sleep/nap question

LittleDucky

Hi mamas,

 I've only posted on here a couple times (lately I've been on thebabywearer boards more than thebump) but I had a question I thought you ladies could probably help me out with.

 DS is a little over 5 months old and nurses to sleep every night.  During the day, he almost always naps on me in a wrap.  If I'm wearing him, he'll take a nice long nap (yesterday he napped for 2 hours) but if I put him down he'll only nap for about 20 minutes.  I absolutely love our snuggly naptime together.

 But - I'm wondering at what point I need to worry about instilling bad sleep habits.  Obviously, I'd eventually like him to be able to go to sleep at night without nursing and/or nap during the day without being worn.  What age do you think I need to worry about this?  My gut instinct (which I trust about parenting stuff, for the most part) is that what we are doing now is just fine and that I don't need to worry about anything.  He is a good sleeper and sleeps from around 7 or 7:30pm until around 6am, so what we are doing now is working for us.  But he will be going to daycare eventually, thankfully not until he is almost 9 months old, and he'll have to be able to nap there without being worn.  That is quite a ways off though.

 Any thoughts?  Thanks mamas!

LittleDucky

Just read the "would your lo have been a better sleeper" post below and realized it asks some of the same questions.  Oops!  Should have read that first, I think.

Dreamsicle23

My personal opinion is that in most cases, not allowing these sleep associations early on (even though it makes things harder temporarily) makes for better sleep habits in the long term.

Since about 3 months old, I have put DS down (awake) and walked away - simple as that.  It wasn't particularly easy to get there.  It took a lot of patience and willpower to not just rock him to sleep or let him pass out on the bottle but I am so glad I stuck with it.  I'm sure it's partial luck that he's naturally not a crappy sleeper, but I'm 100% certain he wouldn't have STTN as early as he did if I had allowed him to develop sleep associations.

LittleDucky

Dreamsicle23:

My personal opinion is that in most cases, not allowing these sleep associations early on (even though it makes things harder temporarily) makes for better sleep habits in the long term.

Since about 3 months old, I have put DS down (awake) and walked away - simple as that.  It wasn't particularly easy to get there.  It took a lot of patience and willpower to not just rock him to sleep or let him pass out on the bottle but I am so glad I stuck with it.  I'm sure it's partial luck that he's naturally not a crappy sleeper, but I'm 100% certain he wouldn't have STTN as early as he did if I had allowed him to develop sleep associations.

 So did your LO just go to sleep, no problem, when you put him down awake?  If I put DS down awake, he will usually kick and squirm or cry. And then he gets himself more and more worked up.  I'm just not comfortable letting him be upset like that. Did your LO go to sleep easily when you put him down and walked away, or did he fuss?

 FWIW, my DS has been STTN for over a month now, and he usually sleeps from about 7:30 until 6 or 6:30 without waking.

I'm okay with the way we are doing things for now.  I'm more thinking about at what age we should try to let him fall asleep more on his own.  But after reading the other recent related post about whether letting your LO CIO makes for a better sleeper, I'm thinking that I'm just going to keep doing what we are doing and not worry for now.