Help with napping and nursing to sleep

[Mickyilly]

My ds is 14 weeks and relies on me to nurse him in to a drowsy state of sleep 90% of the time. He won't take a dummy and occasionally puts his thumb in to comfort and settle himself. If I try to settle him when I see the sleepy cues, he cries so much he can only be settled by nursing.

He's great when we're out and sleeps in his pram and car seat without being nursed. He sleeps v well at night (8.30-7.30 with one feed at around 4.30/5)

Am I missing the early sleep cues and leaving it too late for him to self settle? Am I creating a bad habit nursing in to a drowsy state? What did you all do and has it had any effect on your lo sleeping habits?

Any help much appreciated as I'm getting myself all stressed out about it! X

Relax. He's still so little! Keep going as you are I say.
I got very stressed about this when my daughter was little, but she really wouldn't sleep any other way, so in the end I stopped listening to all these "experts" and just did what worked. She is now 1, and has slept through since 7 months, and now self settles after a bit of chatting to take 2 naps a day.
Congratulations on your baby- you seem to be doing a fabulous job.

I agree - sounds amazing given the age of your LO. My DS was about 5 months before we really tried to tackle self settling, as we knew doing it before that would mean some tears. He was exactly the same in that he would sleep in his pram and car seat but needed nursing to sleep at night. Now he can self settle well for naps and at night, he's 6 months old. We swapped his bath and final feed over at night so he was going to bed awake but full. That seemed to be the key for us. Once he learnt to drop off on his own at night he did it in the day as well. It took about a week. Xx

Ahh thank you pinkpurplegiraffe. It's so difficult knowing what's best for them at this age. You want to go with your gut instinct but don't want to develop bad habits (if that's really possible at this age) and of course there is so much information from experts that contradict each other!!! X

Yes definitely keep going as you are. I also spent precious time worrying about this as well. At 8.5 months I did some gentle self settling coaching and she goes off herself.
There are still some protest tears (she's 9.5 months now so only been doing it a short time), but she does it eventually.

There was no way I could have got her to self settle at a younger age, she wasn't ready. By the way.
I used the same self settling method at 6 months and it failed completely. She was too young. At 8 months your baby will be completely different.

Enjoy it it's such a lovely time when they feed to sleep.

Goes by so fast don't waste any more time worrying please. Review at 8/9 months.

Don't beat yourself up over "sleep cues" and "self settling" it's just jargon created to sell books.

Thank you all for your support, it's what I needed to hear. Ds was put down sleepy but not asleep the last few nights. He seems to have found his thumb and used that to settle himself. I think maybe he is a bit too little to try anything further at this stage. Thank you so much for your reassurance x