Drowsy But Awake Success!

Ruby412 · July 2012

Can I be an AW for a minute?

I never believed in "drowsy but awake" since my kid has taken an inordinate amount of rocking/bouncing/shushing/song and dance to go to sleep.

But, I knew I should try it since this is the beginning of the magic time frame for babies learning to go to sleep on their own.

3 nights ago we did our bedtime routine - bath, pj's, swaddle, nurse. Instead of any rocking or bouncing I (reluctantly) just put LO down in the co-sleeper. I patted her and shushed her. She cried. I picked her up and as soon as she was calm again put her back down - more patting, shushing, crying, pick up and soothe. We repeated the process several times. She finally fell asleep in the co-sleeper, not my arms. Last night, same thing - pat, shush, cry, pick up, calm down, try again. She fell asleep much more quickly. Tonight, I put her down, 2 little pats and shushes and she was out!

I am seriously shocked.

My LO is a crappy napper and does not STTN. So, this is a very exciting development for us.

Now, if anyone has the method for how to get her to STTN, please share!

redmonkeystomper · July 2012

Yay! I have been doing the shhh/pat at naps and my LO has done great too. In fact she seems to prefer going down drowsy instead of me rocking her. I can now out her downs drowsy and leave and she puts herself to sleep. We are on week 2 of this method.

Mamasaurus · July 2012

High five!

I just did it too, about 5 minutes ago! She was almost asleep but not quite at the end of a nursing session, and any other time I have tried to put her down that way, her eyelids fly open and she grabs my shirt. Not tonight! I guess this means I can start trying to put her in her crib for naps instead of her swing.

JFH2010 · July 2012

That's great! DS also requires a lot of rocking and just tonight I was wondering how we're ever going to transition away from it - especially since he wakes up a lot at night and needs to be rocked. This gives me hope.

kissyfitt · July 2012

Yay! Isn't it fabulous?

We have started a routine (story, bath, snuggle, swaddle, nurse). He generally falls asleep nursing. Sometimes I will rock him until he is in a deep sleep if he is out of sorts (like during a wonder week or when his teething pain is acting up). Otherwise I place him in the crib drowsy. He will look around and as long as he can see me (I usually lay on the bed since his crib is in our room) he will gradually drift off listening to music. If I think he might have a harder time I put on his Baby Einstein aquarium (I'm trying not to do it too much because I don't want him to depend on it).

I wish there was some trick to getting them to STTN. J started doing it out of nowhere around 8.5 weeks. But then once we hit 12 weeks he had the growth spurt and now we are finishing up a wonder week, and he's in the early stages of teething so it's messed it up. It is finally rebuilding and now we will get 5 hours then 4 more and if we are lucky we can get him back down for another 1 or 2 before we are up for the day.

katieh1017 · July 2012

That's awesome! Does she use a pacifier at all? You didn't mention it so I'm assuming not but just curious. L wakes up during the night but we just give her the soothie and she usually falls back asleep. We don't use it to get her to sleep initially as we rock, shush her but will use it if she wakes up.

Ruby412 · July 2012

katieh1017:
That's awesome! Does she use a pacifier at all? You didn't mention it so I'm assuming not but just curious. L wakes up during the night but we just give her the soothie and she usually falls back asleep. We don't use it to get her to sleep initially as we rock, shush her but will use it if she wakes up.

Violet will take a paci, but she still can't keep it in her mouth without someone holding it in. We've tried like 6 different kinds and she only likes soothies. The other night, when she woke up, I tried having DH get up and give her a paci and bounce her instead of feeding her. It didn't work and she just started crying, so I fed her. I've also tried just ignoring her whines in the MOTN, but she moved on to crying then too. I guess we'll wait a few more weeks and try again? She has to drop her night feedings at some point, right? I try not to think about how many months it has been (between having her and bad pregnancy sleep) since I have STTN myself. It's depressing!

katieh1017 · July 2012

Ruby412:
katieh1017:
That's awesome! Does she use a pacifier at all? You didn't mention it so I'm assuming not but just curious. L wakes up during the night but we just give her the soothie and she usually falls back asleep. We don't use it to get her to sleep initially as we rock, shush her but will use it if she wakes up.
Violet will take a paci, but she still can't keep it in her mouth without someone holding it in. We've tried like 6 different kinds and she only likes soothies. The other night, when she woke up, I tried having DH get up and give her a paci and bounce her instead of feeding her. It didn't work and she just started crying, so I fed her. I've also tried just ignoring her whines in the MOTN, but she moved on to crying then too. I guess we'll wait a few more weeks and try again? She has to drop her night feedings at some point, right? I try not to think about how many months it has been (between having her and bad pregnancy sleep) since I have STTN myself. It's depressing!

Aww, things will continue to get better...look how good she did with going down drowsy, this is not an easy thing to do! Luckily L 9 times out of 10 will fall back asleep to the soothie. She starts getting restless around 3, 5 and then she's up by 7. DH has soothie duty at night so I can sleep, or else I just can't function. I should be sleeping now since L has been asleep for 2 hours already. We are going to transition to the crib in two weeks, I'm scared!!

Ruby412 · July 2012

katieh1017:
Ruby412:
katieh1017:
That's awesome! Does she use a pacifier at all? You didn't mention it so I'm assuming not but just curious. L wakes up during the night but we just give her the soothie and she usually falls back asleep. We don't use it to get her to sleep initially as we rock, shush her but will use it if she wakes up.
Violet will take a paci, but she still can't keep it in her mouth without someone holding it in. We've tried like 6 different kinds and she only likes soothies. The other night, when she woke up, I tried having DH get up and give her a paci and bounce her instead of feeding her. It didn't work and she just started crying, so I fed her. I've also tried just ignoring her whines in the MOTN, but she moved on to crying then too. I guess we'll wait a few more weeks and try again? She has to drop her night feedings at some point, right? I try not to think about how many months it has been (between having her and bad pregnancy sleep) since I have STTN myself. It's depressing!
Aww, things will continue to get better...look how good she did with going down drowsy, this is not an easy thing to do! Luckily L 9 times out of 10 will fall back asleep to the soothie. She starts getting restless around 3, 5 and then she's up by 7. DH has soothie duty at night so I can sleep, or else I just can't function. I should be sleeping now since L has been asleep for 2 hours already. We are going to transition to the crib in two weeks, I'm scared!!

We're crib transitioning in a couple weeks too after our week at the shore. Fingers crossed for both of us!!

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