I have a 4 month old, EBF. He's recently fallen into a bit of a routine during the day with two naps in the pram and one in the sling (so I can do older child's dinner).
He sleeps quite well at night so I am a) thanking my lucky stars b) worrying that it will all go wrong with the dreaded 4 month sleep regression and c) I know he knows the difference between night and day.
I am currently feeding him to sleep but I want to get away from that as for my older one I eventually had to do controlled crying and although it worked it wasn't fun. Also he's getting heavy so is hard to lower into the crib gently and has started waking up multiple times as I try to transfer him to his crib despite not really being hungry.
I'm thinking pick up put down might be the way to go at this age? It really didn't work with my older one as he just got crosser and crosser that I was picking him up without feeding him (i.e. I couldn't settle him by cuddling him) but he was more like 6 months when I tried it. So I'm hoping that doing it younger will help - any tips for making it work or any other techniques I could try?
Also, this might be a stupid question but how do I know whether he's crying/has woken up/is still awake because he's still hungry or because he's tired?? I know he's usually just tired because when I try to feed him he has a couple of sucks and goes back to sleep, but occasionally he has another properish feed. I know for PUPD and similar to work you have to do it with conviction and not give in in the end so I don't want to have doubts in my mind about whether he's actually hungry or not.
Any tips welcome.