How do you or others put your lo to bed?
My lo (now 5 months old) could only be nursed to sleep until last week, so when I went back to school she would cry for a long time (about a half hour, occasionally longer) when my husband or mom tried to put her down.
So I stopped nursing her to sleep last week. It involved a lot of tears while I rocked and shushed her to sleep instead, but now I can put her to sleep fairly painlessly without nursing. I'm trying to work on putting her down while drowsy now, with limited success. It's still not as easy or peaceful as nursing to sleep - she puts up a fight at nap times when I hold her in my arms, shush and rock. She doesn't cry, just whimpers and squirms.
However, this weaning didn't solve the problem! She still cries for a long time when others try to put her to sleep! She goes down faster if they drive her around in the car, but still cries before zonking out. She has occasionally dozed off without crying when someone's holding her in a public place and she's calm.
On Monday I'm leaving her with a sitter for the first time, and I'm afraid my lo will traumatize the poor woman with hours of "I'm tired" crying. Any advice? What has worked for you?
I'd like nap time to be a happy time for her, not a struggle.
Thanks!!!!
You might also enjoy...
-
p.s., maybe it's because we've been letting her fall asleep in the car, but it's been 4.5 hours since she last woke up and I can't get her to sleep, nursing or not. she just cries.
-
I'm no use because LO is 9 months old and I'm still nursing to sleep :(. I just want to follow bc I'd like to stop doing that and need some ideas.
-
I used to sing/rock/lie with him/whatever needed to be done to get him to nap. We recently did Ferber and now I just snuggle with him for a minute, kiss him, and place him down awake. Sometimes he'll cry a minute or two, sometimes he won't make a peep, and just goes to sleep!
-
My LO is 5.5 months and has been putting herself to sleep before naps since we swaddle weaned at about 4 months. Is your LO still swaddled? Implementing a strong nap routine is what helped us. We do the exact same routine every time. Do you have a nap routine? DH has been home with her a few days a week and she goes down beautifully for him now, too.
-
Around 5.5 months I had to nap train my LO. I was losing it with the rocking/bouncing to sleep for every single nap and he, too, would cry/squirm/fight sleep. I established a nap routine of turning on soft music, putting him in a sleep sack, rubbing his head and saying "night night, I love you" - then leaving him in the crib and walking out of the room. He cried a LOT at first; I would go check on him every 10 minutes or so, and only let him go an hour crying at the most. It took about a week of misery before he learned to soothe himself to sleep. Now, naps are almost always easy - we do our routine and I leave the room and he's asleep!
-
I don't know if this is helpful or not, but we look for the very first sleepy cues, and then bounce LO on an exercise ball until she's almost asleep. She's 5 months old and still naps in her swing, though we are trying to get away from that.
-
I agree with the idea of a solid routine, once you get it established you can find some flexibility but in the mean time it is better to just be super consistent. Start way before you think she is tired.
I bounce/rock the baby until drowsy then lay them down, if shushing helps that baby I do that as I lay them down and get them settled. I then do the pat/shush method unless they cry--not whimper or protest but actually crying in which case I pick them up and start over again.
If your sitter is experienced she might be able to figure it out better than you would expect. When my goal is just to get the baby to sleep I sort of hold the baby's arms down as if they are swaddled with my own arms and then just bounce or walk really quickly while making a shushing sound. It is sort of labor intensive and sometimes they won't let you put them down but it is almost always effective.
-
@lawbee11: What is your nap routine? Did it take her crying it out before she could put herself to sleep? We are getting ready to swaddle wean and it would be amazing if she learned to put herself to sleep at the same time.
-
@KOzsari: we had the same problem until about 6 months when he started to really "get it". We did some no cry sleep solution for night time, but naps it mostly seemed like just time helped.
-
@MrsStormy: I think doing it at the same time as we swaddle weaned really helped because she was so interested in chewing on her hands that we never had any really rough days. There were days where she would fuss/cry for 5-10 minutes but after a few days she would just babble to herself and chew her hands then roll over and pass out. Now she almost never ever cries or fusses even for a minute.
Our routine is: we put her on the changing table and change her diaper, turn on white noise machine, put her in sleep sack, I usually nurse her because she's a distracted nurser and eats better when she's sleepy (but I don't let her fall asleep while nursing...if my DH is putting her down he sometimes gives her a bottle depending on when she last ate), then I rock her for a minute, walk over to the crib and sing twinkle twinkle once and you are my sunshine twice, put her down, rub her belly & kiss her forehead, say "night night, M" then leave.
-
@lawbee11: Well I think tomorrow will be the big day, I'll see how it goes. Her naps are crap so I doubt it will be as easy as I would like but oh well.
-
@MrsStormy: when we swaddled weaned, we started at night because he was more tired then. good luck!
- Google Plus
- Stumbleupon
- Twitter
- Facebook
- Pinterest
- Favorite0
12 comments