How can I get my baby to sleep in her cot?

[maybethedayafter]

Up to now she's been sleeping either on me, next to me or in the sling and I was okay with that, it's not ideal but I read all about the 4th trimester and she was premature so I was more than prepared to comfort her and let her have that contact. But now she is far more alert and aware and my toddler wakes her up. My toddler isn't doing anything wrong, she's just being a toddler and I don't want to tell her to do everything at a whisper (not that she would!) but my baby has had hardly any sleep today and she's miserable because of it. I need to do something to get her to settle in her cot but I'm not prepared to do cry it out. At the moment, the second I lay her down she's wide awake again. Please someone help me!

How old is she? Have you tried having her sleep on you for about 20 mins before transferring her to make sure shes in a deep sleep? That sometimes worked for my DS when he was a newborn.

She's 14 weeks, 7 weeks corrected.

That used to work for her but even after 20 minutes she still wakes up the second her back hits the mattress.

I used to put my preemie twins in the cot awake or asleep when it was nap time I didn't do the falling asleep on me as with twins you can't! If she wakes up when you put her down, does it matter?

what happens when she wakes up? Does she automatically start crying? DS is nearly 3 months and will often wake up when i put him down, but then he'll suck his fingers and drop off after about 10 - 15 mins.

She'll start crying almost straight away. I don't go to her unless she starts crying. I even ignore the murmurs but I can't bear to leave her crying.

We had similar issues with my DS when he was quite young.

It could be the temperature difference. Think about it, she's been cuddled with you, then she's being put onto a cool mattress. You could try sitting on the mattress or warming it with a hot water bottle beforehand.

In some cases, it could be that the cot is too big, so you could try swaddling, or using a moses basket instead.

Hope this helps!

Thanks melibu. I tried that with my first and it didn't make much difference but I'm an idiot because I haven't tried it with my baby yet. I'm going to track down my hot water bottle and give it a try. Thank you for reminding me of that tip.

A friend gave us her purflo which I had high hopes for but my daughter likes to be really tucked in and you can't do that in the purflo. I should give the grobag a try now that she's big enough. She did like being swaddled but you're not meant to do it past 6 weeks are you?

My eldest is at nursery today so I'm debating if I should just hold her to let her catch up on the sleep she missed out on yesterday, or if I should use this opportunity to try to get her to sleep in the cot.

We are struggling with my baby too bit of a break through last night, did hot water bottle and also put a t shirt I had been wearing on mattress as a sheet on advice of HV.

(So that bed smells like you! hit enter too soon, was a better night but clearly not that good!)

I don't think there is a set time to stop swaddling, but you can start phasing it out as she gets older. The grobag might work anyway. My DS loves his, he has the biggest smile when I put it on him :)