Dd won't let me put her down!

[Kat160417]

That's it really. She's 5 months and every time she falls asleep and I put her down she just wakes up!

Tired is an understatement

Thanks for all responses!

All babies definitely are different and every parent has there own way of doing things.

I definitely don't wanna leave dd alone to cry for ages. Might try the co sleeping

Hope you manage some easier some nights soon op

My DD was like this, we co-slept for a while, then she moved into the cot being transferred and holding my hand to sleep. Then slowly putting her down more and more awake. She'll settle in her cot now and go to sleep there happily (10 months). Every baby is different and the softly gently approach worked for her with sleep.

You mentioned bottles. Could you geed her her bottle in the cot rather than picking her up to give it her. My DD definitely settles quicker during the night if I leave her in the cot to feed her. Don't know if it could work for you but could be worth a try.

Sorry for all the mistakes in my post I'm being climbed on. Hope you understood what I meant!

I had this issue and I must say, co sleeping solved it for me. She's 2 next month and still co sleep but I can lay down of an evening for 20 mins and she'll fall asleep after that I get up and leave her there. You need to be rested too!

Never thought of feeding in the cot, but I always change dd before a bottle and have to burp half way through otherwise shes sick so not sure if it would work

She needs to go to sleep where you want her to stay asleep

Absolutely spot on. This is the problem here. Cosleeping is baby going to sleep where she stays asleep, just as baby going to sleep in the cot is going to sleep where you stay asleep. No problem baby going to sleep in your arms, if baby can stay asleep. asleep in your arms (for daytime naps).

The problem is baby going to sleep in your arms then upon stirring realising she is no longer in your arms and being freaked out by what's changed. The answer is to have no change in sleep position.

Transferring is awful sleep habits

True again. Those that end up cosleeping (rather than choosing to from the outset) usually do so because they realise that transferring is a problem - the usual difficulty of not being able to get baby into the cot after feeding to sleep. So instead they let baby go to sleep in the parental bed, where they will stay asleep. Which proves the point LoopThehoop made.

Kat160417: so are you saying its better to not hold them to get them to sleep?

OP: Yes, that is your problem here. Babies will usually wake and get upset when being moved once asleep.

So you could do with firming up in your mind if at night you want her to go to sleep the cot or in your bed and work towards getting her to go from awake to asleep in the place she will stay asleep.

"Work towards" doesn't necessarily mean it will be a quick fix getting it to happen. How quickly you get baby sleeping where she will stay asleep depends on your parenting style.

There are things you can do in the daytime to encourage better sleep at night, no matter what you choose to do at night:

• Get get baby going from awake to asleep in something that moves, this makes getting to sleep easier. Try bouncy chair or pushchair naps. Even car journeys if baby is exhausted.

• limit awake time to make daytime naps closer together. More sleep makes sleep easier. I'd suggest no more than 90 minutes awake between naps, with a slightly stretched 2h-2h30m awake time immediately before bedtime. Make the time for bedtime flexible according to naps that day.

• increase daytime calories. Either by making feeds bigger, more frequent or with less distraction. Try feed>wind>feed again.

At 5 months my day was broken into blocks of 2h-2h30m cycles - each involving one feed and one sleep. So wake, full feed, 90m awake time, nap, wake, repeat.

FATEdestiny thank you!

Dd did used to be really good at settling herself but my partner and I are to blame as we basically just stopped doing that and kept rocking her to sleep.

I also currently do the whole 90 minute awake but I think shes been going through a sleep regression as she just doesn't want and fights it constantly even when awake.

Have you re-tried a dummy recently Kat160417?

Dummies are great tools for getting to sleep independantly (ie not on you) without any crying. Likelihood is that any other method you use to get independant sleep will result in some degree of crying.

But dummies should come with the caveat that whilst they are amazing (properly brilliant) independant sleep tools, they are not The Magic Answer To Everything. At 5 months old baby will still need a lot of help to get to sleep independantly, with or without a dummy. The dummy doesn't stop the relentless (and consistant) help baby needs to sleep independantly, it just achieves it with much less crying.

FATEdestiny yeah dd has a dummy which does help her sleep.

I think dp and I have been to soft with dd. I'm saying we are mean or strict parents at all but dd is held quite a lot of the time. I know there is nothing wrong with cuddles at all and some people say 'you can never spoil a baby ' but I think you can to an extent.

I think she's so used to being held and obviously loves it

dd is held quite a lot of the time

It's not about "spoiling" her, that's quite an emotive word. But it is worth bearing in mind that most of her motor skill development do require floor time. Baby having floor time when awake/happy is very important for motor skills like rolling and crawling to be learnt.

