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Original poster

getting 3 month baby to self-settle - please tell me CC isn't the only way

31 replies

alannabanana · 23/03/2009 12:47

im getting it from all sides at the moment that he needs to be getting himself to sleep in order to get a better quality sleep - which of course i would love - but i dont wanna go down the CC route. I've been told by parents, in-laws, HV etc that its fine to let a baby cry-it-out and he won't be scarred for life, but whenever i try to put him down awake, he kicks off and winds himself up so much that theres no way he can fall asleep. and sorry, i think it is stressful for a young baby to be left to cry himself to sleep. plus after a while of crying/settling/crying/settling, he often gets hungry again so i need to feed him and start the whole process again.

at the moment i feed him to sleep everytime - naps and all - sometimes i get lucky and he wakes a little once in in the cot, then whimpers for a while and falls asleep. i know i have to start good habits early, but i just dont see the point of making going to bed a stressful event.
any thoughts/experiences in this area would be gratefully received.

OP posts:
rubyslippers · 23/03/2009 12:50

CC is not recommended for babies under 6 months and some say a year

swaddling is very soothing and if your baby will take one, a dummy

I do think that most little babies need a lot less awake time than people think - a feed, burp and a nappy change is usually more than enough excitement before a nap is needed

swaddling was brill - and stroking from their foreheads down to the top of their nose (makes their eyes close)

oh, and there is nothing "wrong" with feeding to sleep

you can get a great book called No Cry Sleep Solution by Elizabeth Pantley (there are a few threads on here in the archives)

magnolia74 · 23/03/2009 12:50

Stop listening and go with whay YOU feel best. at 3 months your baby is tiny and will not be harmed by feeding to sleep. Tackle it later on when you feel ready.

RoseOfTheOrient · 23/03/2009 12:51

it makes me so cross that people are pressuring you into leaving your baby to cry. Ignore them all.
you are not getting into "bad habits" - he needs you, and you should feed him to sleep, if that is what works. he is still soooo tiny....

cyteen · 23/03/2009 12:52

personally i think 3 months is a bit young to learn to self-settle. also agree that CC is not an option at this age - he won't understand it enough to 'learn' anything, it will just stress him (and you!) out.

for now i would just work on putting good sleep habits in place so that he has positive associations when he does start learning how to settle himself. but you may not want to listen to me as my son is nearly 7 months and is only just starting to sort his sleep out

katherine2008 · 23/03/2009 13:16

i didn't let my now 6.5 month old dd cry to sleep - I would hold her hand, soothe her, lift her out, pop her back in her cot, stroke her hair, sing (I sang a lot!!)... at 12 weeks and then not long after that she began to settle herself a lot more easily and I can't tell you exactly when (around 16 weeks?) she really got the hang of it, and was happy to listen to her mobile for 5 minutes before she drifted off. i was AMAZED and never imagined she would be able to do it - she was horribly colicy and cried a lot for the first 3 months, but she did, and so, probably, will yours. my dd loves to sleep with a teddy (she likes to snuggle into him) and now also sleeps with a little vest top of mine - it smells of me I guess and she loves it - I have lost use of it now for about 2 months!!

do what you feel is right as the pp has said. only you know your child!

seeker · 23/03/2009 13:22

He si too young to have bad habits. He has no wants that aren't also need. Feed him to sleep. He's a tiny baby - he needs you and you need him.

McDreamy · 23/03/2009 13:27

It's reassuring to read all your posts. My DD is only 6 weeks and I am also getting the comments - "ooh she's a naughty girl" , "a good cry is probably what she needs" I also feed DD to sleep (except for her morning nap - she will fall asleep herself usually when I am having a wash!!) and co sleep with her too. They are tiny for such a short time. They very soon won't "need" you in quite the same way so make the most of your special cuddles

Catilla · 23/03/2009 13:28

I think you are starting the right thing already... you said that sometimes he wakes a little when you put him in the cot and then whimpers and settles - that's not luck, it's learning to self-settle from a sleepy state, which will gradually extend to work from a less sleepy state.

From my experience I would suggest:

  • hold back for a few moments before jumping in (it might only be a short whimper or yelp)
  • try to gradually reduce your interventions eeg. sing or make soothing noises; if this doesn't work try stroking; only lift him out if you need to.
  • I know some people who've had great success with white noise - a hairdryer for a few minutes, or radio with static fuzz.
  • Don't let him get overtired... I remember when I realised that my ds was already tired by 8.30am it was a massive breakthrough. Once they're overtired it's much harder for them to settle. If you give a little feed and put them down when they are tired but not overtired they can learn faster.
  • Thumbsucking is your friend!!! (not that you can do much to influence it LOL)
HopeForTheBestExpectTheWorst · 23/03/2009 13:28

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This has been withdrawn on request of the poster.

Original poster
alannabanana · 23/03/2009 18:45

some fantastic suggestions, thanks guys.
i think perhaps the crying it out thing is another old-fashioned method (like spoonfuls of porridge before bed at 12 weeks, or brandy round the gums) that the older generation used and therefore think is the only way. im positive i can find a way to get him to settle without leaving him to cry, and you're right it is awful early to expect good sleeping/settling out of him.
i must admit i had a little giggle when you guys were referring to him as a 'tiny' baby - he's absolutely enormous! 98th centile all round!!

