Negative Associations

[pablopatito]

So our baby is 60 days old today. We threw our copy of Gina Ford away when he was 5 days old. We basically do whatever we think he wants to get comfy/asleep. This normally means being in the sling with a dummy, but occasionally he prefers to be in his pram (normally rocked back and forth) or his cot. This is only during the day, at night he's always slept soundly in his cot. I figure when he is this young he's too young to learn negative sleep associations so we just concentrate on making him comfortable so that he gets enough sleep. He's always struggled with wind and I think being in the sling has helped him with this. But at what age should we start trying to 'teach' him to sleep on his own in his cot, or to settle himself to sleep?

Does he go to sleep in his cot on his own at night - or do you put him in their asleep?

I'd say about 6-8 months, depending on how you see his cognitive development is progressing. 2 months is pretty young, IMO.

DD was claustrophobic from the get go - she even hated the plastic cot in hospital and being swaddled or in a sling, and couldn't stand the Moses basket for a minute, so we let her be our guide, as we will w/the next one.

Not before 6 months. He won't get it beforehand. Unless it's having a huge negative impact on your life, you're right (imo) to be guided by ds at this age.

He's normally awake when I put him in his cot at night and normally likes to suck on his dummy and watch his electric mobile for a while, he also usually likes me to hang around for a while and give the odd encouraging sssshh or tap on his chest.

dd (8wks) settles herself to sleep in her cot or pram, whether I am there or not. I love watching her playing with her hands and slowly nodding off. She is really contented, secure and an easy baby and I am very lucky I know BUT imo the sooner the better they get into this habit. If she falls asleep while feeding I often wake her slightly before putting her down just in case she gets into the habit of "feeding to sleep"
We do use a dummy though, so not perfect by any means, I just learned from my mistakes with ds.

I think it sounds like you're on the right track anyway. I wouldn't regard any of that to be a negative association - you're just letting him know you're there if he needs you which at this age (well, at any age!) is a good thing, not something you should be worrying about

"He's normally awake when I put him in his cot at night and normally likes to suck on his dummy and watch his electric mobile for a while,"

In that case I wouldn't worry about it too much, he's not going to be sleeping during the day forever, whereas he'll ALWAYS have to sleep at night (unless he works nightshifts LOL). So the fact he sleeps in different places during the day isn't really a problem (and having had one DS who was a difficult sleeper and once he 'did' sleep was only in the cot) I'd say it's actually an advantage. It's lovely being able to take DS2 places and know that he'll sleep while we're there - DS1 became rather 'reliant' on his cot/bed.

I agree with QoQ if you are putting him down awake at night and he's going off OK then I wouldn't worry about the daytime. It's much easier to have one who can sleep other places in the day time. With my dd2 we could just cuddle her in a certain way and bang! she's be alseep and it was sooo handy! Even now (she's 5) she goes off to sleep in a second. dd1 was always much more trouble because I fed her to sleep for a year and she woke at least once in the night for about 3 years!! Those were the days