Three month old sleep advice

[sweetbabyangel]

I wonder if any parents can offer advice please. I’m a FTM without much of a parent support network and I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed and confused about sleep and how I should be approaching it with my baby.
For context, I have a 3 month old baby girl who was a brilliant sleeper for the first couple of months and would drift off anywhere. As she’s become more alert and aware though, she’s becoming harder to put down to sleep and to transfer. We are doing our best to follow wake windows and her naps generally happen either in the carrier or she likes to be put in her soft Najell sleep carrier and bounced on a yoga ball, which also conveniently avoids the need for transferring her as she can sleep in it! She generally does a couple of hour long naps and some cat naps in the day. At bedtime, I’ll often feed her to sleep or bounce her to sleep and she does a 4-5 hour stretch, waking every 1-2 hours for the rest of the night. She needs quite a lot of movement to fall asleep, so I doubt she will be the kind of baby who’ll immediately take to going to sleep independently.
I know that all of this is fairly developmentally normal and my partner and I are happy to continue just doing what we are doing, but I’ve fallen into the trap of watching endless instagram videos full of sleep advice, and it’s making me question whether we need to be more actively encouraging good sleep habits? I know we don’t have it in us to do any CIO type sleep training (and we are not in a hurry for her to grow up), but on the other hand we do want to avoid bedtimes taking forever and tons of night wakes once she’s older (and potentially kicking ourselves for not putting good habits in place earlier).
If you’re a parent who has gently supported your child to be a decent sleeper, would you mind sharing your approach and any tips you learned along the way? My head is telling me she is still very little and to just do what feels right, but something about not having a plan is making me anxious. Particularly when I see video after video of these perfect mums placing their baby down to sleep independently!!
Many thanks in advance :)

There's a little bit of scientific research (can't find the study link, annoyingly) that can be summarised as "choose your hard". You can BF the baby to sleep at every night wake, and get more sleep at the beginning, or try to teach self settling early and get less sleep at the beginning (because feeding to sleep is very successful with little babies). But after 4-5 months, it switches round (babies who need to feed to sleep, wake up a lot and don't self settle because why would they want to when they could be fed to sleep?!). I would imagine it's the same for rocking to sleep. It's great until your baby weighs three times their birth weight and then you might wish you'd gone down a different route!

Anyway. That's a trend from a scientific study, may not apply to your individual baby.

I nap "trained" my baby by waiting for the first sleepy cue of the morning, popping baby awake in the cot while I went for a quick shower, 4/5 baby fell asleep and the 1/5 it was the world's quickest shower.

Sleep will change again around 4/5 months. 5h stretches with a 3 month old, especially if breastfed, isn't bad. You may find though, that is they start waking every hour, rocking or bouncing every wake loses its appeal. Mine got on very well with a dummy from 1-5 months. Partner would settle those wakes where I wasn't BF with the dummy.

Mine was fed to sleep with a bottle and had to be rocked if he didn't fall asleep on the bottle. He only started sleeping through the night at 15 months and that wasn't through anything I did, he just started doing it. To be honest sleep training shouldn't be started until they are 6 months anyway

If she does a 5 hour stretch that’s actually pretty decent and shows she can connect sleep cycles so I’d probably just carry on as you are and hope it gradually extends until she does the whole night. If she starts being difficult to get down or is up every hour from the beginning of the night then I’d rethink.

I have a 3 year old son, he generally sleeps through the night in his own bed. We've had plenty of hiccups along the way but whenever I've had a sleep issue that I've wanted to solve I've used the Huckleberry sleep schedules and Justchillmama on Instagram to help. I bought one of her courses and referred to it many times. It has helped resolve early wakes, split nights, etc. There's no need to do anything yet anyway as I think it's not advised to sleep train before 4 months. I have never sleep trained as such but by making sure I have a good schedule and am offering naps and bedtime at the right times things fell into place :)

https://huckleberrycare.com/blog/3-month-old-sleep-schedule-and-development

https://www.instagram.com/just_chill_mama?igsh=MTBtaXVxOHpobzQ3NA==

Hi, I have a 3.5yr old and 7 month old. What has worked well for me second time round at the more alert stage when naps aren't as straightforward has been daytime naps either in the carrier, or feeding to sleep and letting her sleep on me (so I can chill during them) but my husband soothing her and putting her down in the cot for the evening sleep. Now she's 7 months I've transferred away from contact naps to being able to put her down in the cot myself. I also do carrier naps when I'm out and about with 3 year old. I also deleted Instagram this time round! Really trying to just go with my gut and intuition this time. Some of the advice people put out there is so persuasive and I don't necessarily agree with now I've done it once before. Lots of interaction/stimulation/sensory exploration for baby during wake windows helps, I can tell when baby is ready for a nap/starts yawning and then she goes down easier, but equally I don't let her get overtired!
Anyway I hope that is helpful. FWIW I think what you're doing sounds good already! Don't worry about creating "a rod for your own back" what you're doing sounds fine and maybe get the person not breastfeeding to try putting her down in the cot sometimes. (If you are breastfeeding that is)

