Transition to crib help/tips please

Re: Transition to crib help/tips please

• kimfield

  August 2013

  my daughter is 10 weeks old and she slept in her rock n play until week 8 when we moved her into the crib. I started out by moving the rock n play into the nursery at around 6 weeks. I also started working on a bedtime routine around then. It was trial and error for a bit but we landed on the following ritual and I would put her in the rock and play. She started sleeping good stretches once we established this routine and after a few days we started to put her in the crib instead of the rock n play. For me the key was to make sure she was in a deep sleep. 

  
  

  We change her diaper, wash her face and hands or give her a bath, get pjs on, swaddle her, feeds briefly - nurses if I put her down a small bottle of my husband does - and then we give her her paci and read 2-3 books, followed by rocking her until she is fully asleep - probably 20 minutes or so. Her paci falls out of her mouth while rocking her and that's how I know she is really asleep. 

  
  

  Dr. Sears had this article online and I found it really helpful:

  https://www.askdrsears.com/topics/sleep-problems/8-infant-sleep-facts-every-parent-should-know
  

  
  

  So to answer your questions directly - I would say it took two weeks to transition to the crib. We don't let her cry it out - we go to her if she cries - she's too young for that still - I suspect we will let her cry it out when she gets a bit older. We respond differently to the cries depending on when they happen. If it is right after we put her down and its wimpering we wait 1-2 minutes to see if she will settle.if she doesn't we'll go and give her her paci and soothe her without picking her up. If she cried again shortly afterwards we will repeat the process but after the third time I pick her up and rock her to sleep again. we only had 2-3 nights when she needed to be put back to sleep. When she cries after several hours of sleeping we feed her and she usually goes right back to sleep and we can put her in the crib with no fuss. We have a mobile but don't use it when putting her down - it seems to stimulate her too much. We do have a sound machine and play the sound of the ocean. It has two benefits- it comforts baby and it drowns out some of her normal sleeping noises that would make mom run in otherwise. I do have mesh bumpers in the crib, but not the decorative ones and my daughter doesn't move around a lot when she sleeps - she kicks out of her swaddle but doesn't roll around all over yet.

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• jayro10 member

  August 2013

  My LO moved to her crib three weeks ago (she is 12 weeks now.) She had been in a PnP in our room till then, but hit the 15 lb weight limit for the bassinet on it, so we moved her then. Initially, she wouldn't let us put her down in there when we put her down for the night. So for the first 3 nights, we put her in the PnP like normal, then after her first MOTN feed, I put her in the crib. She was none the wiser and stayed there till morning, even if she woke for a second MOTN feed! By about the fourth night, we were able to put her in the crib right away when she went down for the night and she's been in her crib all night every night since then.
  Don't let her CIO. It will definitely take her time to get used to, but she will get there. And definitely no crib bumpers.

  

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