Independent Sleep

[ELW85]

How did you get your LO to sleep in their own bed/cot etc without being fed or rocked to sleep and how old were they?
I’d like to hear all experiences!

My LO is 11 weeks and has a bit of a feed to sleep association. He can be rocked to sleep too but I know this is essentially a crutch too.
After dabbling with PUPD, I’m not sure I want to start formal sleep training until 4/5 months. Is this too late?
Naps are currently on me but he sleeps like a champ at night.
Planning on nursery in October so I guess I need to resolve this by then! TIA.

Have you considered doing this via a sidecar cot? That means taking one side off a normal, full sized cot next to your bed. It makes putting baby down and cuddling to settle in the cot much easier. It's not an answer to immediately make sleep better, but with a view to gradually teaching baby to go to sleep (ie from awake to asleep) in the cot, but with your help.

@BabySleepTeacherUK - funny but I’ve just learned what a sidecar cot is today!
I’m hoping to explore other methods first - as gently and no cry as possible - but will definitely bear that in mind, thank you.

Sleep training isn’t recommended until 6 months. Your baby is tiny and still learning to exist outside of you.

I’m not against sleep training at all (I did controlled crying with my daughter at 10 months and it’s the best thing I ever did) but that young is too young in my opinion.

Nursery will find their own way - I wouldn’t worry about that. My daughter used to nap much better at nursery than at home!

@NewMum293 - so I agree I really don’t want to do anything that formal, just really gently get away from feed/rock to sleep and get him to be able to sleep in his cot without being a ninja so I guess it depends on what we mean by sleep training!?
If the getting to sleep in their cot from awake is exactly what sleep training is. I guess I’ll have to wait!
I 100% don’t want him crying!!

Anyone else?

I managed to get my DD (4m) to go to sleep in her next to me crib by using a dummy - before that it was rock/bounce/feed > put down > hope for the best > eyes open > start again...

We have a routine - dark room, white noise, dummy in, cuddle, kisses, and lullaby, and then she goes in the crib and I lie next to her holding her hands or sometimes stroking her face a little, and she nods off.

To get to that point I got her to take the dummy and when she did that I was able to stop all the movement and she’d go to sleep in my arms. From there, I started to lie down next to the crib with her in my arms but on the mattress, if that makes sense, and slowly moved my arms away to get to the point where I put her down and we still have physical contact but she’s not being held. I’m quite happy with this as I like lying next to her and feeling close so haven’t tried to get her to the point that she goes to sleep while I’m out of the room. I don’t know if this counts as sleep training. There wasn’t any crying (I think this is because of the dummy) so it felt gentle enough for a baby of her age. If she ever does cry when going to sleep - very occasionally she struggles to fall asleep and gets quite cross about it - I always pick her up and cuddle her but once she’s calm and sleepy again she goes back down and falls asleep in the crib (without crying).

Hope this is helpful!

Hey, at 4 months (after the fourth trimester) we spent a couple of weeks putting DS to sleep in his cot for at least two of his daytime sleeps (he had 4 30-minute naps a day bah!) and nailed down a bedtime routine which resulted in him going in his cot after bottle, bath etc and we would sit with him until he went to sleep, this would often be a looooong time, each time he was unsettled we’d pick him up and cuddle him and put him back down. After a week or so he started going to sleep on his own so we started leaving the room and sitting outside with the monitor while he went to sleep. He never cried as we’d intervene if he became anxious. By 5 months he was going to sleep by himself. He had a dummy too which helped.

He’s never been fed to sleep though (bottle fed) so I didn’t have to get rid of any associations aside from being held (literally couldn’t put him down for weeks and weeks until we got his reflux medicated). It took some patience but it was worth it as he’s slept solidly since then.

Quite honestly lots of babies respond to gentle sleep support and will be put down with some help but lots of babies don’t at all and we’ve been lucky with DS and his sleep i think, some of it has been down to us and consistency but otherwise I think we’ve just been lucky. He’s 14 months now and we generally only hear from him at night if he’s poorly or teething.

@Dillybear @Abouttimemum - thanks, it’s great to hear your experiences. He’s still so young that I don’t want anything not totally gentle, and ideally wouldn’t start helping him to fall asleep on his own until 4/5 months. He sleeps in about 7-9 hour stretches now so I think he can self soothe to a degree, but I really want to comfort him as much as possible at this age but break the feed to sleep habit.
Yesterday was awesome; all naps were without being fed and with no tears (he seemed to like a slumber buddy) until the last nap where I missed his window and he got overtired and upset so I gave him a comfort feed.
Last night; bedtime without feeding to sleep. Sweet.
This morning, I think I tried too early and it took ages to get him down. Without food.
I think my confidence is a little bit shaken after having such a good day yesterday, I really thought I’d gotten him in to the slumber buddy as a sleep cue but now I’m dreading the next nap again!!

Sorry for the ramble.

@ELW85

I totally understand the anxiety! From what I can tell, some days it feels like you take a big leap forwards and other days aren’t so good. I think when you factor in all the other things going on for babies that makes a lot of sense. How did his nap go this morning?

@Dillybear - thanks for the reply! Sadly today he’s taking ages to get down and getting a bit upset. I must be misjudging his windows as it’s taking ages before he’s rubbing his eyes etc.
Bedtime wasn’t a feed to sleep though!
I just don’t want to see him upset so I’m close to just keeping feeding to sleep for a while (which isn’t the right answer I know!)

Have you heard of the huckleberry app? You log when baby goes to sleep and wakes up, and the app tells you when the next nap is due. I’ve found it pretty accurate, and know other mums who have as well. That might be worth a try to see if he’ll go down any easier?

@Dillybear - thanks, I’ve been using it but it’s been pretty out the past couple of days. I need to submit some data I think to get them to assess. It’s so weird, sometimes I’ll get him down 5 mins after the first yawn, other times it’s 30 mins which must mean he’s not really feeling the setting technique!

Hmm, that’s annoying! I found that DD needed longer awake times before she got to four months - the app just seems to change the awake times from one day to the next when the baby is the next age group up, rather than gradually lengthening the awake times, so I also found it wasn’t that accurate as she got close to being four months. I think the first gap for a three month old baby is 1h15, then 1h30, then 1h45 as a maximum.

@Dillybear - thank you! I’ll keep looking for what works and try not to lose my mind!!
The thought of putting him down on his own awake and him going to sleep seems impossible at the moment!