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LO is still young (3 mos.) so we are still learning as we go, but so much depends on your baby. DD has been a good sleeper since the beginning and has been STTN (6 hour stretches or more) since one week.
That said I do think its important to set yourself up for success, which you are doing by doing the research before LO is here. I mainly just try to do things the way I'll be comfortable doing them down the road. I don't spend an hour rocking her now, because as a three year old that just won't be possible.

My son is 28 months old and he wasn't a stellar sleeper...he still isn't, but that's how he is hardwired.

I really think that for the first three months, all bets are off, you kind of have to seee how your baby behaves and go from there. My son was really awake, we never had the sleepy newborn phase, not even in the hospital, so it just goes to show you that you can prepare and read up but you have to be prepared for anything.

I should also disclose that I feel strongly that LO naps in his crib. He doesn't sleep as deep or long when we're out and about, which greatly affected his night sleep. My son isn't textbook, but I do find that sleep begets sleep, so if he missed a nap during the day, his night sleep wasn't good.

I agree that you have to play it by ear and see what your baby responds to

@JoJoGirl: I read the same books before LO and we put him down drowsy and swaddled for the first month and a half or so and thought we were sooo smart... and then it stopped working. So we rocked completely to sleep and that worked great.. and then it stopped working. And then we did no cry sleep solution for night and it works great now. My point is - it completely depends on your baby and what works at first won't necessarily keep working. I think a lot of sleep is luck, and a lot is developmental. He started showing us signs once he was ready not to be rocked any more just liked he showed us signs when he couldn't do drowsy but awake any more.

Don't stress about it too much since you have no idea what your LO will like/be like!

The only things we really did early on was make sure to establish night and day (keeping the house bright and loud during the day and dim and quieter at night) and to set her a "bedtime" early on and start a routine (we started when she was about 4 weeks old) where we would bathe her, swaddle, feed and then rock her to sleep is necessary and put her down with her white noise machine on.

C is a stellar sleeper, but she just is that way, I think.

@JoJoGirl: Thanks for posting this! I'm also completely overwhelmed by all the conflicting things I've read and heard - and all the mums who say "I wish I'd known x,y,z" but when you try to pin them down and get actual advice they say "all babies are different".

I have decided to subscribe to the "4th trimester" theory. That is, for the first three months, I'm going to do whatever it takes to get through and blow the consequences!! Worst case scenario, I know that habits can be broken (with lots of hard work) so if I do make mistakes it's not the end of the world...

I think the fact that you are reading is GREAT! Keep that knowledge in a bank in your head for when you run into issues and you will have an arsenal to work with. Every baby is different. I read a lot and just used tips I had from books I had read.

The biggest thing that we did that I think was important was to start a bedtime routine at 3 months (or a little earlier). We start bedtime at 6, she's asleep by 7. This has.not.changed since 3 months. It's great for her and us. Even if she gets up every 2-3 hours at night or if she slept through the night, keep the same schedule. Her naps were scheduled, too. They have evolved as she has gotten older but they were always around the same time. Right now she is on 2 naps a day, 9am and 2pm, 2 hours each.

We educated ourselves after LO was here on sleep once we got to know our baby. His sleep was average, then got worse with colic at 6 weeks. Happiest Baby on the Block got us through the "4th trimester" time because he learned to adapt to bouncing, swaddling, shushing, and white noise. This lasted probably until about 5 months or so. Then, we struggled to get him to sleep and break the comforting techniques because he got used to it and expected it.

We did CIO as a last resort. It was the best thing for us. His sleep drastically improved when we did. Saturday, we had it rough because he's teething and waking earlier than I'd like in the mornings, but overall, his sleep is so much better when we did it at 6 months or so. For us, 4 months was still a little too young to CIO.

@JoJoGirl: My DH was the master of bouncing the baby to sleep. It's actually a lot of fun to do. It worked for us because LO went from a colicky mess to a sleeping baby with it. Get a white noise machine too. It does wonders. When I read LO stories for bedtime, the white noise machine always makes me drowsy and want to sleep in there.

I understand your confusion because there are so many different perspectives about what is "best" for your baby's sleep. I don't claim to be any expert in the least but at 8 months I've finally come to a peace with the baffling unpredictable nature of baby sleep. I tried the whole put down drowsy but awake thing but in the end it did not work for us. In the times she would fall asleep nursing I would subtly try to stir her or to pull her off before she fell asleep and all that led to is a crying unhappy baby! So now I try to follow her lead. If she wants to nurse to sleep I let her and if she doesn't I put her down awake. Either way works and she sleeps. When I nurse her to sleep when she does stir awake she puts herself back down again just the same as if I didn't nurse her to sleep. When she wakes at night (which she does I would day 50% of the time) I always put her down awake and she falls sleep on her own. We did do some CIO but it was for the best all around because we all sleep better now. So bottom line of what I am trying to say is do what works best for you and your baby! Sometimes it's just best to block out all the different "how to" advice books and people and do what you think is right and your baby will STTN when they are ready to do so.

I agree with everyone else, you never know how your baby will be. Lots if babies can fall asleep in the car seat, R just cries. Some sleep in the swing, R isn't a fan. We can out her in it asleep and she wakes up. She needs to be bounced/ rocked to sleep. Then we can't put her down till she is out out or she wakes up. And we start the process all over again. I am learning just doing whatever to survive. Hoping we aren't going to have issues later.

Best thing to do is start a night routine - swaddle nurse, put in crib (once she was about 3 weeks old) with white noise. If I had it to do over, I wouldn't have let mine us a pacifier to fall asleep bc now she wakes up crying when she realizes it's fallen out and I'm dreading taking it away (she's almost 5 months).

Honestly... They will grow out of things (and sleep crutches) as time goes on. You can sleep train later but the gist seems to be not to start bad habits from the beginning. I take that to mean, try out drowsy but awake, and if it fails then try again later. Keep trying just maybe give it a few days or a week in between attempts and one day they may grow into it. In the meantime work on other things like a bedtime routine. Having one thing done could help the other aspects of sleep.

Months 0-2/3 do whatever you have to. From 2-3/4 I'd start to get more serious about it all.

You'll get to know your baby and what works!

I decided very quickly that whatever got LO to sleep, I would do it. I was soooooo tired and her naps were so important to me because they were my rest too. So if she wanted to be on me, sleep in her swing, stroller, car seat, etc. I didn't care. As long as she was sleeping.

Her first 8 months were rough for naps. She had to be moving, which often meant I was the one moving her and pushing her in the stroller. But then all of a sudden one day DH put her in her crib (we tried it every once in awhile) and she fell asleep. No cries, no whining. From that day on she napped fine in her crib. We lucked out and never had to worry about night sleep.... she's just always been a naturally good sleeper at night.