Teaching DS to sleep in Crib

[Lilbonbon]

Hello lovely people,
I'm a 23yr old first time mum to a beautiful 12 week old boy.

The first few weeks have been pure survival but I'm now looking to develop a bit more structure - well as much as you can with a baby iykyk.

The current sleep situation is this:

Bedtime routine starts at about 6.45/7pm and consists of bath, baby massage, sleep sack, feed then bed.

DH takes DS at 7.30ish to his own room and settles him in his cot. DS usually sleeps until around midnight, DH stays up watching him on the monitor and settling him so that I can get some sleep.

DS comes into our room for a feed around midnight and then eats every 1.5 to 2 hrs until 7.45am when we all get up for the day.

The issue is that when he comes into our room, after I've fed him I try to settle him in the next to me crib, but he fusses and moans until I bring him into bed with me. And quite often we end up cosleeping, which I don't want to do and never have wanted to do, but it's the only way we get any sleep in the second half of the night.

I'm wondering if he is waking so often because he smells my milk. I'm also wondering if he will eventually settle in the crib if I leave him to fuss?

Or the other option is to let him sleep in his own room because he does seem to sleep well in there with little intervention.

I ideally wanted to wait until he was at least 4 months before moving him into his own room.

Has anyone been in a similar situation? Any advice would be appreciated.

For context we are also going through a breastfeeding fussy stage where he doesn't want to latch in the day and will only eat side lying straight after he's woken from his nap... not sure if that changes anything??

Bumping for you, as I have no answers, but hope other people who have been in this stage more recently can help under the current guidelines.

For a breast feed baby of that age he actually sleeps very well.

He should be in your room until 6 months minimum as part of safe sleep guidelines. Also by “fussing” hopefully you don’t mean leaving him to cry until he stops as that’s quite cruel, he’s 12 weeks old! His sleep sounds very normal and will improve on its own with time.

Thank you 😊

Baby shouldn’t be sleeping in a room in his own in the evening. He should be in a room with you to reduce the risk of SIDs, The Lullaby Trust is a good source of information on safe sleep.
For what it’s worth it sounds like he is sleeping well for a baby his age.

You are very welcome @Lilbonbon
I struggle when mine were little, and it was before MN was invented !

but I'm also aware that guidelines change so didn't want to offer advice that was no longer current. I hope things settle for you soon and you are able to start getting a little more sleep.

Im going to be really honest. Your baby is 12 weeks old. You’re getting 7.30-12.30pm completely free and then he’s waking up to breastfeed at developmentally appropriate windows of 1.5-2 hours throughout the night. I’m not sure why you want to push him. He will grow up and out of it in the blink of an eye. My firstborn (breastfed on demand) baby is 3 now and I’m due with my second in a couple of weeks. My 3 year old still co sleeps and we all sleep well. Never have DH or I ever thought to push him to sleep alone. We will be welcoming the new baby into our bed too.

Our first son did the first stretch of the night in the next to me until he was older, and the next one we plan to do the first stretch in the next to me until he’s older too. Mostly because when they’re really tiny it’s obviously a little safer to have them in their own space, although co sleeping can be done safely, we do like to start the night in the next to me.

We’re stopping with our 2 boys so this will be our last baby. I will never regret giving them all the comfort and closeness they need because one day they simply won’t need it. Our 3 year old sleeps through the night and only woke up for milk about once per night max 2 from age 1 until weaning at age 3, potty trained in 2 days at 21 months, is an absolute dream of a child. We always say we couldn’t have knitted him better ourselves. My point is, it pays off. It might be hard, but forcing independence on a dependent being will only be significantly harder. It’s like forcing certain naps when they’re babies, I did this with my first, forced sleep because I was scared of him becoming overtired and it honestly was the only hard thing in my motherhood journey. I’ve promised myself to not force naps on the next one. Following the biological needs of the child is much easier for everyone involved and please don’t mistake this with giving your child everything it wants, it’s a literal infant. Our son is well disciplined and well behaved, we don’t ‘gentle parent’ at all, now that he’s a toddler we just tell him straight but we respond well to his actual needs and have done his whole life and it worked beautifully. I enjoy motherhood far more than my sleep training peers.

This is not to brag but to encourage you not to immediately fall into the UK trap of pushing independence. Our son was born in Germany and it changed my perspective so so much.

Do what works and don’t moralise over it. It might not be what you planned, but it’s working.

I just coslept and it was/is great! Makes breastfeeding sooo much easier and we all get plenty of sleep. Did lots of research (Dr Helen Ball and Dr James McKenna are great) and got a good setup I was comfortable with.

I wouldn’t be leaving a baby of this age to sleep in a room alone, ideally not before 12 months (SIDS risk). And I wouldn’t leave a baby of any age to cry it out, if that’s what you mean by letting him “fuss” (bit euphemistic tbh).

Anyway, as others have said, your baby is sleeping really well! Hope you find a setup that works for you all.