if your dc only slept when held, when did they grow out of it?

[CharlotteBronteSaurus]

....not like i'm desperate or anything.

Not long really guess around 5/6 weeks. I used to put DS in a sling and walk round with him.

hmm...
DD2 is 6 weeks and if anything seems to be getting more attached (if that's the word)
I am using a sling, but she's a heavy little monster and my back needs some respite.

Not until we started swaddling him. That was the only thing that worked (not a miracle cure - he still woke a lot and napped for 15 mins at a time in the beginning, but at least he didn't need to sleep on me). We put him in a peke moe from 9 months and then a normal sleeping bag. Now he sleeps ok (wakes up once or twice at night) in his cot (he is 14 months old).

If you need a break, you could think about a mechanical swing if you don't already have one. 8 wk old DS will generally only nap on me AND I have to be pacing around to keep him asleep. However, he will also sleep now in the swing or the pram, which gives two more options. No chance in the cot though, unless he is very very jheavily asleep and then he will wake at t he end of his sleep cycle (around 45 minutes).

I don't want to scare you but my first DD was the same and did not grow out of needing to be held for naps until we intervened at around 6 months and effectively just stopped doing it cold turkey - I had had enough and had come to the end of my tether. I sat with her patting her in her cot until she dropped off. She cried a lot, but it did work in the end. I personally wouldn't use that approach with a younger baby though.

I should add though that DS has reflux (as did DD) which massively affects their ability to sleep and settle. Things could be wildly different for you (.e.g, the transition could be much easier - I hope) if your LO doesn't have this problem.

thanks all
narmada, i think my dd2 came from the same mould as your ds. she needs to be paced up and down to nod off. I do swaddle her, and did pop her down this morning to grab a shower. I need to wait 20mins to put her down though, and then she wakes in another 20 . She will spend 10mins in a swing or bouncy chair, but only when awake and recently fed. I am working on getting her to nap in a pram or car seat, as this was a godsend for dd1, but so far this has been quite hit and miss.

Ah well, early days....

Oh dear, sorry to hear that charlotte. It makes for very hard work, especially if they are also up in the night a lot, AND you have another child. I remember very very well the waiting 20 minutes thing and then awake in another 20 minutes. You could set your watch by it. Hope you find something that works.

What I can say is that my terrible sleeping DD turned into a fabulous sleeper by 12 months, with a bit of sleep training admittedly but it was relatively gentle, not hours and hours of solitary screaming.

DS would only sleep in a sling between 9 and 14 weeks for us, then rocking him / feeding him and putting him down / pushchair / car started working.

After 3 months they stop going into REM sleep first (twitchy & easy to wake, lasts for 20 mins), and start going straight into a deep sleep which makes it LOTS easier.

thanks angel - it's good to hear you made it to the other side!

he's just growing out of it now at 14 weeks.

DS had reflux too, but got ranitidine for it, which really helped. He was a terrible napper (remember being extremely tired and feeling hopeless) until about 5 months, when he also did a freak 2 weeks of sleeping through (only now started occasionally sleeping through again).

CBS, do you use a dummy? I know it's not what some people want to do, but it really helped me to get DS to drop off again if he woke up too early from a nap (as did a feed).

Second the dummy.

Angel, that's really interesting about going into light sleep first. I have noticed with my new DS that he often goes straight into deep sleep - something my DD never did - it was always light sleep first. Thing is, he wakes after he comes into light sleep so we only get 30 mins out of him sometimes!

Toysrluv, we have ranitidine too :) and possibly moving back onto omeprazole as even at max dose for body weight it hasn't totally brought the symptoms under control. He still writhes and cries after feeds and squirms all the time.

Narmada- I think that would have been our next resort, but luckily ranitidine was enough. DS got off the meds at around 9 months, as I was too chicken to have a try before that (it's a living nightmare, as you know!). The dummy also helped with keeping his milk down and the saliva flowing, thereby easing the reflux.

Both of mine were like this (seems a long time ago now although it felt like forever at the time). Both grew out of it, dd1 by 7 weeks and dd2 by 5 months.

of all you dummy users
dd1 took a dummy, and it hugely aided her sleep. dd2 however has spat out 3 different brands, proffered on many occasions .

for those on the other side, did you need to do much training (for want of a better word) or did the change happen fairly naturally?

We didn't do any training. We did use a dummy at first, but DS wouldn't keep it in so I'd hold it in place while rocking / in car / pushchair, and remove it just as he was going to sleep. After a short while (couple of weeks) he didn't need the dummy and we ditched it completely.

If you'd told me at 12 weeks that it would end I'd never have believed you. Now DS (11m.) still needs help to sleep (rocking or feeding, although feeding doesn't work for naps any more) but he's easy to put down and is very reliable at sleeping at predictable times.

