Mythical sleeping

[PeanutJuice]

Putting a baby down "awake but sleepy" and they drift off to sleep by themselves. Does this actually happen for anyone?!

Yes, it does for my DC. My first did it naturally, bliss! My second needed some help (swaddling, Ewan the dream sheep, some patting) but she now does it too. That said, she has a small cry about 15 mins into a nap, and I let her cry through it for a few mins, and she resettled

Hmm DD2 did when she was about 2-3 weeks old I think. It wore off after that sadly, despite my best efforts to keep it up...

Other mythical sleeping (though I know these things do actually exist... just not in my 2):

• the babies that will sleep in their buggies in a restaurant while their parents have dinner

• the babies that will stay asleep as you transfer them from car/buggy/arms to cot

• the babies that will sleep through teething and illness. Apparently some babies even sleep MORE when they are ill

• the babies who have to be WOKEN UP in the mornings to get to nursery on time

• the babies who go back to sleep when you take them into your bed, rather than rolling around and deciding it's playtime

Erm yes but but not until she was 13 months. I can't tell you any secrets, one day I put her down awake and she fell asleep within 5 minutes and slept 11 hours. She has done every since.

Before she that she a f*ing nightmare waking every 2 hours and she still doesn't really nap unless I push her in the buggy but she now sleeps 12 hours at night so Swings and roundabouts (!)

Hahahahah.., they exist I'm sure. I don't have one.

Sleep is a developmental skill - just like walking and talking. You can help, with good habits and training and whatnot, but you can only work with what you've got.

My advice after over a year of sleeplessness is do whatever works for you. Don't beat yourself up if despite your best efforts they won't do x y or z. Babies are individuals- some don't need much input to get to sleep, others need a lot of touch or cuddling etc. Teaching them to self soothe is a myth - done just don't need much and others do.

Putting a baby down "awake but sleepy" and they drift off to sleep by themselves.

Such babies almost always have a dummy

(Or are still in the newborn phase)

Dummies are amazing.

Yes dc3 did this. With three under 5 I couldn't always attend to her immediately so she'd self settle.

Dc1 and dc2 were a completely different story!

We were there at about 6 months old. Then LG stopped again, was a nightmare and now after some controlled crying we are back there again. I think you 2 choices. You let them get there themself (happens at all different ages) or you teach them when you've had enough..like me!

My little girl is one and that was when we decided we'd had enough. Now she does brilliantly.

Yes, I had one. My second, a thumb sucker. The first, however, totally different story!

Not mine. I tried many times putting her down drowsy but awake, her internal altimeter pinged as she was being lowered no matter how slowly, and suddenly she was wide wide awake. If she was left she grizzled then cried then screamed like she was being murdered. Little sod would never take any of the fucking millions of dummies I bought either.

Mini my toddler invariable has to be woken up on the two days a week she goes to nursery. Those are the only two days of the week she ever decides to have a lie in. Obviously it never happens at the weekend.

My sons have both gone down awake from a young age, but yes, they often (not always) need a dummy. My daughter breast fed to sleep for aaaages but oddly, slept through sooner.

I'm really not sure this 'drowsy but awake thing' is the golden bullet the books would have us believe.

Both of mine did this. Swaddled though so don't know if that's anything to do with it

Neither of mine did this, not remotely. Even with swaddle and dummy, putting down 'sleepy but awake' resulted in Defcon 1 'awake and shrieking' within two nanoseconds.

Sleep is a developmental skill, some babies get it earlier than others etc etc.

garden mine chewed and spat out every single dummy in existence

Dc 1 slept very well. We used to put him on the floor and he'd happily lay there and watch the world go by and then fall asleep when he was tired. He slept beautifully in his pram and, by about 12 weeks, fell into a reliable routine and slept 7-7.

Dc 2 had reflux so was more unsettled and cried a lot so the pram and carseat didn't help her as much as it did dc1. We didn't go out very much. She napped in her swing for the first few weeks and then the Moses basket upstairs after that. She slept through from 7-7 by about a month and by about 6 months she got herself into a nice napping routine - the weaning helped because she wasn't as sicky.

For at least 18 months both dc napped for about an hour and half at the same time just after lunch. It was bliss. I was relieved though when dc2 finally dropped her naps altogether and we weren't tied to the house and the routine. We could go out and stay out all day!

In the early days, when they woke in the night and whinged and shuffled we left them to it, waiting for them to actually cry out. A lot of the time they didn't and just went back to sleep instead. We never woke them for milk, even when they slept long hours as little newborns, because they had plenty during the day, their nappies were wet, they pooed enough and were growing well.