7 month troubles

[hypermind]

Hi all, looking for help please. Our second son who is 7 months old will not go down in his cot to sleep at night unless is already fast asleep in our arms and we gently put him down and sneak out. We do that most nights and he generally sleeps well. We accepted that as the method that works for us but I'm concerned it's a bad habit to be in.

We did it this way due to him screaming the house down if you out him down tired or slightly awake, and we have a 20 month old in the next room that is a great sleeper and he wakes him up if we leave the 7 month old crying too long. Then we have two issues on our hand.

I've read lots of articles online about crying it out etc but our situation has a knock on effect with our older son.

What should we do? Carry on putting him to bed once he's sparko in our arms or let him cry it out and have two kids awake?

Any advice would be great :)

Do whatever works I'd say! In the nicest possible way, if that's your only sleep issue then great! He's asleep! I fed my seven month old to sleep for months and worried it was ruining all bedtimes forever thanks to all the damn sleep experts 'drowsy but awake nonsense' - he now self settles with no encouragement or effort on our part, and if he does not feel like it we rock him to sleep.

Feel your pain on having a toddler next door - we are dealing with multiple wake ups and sleep regression and screaming is not an option. Currently rocking him to sleep in the pram downstairs at 5am as he has just woken his sister :-(

Thanks for your reply almmummy, it's nice to know there may be light at the end of the tunnel and that what we are doing isn't too bad. The whole drowsy but awake and pick up put down methods just don't work for this little man.

I really appreciate your response and I hope things improve for you and your little ones.

I find the 'experts' advice just serves to add stress at an already stressful time and babies work it all out in their own time. My MIL had six babies and says she had tried all the various sleep training techniques over the years. None worked. They all slept through eventually.