9 week old, nap advice.

[saltyair]

Hi,
I have a lovely 9 week old boy- we co sleep at the moment, due to his instant and firm rejection of sleeping in a cot, also because I am breast feeding and frankly, he was so very tiny when he first came home (4 weeks preterm) I didn't have the heart to not snuggle up with him! He generally only wakes once or twice in the night, except when in feeding frenzy mode...at night he will feed until he falls asleep, then will stay asleep when I move him next to me onto his bit of the bed. I am happy with continuing with this arrangement for the moment.

However, he did used to sleep in his Moses basket in the day time - I think when he was really small and generally quite dopey a lot of the time. Now he just won't...he wants to sleep on me or his dad the whole time.

I'm really after some advice about when and how to start encouraging him to nap in his basket or chair or whatever....At some point I will want him not to sleep in my bed, but I am also not sure when the appropriate time to do this is - thus far everything has been very much baby lead- bf on demand, napping when he wants, basically going to bed when I do....

Am I setting myself up for years of sleep difficulties?

Thank you

No. You're not. At this age, naps are more important than how they get there.

I speak as a mother of two nap resistors. The first is in his bed having his usual two hour nap (he's 2.6 years) and the second is napping on me right now.

As your baby gets older you want them to nap in all sorts of places - car seat, pushchair, sling so you can get out and about easily. I didn't really tackle cot naps until ds was older - 6/7 months and he was having more predictable naps. I'll do the same with dd (she's 5 months). I would

Whoops, fat fingers! I would put ds down in his cot once asleep then gradually worked backwards to putting him down drowsy then awake.

I got so stressed about cot napping but looking back I don't know why when it was easier when they were a bit older and could cope with the odd missed nap if I couldn't get him in his cot.

they are only sleep problems if you think they are which you don't seem to :)

they are all different, my dd screamed to sleep for months no matter what I did. ds2 currently falls asleep on all the school and nursery runs for his daytime sleeps and co sleeps at night, he is 9 weeks too. ds1 might be more the sort of baby you are hoping for. He co slept at night but around this age started going to sleep around 7 so we popped him in a cot and after a few days of cranking up the mobile regularly was merrily going off to sleep in there and coming in with us on waking. By 5/6 months he was sleeping through unless ill/teething so that was it. He only slept on us for naps until around 5/6 months when he started going for naps in his cot, I can't remember how that happened, I think he just started going to sleep when I popped him in his cot to play while I had a shower in the morning and hey presto that was it. I used to put him in his cot a lot though, he liked it and we were in a small flat so he got put in there while I showered/went to the loo/hoovered etc and used to just gurgle away happily. I'd quite like to nudge ds2 into going down earlier in the evenings at the moment so I can possibly spend time sitting on the same sofa as dh but frankly I don't know how to do it without effort and tears so I can't be arsed, I'll just keep snuggling him for a while longer .

Ooh, should have said, he does also nap in his sling, pushchair and car seat. The ideal would be that I could stick him in his Moses basket..I don't mind too much about him going up to his cot.

Thanks for that Iggly - completely agree that napping is more important than where, we had a day yesterday where he just would not nap and he was SO CRANKY! To be fair, he did spend all feckin day feeding, so couldn't fit a sleep in.....

Good idea to use cot as a sort of playpen whilst doing other stuff. I think in my head it is For Sleeping In.

Consequently it is being used as a handy extra clothes airer!

I'm happy with the nighttime snuggling and I certainly don't want any unnecessary crying!

I have always taken the view with my 7 month old DD that I would do whatever it took for us all to get the best sleep we could at the given time, and not worry about forming bad habits that may never eventuate.

What I have found is that we will find something that works for a while and then she would get to the next stage and we would organically find the next thing that was right for the next stage. At 6 weeks we were lying down with her and cuddling her off to sleep; after that I bf'd her to sleep; at 5 months we were co-sleeping to get over awful jet lag; then when she started treating that as an open bar we rocked her off and put her in her cot; at 6 months we did gradual retreat as she was waking often and couldn't self soothe; and tonight I am going to try and drop one of her night feeds .

So what I guess I am trying to say in a rambling kind of way is just go with it and don't worry about the proverbial rod. Deal with any probs if they happen, but don't spoil the pleasure of enjoying your little one worrying about what might not even happen.

Oh and btw, my DD slept well in her moses basket at night, but never slept in it in the day. I did start putting her in her cot during the day for naps when she was quite little to get her used to it, but I never forced the issue. It was more a case of putting her in there when she was already asleep.