how do you get your baby to sleep

triplea1819

what method do you use to get your baby to sleep?  If no method, what do you physically do to get them to fall asleep for a nap/at night. 

nurse

rock

given them a bottle.

sing

I am at my wits end.  I NEED SLEEP.  and she will only sleep if I nurse her.  DS was satisfied by the bottle, and could easily go to sleep with my husband.  I would pump and go to bed and DH would give him a late night bottle, then I would get up and nurse the rest of the night.  

What do you do?

MaMaC15

I got to the point where I would let DS fall asleep on my breast. I was going to school when DS was 10 days old so that was how I got sleep. You have to find what works for you and your LO. Will your LO not take a bottle at all?

triplea1819

she will take a bottle but does not find it soothing.  she is wide awake for hours after a bottle.  even if offered a paci. 

kerribear1717

Either nursing (which I have to do mostly) and the swing.  Other than that not much has worked for me.

andrew's wifey

We do a warm bath with Johnson's Nighttime bath and then footed pajamas. After that she nurses to sleep- like sleeping to the point she looses her latch.  Lately she's been falling asleep at the boob, then waking up right after she falls off, but I can rock her back to sleep most times.  If not, we start over.

Once we're in her room I swaddle her in her crib, which she sometimes wakes up for, but once she's in her sleep spot and the room is dark, I turn on the white noise (sleep sheep's rain setting), and she finds something to stare at whether it's the ceiling fan or whatever, and she usually drifts off pretty quickly.

In the early days we would let her sleep on us.  We'd take turns.

Then we transitioned to the bed time routine and putting her in her cradle in our room, then we moved onto her crib in her bedroom. 

+LuckyVal+

We've gotten into this groove:

turn on sound machine

1/2 a bottle

diaper change

swaddle

1/2 bottle and lullaby

put down drowsy and I'll rub his chest for a bit whie he drifts off. It took some work, but he's getting A LOT better about going down drowsy instead of having to put him down dead to the world

Britty685

we change into jammies

eat bottle in dim light

change diaper

swaddle

by this time LO is either fully asleep or almost asleep, and we place her in her bassinet

JDO

No one thing seems to always work for us. Sometimes it's a bouncing motion, either bouncing on the lap or walking/dancing with him. Other times the stroller or a short trip in the car will knock him out. Sometimes putting him into a food coma and lying him on my chest so he can hear my heartbeat works well too.

SuperThat1006

At bedtime we give her a bath, put her in her footie pajamas and sleep sack, feed her (breast or bottle) and then let her fall asleep on our shoulder. Sometimes she will wake back up and we have to walk with her.

This afternoon for a nap (she wasn't getting the memo that she needed one), I put her in the swing with white noise and she passed out for a couple hours.

Jaffytaffy

I replied to your other post too, but with my LO she falls asleep if I take her for a walk around the block in her stroller.  It works every time, even if she was hysterical before I put her in the stroller.  HTH!

nosoup4u

Can you switch with your DH, and nurse her to sleep initially, and then have him give her at least one bottle of pumped milk so you can get a stretch of sleep?

DS2 is nursed to sleep on our bed, but I'm hoping he'll be able to be nursed and then put in his crib when he's a few weeks bigger. DS1 had to be cuddled/bounced, then nursed, but I don't have the patience or ability to do that with  DS2, since I now have a toddler running around, too. hth

danjou21

We're still working on it but our "routine" that seems to have the best results is:

Nurse on one side

Change diaper

Nurse on other side

Rock/burp

Swaddle

Rock back to sleep

Put in rock n play sleeper with white noise, rocking if necessary

I feel your pain.  Good luck!

ktrn

I am still working on my day routine bc DS is so tired in the evening he is really cranky starting at like 5PM.  But around 6 ish I give him a bath (every night) then massage, change into jammies, cuddle on the couch for a bit with the paci (otherwise he cries).  He usually falls into a very light sleep in my arms (but wakes up when the paci falls out).  I try to hold him off until like 6:45 when I take him in his room with the lights out and nurse him, burp him between sides, and then put him right in the crib when I am done.  He usually does not cry.  Sometimes he is already asleep from nursing, sometimes he chews on his hands for a couple minutes.  It took a while but I defintely think doing the same thing every night is paying off, it just sucks that I can't leave the house after 5PM, he is way to cranky and when i am out he cries the whole way home.  When I get home, he is smiling its like he wants to be home and knows bedtime is coming! On good nights he wakes up twice- around 12-1 and 4-5.  Bad nights he still does 3 times and it os really hard to get him bac to sleep after the 5AM ish feeding. 

Good luck!