Thank you so much for sharing. This is really reassuring ☺️

Thank you! Can I ask, how did you transition from contact naps to cot naps with you LO? Did you just find that they were ready for it and started accepting them at some stage? My partner puts her down to sleep sometimes, but always with lots of bouncing or rocking. To be honest I think this is probably normal, I’ve just been so influenced by all the stuff I’m seeing online about, as you say ‘making a rod for my own back’ by giving her lots of contact and support to sleep, it starts to make you question your intuition doesn’t it? I think, like you, I may need to say goodbye to instagram for now. I thought it would be helpful and there are some great creators out there, but mostly it’s stressed me out! Thanks so much for your suggestions :)

I was often busy with the 3 year old while husband got the baby down in cot in the evening (so yes he did lots of bobbing etc) so baby must have got used to the cot. I did feeding to sleep/contact naps until 6 months and then started feeding her a bit and putting her down in the cot too. They're all different though, I think we're lucky this baby is more chill than my first. We didn't have to do any leaving her to cry at all, but maybe that is just her temperament. Hope that's helpful in some way, don't think there's any magic answer, what you're doing sounds good! Maybe get your husband to put baby down in cot for every bedtime while you put your feet up at the end of a long day? (Seriously!)

Honestly do what works for you and baby. Mine didn’t have a cot nap til she was over 12 months. We always responded and were present with her at bedtime and night wakes. I fed to sleep, we cuddled and bounced. At 18 months she started sleeping through and we never did any ‘sleep training’. consider deleting social media! It’s all a load of rubbish. Night wakes and support for sleep are normal for babies and toddlers

Stop watching the Instagram crap it's all for money and none of it works.

Just remember EVERY baby is different. What you have described is totally normal. At that age do whatever works there are no rules.

Just wanted to say hi in solidarity! My first born is now 3 and half months old and followed a similar pattern, great sleeper as a new born but then has become harder particularly with naps these past 2 weeks. Naps are now a very active process for us a parents!

I can't advise on the sleep stuff as I'm new to it too but I can recommend deleting or heavily restricting Instagram. It was seriously stressing me out and there's so much nonsense and conflicting advice on there anyway I honestly feel so much calmer without it.

I will also say that amongst my antinatal friends there are a gp, a paediatric Dr and a nurse. All of them are taking the "it works now" approach and are pretty dismissive of the sleep training/rod for your own back narrative. Think of it this way, why waste energy tackling a problem that doesn't exist yet? For example I was super stressed about transitioning out of swaddles, to the point that I questioned using them at all but little one has done fine in both transition suits and ordinary sleep sacks when needed, so I was worrying about a problem that never came to fruition and could have missed out on the ease and usefulness of using swaddles when he with newborn.

Honestly if what you’re doing is working, don’t rock the boat and change things for the sake of it. Go with your instincts and just do what works for you and your baby.

My DS was a total velcro baby. I actually don’t think I put him down at all for about the first 3 months, he would just cry. We contact napped and co slept and I fed him to sleep for every nap and at every night wake for a year plus, purely because it was quick and easy and we could all just go back to sleep. Basically I did the opposite of encouraging independence. I was considering night weaning around 18 months to encourage longer stretches but he actually just gradually started doing it on his own, and since 14 months or so (barring illness/teething etc 😅) has been doing a stretch of 10-11 hours in his cot overnight and another hour or so in our bed after a quick feed, which works fine for us. I was also so worried he’d never settle for my husband or at nursery, but he does with no problems.

It’s normal developmentally for them to wake frequently, and to need help to settle. Imo sleep training doesn’t teach them to sleep, it just teaches them that no one comes when they cry. You’re not making a rod for your own back, it sounds like you’re doing great 😊

Babies change all.the time, whatever works at 3 months, will be completely different at 7 months. I wouldn't worry about routine and habits now, genuinely it all goes out the window very soon anyway. Do whatever works to maximise sleep now.

Sorry I didn’t see your reply sooner! Thanks so much for your advice 🥰

Sorry I didn’t see your reply sooner! Thanks so much and I hope things are going well for you!