12 weeks - baby sleeping on me

[uptown8617]

My baby will nap for hours on me (or another person) but when I try and put him down he always wakes up. I've let him nap on me and have been co-sleeping at night but I'm now trying to get him to sleep on his own.

We've been trying with limited success over the last few weeks and so just wanted to see if anyone had any tips.

We've been getting him drowsy and then putting down awake. If he cries I'll pick him and soothe him and then put him back down to try and get him to go to sleep. This has worked a couple of times. The window between drowsy and asleep is tiny so sometimes he gets put down asleep, sometimes he's stayed asleep but most of the time he wakes so I do the above. I keep picking him up until he stays asleep or I lose the will to live.

When he does stay asleep it's almost always only for 20 minutes which must be his sleep cycle. The longest he's done is an hour and half for the evening sleep which would normally be about 4 hours if he'd slept on me.

Any tips or experiences?

A dummy might help with independent in-cot settling without baby getting upset.

The idea would be to put baby down increasingly less drowsy (so more awake) and instead of feeding to sleep, encourage dummy sucking instead. I found it also helps to put my hand firmly on babys chest whilst in the cot. This touch-contact seems to help.

I can't get him to take a dummy. I'm sure it would help because he likes to suck for comfort but he just spits it out.

Have you tried swaddling?

We tried it when he was little but didn't seem to like and managed to get his arms out. We probably should have tried harder.

He can roll over now so am I right in thinking we can't swaddle him now?

Its definately worth being very persistant with getting a dummy accepted. 12 weeks is late, but not too late to establish one I don't think.

The spitting out is a baby reflex reaction (called the Tongue Thrust) that all babies have and most have lost by 6 months old. Many lose this reflex much easier and earlier than others, indeed bottle feeders often have to overcome very quickly.

So the spitting out of the dummy is not distaste, it doesn't mean baby doesn't like it. It's just that a reflex reaction in babies will be to push forward (spit out) any foreign object in their mouth. It saves newborns from choking.

Enough dogged persistence can overcome it. By that I mean literally try all the time, every single day. Try when hungry, when not, when tired, when not, when asleep, when nearly asleep, when playing, when happy, when grumpy, given by other people, give in different position, given immediately after breastfeeds... any any other opportunity and situation you can think of.

I know that sounds like a massive amount of hassle and I know lots would say, why on earth bother? But then the dumny absolutely AMAZING in my view.

It is the single most important tool for no crying independant (ie not on you) sleep.

I basically think any other no crying method wok involve embracing feeding to sleep and/or cosleeping. Or any other route to independant sleep will involve crying and distress, to varying degrees. Whereas the dummy is the simplest and easiest of the no-crying independant sleep solutions.

So when I had a dummy refuser, because this was DC4 and I had a full appreciation of the value of the dummy, I was utterly and completely persistant about it.

Much like if you had a bottle refuser who was losing weight and must accept a bottle even though they don't want to, I would approach a dummy with the same level of certainty. I would literally keep going, with increasing persistence, until my child took a dummy no matter how long that took. In the event it took 7 weeks of daily, all of the time at every opportunity, persistence to get it accepted. But not, was it worth it.

Anyhoo, all my waffling aside, my recommendation is to consider if you could be more persistant with dummy use. The longer you leave it the harder it will be though.

Thanks, I'll keep trying with the dummy! Do you think it makes a difference on type? I've got a couple and thought I might be most successful with the same brand as the bottle he takes but it sounds like persistence is more important.

I have the solution - your baby will grow out of it. You're not doing anything wrong, your child won't grow up being needy, or unable to sleep alone - I PROMISE!

Enjoy the baby sleeping on you phase - before you know it that baby will be a toddler and won't sit still let alone sleep on you. Your baby is doing what baby's do and just likes to feel warm, cuddly and cosy with Mum/dad/another human being.

Keep trying by all means and one day once baby is older you'll find they'll start to settle without you - if it doesn't work - leave it a few weeks and try again.

Relax - you're doing a great job! It will fall in to place with time.

Thanks @BrownBirdsFly. I know this is true in the back of my mind really.

I love the cuddles but sometimes I'd really like the use of both arms! We're at a wedding in a couple of days and it would be so much easier if I knew he'd go to sleep for a couple of hours in the evening.