Sleepy but awake?

I voted the second one. DD was a fantastic sleeper from the word go, we always roused her slightly after her last feed before putting her down - she would grumble a bit but always managed to put herself back to sleep. From 11 weeks she slept 12 hours straight every night At 6 months when we started solids it all went pear shaped, she started waking several times every evening and sometimes through the night and the only way to get her back to sleep was to feed her.

We worked out eventually that it was wind, so we now give infacol and tend to feed to sleep or almost asleep most nights, although it is dictated by DD - sometimes she finishes her feed and is still wide awake so I tend to try putting her down with the mobile playing, if she falls asleep on her own (does sometimes) then great, but more often than not she'll start crying a while later, so I go into her and pick her up, she normally burps or farts, then if I put her back down again she will normally go to sleep on her own.

She rarely wakes more than once in the night, and often doesn't wake at all - compared to many of my friends babies she seems a good sleeper, so I just keep doing what I'm doing!

there are some nights when she wakes in the night and just won't settle, so I normally co-sleep in those situations.

I reckon you just do what you have to do - all this stuff about 'don't feed to sleep' etc is ok if you have a baby that sleeps!

I didn't vote as there wasn't an option to do what we did! We just put them to bed, sleepy but awake after their bedtime feed, did that with all 3 xx

WSS, we did this with megan she would fall asleep on her feed untill about 8 weeks old or so and from then i would just put her in the moses basket, kiss her head and leave her to it...that went on untill she was about 18 months or so and then she was poorly and i had to lay with her to get her to sleep and i still have to do that now I know she will get out of it at some point...

Kieren is 13 months and we did the same thing for him and we did for megan, now at night he has his bottle in the living room, gives night night kisses and i put him down in his cot with his muslin and dummy and he sorts himself out

ETA Kieren is a terribly sleeper but going to sleep is no bother at all.

Isabelle had to either be co-sleeping or fully asleep before I put her down and you tiptoed away...

Grace you put down sleepy but awake and she goes to sleep herself and doesn't like to co-sleep, she likes her own space and always has done!
We do a little shh pat if she's unsettled and obviously pick her up for a cuddle if she's upset but most of the time after she's been reassured by a cuddle she just wants to be asleep again so we're best putting her down to resettle herself...
Sometimes she likes me to stay in the room while she drifts off which is a good chance to fold&put away laundry!

Both girls like music to fall asleep to - so they either have a quiet chilled CD or the music on the monitors...

My limited experience is that I think 2nd children cope with being put down earlier/sooner than the 1st child does simply because you cannot hold them for as long unless you sling 24/7...

I didn't vote as there wasn't an option to do what we did! We just put them to bed, sleepy but awake after their bedtime feed, did that with all 3 xx

thats what i do with ethan.

And they actually go to sleep! That's amazing! Neither of mine will do it. I put white noise on, we've tried dummies etc.

White noise and dummies are both props, so not the same as putting them down awake really

Martha slept through from 6 weeks to 4 months (apart from clockiy evenings up to about 10/ 11 weeks). She was then waking up to 6 times a night until we dropped the dummy.

From what I have read, any prop is fine to get them to sleep but they enter a greater awareness when they hit 4 months and will start waking up looking for whatever prop they use at the end of each sleep cycle (45 mins to an hour). SO if you feed to sleep you might find that you are having to do so many times a night.

But clearly everyone's experience is different and you can always deal with that as and when the problem arises.

ps do you swaddle her? we did till about 3 months ish

We tried swaddling and she doesnt like it. I just put her down for a nap and after about 40 minutes of grumbling and re plugging the dummy she did go to sleep by herself with prop (charlotte never would at this stage!). Wait. I hear her. she's up. The problem is that by this point she'll be hideously over-tired, even though I put her to bed at the first sign of sleepiness. Ah well. Every kid is different. I guess there's no use being envious of other people's sleepers! The kid a couple doors down is 4 months old and sleeps 9-10hrs already!

Def no pint in being envious - my friends baby always slept great when DS1 was like satan but then he was great & her LO was awful (secretly ).

I did use some of the baby whisperer stuff though (northernruth's comments sound familiar) which was a huge help with regard to sleep routines which we then used with DS2. Always worth having a look at their website

There was no vote option for me either! I tried to get DS1 to sleep & he wouldn't so one night when he was very small I said to DH, sod it just leave him.....and he went to sleep. Didn't like the fuss so with DS2 we just put him in his cot & left him - same at nap times and he has always gone off himself

Same as Shaunie.



Helen xx

OK. a couple of people have mentioned the baby whisperer and I am so not a book parent but i've been reading stuff about it online and it seems like the kind of thing that could really work for Heidi. Charlotte goes nuts if she's not on her schedule so we're a very routine driven house anyway.. And, I can tell the in my desperation for sleep / peace and quiet / enough time without a baby to ____ (fill in the blank - shower / get dressed / use the loo / have a cup of tea...) I'm probably confusing the heck out of the poor kid.

So I'm thinking about ordering it on amazon. Heidi is 9 weeks old now though... do you think it's too late for her stuff to be effective?