How on earth do you get your baby to bed

[sadieeee]

Without rocking or breastfeeding? I see so many articles suggesting just putting yout baby down when theyre tired but when my 5MO is tired it takes breastfeeding and/or rocking and cuddling to get her to a stage where she can be put down. I do wake her slightly before putting her down, to get her used to falling asleep alone, but when comes the point she just drifts off by herself?? After her regression we tried Feber method and it just did not work at all for us.
FTM and just curious other mums experiences!!

My daughter turned 2 in March and I rock her to sleep in a rocking chair.

DrOwSy BuT aWaKe

Dunno.

Neither of mine have done it until way over 5 months 11 month old DC2 still hasn’t.

Mine falls asleep on me when she is tired. Sometimes she has a little grizzle but only for a minute (her tired wimper is pretty cute really). She is a peculiar thing, she likes her bum patted, and "it's a long way to Piccadilly" sung on repeat. I play the guns and roses lullaby playlist which sends her to sleep if she's almost there. She wakes the second I put her in a cot by herself though, a proper velcro baby. For long naps it's the carrier and we co-sleep at night. It's much harder to get her down if she's overtired.

Took me a month to achieve - started at 3.5 months. Bit of context - before that I'd been breastfeeding to sleep. But that was becoming less successful as baby was waking when I tried to move from breast and would get upset. DP could rock baby to sleep, but baby hated it if I tried to rock him. So felt we needed to make a change.

From that point on I fed baby then kept him awake by taking him off breast as soon as he'd finished then read him a short book, then turned off light, picked him up for a cuddle and sang lullaby - and then immediately put down awake into next to me. The first few nights I had to practically lie in the next to me beside him (my arms around him as if holding him) and I must have sang the same couple songs on repeat about 400 times!! Took about 3 hours for him to go to sleep the first night. Gradually he went to sleep quicker and with me just patting him rather than 'holding', then with me just sitting near, then with me quiet rather than singing. After about 4 weeks I could put him down awake and walk out room and he'd happily settle himself within a few mins.

Sorry that's a bit long winded but I know I'd have appreciated someone telling me it took that long as it was a very long month of me spending my evenings in a dark room singing twinkle twinkle. But I'm glad I persevered.

Rocking or feeding here…

We did a combination of two things:

Rock to sleep, worked out how long it took and then reduced by 10 seconds every night until we were down to 0

From around the 60 second to 0 second mark, they weren’t asleep when they went down so we did Ferber light - Ferber if they were wingeing, if they were proper hysterical crying we’d go in and do the same window of rocking. Repeat as necessary

Took fucking ages but touch wood have two decent sleepers now (2yo and 3.5yo)

I would also say that I’ve heard there’s no point in sleep training, even gently, before 6 months as their brains can’t understand it and it just upsets you all with no potential gain.

Feeding to sleep is normal. So we do that. At about 18 months my eldest decided to stop the feed before they fell asleep and ask to be put in the cot. They just did it themselves. My 12 month old is not there yet but now will roll around the bed for a while sometimes and fall asleep on the mattress and then I transfer once asleep. Not every night, sometimes they still feed to sleep.

Whatever works for you. If you don't need them to go to sleep in their cot alone then don't force it.

Fed to sleep till I can’t remember when here, then cuddled/ rocked/ sang for AGES after that. Also contact napped and coslept and all that other terrible stuff we’re made to feel is so bad for them.

The only issue I ever really had with it was when I let myself be led by hearing/ reading the narrative that it’s the wrong thing and I SHOULD be putting her down drowsy but awake blah blah blah. When I wasn’t doubting myself and my parenting I was actually pretty happy to be doing it (and a tiny bit gutted when she just randomly decided she didn’t want cuddling to sleep anymore - I still had to be there though, and still do now at nearly 4 but again it’s not a massive deal to me provided it doesn’t take too much of my evening which it usually doesn’t).

I never wanted to do any kind of CIO/ sleep training, just not for us. I did try to do lots of things around building different sleep associations though, with fairly limited success I have to admit! I probably should have been more committed to it - I found Lynsey Hookway on instagram and her stuff about habit stacking to be helpful - worth a look.

Dd1:

Fed to sleep until it stopped working.
Rocked/sang to sleep until that stopped working.
Lay baby in cot with hand stroking/pressure on back.
Spent hours in this uncomfortable position wishing that feeding to sleep still worked.
Eventually withdrew gradually (disappearing chair) would sit in hallway with iPad and just my feet poking through the door.
Eventually didn't have to do that any more, just go back every five minutes for requests/water/need a wee etc etc.

Dd2: feeding to sleep still works!!!!!! 😂

I fed and rocked to sleep, up until about 7 months was always breastfed to sleep, then as she didn't want so many feeds one nap would be rocked instead
Then she dropped breastfeeding and refused it at night as well so I moved to rocking
It doesn't affect me as she sleeps through, or on a day time nap she'll sometimes sit up, just take her comforter and go back to sleep, so I know she can 'self settle'
I enjoy her falling asleep on my knee and putting her down asleep, she's not going to be little forever and she's still able to sleep on the go, at grandparents and nursery so I know she's not dependent on it
Sometimes she's not settled on my knee so I've put her down and she's rolled and gone to sleep so hopefully when she's bigger/it gets less comfortable to sit and rock her we can work on this
But 5 months is super young if feeding and rocking is working do you need to change it :)

I didn't. I fed and cuddled him to sleep every night until he was over one year old and then we night weaned and sleep trained.

Similar to other PP I just did what felt natural. For us, that was feeding to sleep until 3, then cuddling to sleep until around 5. Then, on nights when she wasn't over tired, I would have jobs I needed to do so I would go to do them but I'd stick my head in to check on her. It started every 2 minutes but then got to the point that I can have a chat and a cuddle then say good night and she's happy to go to sleep.

DS fed to sleep until 2 and needs cuddles to sleep. If he wakes he needs a cuddle - he doesn't like being alone. He's 4 and we are continuing with this until he is happy to be left for a short time. Then we will get him used to falling asleep alone.

It just felt right for us to do it this way.

I have no idea. My son is 11 months old and has always fed to sleep. If I put him down awake he will just cry and makes no attempts to self soothe. Maybe some babies can go to sleep on their own but not mine.

Alot is babies temperament I believe.

I posted a little while ago asking the same (baby is 4months) . Honestly? I just kept trying to put him down independently every nap and it just worked one nap then continued. He does prefer being put on his side.

He still needs help the odd nap but it's 80/20

I honestly think it depends on the baby.

DD1 was rocked at night until around 12 months but would fall asleep on her own for some naps.

DD2 has fallen asleep independently at bedtime since around 8 weeks old. Might occasionally need a little pat but not picked up. I do stay in the room until she is asleep though. Doesn't do it for all her naps though.

I would recommend the book the baby sleep solution by Lucy Wolfe. It's a gentle stay and support method. Also white noise and black out blinds this time of year if you don't have it x

Nearly 15 month old son and still feeding to sleep! I’ll be using it until the super power doesn’t work anymore. He does nap well at nursery so I know he can do it without me, but it’s the quickest way at home