Don't say awake but drowsy...

[Loutall2000]

My baby girl is 14 weeks abs to be fair, I feel like she's been pretty good with sleep, I don't feel hard done by or tired as a general rule but some bad habits have developed over the last 4 weeks - either feeding her to sleep or holding her/having her in a sling for naps. I can't just put her down in her cot and leave her. Is it a silly idea that I have in my head that she should be able to do this? I've been following a sleep program and they seem to suggest that if she's not the wrong kind of tired (over/under) and I get her into bed at the right time, she should go off quite nicelyZ she lies there quite happily for 10 mins then starts getting upset and I sometimes leave her for 5 mins hoping she will sort herself out but she doesn't so I comfort her and feed her to sleep or out her in the sling.

We are in lockdown so it's no real problem to feed her to sleep, but I think it explains why she catnaps/wakes after 25mins from her naps. At night she goes down at 7.30 and will wake about 3-4 times for feeds in the night which I don't mind and assume is quite normal for 14 weeks?

But there's a part of me that worries I'm creating a rod for my own back and should be weaning her off the feed to sleep/contact comfort otherwise she will never go down easily. We had a terrible time with our 2 year old and I can still be up with her 3 or 4 times in a night on a bad night. I think I'm a bit traumatise le by it because I'm fixated on this baby's sleep.

I often try to put her down drowsy but awake, as I did with no1 daughter and it never ever ever ever works. They both wake immediately and start crying. Should I be leaving her to work it out herself? She just seems to get more hysterical rather than working it out...

I put my 6 month old down today drowsy but awake. I just plonked her on a bean bag turned round to pick her cardigan and she was asleep
First time that’s happened and I had to stay next to the bean bag!
Just get them off to sleep however you can, people will tell you you just got into bad habits when’s they won’t sleep. But let’s face it if all it took was bath book bed we’d have cracked it years ago.

The best sleep advice (ie it worked) I had was from the dietitian. Make sure they get enough calories during the day but there are good sized gaps between the meals. If they are constantly eating in the day the body will want to constantly eat at night. I did that and got it from every two hours to once a night.

For the toddler not the baby

You are her only source of comfort once she's been fed and changed. Its 100% for babies to want to be close to you. You're only just out of the 4th trimester.
There's a ridiculous belief that babies should be sleeping on their own as soon as possible, in our culture.

You are not making a rod for your own back. You are doing what is natural.

My DS has never slept through the night. Hes now 3. DD sleeps incredibly well. She'll wake up for a feed but she's only 8mo.

There is no difference between how I have dealt with their sleep. They both co-slept. They both fed to sleep. It's literally just their natural physiology.

Please don't put any pressure on yourself. Feed her to sleep, get some shut eye too if you can, chill.

Caveat that this is all personal opinion based on my experience as a mum of 4...
I would try to avoid feeding to sleep - instead I always fed when they woke from a nap (so 'routine' is sleep-feed-play-sleep)
Expecting to put a 3 month old down in a cot and them fall asleep alone might be a bit ambitious, but I would try to vary how they sleep and make sure it wasn't always reliant on me being there - so for example if you do one nap in the sling, try another in a swing and another as a walk in the pram.

Give baby lots of sleep cues that aren't being fed so dummies, blanket or snuggly (this is really useful!), white noise.

As she gets a few weeks older and isn't reliant on feeding to sleep and has lots of sleep cues you can transfer those to the cot - so rather than walking in the pram with dummy/white noise/comfort blanket you put her in the cot with dummy/white noise/comfort blanket and shush or pat her to sleep. Then you can gradually reduce the amount of "help" from you.

The idea with lots of sleep cues are that anyone can do them, anywhere, and they signal "sleep". My 3 and 6 year olds still have their sleep blankets and anytime we send them for a sleep over with grandma or want the 3 year old to nap - bring out the blanket. It made starting childcare really easy as we sent them day 1 with blanket & dummy (one of mine wouldn't take a dummy but if they do it's 100% easier) and they could nap in a cot, buggy, mat, sofa.

My 18mo has dozed off of her own accord,on her own once in her life in the day I think. Just turned around and she was asleep and it was amazing!! She's done it twice at night time. I have good night time routine blah blah blah, tried sleep training (I will not do this again as it was a long time of pain, crying etc and did not work on my DD, even though I appreciate works for some) but she still needs help. I've learned to accept that this is who she is and that comparison is the thief of joy.
I'm going to take on board what pp said about eating to see if that helps as she can have one wake-up on one night then the next five- maybe the eating could be the readon for my older one.
Anyway, hope you can find your balance, but what one baby may do, yours may not.