Safe and Positive Sleep Associations

[LittleBeansMum]

Hello! This is my first thread 😊 I'm a first-time mum to a little girl who was 3 months old yesterday 💕 I warn you now...I'm rubbish at using 10 words when 250 will do...but I will get there eventually!

My LO (did I use that right?!?) is pretty chilled and sleeps quite well so I've been counting my blessings. I spent a lot of time when I was pregnant researching the fourth trimester and learned that newborn babies pretty much just want to be held a lot of the time, and that they were too little to really form habits etc. so i pretty much went with the flow - have been demand-feeding / sleeping etc. and other than doing bath and feed to sleep - starting whenever made sense - we haven't had a proper routine. She slept brilliantly and I was feeling pretty chuffed!

Anyhoo, i'm now coming out of trimester 4 where I felt pretty comfortable and am now entering a new period where words like "sleep association" are suddenly floating around and I'm reading that this feeding to sleep thing which is totally working counts as a "negative" sleep association and I read about it and can see what they mean.
So I'm thinking I should maybe gently introduce something that counts as a positive sleep association..
I'm not keen on controlled crying- I don't think it's the right fit for me and my daughter. So i picked this cute little tag blanket and then realised....if can't go in the cot with her because of safe sleeping (right?)....So my question is (told you I'd get there!!) how do you introduce a safe AND positive sleep association? Are there any blankets or cuddly toys that are considered safe at this age?
Am I thinking about this too early? If I keep feeding to sleep until it's safe to give her a blanky or something will it be harder to switch sleep association?
Looking forward to hearing about other people's experiences.
Cheers!
Jen
xx

Our little boy has slept in a sleeping bag since he was born. Doesn't sound like much, but now at 16 months old, he reaches for his bag when he's ready to go to sleep. White noise has also proved to be a positive association for us. (Played all night). He instantly calms down and gets cuddly once his white noise is on, and he's in his sleeping bag. He knows it's sleep time.

The negative association that we had to reduce was rocking / bouncing, as this is how we got him to sleep in the early days. We reduced this gradually over time once he reached 4 months.

Thanks Sar 🙂 has it helped him not to need your help getting back to sleep every time he wakes in the night? Xx

Thanks Sar 🙂 has it helped him not to need your help getting back to sleep every time he wakes in the night? Xx

Yes. He started to sleep through from about 6/7 months. For us that meant that although he woke a few times, he went back to sleep by himself. However, we were lucky, as after the 4 month sleep regression, his sleep seemed to improve dramatically. Also as he was formula fed, he had no breast-to-sleep reliance, which does seem to be the hardest to break.

Bar pain or a temperature, he self settles himself every time he wakes.

Obviously I think it's hard to know whether the stuff we did had any influence, or whether he was just going to be a good sleeper anyway! I prefer to think what we did helped

Neither of my children had a toy or blanket or anything like that to associate with sleep. I fed them both to sleep, until they stopped, at around 10 to 11 months. Then they were able to be put down sleepy and settle themselves. This coincided with them sleeping through/no night wakings. So, I don't think you need to introduce a toy/blanket, for the sake of it.

We used a swaddle and a dark room at that age. We also had a bedtime routine (very simple - bottle, bath, swaddle, cuddle, bed) so he knew it was sleep time. I taught him how to self settle at about 3.5 months and never had the 4 month sleep regression.

Before that, he'd had every 'bad' sleep association going - fed to sleep, rock to sleep, sleeping in the sling, co sleeping (I personally don't like co sleeping, but it's not bad if it works for you), dummy, sleeping in arms... But once we removed the feed/dummy to sleep association, he went from multiple night wakings to 1 night waking.

If you are still happy feeding to sleep, then don't worry about it. However, if you're not happy (and you don't sound like you are), then you can definitely break the habit. I managed without any controlled crying - I did this. It took about 2 months, but he was never left to cry (although he did some crying in my arms with me soothing him, he likes to cry).

Thank you all so much for taking the time to respond 😊 lovely to have such positive responses. We'll try a combo of the above and see what works for Bean and us!! Xx

Please read some Sarah Ockwell Smith for the opposite view. You can just google her name. I wouldn't worry about good and bad associations, there's no such thing. Just do what works and what feels right. Oh and watch out because that 4 month sleep regression that I didn't believe in til it happened to me may be just around the corner ....(sorry)

If you are happy with how she's sleeping then I wouldn't be in a rush to change anything. Some children are good sleepers, some aren't and trying to make the latter into the former is generally more exharatung than going with the flow. There is also a risk that stopping feeding to sleep may make bedtimes harder without improving night time sleep - we weaned completely about 2 years before DS regularly slept through!

Exhausting, sorry...