Babies: 6 - 9 Months
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(XP) Lurker Q - How did you teach your LO to sleep on his/her own?
Hi there! (Also posted on the 3-6 month board)
I'm a FTM currently hanging out on the 0-3 month board. A lot of my anxiety right now is about my LO sleeping (because he isn't sleeping as much as I think he should). My LO is approx 7.5 weeks old and I basically nurse him to sleep every night (I EBF, so he's up every 2 hours or so to feed). Naps are hit and miss in his swing.
I'm looking to transition him to his crib within the next month and get a good nap schedule going (preferably also in his crib). I don't want my LO to become a terrible sleeper, but I feel like I have no idea what I'm doing. 
Please share your sleeping expertise!
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Re: (XP) Lurker Q - How did you teach your LO to sleep on his/her own?
We didn't ever have to sleep train our LO. We were planning on keeping him in our room for a few months, but at about 1 month old he was making so much noise when he was sleeping that it was preventing us from sleeping. We moved him to his crib one night and there he has stayed. At around 8 weeks we started making nap time also in his crib. I can literally count on 1 hand the number of times that LO has cried when being put to sleep.
All our friends that waited until 5-7 months have all had a hard time getting their LOs to sleep in their cribs. We missed all the drama since our LO has no memory of not sleeping in his crib.
So I guess the best advice I can give you is to make sleep time=crib time.
I know a lot of people on here will completely disagree with me, but it worked for us. I should mention that I have a video monitor and was able to look at DS when he was in his room in his crib.
All kids and parents are different. I am also a big believer in CIO, which I know a lot of people aren't.
Good Luck!
When DS was born, he would sleep in his bassinet. When it was nighttime, we'd put it in our room. During the day, we'd put it in the living room.
When he was about 2w old, he fell asleep in his bouncer one day and I just went with it. From that day on, he was napping in his bouncer or in his swing. Not ideal, but it worked. When we decided to move him to his crib for nighttime sleep (at about 3w), I started trying to get him to nap there first. I did it for a few days (naps were suddenly not as good) and then we put him there at night. The nighttime transition was fine. We were swaddling and using white noise.
DS napped in his swing for a long time (until about 3.5m). About a month before that, we discovered by accident that he could fall asleep on his own in his crib. He had woken up early and DH went in to turn his aquarium on so that I could just let myself wake up. Five minutes had gone by and he had fallen asleep. From that day on, we went with it and starting putting him down awake at night. We haven't looked back.
When we transitioned him to his crib for naps, it was tough (we were and still are battling 45 minute naps). Now all of his sleep is in his crib and he falls asleep on his own all of the time.
Your LO is still young. He may just surprise you one day like ours did and fall asleep on his own. Until then, I would suggest putting him down when he is super drowsy and slowly work your way to putting him down awake.
We never did any sleep training and at 7.5w, your LO is definitely too young for it.
ETA: I agree with PP that moving your LO to his crib early is the best thing to do.
Couldn't have said it better myself.
A friend once told me something that really helped when I was stressing about my son's sleeping: Do what you can now to have a happy, healthy baby - you can worry about forming "habits" later.
I have taken that approach and at 9mo, LO is a great sleeper for night and naps. Of course this was not always the case... We used the swing for all naps until 3 mo and then transitioned to the crib. At around 4 mo, we limited the binky to bed time only and he still uses it. We only recently stopped rocking him to sleep, but he didn't start STTN fully until 7mo. It seems to happen earlier for many others on this board, but ours was not consistent. There were times around 4-5mo that he woke up 5+ times per night and I was going crazy. Sleep training wasn't for us though, because he could cry for over 2 hours. Habits seem so much easier to form now - putting him down awake only involves about 5 min of crying (if any).
Of course, drowsy but awake is always the best method, its just not the easiest. It will get better, but do what you need to now in order to keep your sanity.