How can I get my 11 week old to sleep anywhere but sling ...?

[PiperG]

My 11 week old DS will pretty much ONLY sleep when attached to me in a sling, and generally I have to be bouncing up and down on the birthing ball too. He is a very twitchy, light sleeper - he has reflux - so when he lightens in his sleep or wakes up the bouncing sends him off again to sleep eventually. If I try to take him out of the sling and put him down, he wakes up - sometimes straight away, sometimes after 5 or 10 minutes or whenever the next tummy cramp or gripe hits him - so then, back in the sling and on the ball again.

This is exhausting, especially in the evenings when we do this till 11 or 12 - usually DP does the last couple of hours of this shift while I go to bed to get some sleep. Then he brings DS to me to co-sleep (again, very restlessly, although at least I don't have to get out of bed and on to the ball) for the rest of the night (he won't stay in his moses basket, or the v expensive Amby baby hammock). I am despairing of ever being able to get him to sleep anywhere else - of getting him into some kind of bedtime routine that will enable us to have a bit of an evening again. We got our DD going to bed at 7 when she was 3 months ish, and we feel sooo far off being able to do anything like this with DS!

Does anyone have any ideas as to how to begin to progress with getting him a bit happier sleeping in other places, or do we just have to reconcile ourselves to having strapped to us for the forseeable future?

Hi, I am sorry to hear that you are having a hard time. Sorry, you may have mentioned this but are you bf or ff?

Have you tried swaddling when he's in bed with you, as you say he is a restless sleeper? if he gets used to it, you might be able to get him down in the evening too? i find swaddling helps DS through his light sleep phases. What about a dummy too?

this all sounds very familiar. My DD is 6 weeks and pretty much the same story. And likewise our DS had a bedtime by about 3 months so hoping that the same thing will happen but not sure exactly how! I find that I can put her down when she has fallen asleep in the sling and she will sometimes sleep for half an hour or so in the day. Occasionally she has slept better in her chair - so semi upright rather than in the moses basket. And the other thing that sometimes works is white noise - if she's fallen asleep in the sling, we can sometimes put her down next to the very noisy bathroom extractor fan thing and she'll carry on sleeping till her next feed.
I'm thinking that at some point when I have the energy we could try the pick up put down thing that someone came up with - can't remember which of the baby gurus it was. I seem to remember that this was how we started getting DS to 'go to bed'. Also need to start trying music - that definitely helped settle DS. We had a few good CDs - Classical music for babies, and one nursery rhyme + heart beat one that we used for ages actually. I think for us part of the problem is that as she's our 2nd we don;t have as much time to put into trying to put her down, so tend to settle for the easiest option which is to carry her. HAving said that people keep telling me that the best way is whatever is easiest at this stage - not sure how long we should carry on with it though! sorry for the ramble...

Karen99, I'm breastfeeding - every 2/3 hours day and night - he's a bit of a comfort feeder as I think it temporarily eases his discomfort, but then he's off again ...

Pulapula, I do swaddle him, have done since birth as otherwise his arms and legs just flail around like a windmill. But it doesn't seem to have any effect helping him to stay asleep in the evening! I've tried a dummy too, as he always want to suck, and sucks furiously on his fist, but he won't take a dummy. I've just ordered a NUK latex one in the hope that he'll prefer that.

Asset1, thanks for sharing your experience! Our babies sound very similar. Perhaps I should try blasting him with white noise when I lie him down in his hammock - I always have static radio on when he's in sling, as it sends him to sleep, but hadn't tried keeping it on when I take him out. What's the pick up put down thing? It rings a bell but I can't quite remember what it's all about.