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Agreed. Not for all kids. Mine had the problem that “drowsy” was a max 5 second window. He has always made a near instantaneous transition from alert, wriggly and obviously refusing to ever sleep again...to completely out.

@ineebee: I have one kid who was awesome at this as a baby (still a good sleeper, has her moments of course) and one who was awful at this (still hard to get to sleep). I do wonder if it’s something about how they naturally go to sleep? The first (6 now) drifts off slowly and can relax easily once tired and be still. The second (3 now) is one of those totally awake to totally asleep kids. Like frequently falls asleep mid sentence or still playing with toys in his bed or laying the wrong way in bed - no relaxation stage. So no great advice but you’re not crazy to think some kids struggle with this! I do think it’s worth trying to fix whenever you’re ready though because it probably won’t get better without some direction from you (based just on my personal experience - we eventually sleep trained).

It totally depends on the baby!!! My first never did it. She would howl herself to sleep every time. There was no drowsy but awake. My second, though, LOVES his bed. If he is the appropriate amount of tired, he will snuggle in my arms for a bit and then when he is relaxed, I can put him in his bed AND HE WILL GO TO SLEEP!!! It is amazing. So just know that if it’s not working, it’s probably the kid, not you.

I spent a ton of time holding my son while he was sleeping. I had a whole system I would do after he woke up from his too short nap. I don't regret a single second of it, I honestly don't think it was something I could have trained out of him, it's just how he is wired. I obviously only have a sample size of 1, but the kid is a cuddler. At the age of 7, he still asks to be held before bed.

I couldn't figure out drowsy but awake either but one thing that did help was to recognize the awake times by age. I was always keeping my son up too long between naps, particularly in-between the morning wake up and first nap.

I really like Ferber's book, and he makes a couple of points that I found really helpful, in terms of not letting managing my child's sleep become an anxiety trigger for me: 1) rocking to sleep, etc aren't necessarily a problem, some babies do fine with it. If it's not broken, then no need to worry about fixing it just because it is important for some others, 2) if it does become a problem for your family, baby sleep habits are learned (and unlearned) much more quickly than adult sleep habits. Just because a six week old doesn't sleep well, doesn't mean the same child can't be sleep trained fairly straightforwardly at six months...

My LO loves being cuddled - including while sleeping - and we enjoy cuddling him. He only does sleepy but awake in the swing. We will sleep train when we feel like it's a good time for him and for our family, and we'll enjoy all the cuddles we can with him in the meantime, even if it is a bit exhausting.

@ineebee: i just saw this update 3 months later glad to hear it and hope it’s still the case.

@Littlebit7: This us a good reference.

With my first I was kind of clueless about baby sleep I've since read a lot and learned for my second. So far at 6 weeks he is a better sleeper. He seems to be ok with drowsy but awake at night but not yet during the day. Although for day sleep I do need to move him out if the living room.