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In my experience, drowsy but awake is a myth. DS1 never has been "drowsy." He goes from awake and fidgeting to asleep within about a minute. There is rarely anything in between - he's almost 3 and he stills needs me to fall asleep 95% of the time.

DS2 also still needs me to fall asleep at 14 months. The bottle makes him sleepy and cuddling usually puts him to sleep.

I've never sleep trained and just have done what works for us.

For me it's about timing. DD does not do well when awake for 3+ hours so I change her, feed her and put her down. She may cry for a minute or two- but goes to sleep.

For me what worked at that age was a really solid routine/schedule. 1.5 hours after she last woke, on the dot, I'd take her up and swaddle her and turn on white noise and turn off the lights and set her down in her pack n play. The swaddling in particular was really important for her to sleep on her own.

Thank you for posting this!

I have been trying "drowsy but awake" and it never works for us. I don't know why, but I keep doing it and he flips out and starts screaming and eventually is having an overtired meltdown. Thank you for giving me "permission" to continue nursing or walking my son to sleep.

Seems so silly that I would keep trying something that clearly isn't working for us, but you know...exhaustion...

@MsHangry: I say keep doing what you do until it doesn't work anymore

@lilyofthewest: I think drowsy but awake is also a disposition thing! LO#1 wouldn't go down drowsy but awake for love or money. She either nursed to sleep, or fell asleep in her carrier or in a moving car. When she was about 13 months, she started going to sleep on her own, but we put her in her crib awake, and she would babble and coo and then fall asleep. I felt like a drowsy but awake failure. However, LO#2 is a great sleeper and since birth has been able to be set down drowsy but awake. She fusses for a minute, then goes to sleep.

I honestly think only certain babies can do this. It never ever ever worked with my daughter at all no matter what i tried. With ds it's easy though. I watch him and when he yawns one time i take him up for a nap. put on white noise and put in a sleep sack and his eyes get heavy. I lay him down and he falls asleep.

@Mrs. Lion: That is good idea

I feel like this is the unicorn of sleep. I've accomplished it only a few times. The thing for us is that she falls asleep nursing, and I'm not so into the idea of jiggling her awake to the point where she's drowsy. Glad to see I'm not alone!

So naps for us are still a struggle but her night routine is easy.

It didn't start until after she was 3.5 months old, I just happened that I had done her whole routine, and nursed her and she was still awake but clearly ready for bed and I put her in the crib awake and she went to sleep.

I think it's just something that we stumbled into. I would keep trying it if I were you, however if your LO nurses to sleep and you're fine with it then why not keep going?

I start by doing whatever it takes to get him almost asleep, then stopping so he falls asleep easily, then lengthening that period of time without the activity, until he's just tired and drowsy. I haven't gotten there yet with T

@looch: @Mrs. Lion: @mae: I was going to say what each of you did.
1) I started it from the very beginning. I just didn't hold him a ton and made sure he didn't sleep on me. (Obviously you're past that but I think it can still be achieved with hard work).
2) yes, I looked for sleep cues, but I also know that newborn - 5 months the absolute most they should be awake is 2 hours, usually less. So just like @mae said, as soon as it was 1.25 or 1.5 hours since he woke, I started nap routine and put him in the crib awake. It was never an issue because I never ever let him go more than the recommended amount of time awake so we avoided the tired-but-wired conundrum. Now that he's older (10.5 months) I am a bit more daring with his awake time, but 6 months and younger I was militant about it.

I really think it's hard for people to achieve because naturally they want to hold their babies a lot when they are little, and that then sets the expectation and need to be rocked or nursed to sleep. Maybe I'm the mean mommy but I just really felt like I needed to put him down a lot so he got used to it.
Of course now he wants to be attached to me when he's awake, but sleep routine has fortunately remained in tact.

I wanted to update that my LO was super squirmy last night in my arms so I put him in his crib and gave him a pacifier. I had to help him keep the pacifier in for about 15min but he went to sleep!!

I can't believe it, but I wanted to share that there is hope that we won't be walking and bouncing to sleep forever