Any advice....

[wildone81]

Driving myself nuts about my 7 week olds bedtime routine and looking for advice/some reassurance that I'm not setting us up for a hard time...sorry...it's going to be a long post!

More often than not she goes down awake, sometimes almost asleep, and I stroke her head (and repeatedly replace her dummy) till she goes over - can take anything between 10 minutes and an hour. sometimes though I have to pick her back up and cuddle her till she's properly in a deep sleep and I'm getting myself all kinds of stressed about creating bad sleep habits.

I'm maybe being totally unrealistic about getting her into a routine but having never done this before I'm at a bit of a loss!

For info, and in case it helps with any advice, she's FF, taking 5oz 5 times a day and is sleeping roughly 8 hours when she does go down (appreciate how lucky we are for that!)

I honestly wouldn't worry about bad habits. Everyone is different but I didn't worry about it and did what my baby wanted and that was to snuggle with mama www.google.co.uk/amp/s/sarahockwell-smith.com/2015/08/26/lets-talk-about-bad-habits-and-baby-and-child-sleep/amp/

Is your HV responsible for putting the 'drowsy but awake' thing in your head? It's a relatively modern concept and I was stressed about it too at the beginning but then just went with my gut.

It sounds great to me wildone81. My main concern would be that it's stessing you out - because baby sleep at this age need not be.

My main advice would be to adjust your expectations. Because the routines you have got going are really great for a 7 week old. So if you are stressing or worrying, it would suggest more that you had realistic expectations rather than anything you might be doing 'wrong'.

My only tip (although what you're doing is already good to promote independant sleep) would be to consider a sidecar cot for a couple of months. You can remove one side off most normal cots, to make a stable 3-sided sidecar cot. Then just wedge or lash it to your bed and you have an extension of bed space.

It means you can start the move from "...she goes down awake, sometimes almost asleep" to going down fully awake and going to sleep entirely in the cot without needing to be picked up. The sidecar cot allows for this by enabling you to cuddle the baby in the cot if needed.

Bedtime will still take anything between 10 minutes and an hour, like it is now. But there's nothing wrong in that.

I would lie on my bed, next to sidecar cot, reinserting dummy and whatnot as needed. Cuddle close if needed, but withdraw back to my bed when calm. And just wait.

A few weeks/months down the line and the sidecar cot may no longer be needed. The 4th side can go back on the cot once baby is used to going from fully awake to fully asleep in the cot.

In short, I think you are doing a fantastic job to help your baby learn good habits for independant sleep, in a gentle and kind way. You are doing amazing - I predict you will have a good sleeper there.

Thanks fate. We do have a sidecar crib so I'm able to lie down where she can see me whilst I stroke her head. I've had anxiety problems throughout pregnancy and her sleep is randomly the one thing I get stressed about, and it's always worse in the quiet of night with less to distract me!!

Helps to know others think I'm doing the right things though 😀

In the gentlest possible way, your opening post reads like anxiety where there need not be any.

A lot of mums strive for exactly what you have going with your baby, and they find it unachievable. You're doing great. Keep doing what you are doing.