I see so often in guidance to put baby in their cot ‘drowsy but awake’ to help them drift off by themselves. But so often this advice doesn’t say what to do next, if baby won’t drift off, or starts to cry.
We have a 16-week old who I suspect is entering the 4-month regression and we want to try to mitigate it as much as possible, but also lay some good foundations for later.
Until now, we had a little routine of nappy change, pyjamas, then a feed (breastfed, but has a bottle of expressed at night most nights). Baby would often fall asleep very quickly after the feed and we’d transfer to bassinet. Baby was getting 6 hours in a row for the last few weeks (then a few hours more after a feed), which I thought was good as they’re in the lower percentiles for weight.
Should we start trying to put baby down while still drowsy from the feed? But what should we do if it isn’t working? Usually one of two things happens: baby seems to wake up and just sort of stares at us, and patting and shushing doesn’t seem to do much. After a bit we pick them up, rock etc. and put back asleep, like we would after the bottle.
Or, we put baby down and they immediately start to cry, sometimes even before we’ve actually laid them down! Do you pick them back up in that scenario? Or leave them for a bit? For how long? This is what the advice never mentions, just ‘put them down drowsy but awake’ and it always implies they’ll just drift off themselves.
Any advice appreciated! What we had been doing before was kinda working for us, but the regression scares the crap out of me and all the advice around it seems to centre of this idea of teaching them to settle etc. but isn’t a full ‘how-to’ guide.