please tell me this is ok, or what to do if its not.

[mad4mainecoons]

hi all,

i would very much appreciate some words of wisdom. im having trouble settling my 8wk old DD down to sleep. from the start we got into the habit of holding her till she fell asleep and then transferring her to the moses basket or cot, or she would feed to sleep in the very early days. the only trouble is she would wake 10 - 20 mins after being put down so never got a good solid sleep unless i held her for the whole nap. but i noticed that our bedtime in the evenings was becoming very stressful with lots of crying from us both . i really dont think its colic and im sure she is just overtired by the time bedtime comes around (7pm) as she has not slept properly during the day.

at bedtime, once she has settled she sleeps well through the night, only waking for feeds and going down without much fuss.

holding her for all her naps just is not possible anymore as i have a jealous 3.6yo DS and a house to run!

so on the advice of friends and family i have been waiting for the sleepy signs and instead of holding her till fast asleep, putting her down drowsy, in the hope that she will fall asleep without being held and be able to sleep longer. but the moment i try to lay her in her cot, she screams, i just sit by her cot and stroke her head till she falls asleep but sometimes she screams for 30 mins or so and its awful

this is day 2 of trying to get her to settle in the cot and she has cried at every nap time and woken within 30 mins (she will sometimes resettle) i feel awful but i dont know what else to do, if i pick her up she calms but starts crying as soon as i try to put her down.

do i persist and hope to see an improvement soon, or am i doing something wrong? is there a better way of getting her to sleep?

sorry its long, but im upset

hope someone can help

really sorry you're - but I totally know where you're coming from. there's no way DD (12 weeks) will ever ever go down in her cot unless rocked / fed to sleep.

pick-up, put-down/shushing/patting etc - all the tricks that work for some people don't work for her and like you I can't bear the screaming ...

I expect I'm going to the first of many to say sling! that was my magic bullet for the first 3 months - put her in, dance to one song, have nice asleep baby. you can't do everything you want to do but you can do light house stuff/cooking/emailing/whatever while she naps.

she wriggles out of the sling now so I just take her for a five minute spin in the buggy when she's sleepy and then leave her asleep in the hallway. she's been there for 1hr 20 mins now without any of the misery. or if she needs a nap that's when I go out with her in the buggy to do shopping / see people etc.

I'm reckoning proper naps in the cot can happen further down the line - like you she sleeps OK in her cot at night and that's good enough to be going on with.

them's my thoughts anyway - a sort of middle road between holding her all the time and trying to get her to fall asleep by herself - good luck!

Is she swaddled? That can really help.

Thanks, valbona glad to hear its not just mine. she will fall asleep in our sling but wakes the minuite i take her out. and although i do put her in and go for a walk sometimes. my DS is getting really upset that he is not getting any mummy time on his own. as for the pram - no sleeping there, she is too busy looking at the world and on the odd occasion she has slept, the little monkey wakes as soon as the wheels stop turning.

haliborange she hated swaddling much to my frustration as my DS loved it!! she cries as soon as i start to wrap her. so she sleeps in a gro bag.

i dont mind persisting with what im doing if it will work in the end. but i dont want to persist if there is a better way

Agree with the sling idea - just walk / jiggle enough to get her off, then carry on with giving DS some attention while she sleeps in it. She will probably get easier to settle as she gets older - between 9 and 13 weeks, my DS would only sleep in the day if in a sling, but now at 16 weeks naps happily in his cot.

When you hold her to being right asleep, are you putting her down rather soon? I found I'd often have to hold onto DS for 15-20 mins before I could put him down without disturbing him. It might not be very practical, though, with your DS.

You may find that she doesn't take to things like shush / patting now but does eventually. I tried it early on with DS and it did no good at all, whereas now it's a great way of settling him.

HTH

At 8 weeks old do what it takes. There are no bad habits at this age. The only better way is the way that works better for you and your baby.

Aw. Screaming no good! Try putting her down even earlier! Take a read of this as I found it helpful - how much should my baby sleep?

