How do you put your newborn to sleep?

[Panda12345]

Hi
Trying to gage the norm for getting your baby to sleep for naps and night. My DS is 10wks old (7wks corrected if that matters...?). Currently I feed him to sleep and then after 20 mins try to move him to his Moses. If he wakes I’ll either feed him some more or sometimes rocking him will work. He does one good nap a day but the others seem like a light sleep and only last around 20 minutes... What do others do?

Hiya!

My Lo is 13 weeks, but his routine hasn’t changed much since 10 weeks when it comes to sleep.

Babies around this age generally (and I mean generally!) can only manage up to an hour and a half of awake time before they become overtired and sleep becomes tougher for them.

My LO’s schedule since about 8ish weeks looks roughly like...

6am wake up
7.30-10 nap
11.30 - 2 nap
3.30 - 6 nap
7.30 - 10 nap
10 - put into pjs and dream feed, put into bed in the space of about 30-45 mins

No night time wake ups since he was about 6 weeks old

In the day, he sleeps on me in the sling. I personally think this makes a huge difference - he sleeps for longer and very rarely cries. I can get on with my day, go out if I want to, I even do the hoovering with him in it! I seriously can’t recommend a sling enough - it was a game changer for me. He also started sleeping through the night once I started using the sling, even though I don’t use it at night. Could just be a coincidence but it felt like a gift from God at the time 😂

Oh, and a dummy for naps! He usually only sucks it for about 5 mins and spits it out, but he falls asleep in that short time and seems to sleep better as a whole for it. Plus it lowers SIDS risk, so that’s a nice bonus!

The dummy is the single best (and simplest) tool for independent sleep.

With short naps, your baby will want about 1h awake time between waking from one nap and going to sleep at the next nap.

Also good sleep habits to get baby to go to sleep where they stay asleep, rather than moving baby once asleep. It's ok at this age for baby to have their sleep in the pram or bouncy chair.

The sling is a lifesaver for a long deep sleep. But personally I don’t feel like I can do much. He’s a bit awkward to wash the dishes around! At least I get a few steps in walking around the house for an hour...

Have you tried a ring sling? I had one that put him dead centre to start with and like you say, it was a pain to try and do anything. I was also nervous not being able to see my feet

With the ring sling I found I could put him slightly to the side (not on the hip of course!) and that freed me up to be able to do things in front of me. Don’t get me wrong, I can’t scrub the floors but can do the washing up, hang clothes, etc with relative ease.

This is my second baby and I'm just at the point where I know that getting her to go down for naps is just bloody hard work and so she naps almost exclusively in the sling because that way she gets good long Naps.
I am tempted to start doing a night time routine and proper bedtime though because she's killing me at the moment!

Panda12345 have you tried a swaddle?

It recreates the tight feeling of being held close, but makes it easier to put baby down while keeping that tight, closed feeling.

And definately use alongside a dummy.

@eggofmantumbi I can imagine with the second all this what he “should” be doing is dropped for what is easiest!
I do swaddle but he just isn’t getting into a deep enough sleep during the day. Thankfully on an evening that’s not the case at least!
Basically I wasn’t sure I should be rocking him/doing something other than boob or sling... Sounds like he/I’m pretty normal!

I think you just have to trust your instincts. It's bloody overwhelming the first time. Whoever said sleeps like a baby is a trickster!

Why does my baby not sleep longer than 30 minutes in a sling?! What is the secret? She naps longer in her cot but not before about 35 minutes of rocking .. 😩

When he was very young he'd fall asleep having his bottle, so we'd just put him in the crib. When he got older and stopped falling asleep we just put him down and left him to settle himself, which he usually did no problem

I support the dummy use at sleep times. I have 3mo twin girls and I give them a dummy when putting them down - one sleeps all through without the dummy coming out and the other lets her dummy slip after she is asleep but luckily it does not wake her and anyway if a see the dummy has slipped I gently replace it and sucking starts immediately!