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It is WAY too early to think about creating habits, IMo. The first 3 months are about doing whatever works. Your baby is still in the "4th trimester" and is basically still adjusting to being outside the womb! It's totally normal for him to want to sleep in u guys an to nurse to sleep. I would let him do it. It's also way too early to expect him to be able to soothe himself to sleep. That starts around 3-4 months. And just bc nursing to sleep works now doesn't mean that's what you'll always have to do. Also, around 3 wks there's a growth spurt, supposedly, which might help explain increased fussiness and wanting to nurse more.

nope definitely won't! i held my baby for most of her naps until recently (she's almost 5 months) and she'll easily sleep in my bed, crib, etc. she won't sleep in the swing anymore because she's too nosy, but she's pretty flexible. I do rock her in the glider and then lay her down - but it takes about a minute

Agreed, too early to worry about creating bad habits. It's about survival in those early days. Just do what works. I rocked/nursed to sleep until LO was around 5 months then sleep-trained. We had a few rough nights but after that he became really easy to put down. At 6.5 months I can put him down awake and he goes down with barely a peep.

Agree with all the previous posters; just do whatever works. I think most baby books are off their rockers and its like they're all out to scare the crap out of us and make us think we're doing it wrong.

This article makes me feel better about it. I still nurse my 4 month to sleep. It's just what is easiest. I mean he's not going to do it when he's in high school. I agree with Hilsy. You are in survival mode right now. Whatever it takes to get baby to sleep.

http://kellymom.com/bf/normal/comfortnursing/

A is 15 weeks old now and I still rock/bounce/nurse/do whatever it takes to get her to sleep. she's napping on me right now and slept on me until 2am last night. I worry I've created bad habits but am not prepared to sleep train yet as I don't think she's old enough. Honestly, you and baby both need sleep and lots of it, so doing whatever it takes to achieve that is worth it, in my (tired) opinion.

Early on is when you are teaching your baby to self soothe! They need to learn these skills from you in order to successfully put themselves to sleep later. However, if there is an opportunity to put them down while they are sleeping, take it! Not because you are a mean mama or anything, but because it teaches small amounts of self regulation in a no-cry situation. We put #2 down a lot more and the differences were evident early on. Those naps out of our arms made a huge difference in giving her confidence to sleep without us. We were unable to do this with #1 because it was all so new to us. We wanted to hold her and we interpreted any amount of fussing as crying

@ladyfingers: At our 1-month appt (on Monday), I asked the ped the same Austin. She'd said it's way too early to form habits, and for now, keep doing what we're doing cuz it's obviously working (he sleeps for 5-6 hours when we first put him down). Same as what ppd have said: you're in survival mode, so do whatever you need to get as much sleep as possible, for you and for Baby!

@sarac: my LO hasn't nursed to sleep since he was three weeks I'd happily do it if he would but it doesn't work!

We were so focused on starting good habits when he was tiny and proud we could put him down drowsy... It made no difference once he was out of the sleepy newborn phase! He never slept on me and would only sleep on my husband or his crib after that and now he's in a phase where he only wants I sleep on me. My mom always tells me whether something's working or not it'll change soon anyways an so far she's right! Don't over think it and do what feels right.

@sarac: I will gladly nurse my baby to sleep for as long it works for the both of us. I love the snuggles.

@ladyfingers: I was the same way (painful latch, physically couldn't handle LO being on my boob all the times he just wanted to comfort suck) so we introduced a paci and it worked really well. he didn't become addicted to it and now at 4 months we only use it at night, and it didn't impact breastfeeding.

@sarac: the main reason I feel like I wouldn't want to make nursing to sleep a habit is my fear that it would prevent anyone else from being able to put LO down! Otherwise, i would totally welcome the baby snuggles, which are few and far between now

@hilsy85: Yes, I am worried her Nanny won't be able to get her down for a nap and she'll be miserable!

@ladyfingers: aww I'm sorry you're having such a roug time. Those first few weeks are hard. I luckily didn't have much pain but it was still hard having a baby attached to my boob all day long. I remember week 3 being soooo brutal. He seriously nursed every hour, sometimes even less, ALL day long for a week. My husband would come home to me crying every day. 3 weeks was by far the worst week ever. Around 4 weeks it stared getting easier. Hang in there! You're doing great.

@PrincessBaby: I nurse LO to sleep but our nanny is stil able to put LO down for a nap. It took a little bit of time for her to get the hang of it but now he goes down easier for her then me.

I can certainly understand not nursing to sleep if your latch is painful. Nursing for comfort like that needs to be beneficial and enjoyable for both parties to be a healthy thing. I can also say that other people are able to put my babe to sleep. Her father snuggles her up and talks about their day. Her grandmothers and babysitters snuggle up in bed and read books. She isn't dependent on the boob to sleep, unless I'm there.

I have a different opinion from most of the posters, and I agree with @Mrs. Jacks: We put our baby to sleep on his own all his life, although in early days he did sometimes fall asleep in peoples' arms and we would usually leave him. We implemented a nap schedule very early, woke him if he was sleeping longer than we planned, and didn't keep him awake longer than 30-60 minutes as a newborn. There was sometimes crying when we would put him down, so I guess we were doing CIO although it never felt as awful as it seems to be for many other parents, any crying usually only lasted a few minutes. I think doing this really helped him start sleeping through the night early, since he knew how to soothe himself to sleep - he is a restless sleeper and when I watch him on the baby monitor, I think he wakes up sometimes, but just goes back to sleep. Anyway it worked well for us, but it seems like many people try to hold the babies for their naps and that works for them.

@ladyfingers: Good for you for sticking with BF'ing. I hate to say it but I had pain for several weeks, and after that it was still painful off and on until I stopped at just over a year.

@Mrs. Jacks: Sorry, not trying to put words in your mouth!

@cascademom: I'm working on a series of posts, but it's seriously like inventing a new sleep method... so I'm still tweaking things and revising the method with friends' babies.

Until they are 16 weeks/4 mo old they are not able to form sleep associations! weeks 3-8 are the hardest because they are awake more but don't have any 'hobbies.' You spend most of your time feeding, soothing or tending to them so that they are not fussing. Vestibular motion helps a ton and babywearing comes in handy. Put them in the carrier and bounce on an exercise ball! Swaddling helps to muffle their startle refex so that they will stay asleep longer (wake ups usually happenbecause of an arm flail)

Check out http://www.isisparenting.com/page/onlineclasses

Free webinars on sleep and breastfeeding. They are about 20 minutes long and so useful.

@Mrs. Jacks: looking forward to reading them. SO and I are currently in a huge disagreement. I am anti cio, but he is pro cio.

@Mrs. Jacks: Ohh, I can't wait. We're still on the fence about CIO. We attempted it at 4 months to screaming being ramped up. At 6 months, we're ready for him to self soothe and get a full night's rest without our help.