I love to Google and research and find out everything I can like a lot of you but I am getting so frustrated by the mainstream (United States) saying don’t rock your baby to sleep, don’t nurse your baby to sleep, don’t soothe, etc. How in the flying eff are people putting their babies to bed if these aren’t being done? I’m a 32 F and I don’t need any of these “sleep crutches” to currently go to bed. And wtf is “drowsy but awake”? I’m over it and am going to continue nursing my 12 week old to sleep since it works for us right now. When I’m no longer nursing I’ll cuddle the crap out of her until she’s content to go to bed! Or do whatever she needs !
Edit: Thank you all for the awards and amazing replies with such great points and conversation. I wish I could reply to everyone but I’m currently nursing my baby for her next nap
@kittymeow1919 Do what works for you! Or I guess what works for baby since she’s really calling the shots anyway right? My sons pediatrician told me I’d FAILED because I didn’t sleep train him. We read stories and I nursed him and rocked him. And when that was over, we read stories and cuddled until he fell asleep in my bed. Until one day when he was about 2.5 years old he decided he wanted to sleep in his own bed. We still read stories and cuddle til he falls asleep and I promise you I will never for one second ever regret all the nights I cuddled with him and read stories and talked about our day. It’s my favorite part of the day and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.
@shinn That is so lovely to read!! Doesn’t sound like failure to me! Your son is lucky to have you as a parent ! We only have this brief window with them when they are so tiny we need to cherish it !
@kittymeow1919 One day he’ll have a family of his own and I am pretty sure I won’t look back on this time wishing I’d forced him to sleep alone at 12 weeks. I love our bedtime routine and reading books and hearing him talk about the best part of his day.
@shinn Thats awful that your pediatrician said this. I asked mine at our recent 9 month check up if I was messing up by rocking him to sleep. And he was very blunt in saying no! He said he wishes more moms would do it. It comforts everyone involved.
@shinn Hell yeah! You did it right. You provided the baby comfort he needed exactly how he needed it and now you’re still doing it. Happy baby is the ultimate goal, right? Why impose unnecessary discomfort upon our kids at such a fragile age.
@shinn I know Ill wish she was in her bed when she's sleeping between us, but I hope that when its safe for my daughter to be in my bed that she is... because one day Im going to look back and value that time. Your description sounds lovely.
@kittymeow1919 I still breastfeed my 11 month old to sleep
When I brought up my concerns about contact napping at his 4 month appointment, my pediatrician said “who doesn’t sleep better while being cuddled?” and told me it was a non issue. And here I thought I was doing something wrong because of articles I was reading online. The internet sucks!
@katrina2017 The internet does suck. When my little bub was under 4 months, I would always rock him to sort, and would co sleep with him when he needed it. I did it in the safest possible way I could and it felt like the right thing to do for both him and I at the time. After 4 months I ended up sleep training and he has been able to sleep 12-13 hours every night on his own. However, I still rock and cuddle him till he’s almost asleep at bedtime. I say all this because I’ve done both sides of the coin in terms of dealing with baby sleep. Both worked for when I needed it, and I ultimately just did what felt was right for us at the time. And you damn well bet that you can find multitude of articles, blogs, research, etc that would say that everything I did was wrong for all sorts of reasons. Fuck that, parent the way that works well for you and for your little one. That’s all that matters
@academicg I’m not sure what the method is called, as we hired a also consultant to just walk us through the process (our friends had done this and highly recommended, so we used the same woman). But it was essentially: have consistent bedtime routine, put down awake, go in after 5 minutes of consistent crying and soothe in whatever way works best for your baby (to help bring down their cortisol levels -for our son, picking him up and giving him love for a bit worked best), and repeat until baby falls asleep. First night he dropped all nights feeds and slept 8 hours straight. By third night he was 12 hours and has been ever since. Even through teething. And he’s now 9 months old. I’m still shocked how well he adapted to it. I think we got very lucky, but 100% can see and understand how super training just isn’t for some people. I respect this and think everyone should just figure out the dance that works best between them and their little one
@ecamella It's called the Ferber Method. There's a book by Dr Ferber that walks through all of this. It's frustrating that articles on the internet take his method and make it out to be this really strict set of rules. His book is fantastic and basically helps parents who want to make a change in their child's sleep figure out how to do it. He addresses a huge range of sleep challenges, and he encourages parents to figure out what works best for them and baby in the long-term.
The idea behind putting babies in their crib still awake is that you create a routine sleep space. When children (and adults) fall asleep in a specific setting, such as in their parents arms, they'll be surprised and upset when they wake up in a different setting, such as in a crib. That can startle and upset them, and they won't be able to fall asleep again until they are back in that setting. But he's really clear that every child is different and reacts to different things, AND that it's unlikely to work for babies under 12 weeks.
@katrina2017 The internet really does suck! I was just reading an article on 3 month old sleep and it was saying don’t nurse to sleep or put baby in crib when they are already sleeping. It makes no sense for that information to be out there.
@kittymeow1919 Ugh yes. I get comments from family members about how I'm spoiling my TWO MONTH OLD (they said this as early as one week old!!!!!!) because I am holding him too much and getting him into a bad habit of rocking him to sleep. And I say that's too damn bad because I'm his MOM and I will continue to hold him close to me and rock him to sleep for as long as he needs and that's what works for him every time!
Thank you, I needed this!
