My baby is coming up 6wks old and as he's a PFB I'm desperately trying to do all the right things and consequently I suspect I'm doing everything wrong!
Many many people have told me that newborns don't form habits and sleep associations are not something to concern myself with until 3 months of age at the earliest. Many many people (older female relatives, heh) have also told me that I am making a rod for my back etc etc if I rock/carry/feed LO to sleep at this age.
Here's the deal - he slept great for the first 2 weeks then had some sort of episode whereby he lost an entire night's sleep with terrible tummy pains and whether related or not he's not really been right since. It's taken me a long time to work this out, but what we thought was colic is actually overtiredness, because it's much better when he's slept through the day!
However, sleep is becoming gradually more elusive - in the daytime he will sleep either in the pram or bouncy chair but wakes immediately when it stops moving, or on me or my OH. Sometimes he can then be transferred to the moses basket or cot, but generally this wakes him. At night the only way to settle him is to breastfeed him to sleep in our bed and then try our luck moving him to the cot. More and more I'm having to give up and take him to the spare room (OH works and as we're not using bottles there's no sense him being woken too) where I can feed him to sleep on the futon and then just lie there trying to sleep myself but not move or disturb him! We've considered cosleeping in the big bed with all 3 of us but I just don't sleep well with him in bed (too paranoid) and it does disturb my OH. It's a last resort but we'd rather avoid it.
So, bearing in mind that I know newborns don't generally develop sleep associations/habits etc, I can't help but feel that he's becoming extremely reliant on suckling to sleep. If he's really cranky and tired, he'll literally chomp desperately for the nipple and cry with frustration until he latches on, then within seconds his eyes close and he's off to sleep. It's almost instantaneous, and if you remove the nipple even after a long period of sleep he often wakens again and cries for it. He doesn't even really feed - mostly he just holds the suction. I feel that he is desperate to sleep and hence desperate for the nipple because without it he's unable to sleep.
During the day (when I have more patience and am less exhausted) I have been putting him down to sleep once he starts yawning - he usually cries out within a minute so I go back, pick him up, settle him with a cuddle and humming then when he yawns again and looks settled I put him back in the cot, repeat ad nauseum until he eventually falls asleep, often after about 5-10 returns. I never leave him to cry (although I do wait long enough to make sure it's a cry and not a sleepy whimper). I've read the research about cortisol levels in crying babies and it scares me!
He also often wakes himself up by twitching or making bizarre angry bird noises (best description I can come up with I'm afraid!). I've tried swaddling but he really, really hates it. I warm the sheets with a hot water bottle before he goes in, and make sure the room is dark and quiet.
Anyone got anything to contribute, even things like "my baby was the same and I lived through it" are very welcome!