Does this qualify as 'putting them down awake'

[emmajlh]

Hi,

My DD nearly always falls asleep when i BF before putting her down for bed. In order to put her down awake i burp her and if she is still asleep i'll lightly blow in her face or kiss her on the cheek saying 'are you ready for bed now?' etc. So when she is placed in her moses (she's 3mths old) her eyes are open. Sometimes she'll wriggle a bit and cry and sometimes her eyes shut immediately and off she goes to the land of nod.
Do you think this qualifies as being put down awake? i'm wondering whether i should change the order of her bedtime routine so the BF isn't the last thing. any views?

I've always felt I was putting my dd down awake as long as i felt she was aware of what was happening to her. Sounds like you've got is sussed. Well done, as I think this is a really good habit to establish at your dd's age, much easier then when they're older.

I started a thread yesterday (but didn't get any responses) asking for feedback about my dd (16 weeks) who still nearly always falls asleep when I BF before putting her down for bed. I was asking when/whether I can expect her to stay awake a bit longer so that she goes down awake as I would like to encourage her to develop the ability to settle herself. She often settles herself for naps and I don't want a poor bedtime routine to scupper that. So I will be watching your thread to see if any advice that you are given is relevant to my situation.

Yes, I think it does. I think the idea is that they can suckle to sleep but you should rouse (Spelling?) them gently before you put them in the cot. I always do the kissing and whispering thing too.

yes, as long as she's aware of you leaving that's all that's important

Dd fed herself to sleep until she was 2 years old and I didn't bother waking her up ... I honestly didn't see any point in it. I wanted her to sleep, she was sleeping, and I never, ever woke a sleeping baby!

It didn't affect her sleeping at all; she had been settling herself for naps, and settling herself to sleep when she woke in the night, for ages so she knew how to do it.

I always went with what felt right rather than what anyone else thought I should or shouldn't be doing ... the HV always said I should put her to bed awake, but it didn't feel right to me so I didn't do it.

Sounds pretty good for 3 months emma . I worried about this to start with, whether I was doing things 'properly' etc (my DS is now 6 months old) and came to the following conclusion... that for me I do whatever it takes for him and me to get sleep, and try not to stress about it as by next week things will probably have changed again.

So... sometimes DS feeds to sleep, I put him down sparko; sometimes he feeds until sleepy, I put him down he grumbles a bit, finds his thumb and goes to sleep. Sometimes he isn't asleep at all and I put him down and he will often chat and babble to himself for a while (I leave the room) before he drops off. Sometimes I have to go back and reassure him. The past couple of days we have both had a nasty cold, so he has been sleeping with me when I go to bed at about 10pm as I know now that this is the best way for both of us to sleep well. He then went back in his cot (awake) after his 6am feed this morning and went to sleep by himself for nearly 3 hrs.

Sorry, appear to have written an essay .