How to get my 3 MO to nap in her cot and not on me

[mamaintraining]

Hi, all

I'm looking for suggestions on how to get my 3 month-old to nap in her cot? The room is nice and dark, it's quiet etc, but she wakes up about 3-5mins after I've put her down. She is napping on me throughout the day but sleeps in her cot through the night without a problem.
I've tried leaving her to give her chance to settle herself and fall back asleep but it doesn't seem to work.

I'm willing to try leaving her longer (not open to CIO) but my main worry is that the longer I leave her to try and fall back asleep on her own, the less sleep she's actually getting and I'm petrified of her becoming overtired (had a really bad week about a month and a half ago so don't want to experience that again)

Any advice is welcome

Have you tried letting her fall fast asleep on you then moving her to her cot?

I did it in slightly longer stages of going from me to sleeping in the baby bouncer then to the cot.
The bouncer had the benefit that I could bounce it a little if she started it stir; I did it slowly by ar first putting her down when totally asleep then a little bit sooner every day until she would go straight into the bouncer for her naps. When she was a bit older I started putting the bouncer in her room then a natural progression into the cot.
She won’t sleep on me at all now and I quite miss the cuddles although I remember how restrictive it could be

I find the most successful/easiest place for naps (now 6 months old) is in a lay flat pushchair, either in the garden or just inside the backdoor (with door open if raining heavily or too hot outside) with a snoozeshade cover the pushchair. Is this an option?

That's what I'm currently doing - letting her fall asleep on me and move her to the cot when she's in NREM sleep. Unfortunately, she still wakes up when placed down

She never liked her bouncer so that's already packed away and neither does she like to sleep in her carrycot - she finds it more interesting than sleep-inducing

She's quite a simple baby in terms of gadgets (read - she doesn't enjoy them)

I picked the first nap of the day, when she was most happy to sleep elsewhere and cuddled her til v dozy and put her down, keeping hand on her chest. Picked up and repeated if not happy.

Once that one was ok, moved onto others. Last nap was usually on me. Took a couple of weeks but does depend on child.

Oh and white noise and dark room

The NHS suggest you don't leave your baby unattended to sleep at 3 months, so personally I'd go with letting them sleep on you. Enjoy those snuggles.

Place your baby on their back to sleep, in a cot in the same room as you, for the first 6 months.

As they get older they sleep more deeply anyway.

A tip I was given about putting into the cot is to let their bottom touch first. Wait 20 mins until in deep sleep, but honestly I never managed it. It's the up and over of the cot that's tricky.

Once my DS got too big to snooze on me, I'd transfer him to the pushchair for naps, but he was about 1 by then and would go into a deep sleep relatively quickly.

Thanks for the suggestions all, DD is not affected by white noise
Bottom first and doing 1 nap at a time in the cot sounds promising, I'll give that a go!

I didn't at that age. I enjoyed the cuddles and time for TV (or just to actually sit down at all). I could carry him through and make a cuppa one handed so I was fine. But he wouldn't have gone down til older than that.

He will still happily nap on my mum at 13 mo (she's not that secretly very pleased) but naps probably best in his cot now. Sometimes.

Box sets and cuddles at 3 months