Putting baby to bed to settle at 7.30-8.30pm

[softtouch]

The last two night my 14 week old daughter has slept through from approx 9pm to 8am. However, I have not tried putting her down in her cot whilst still awake to settle herself to sleep. She usually has a bottle (she is formula fed) between 7 and 9 and then falls asleep on the sofa - I then carry her to her cot at the side of our bed when I go to sleep. About 5 weeks ago she came back into our room from her nursery because she had a very bad cough that was waking her all night. I am very pleased that (fingers crossed) she has slept better at night but am unsure how to progress from here.
i don't know whether to try and put her down awake to settle herself or put her back in her room first - without ruining what we have achieved so far! Any thoughts??

If it aint broke, don't fix it, I say. My kids never bloody go to sleep as babies (though ds sleeps well now). If I had a 14 week old who slept 11 hours straight I would be dancing in the street with you and congratulating myself, not planning to change anything!

thanks for the advice - she's like a changed baby, she was waking 2-3 times a night up until two nights ago so i'm keeping my fingers crossed!

14 weeks is still very little so i wouldnt try and change anything just now either

you can worry about her going to sleep on her own at a later date xxx

I would definately say get her to go to sleep on her own. Ds is now 4 and from newborn used to fall asleep in my arms after last feed which then progressed to falling asleep on couch. He still falls asleep on the sofa now!! Will not go into bed to fall asleep, so i vowed not to make the same mistake with dd. From the start i put her to bed awake and now she is quite happy to go to bed on her own,aged nearly 2! I'm not saying its a big deal just now but you don't want to be in our position in a few years.

Lordy don't mess with ANYTHING if she's sleeping through the night!

The reason babies need to be able to put themselves to sleep is so that when they come into light sleep/have a brief awakening during the night, they can go back to sleep without help from you. It looks as though your DD is able to do that - no baby can remain in deep sleep for that long. So IMO you've got nothing to worry about.

You are so lucky! Really. The advice re cot death is to keep the baby in your room until they are six months old. You may not want to keep her with you that long, but there is certainly no rush to put her in her own room.

It sounds as if she's sleeping really well, and I tend to agree that if a thing ain't broke, don't fix it!

I breastfed my dd to sleep, and put her to bed asleep, every night until she was 2, which a lot of people thought would cause trouble later, but it really didn't. I'd carry on as you are and count my blessings if I were you!