The holy grail of baby falling asleep by themselves…

[opplosandbononos]

Please wise mumsnetters help me with my 15 week old baby…

she goes to sleep by herself in her cot for naps and bedtime at home. White noise, dark room. Has a fidget around then off to sleep.( No dummy, did try one but as soon as it falls out she wakes up) falling asleep by herself is meant to mean she can link sleep cycles right? This is what everything I read tells me. she’s cracked it! Oh no no no no.

naps are 30 mins on the dot. Night time will sometimes yield 5/6 hours from bedtime then what can only be described as carnage afterwards.

she wakes up tired and grumpy from naps. Will go back to sleep but will need assistance from that point. Is tired and struggles with an hours wake time. Have tried pushing this to 1.5 hours as I thought maybe undertired and that’s why short naps but no difference.

blah blah 30 min naps are normal. Great. But baby is miserable. And so am I. So. What do I do?

the way I see it my options are:

• baby sleeps independently however long she will sleep. We get up from naps and continue the day. Rinse and repeat and repeat and repeat. Don’t know whether this will ever sort itself out or viscous cycle though?
• encourage longer naps by holding baby for the naps to create an age appropriate schedule but forgo the independent aspect for now

any experience/advice on how to achieve longer AND independent sleep? I understand overtiredness = bad but also that independent sleep is important for good sleep habits.

sorry for the ramble.

Your baby is not even 4 months old yet. You cannot expect independent sleep for a VERY long time yet, think over 2 years old. You need to adjust your expectations.

Repeated night wakes are natural and normal until well over 2 years old.

You cannot make them sleep longer. Sleep is developmental - they will sleep when are they are developmentally able to do so.

This is a great article on the reality of baby sleep:

sarahockwell-smith.com/2017/07/24/the-rollercoaster-of-real-baby-sleep/

Independent sleep is not important for ‘good sleep habits’. This is just factually untrue. Most babies sleep better with their mums rather than alone. The fact your baby is falling asleep alone and doing 5 hour stretches at night is already good going.
30 minute naps are also normal, sleeping longer on mum is normal. Babies don’t read the sleep books and what works for one won’t work for another, so honestly I’d just go with the flow and respond to your baby as they need responding to.

The Possums Approach is brilliant if you like having something to follow

Plus the SOS article above, which Id also recommend

I have to say just because lo can fall asleep by self doesn't mean they can consistently link sleep cycles sadly. When we have a regression lo goes sleep just fine. But then wakes up between sleep cycles.

Things that may help, contact napping to get lo going longer and preventing overtiredness. White noise or pink noise which is what we use. We find pink noise bit softer. Other one is hover by lo before they wake to try and help them go into next sleep cycle. We used a dummy to help with it. Tapping dummy during the sleep cycle to teach them to use dummy to help thos process. I know lo didn't like dummy or doesn't use it. But may help 🤷‍♀️

There is a regression as I'm sure you know and it might be part of it with short naps.

Another one which I'm sure your doing nice full belly before naps was always key for my lo.

Baby will always have moments like this even if they can self settle. You think it's cracked then BAM 💥