have three month old - how to get more sleep?

[benjaminsmum]

Hi my baby is three months old. up until today he has had a dummy but it was getting silly with me having to sit next to the cot holding it in for two hours before he ws properly asleep. Today during his naps he has slept on me insted of the cot. first nap he cried for an hour by the third nap he only creid for two minutes. i am trying to get him to attach to a cuddly in order for help him sleep in his cot without me being ther. has anyone treid controled crying on this age baby and if so how much crying was there and how long did it take to work? he currently sleeps from 10ish to 7ish with a feed at 3ish. is this normal other threads seem to suggest otherwise? any help or advise gratefully recieved.

That sounds like heaven! One night waking is great at 3mo.

Must admit my ds slept on me for naps at this age. I think we started putting him in the cot soon after 3mo. He loved 'white noise' and we recorded the hair-drier onto cd and played it for 10mins in his room which sent him off. We also got one of those FischerPrice Aquariums which attached to the side of his cot and has bubbles and music for him to watch. Around 4.5mo he learnt how to switch it on himself. We did try to leave him to settle himself at this age but he cried for 45mins and we couldn't repeat it especially as we found these other methods that helped. We tried again at 8mo and it worked. Other people have had success with the pickup-putdown method by Tracy Hogg (search for her under Sleep and you'll find some old threads). But there's lots of other suggestions just browse down the threads.

It was also around 3mo that his bedtime started to creep forward and we could get him down from 8-8:30 and then soon at 7-7:30. He would then wake around 11pm and 3am for a feed.

I'm sure you'll find something that works for you both. Every baby is different and what you read on one thread may work for them, but you'll soon see another thread that has some tips that work for you. Anyway, I'm sure you'll get lots of good advice on this one!

Sorry, forgot to say it's difficult to do cc when the baby is still feeding in the night. It's really meant for (re)settling once you're sure they don't need any food. It sounds like your baby can resettle himself as he sleeps for such a long stretch in the night. You just need to find out what helps to get him down. AND day-time methods are usually completely different to night-time ones! (just to make things even more confusing )

Here's one old thread I bookmarked cos it was really informative.

From 10 - 7 sounds like a dream to me, both mine have slept far less than that until they were 12 months (dd), ds 7 months now and wakes every 1 1/2 hours during the night.

I have never done cc but believe it isn'y recommeded until 6 or 7 months, there are some good threads on it if you look under 'sleep'.

Both mine have fallen asleep for naps on me or dh. They're only little for such a short time it doesn't bother me, in fact I'm trying to enjoy it with ds since I now know how soon they grow up.

Good luck, whatever you decide.

IME three months old is a bit too young to be whipped in to shape, so to speak. They are far too young to respond to any kind of controlled crying, they still think they are the same creature as you, they don't really recognise any difference between themselves and you in terms of being able to deliberately do things for themselves.
The old methods of rocking and lullaby singing can help them at this age, and it may just be a case of being on the case and when you find a method that works so that you can actually leave the room and know that they will stay asleep, repeat it.
Karen99 is right, it isn't until about 8 months that you can even think about starting controlled crying, their survival mechanisms force them to bawl unitl you respond if they feel insecure at this point.
And count yourself blooming lucky you are only getting up once a night. I'm sure many many parents would gladly swap places with you.
Good luck

my ds (now 2.6) didn't sleep that long until he was 8 months so sorry but i would say that it's not so bad.

Blimey!Am I the only one with a kid that wakes up for three feeds during the night then?? that's 1am, 3am, and 5-6 am!!!

Oh my god! is this how 3 month olds are? mine sleeps 12 hours! i never realised how lucky i was!

Benjaminsmum ...
My dd is 11 weeks and I think is quite 'good' for her age ...
She goes down at 7pm and I wake her for a feed at 10.30pm (sometimes she will wake on her own at around then anyway). She goes back down at 11.30pm and then sleeps till 4ish for a short feed and then sleeps till 7am sometimes 8am (I usually start to wake her if she is still asleep at 7.30am) ... a couple of times last week she slept through till 7am without waking for the 4am feed but she hasn't done it since then...
We too have a problem with the dummy although we don't have to hold it in for 2 hours. It usually takes about 4 goes at going in to plug it in so to speak!
Daytime naps are not so great. She used to (up until a week ago) sleep well during the day but now she catnaps. She falls asleep and does exactly 25 minutes everytime and then wakes up ... sometimes I can put the dummy back in and she will go off again for a couple of hours but the last few days she hasn't wanted to go back to sleep. So she is having lots of mini sleeps at the moment as opposed to 3 big ones .
She is also feeding more (every 2 hours during the day) as I think she is having a growth spurt - that usually happens around 3 months.
Re. controlled crying ... I did (Ghosty ducks) CC at this age with DS (he is now 4) but in hindsight I think he was too young ... and I don't want to go that route with DD ...
Is your DS bottlefed or breastfed? I felt with my DS that as he was bottlefed I knew he didn't need feeding in the night ... whereas with DD I have to give her the benefit of the doubt if she wakes in the night and feed her ...
I think your DS is doing well ... keep it up ...

nightowl - very lucky !!

My ds didn't sleep more than 3 hours at a time at night until he was 9 months old and only then because we started feeding him a big bowl of cereal before bed! He would also refuse to go to sleep until 11:30pm.

Luckily, he now sleeps 11/12 hours solid at night otherwise I would have gone insane long ago!