My DS is 16 weeks and has only ever gone to sleep either by (breast)feeding to sleep or bouncing on the yoga ball, shushing. The disadvantage of the feeding to sleep is that sometimes it just doesn't work and he's still wide awake after a feed, which is frustrating if it's 4am, you've been feeding/comfort sucking for an hour, and you want to go back to sleep! If I feed him to sleep wrapped in a blanket I can transfer him to his crib once he's asleep, swaddle him, and he'll sleep for 2/3 hours. For some reason this only works at night. During the day he'll wake within minutes if I put him down.
The disadvantage of the bouncing and shushing is that it often takes ages, with him crying until he drops off. Also, he can't be put down if he's fallen asleep like that: he needs to be kept moving (usually whoever got him to sleep gets themself into the rocking chair and keeps rocking while he sleeps) otherwise he wakes within minutes. For this reason it's really a daytime tool!
We currently don't have a bedtime routine for him: we've tried bath, massage, bed but not enough nights in a row to make the association stick. When we've tried it, I've attempted to feed him to sleep and he's normally been still awake after feeding and had to be brought down to the sitting room again, which I think spoils the sleep associations of the routine.
During the day I can't get anything done because he sleeps on me and is a very very light sleeper. At night I'm exhausted because his night feeds feature a fair amount of comfort sucking and he wakes and cries if I remove him from the breast before he's very soundly asleep. He won't take a dummy.
I know attachment parenting works beautifully for some people but I'm afraid I'd like my life, husband, and bodily autonomy back. We parent in shifts and once he's asleep on one of us we can't chat or move about the house for fear he'll wake. I'd like to be able to put him down for daytime naps so I can cook, clean, relax, enjoy the peace and quiet. I'd like him to start understanding when it's bedtime and, in my wildest dreams, not need fed back to sleep several times a night.
So where do I start? My DS cries a fair amount in the course of a normal day and although it's a bit wimpy on my part I couldn't really stand a sleep training method which involved much more crying than I already have to deal with. If I put him down awake at the moment it's too much for him because he's used to so much help. He cries in minutes even if I'm there patting and shushing him while he lies in the crib. Picking him up doesn't really stop the crying. Putting him down "drowsy but awake" has worked about once ever. Other than that the drowsy but simply vanishes and he's wide awake.
Do I tackle naps first? Do I deal with bedtime? Our day has no routine because of all this rubbish sleeping so it's hard to predict when bedtime will be: I don't know how to make it a consistent time each night when what comes before varies so much.
Sorry for the wall of text. I need to move gradually away from our currently pretty highly dependent sleep situation. HOW?!