I'd say keep trying things which didn't work before, as you never know when they might start working again.

narmarda, yes the 30 min sleeps is really common in little babies.

DS would not take dummies either, but I absolutely insisted and I think he gave up in the end, although it took a month or two for him to really keep it in properly. We settled with the regular Mam latex dummies (size from 6 months, although DS was under 2 months old), as they stayed in the longest. Now he loves his dummies, but I try to restrict their use to sleeping and when nothing else works (it's been a life saver many times in the supermarket, car, etc...).

DS (14 months old) now puts himself to sleep at night and for naps (usually, anyways). We just put him in the cot and get out of the room. But, BUT, he wakes at night and sometimes settles with a feed, but at other times can be up for 1,5 hours and need to be cuddled to sleep (lately he's been not doing that as much as he used to, so maybe I can relax now.. oh, I daren't actually ).

ToysRLuv, my DS will often be up for 1.5 hours in the night - usually if it's during a sleep regression period. There's a regression around 12-13 months, and then a break till about 18 months, so if he's the same as my DS you can probably relax for a bit.

Sorry for hijacking thread a bit, but I seem to have jinxed it for myself.. Angeldog: DS was up for well over an hour last night, clinging to me like a little monkey (then went in his cot for 5 mins and called out again), and because I was absolutely knackered (I suffer from insomnia), I ended up taking him to bed. Granted, this is the second night at the grandparents', but he has generally been okay with it before, so don't know what to think.

So scary, as you never know whether it's a blip or a beginning of lots of reluctant co-sleeping (I hate it!). Don't feel like smiling at DS or even talking to him this morning. [resentful tired mother emoticon]

Hmm. I'd treat it as a blip, ToyRLuv - I think it takes a lot more to get into a 'bad habit'.

How are his naps? Was he in his normal routine yesterday?

DS did a lot of the 1.5 hours up when he was dropping from 3 to 2 naps. It's due to overtiredness - 3 naps was too many but 2 wasn't enough. If he had 3 naps he didn't sleep long enough at night, but if 2 naps, he didn't sleep long enough in the day. Overtiredness means they have high levels of cortisol in their system which can make them wake frequently and be awake for long periods at night. Strangely he's not doing it at the moment, although he's in the process of dropping from 2 naps to 1.

I find that if DS doesn't go off within 10 mins and is wide awake, it will always be 90 mins before he'll be sleepy again. There's some biological basis to this - 'activity cycles' are often an hour and a half long apparently. So I don't even bother trying to get him back off till approaching 90 mins after waking. I find that's less stressful for me - I lie and cuddle him (or let him roam around the cot / bed if he's happy). It's not sleep, but it's a bit of a rest.

Insomnia is hideous, and it's tough if you don't like co-sleeping.

OP, yes around 3 months things got a lot better (although still pretty awful to be honest but I'm desperately telling myself its because he's ill / growth spurt / teething)

Also a dummy refuser here but did start sucking his thumbs (yes both at the same time) around 3 months which helped loads. Took some days of angry flailing around hitting and scratching himself before he got the hang of it though.

I'm not giving the OP lots of hope at the moment, am I?

Albrecht: Yes, teething.. I can't wait until DS has got a full mouthful, so I don't have to consider that as a reason for bad sleep..

Angeldog: There is a two hour time difference and DS is also in the same position with your LO, transitioning to 1 nap with much difficulty. Yesterday DS was really tired by late afternoon, so put him to bed two hours earlier than I would at home, so he ended up treating going to bed for the night as his second nap. I then put him to bed again two hours after he woke again. What a mess. I just put him down for his second nap today and hope he will sleep (he seems a bit too chirpy though after having a 5 min snooze in the buggy). We really need to get back to some order (he seems to crave it now, whereas when he was younger, his bedtime window was a couple of hours long).

ToysRLuv, Oh, dropping a nap is horrible isn't it? Some babies do take a long time to adjust to only one nap.

I see what you mean about treating bedtime as the second nap. I think lots of babies do this.

On the positive side, even if being awake in the middle of the night is something which happens a bit more, I reckon it'll stop once he gets used to having just the one nap.

At the moment DS is getting up at 6.30 and he's napping for 30-35 mins at 10, and then at 3pm (I wake him after 45 mins but he wants to sleep for 2 hours!). If I don't wake him for the second one he won't go to sleep till 9.30pm or later; if I wake him I can have him asleep by 7.30pm. But it seems to be changing almost weekly after months of a short nap at 9am and a long one at 1pm.

The advice in the No-Cry Nap Solution is to keep two naps for as long as you can, but they still end up with insufficient sleep no matter what you do!

(Apologies, OP, for the slight hijack. :))