Drowsy and awake = no crying?

Mrs.Greg

I can't seem to get this drowsy and awake thing to work with my girls.  With DD1, I BF'd her to sleep every night for the first 7 months.  She was STTN at 6 weeks so I didn't mind the extra work at the beginning of the night.  When she was 7 months old, we let her CIO at the beginning of the night.  She was ready and it was the best thing did for our family.  I'm trying to put the twins down drowsy and see if the can put themselves to sleep but they can't seem to do it.  I swaddle them up nice and tight and lay them down.  They squirm around, I'm assuming trying to escape the swaddle, and after a few minutes, they start crying.  I don't let them cry more than a few seconds, as long as it takes for me to get back to my bedroom from the living room or wherever I am in the house.  I tried it every time they needed to sleep all weekend and it didn't work once with either of them.  Are they too young?  They will be 6 weeks old on Wednesday.  They were born 1 day before 37 weeks so techinically premature.  I thought I'd seen moms post about their babies putting themselves to sleep pretty early on.  Am I mistaken?  TIA!

cookiemonster03

Ours are only 1.5w adjusted (6.5w actual) but drowsy but awake only works for us in the swing and the vibrator chair.  Once in a while the DD1 will fall asleep with her pacifier to soothe, but DD2 pretty much never will. We usually hold them till they're asleep, and figure we'll revisit this around 6w adjusted (since its getting close then to when DW goes back to work).

leslie13510

Every baby is different, and while there are some that can do drowsy but awake at that age, there are many more who can't.  I want to say that DD was around 11-12 weeks when we could do it with her, and DS was a couple weeks after that.  (Then it all went to hell a few weeks later around 4 months anyway when NOTHING put them to sleep, LOL.) 

meldoo2002

Ours could never do drowsy and awake until we sleep trained at 9 months.  They always cried.  We started out with them sleeping in the swings and moved to rocking to sleep.  At 9 months we did CIO and they cried about 20 min. and have slept great ever since. 

Ruby_Tuesday

It didn't work for us either.  We rocked them to sleep and then did CIO at 7 months with two of them and are doing it with the third now.

macchiatto

We started doing the drowsy but awake thing at 7.5w (they were born at 37w6d) following hte HSHHC guidelines for when and how to put them down. I really was able to put them down drowsy but awake and leave the room with no crying. I was amazed at how well it worked, actually! but that was for naps (most of the time, not every single time); nighttime sleep took a little longer.

erinruns

Until about 6 weeks adjusted, my girls fell asleep wherever.  I didn't worry about drowsy but awake until then when I tried to get us into more of a rhythm.  They also started having more awake time then.  At this stage, you could talk or soothe them if they're crying in their crib to see if that helps.  I don't think you're at a point where they would necessarily start bad habits yet.