Someone remind me it WON'T harm DS3 to cry for 3 or 4 minutes.......

[fannyannie]

before he falls asleep on his own.

Last night - and again this morning DS3 (nearly 7 weeks) simply wouldn't settle he was obviously tired but didn't want to be held, walked around, have milk etc etc so last night DH ended up just putting him in his carrycot and leaving him to it for a few minutes, after about 5 minutes he went to sleep..........and slept for 5hrs - his first "through the night"

I've just put him down in the same way again now - he didn't want to be held and no matter what I did while he was lying in the carrycot he was crying - again after 4 or 5 minutes he fell asleep.....

He doesn't do it everytime, but on occasions he does - just feels odd letting a baby that young cry before going to sleep on his own - but there really doesn't seem to be any other way to get him to settle at times.

In general I'd say you shouldn't leave such a young baby to cry it out, but in this case it doesn't sound like that is what is happening. Some babies do seem to need to release tension (?) before they can settle, so maybe that's what's going on here. I doubt it's going to hgarm him, and it can only be good in the long run that he has a way to settle himself.

Two things I might suggest:

If you are worried/distressed, what if you just rest your hand on him, doing nothing else, until he falls asleep? Then at least you know he is not crying alone, but also you are not forcing a prop on him and he will be able to fall asleep by himself.

Try putting him down a little earlier. It could be that he is getting distressed because he is over-tired. At 7w none of mine could stay awake for longer than 1.5h at a time without getting overtired.

Yup, I am happy to remind you

And so will the anti-crying people.

i second that - happy to remind you also.

and a bit longer too.

i wish someone had told me that sometimes some babies need to cry for a few mintues before they go to sleep.

I'm not particularly worried about it - horrible harsh mummy I am that did CC with DS1 when he was 6 months old but it just feels wierd letting him (DS3) cry so young. He looks very happy and content now.

I sat with him the other night with my hand on him (he wasn't cry much though - just the occasional whimper) for 45 minutes the other night and he kept nearly falling asleep.....and my arms were aching - so I gave up in the end and he eventually went off on his own.

He may have been overtired this morning but I don't think he was last night - he'd only been awake for about 20 minutes LOL.

my ds2 16 wks always grumbles before sleeping, but it is always a tired maon never a big yell.

Personally I don't think what you did was bad, if it was only 5 mins it's not exactly crying it out

phew thankyou people - thought perhaps I was being cruel and horrible...........

I wish I had known some babies cry before sleep with ds. He always did this and I was always trying to stop him with cuddles /breastfeeding etc. This made things worse and he'd just cry more.

at first I did compromise by holding him actually as I hated leaving him in the cot but after a while I realised that he settled much quicker if I put him down and would actuially get more upset if I picked him up while he was doing his 'go to sleep' crying.

PUPD never worked for me because picking him up just made the crying worse and it lasted longer.

Some babies need to do this, mine did and I did not realise and so began a horrendous few months. As soon as I left her to cry without interferring (we did cc) she fell asleep alone! She still does not do it all the time but she does now settle herself and so has longer naps and sleeps for longer stretches at night (most of the time!)