urban legend? complete bullshit? putting baby down drowsy but awake is certainly not working for my nine week old. he just fusses and then cries til i give ip and wear him in the carrier for a nap. if i keep trying will he eventually get it? is this a good age for trying this?
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I was totally skeptical at first, but it does actually work. We sleep trained LO at 16 weeks, but I think we could have done "drowsy but awake" sooner.
One of the sleep books I was reading said something about thinking about drowsy but awake on a scale of 1-10, with 1 being wide awake and 10 being completely asleep. The book advised putting LO down when they were a 9, then an 8, etc. That way they gradually get used to going to bed drowsy, but awake. Make sense?
Each baby is different and you might already be doing this. Keep trying, it does actually work (or at least it did for us).
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It does work, but it's very much trial and error until you learn how drowsy baby has to be for it to work. For mine, I figured it out at 4 months. It happened when LO put her head on my shoulder and didn't move through 2 renditions of Twinkle Twinkle little star. Then gradually, (like over months), put her down more and more awake. I think the trick is that you have to be willing to screw up and be wrong. It took me so long to figure out because after working to get LO drowsy, I was loath to risk not having her go to sleep.
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It only worked for me ONCE when she was around one month old . She's 8months and only falls asleep in the ergo or stroller or sometimes if I'm holding her. I mean, I'm sure if I committed to training she'd do it? But I don't mind doing this- it works for us
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There was just another post about this
http://boards.hellobee.com/topic/drowsy-but-awake#post-1573678
Sandy linked to another post where she wrote out how she did it! (So above is a link to a link
haha)
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@Emsmems: thanks for copying the link
It's worked for us since she was about 9 weeks...and now she's almost 2.5 years old. I'm so grateful we can just put her in bed awake and she can just go to sleep by herself. I'm praying with all my might baby #2 is a good sleeper too!
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@Bluebonnet: that does make sense. thanks!
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Gotta go with semi-bullshit.
IMO, babies' don't get "drowsy" in the same way as adults. So personally, I think "drowsy" may be overstating it. They slow their twitching and wiggling and their eyes/eyelids get slower and heavier. Doesn't mean they stop crying, snuggle-in, and pull up the covers, though
What helped us was a very consistent bedtime routine (bottle, bath, book, sleepsacks, song/poem). To this day, they don't exactly love the fact that these sleep cues are happening and they often protest, but I do think they signal that it's time to slow down and get "drowsy" (ish).
haha)
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7 comments