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

[alannabanana]

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.

Hi,

I haven't read all the other posts so forgive me if I'm repeating things. My DS is also 3 months and will often self-settle for naps, and sometimes at night. I didn't use any particular process, but I would put him down for naps calm, very dozy but not actually asleep. That way I knew he was tired enough to sleep and he might grumble for 5 mins or so but then go off. Initially it was lumpy, but I was consistent with it - this is putting him in his cot for naps btw - and in just a few days it seemed to be established. I usually go through a mini routine of using the same phrases 'It's time for Max's lovely nap' blah blah, and we also say goodbye to the animals in a picture on his wall and say we'll see them all again when he wakes up - the usual kind of drivel. He has a mobile with four billion settings and I just have the fishies - sorry, ahem, fish - going round for 5 mins. That's the only time the fish go on their travels, so he has cues. He now goes down less dozey but clearly tired and I put him down on the basis of sleepy signs than a nap schedule, but it works out at 3-4 times a day. Sometimes he just won't go down and I accept that after up to 15 mins of complaining - not screeching though, like you I can't leave him to screech.

Night are different though. I like him to tank up on boob before bed which usually ends up with him zonking out on the boob, as he does at night feeds too. The doc ticked me off today for too many night feeds (it's not like I enjoy getting up four times a night!) so from tonight I'll be trying to break the boob-sleep connection. Maybe we should compare notes??

grrr, too many night feeds? like you have a choice in the matter!! he'd prob say the same thing about me then as i'm up feeding 3 or 4 times a night these days. did he suggest what you're supposed to do about it? im putting it down to a growth spurt that'll pass...hopefully!
i don't know how you're supposed to break the boob-sleep connection, other than just never letting him fall asleep on the job as it were. he's still so young that he prob needs all those night feeds. then again what do i know, im no doctor!

Hiya alannabanana. I have a 3mo too. I know what you mean about the pressure from outside. I take what Drs and HVs say about BFing with a pinch of salt though, as they are not BFing specialists and their training can be years out of date.

Why should we be trying to break the boob-sleep connection anyway? I'm still exclusively breast-feeding and my DS has only been in the world for 13 weeks!

About the rabbit toy though, sorry to be alarmist but toys in cots aren't really safe at this age, and not for a while yet as there is a real risk of suffocation, particularly once they can roll over.

Hi, just wanted to say that I could possibly have written this post! DS is nearly 4 months and has probably only ever dropped off anywhere other than at the breast about three times! I did try to feeding him downstairs before his nap to try to stop it but by the time I'm unpstairs and he's in his grobag he's got his second wind.

I figure it's just natural for them to do it and, coz he won't use a dummy, I let him comfort suck a fair bit too.

I would also add that I was told by my mum, from birth, not to run to stop him crying and I'm ashamed to say that I believed her and went through a short phase of leaving him to cry when he was only about a month old . I now realise - mainly thanks to MN - that CC is complete bollocks. It's a totally unnatural response to a baby's cry and I know that I should just trust my instincts, as you should trust yours (although it's hard when you're knackered and people with more experience are pressuring you).

feralgirl - we're on the same page for sure! the more i think about it the more i come to the conclusion that CC is a 'quick-fix' to help knackered parents at the end of their tether and actually should not be the first port of call when sleep training at all. it was used by our mums and grandmums sure, but that doesnt mean its the only thing you can do.
im happy to report that my boy has pretty much nailed the self-settling thing now, after we employed a few cry-free strategies from andrea grace's book. (buy it, if you cant buy it, borrow it, if you cant borrow it, steal it!) he still unavoidably sometimes falls asleep at the breast/bottle but to be honest, i'd rather ease him into self-settling with sometimes doing it/sometimes not, than go for broke straight away with the controlled crying. he'll be 17 weeks on friday and i think he's doing damned well to be self-settling at all at this stage, and thats what i'll tell my bossy health visitor!

lowrib - don't worry about the bunny! he doesnt sleep near it for long as we take it away while tucking in the sheets he's inevitably kicked off, once he's asleep!

My DS learnt to self settle at 9 weeks. (I also used the Baby Whisperer and found it helpful). Until that point he screamed for 4-5 hours every night from 6pm and was a very unsettled baby in general. I had to do something to help him sleep well during the day and night as he was so miserable (and so was I as a result). I always thought that babies under 6 months didn't really need a 'routine' as such but I set up a bath, feed, song routine (to have a break between feed and sleep) which ended in me putting him to bed at about 6.30. As soon as he cried (which, in the beginning was straight away), I'd pick him up, settle, then put him down. I put down and picked up for 3 hours in a row every night for 3 nights. I never left him to cry, even for a few minutes. On the 4th night, I put him down (ready for the whole business), he looked at me, gurgled, I left the room and he put himself to sleep within 20 minutes. He continued to do that pretty consistently at every nap and bed time and is now 2.4 years and a brilliant sleeper.
My 8 month old is a totally different story! She's very happy in general but only started napping consistently at about 5-6 months and has terrible night sleep. She regressed to newborn hell just after 5 months but has never gone back to sleeping through (which she did only for 3 weeks) and wakes every night, often for 2-4 hours in a row. I have just hired a sleep consultant because I have no idea what to do and am so exhausted I don't even know my own name anymore! The only real difference is that I use the dummy more for her than I did for DS (although he did have one, I didn't always give it at bedtime) and she often falls asleep at her last feed which DS rarely did.
I am hoping that someone else will bring a fresh perspective and will let you know if they tell me anything totally surprising.(She doesn't condone controlled crying which is good as I can't do it).
Good luck!