You know this already but I'll say it anyhow, it'll get easier!

get a sling for day time. don't waste time tearing your hair out trying to get her to settle in her bed, keep your sanity and get her strapped to you it might help. wrap slings are good for this.

she is a bit too little to expect her to settle herself when put in cot, but also, don't get her used to actually being put to sleep by rocking/feeding. put her in when sleepy then stay beside her to keep her calm. do try not to get her used to being helped to sleep, that way lies sleep problems.

by 3 months she'll need a bed time routine to begin with lots of visual cues that it's bed time, same song, book, cue words etc.

more about that in this book, i have just been recommending it somewhere else too:

www.amazon.co.uk/Teach-Yourself-Baby-Sleep-General/dp/0340939583

Don't give up on swaddling - I didn't think my DD liked it either, but I do it now and although she protests a bit at first, she soon chills out and it definitely helps her to sleep a bit better.

Agree with the sling - that was the only way I managed for the first six weeks when DD wouldn't be put down!

My dd2 is just the same. For us it's the sling most of the time or else the car or the vibrating bouncy chair. (don't know why, but she's happy for me to lay her down in that!)

My DD was exactly the same a few weeks ago - she is 11 wks now and i have pretty much got it cracked with her. It's pretty much all down to The Baby Whisperer! Her EASY routine stands for Eat, Activity, Sleep, You - so rather than feeding baby to sleep, you feed her, then play with her until she yawns, and then put her down to sleep - while she sleeps you get some 'you' time.

Tweaking the order she was doing things in got us out of the rut of feeding her to sleep and being unable to put her down. I also found that she was feeding really frequently a lot of which I realised was comfort sucking so I started using a dummy.

It took a bit of persistence and to be honest i had a break from fighting with her for a bit re going to sleep in her cot because she had colic and then a cold, but then when we came back to it she was more relaxed and now goes to sleep really well.

Our nap time routine is - as soon as she yawns, I take her into the bedroom and close the curtains. Turn on the noise machine to rain - this really seems to help and i recommend getting one if you can. then sit in the nursing chair, give her a muslin to snuggle, pop a dummy in (I always swore i'd never use them but it works so well for a sucky baby) and cuddle her in to me. Now she starts to drop off immediately most of the time.

At bedtime I do the same except for the fact i feed her, then she has a bath with DH, then I feed her again to top her up, then put her to sleep.

Hope this helps, i feel your pain - it DOES get easier over time. Above all, try not to stress about it, i think that is counterproductive as I am sure DD was picking up on my stress vibes!

OP, just be aware that the Baby Whisperer routine doesn't work for all babies. Trying to do that was what led to DS getting hideously overtired and fighting sleep all the time. We got over the overtiredness by using a sling for all naps and since then I've been able to start feeding him to sleep again, which is the only strategy which works without too many tears. My 'other' method sounds like gingerkirsty's, but doesn't work very well for DS and usually involves quite a bit of crying.

I used to feed DS completely to sleep; now I comfort feed him to drowsiness and then put him down so that he does the last bit himself. I've been able to put him down earlier and earlier in the process as time goes on.

Babies do get easier to settle as they get older.

Baby whisperer did not work for us either - mainly as DS refused to nap for more that 30 mins for at least 2 months during the day. However a bedtime routine is really useful - we started about 8 weeks - but I think at this stage I was pretty much cuddling to sleep and waiting at least 15 mins before putting him down until he was in a deep sleep. Also started to swaddle at 8 weeks and use a dummy after I saw 'Happiest Baby on the Block' he fought the swaddle to start with but settled almost instantly with dummy and a cuddle and transfered into his cot much more easily and started to settle himself.

If night-time sleep ok, I would just do whatever it takes to get daytime sleep if you have other child to look after too. I have 2.5yrs between my two and think DD spent most of her first 3 months in the sling. Also after a while she was happy to doze off in the buggy (and actually stay asleep after we stopped moving).

What sort of sling do you have out of interest?

I have always stayed with or held DS until he fell asleep rather than putting him down awake. A good tip about how to check they are asleep enough to leave them without them screaming is to pick up their arm and let it drop - if they are fast asleep the arm will be completely floppy, but if they are still aware then they usually grip your fingers slightly or move their arm in response.

Also will just add that we co-slept from birth and have had a very painless transition to a bed at 18 months. Would probably have been fine at a year or earlier but I was quite happy not to let him go - just another option if you wanted to consider something else