummy and white noise) and go to sleep on her own. Winner!

To address your concern about daytime naps, for me these were always more tricky than night time sleep. Probably from about 10 weeks again I’d try to replicate what I was doing at nighttime by putting her down in her crib with the dummy and white noise. It often didn’t work so I’d end up taking her out in the pram or breastfeeding her to sleep. It didn’t do any harm to how she went to bed at night so don’t worry. Just do whatever you can to get them to sleep in the daytime! Sounds like you’re doing a great job.