OP posts:
StarlightMcKenzie · 23/03/2009 19:06

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seeker · 23/03/2009 21:28

Another quick point. You say he's a big baby. I had two very big babies, and I found that people seemed to expect a lot of them because they unconsciously thought they were older than they actually were. You need to watch out for this tendency - grandparents seem particularly prone to it!

spicemonster · 23/03/2009 21:32

It is an utter, utter waster of time trying to do anything like that with a baby that small. Swaddling, comfort, a cuddle, patting, singing. I did all that and then suddenly at 4-5 months he started falling asleep on his own. Don't do cc - it's pointless on a small baby and will only upset both of you.

Original poster
alannabanana · 24/03/2009 09:22

starlight - thank you, you're very reassuring. see i really think too that at 3.5 months babies are still getting to grips with the world and dont have enough understanding to leave them to cry and for them to get why.
seeker - i think you're on to something there...not only do people go on about his sleep, but i also get tons of pressure to start weaning him. to which i reply 'he may look big but we've no idea what his insides look like, so how can you say for sure that his body is ready for solids.' and people always think he's about 5 months old, so when i say 3 months they're so shocked!
spicemonster - i reckon what happened with yours was he got so much love hugs and reassurance from you that he reached a point where he felt secure enough to fall asleep of his own accord...thats what i want!

i've just ordered andrea grace's baby sleep book so i can get some cry-free guidance on getting him to sleep. fingers-crossed it helps...im so flippin tired!

OP posts:
Original poster
alannabanana · 24/03/2009 09:52

OMG - i put him in the cot about 20 mins ago all fed and happy so i could get on with some work, and he's only gone and fallen asleep!
the only difference i can see is that i gave him a fluffy rabbit teddy to play with and he's fallen asleep resting his cheek on it. that rabbit might just be the lifeline i've been waiting for...watch this space!!

OP posts:
cyteen · 24/03/2009 09:59

Brilliant! It's such a shock when they do things like that, isn't it?

Someone on my post-natal thread used to put a small stuffed toy down her cleavage while feeding her LO, so that he came to associate it with snuggly happy times, and gradually managed to get him to the stage where she can put him down, sleepy, with this toy and he will snuggle up to it and go to sleep.

StarlightMcKenzie · 24/03/2009 11:27

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sazlocks · 24/03/2009 11:44

don't get the leave them to cry it out thing. Personally I thought my DS would do it when he was ready and he did but he was 6 months old. I have never left him to cry for more than a couple of minutes, ever.

I also thought he would sleep through when he was ready and he did but not until he was 12 months ! However I am relatively lucky in that I only have one child, have a very supportive and hands on DH and I don't need a lot of sleep. I can understand how people want to get self settling and sleeping through sorted out earlier if they are in different circumstances.

Trust your instinct - you know your baby best.

Fufulina · 24/03/2009 15:59

Hi - my DD is 13 weeks old and she settles well for naps and at night and I have never left her to cry at all. Now - who knows if this is her or something we've done (I suspect it's her to be honest), but in case it's not - I found some of the baby whisperer's stuff really helpful. BW says that little ones shouldn't be up longer than 2 hours before a nap and this is so true for mine - she cannot go longer than about an hour and a half awake before she needs to go down. Even if she doesn't look particularly sleepy - if I put her down, she's asleep in minutes.

Other BW tip is I always feed her after a nap, so that she doesn't associate going to sleep with feeding. BUT - I do use a dummy - which we started at about 9 weeks when I noticed that it was taking longer and longer to rock her to sleep and then the dreaded transfer to the moses basket was becoming harder still. She loves her dummy - and I know there are a million pros and cons - but she uses it only for sleeps in her moses basket (and not every sleep at that it seems to depend on how tired she is and when I put her down in her awake/aspeel cycle) and she doesn't have the dummy when we're out and about with the pushchair.

But like I said - I wonder if she'd be the same if we'd done the complete opposite or tried other things altogether [contrary babies emoticon] - but thought it might help to hear about my DD who is the same age as yours.

StarlightMcKenzie · 24/03/2009 16:47

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Fufulina · 24/03/2009 18:42

Hi StarlightMcKenzie - I've been keeping a keen eye on the 4/5 month sleep thread! Gearing up for that and will keep you posted...

To answer your question - I didn't want to feed her to sleep because I read so many threads on MN about trying to stop babies feeding to sleep. As I started doing a loose BW thing at about 6 weeks and as she started being awake more anyway - I just made sure I fed her at the start of the cycle (as in her awake for an hour and a half, asleep for 45 minutes cycle), not the end before the nap... She says... obviously, during growth spurts she just feeds the whole time anyway . But - it works for us so far.

StarlightMcKenzie · 24/03/2009 19:17

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lollipopmother · 25/03/2009 08:34

I tried getting DD to self settle at 3 months but tbh it was a bit of a waste of time, sometimes she was fine, other times it'd take her an hour of me reading to her with my hand on her chest. I aborted the mission and let her be cuddled/fed to sleep and then went back to it at 6 months and she goes off easily so the cuddling/feeding doesn't seem to have had an effect and daddy will always cuddle her to sleep if I have had to go out before her bedtime so it's not like we have a routine or anything.

Milsy · 25/03/2009 21:43

I was looking at this on the Sleepytot Blog as the person writing on that has a really young baby and seems to be trying to teach him to self settle already. Not sure if it's possible/cruel/clever or what. But it does seem to be working!

MinkyBorage · 25/03/2009 21:46

blimey, mine didn't start going to bed before me until 3 months! Definitely not cc at 3 months. This time will pass! Good luck.