If baby won't be put down for floor time when awake, it would suggest baby is over tired. This grumpy clinginess and insisting on being held during awake time is a sign baby needs more sleep. It might be that you were assuming baby just wanted to be held a lot when in fact this is just baby trying to communicate to you get need to go to sleep.

For comparison I would feed baby up in waking and put out down on the floor for some floor time play. The veelry first grumble of dislike and I would try to distract baby to see what was wrong. If nothing obviously causing the upset (nappy, lying on something, wanting to reach item) then the second time I got any sort of grumble while baby was having floor time and that meant is was time to get baby to sleep.

OP, babies literally thrive off nurturing responsiveness - its good for their brain development! You really cannot spoil a baby. You can teach independent sleep etc if you like but that doesn't mean if you don't do it your baby is spoiled. I really do not agree with bad habits. Bad habits are like smoking and biting nails, holding a baby for sleeps isn't a bad habit.

www.google.co.uk/amp/s/sarahockwell-smith.com/2015/08/26/lets-talk-about-bad-habits-and-baby-and-child-sleep/amp/

Hi,

We had the same issue with our DS (now 6months old) and we got decided self settling was the only thing left for us to do.

We have a solid bed time routine - 8oz bottle, bath then while we get home dried and dressed for bed we out the lullaby sheep on then cuddles, in to the gro bag and sheep off white noise on. Before we did all the same apart from the bottle was the very last thing we did to help him sleep.

Now he's always asleep for 7:30 and sleeps through (he always woke in the night) he plays really well on his own now too.

He doesn't self settle for day time naps, he needs motion but we're working on that

Hope this helps?x

FATEdestiny dd loves being on her playmat etc. We don't hold her 24/7. I realised I made it sound like that.

When shes playing and starts getting grizzly I do what you've described.

SiTay our routine with dd is exactly the same apart from we do bath then bottle then bed. Dd is now on 7oz (recently increased). She's usually asleep any time between half 6 and 7.

During the day she never goes to sleep unless she's being held apart from if she is in her swing but that will be the motion.

She plays fine by herself and loves being on her playmat. I wonder if we should try bottle then bath and see if that makes any difference.

@Kat160417 yeah give that a try.

Something that always stuck with me was it takes 3 days to create a habit.

My HV gave me some great advice for self settling because I didn't know what to do if DS or moaned. She said that they might moan a bit but if the gaps in between the grizzly moans get longer then baby is settling, if they get shorter, more erratic or baby starts to cry go in and comfort baby but leave her in the cot.

We put DS in wide awake as we didn't want to create anymore bad habits as we have enough of them for day time naps (hand on face)

Good luck x

Well we've done bath, bottle and she's now in her next 2 me.

Neither of us rocked her or kept hold of her. Just put her in her sleepbag and straight into next 2 me. Had to put her dummy back in once but then she just went to sleep she was very tired though.

Guess we'll see how she goes through the night!

@Kat160417 good luck.

Just a heads up, if she can fall asleep without the dummy it's much better as she won't wake in the night for it to fall back asleep.

Let us know how it goes x

Have you tried PU/PD?

I'm just starting to try this with my DS. There are some tears but I was surprised how quickly it works... Usually less than 10 minutes.

So we've been successful with getting her to sleep on a night by just putting her in her next 2 me and not rocking her at all but the past few nights she has woken up during the night and seems to be wide awake. She isn't due a feed as its usually about 2 hours after shes has 1 and she usually goes 4/5 hours between feeds.

Of course because I'm knackered I know that if I pick her up she will go back to sleep and she does. So I suppose we're half way there

Amazing news, you've done great.

I'd leave her if she isn't crying, it's easier said than done if she is in your room.
My DS woke at 5:35 today but I left him in his room until 7, he fell back asleep on his own.

How does DD sleep in the day? Do you have any tips? I'm struggling to get DS asleep unless I am tapping him x

@SiTay yeah I actually done that through the night. Was about 2.30 and she was kicking her legs and wriggling but could see she was still really tired so I left her and she went back to sleep for a little bit!
Dd does sleep in the car or pram if we go for a walk (I think a lot of babies are like that though) so you could do that if you're desperate. I do have a graco baby swing which dd loves and gets her to sleep because of the motion. Once she's asleep I turn it off and the seat reclines back a bit too. Other than that my dp or I have to rock her through the day. I think the graco swings are expensive but we got ours 2nd hand and it was in perfect condition!

I know that's not much advice but my dd sounds quite similar to your ds!