How can you put a three month old to sleep?

amother

Wed, Jul 28 2010, 11:15 am

With my first kid, bedtime was fine for the first few months, then horrible afterwards. It took me over half an hour to put him to bed each time, and that was while jumping around with him in my arms, shushing, etc. Sometimes it took longer. He was a HEAVY kid, I was exhausted and miserable, and I swore never to get a kid used to this again. I let him CIO at six months or so. Not ideal, but things just could not go on like that.

My second is now three months old. I tried very hard from the beginning to not give him too many crazy sleep crutches, and it seemed to be working. He would even fall asleep in his crib sometimes with me doing nothing - just putting him in and standing there watching as his eyes closed eventually. Sometimes I would softly shush him while he was lying in his crib, maybe pat him a bit, and he'd fall right to sleep. I'd also nurse him to sleep occassionally, but not too often.

Now he's not even three months old yet, and he's also impossible to put to sleep! He won't fall asleep nursing (except in the middle of the night - B"H for that!). He won't take a pacifier, although I've tried all types almost every day since birth. He doesn't sleep for very long if he falls asleep in his carseat, so that's not an option. And he's almost twenty pounds! (Yes, I have very big babies.) My back is already killing me. When he gets tired, he just cries in my arms, won't fall asleep for a long time, and won't calm down. If I put him down, he SCREAMS! He'll eventually fall asleep, but after a lot of screaming. I must be doing something wrong.

How do you put your older newborn to sleep, if he doesn't just nurse or take a paci? Do you rock him? Jump aroudn the room with him? Put him in the swing? (I don't want him to get used to that, because he's almost hit our swing's weight limit! Same with the carseat.) Or do something else? I've read all the books, tried the pat-shush, it doesn't work, he just screams.

Any ideas?

Wed, Jul 28 2010, 11:49 am

I am one to let babies cry it out, but not before 6 months. I love the swing, and I don't think the baby gets "used" to it if it's used only at the beginning, in the very early months. During the day, I'm a big fan of the wrap (material baby carrier), the baby falls asleep instantly and I have my hands free to do things.

You have to be realistic about infant sleeping habits. At 3 months, it's not every baby that can fall asleep right after feeding and wake up just for hunger. Some babies like to be awake more often than others, so you have to adjust to their needs. Is it possible that you expect the baby to sleep more than he/she feels tired? I had kids who slept from feeding to feeding, and some who never slept during the day.

Habits start forming more towards 5-6 months, so I wouldn't be too worried about finding things that work for you before then. Then I'm all for letting the baby cry it out, it usually works like a charm and all of my kids (B"H) slept through the night after two or three (loud) nights at around 6-7 months.

Good luck.

amother

Wed, Jul 28 2010, 11:56 am

yb wrote:

OP here. I had very different experiences. My baby did NOT take well to crying it out. At all. Screamed and screamed, didn't stop. For weeks and weeks. Everyone said "Just don't go in to him - trust me, it'll work in a few days!" It didn't. My baby was the exception to the rule. It was horrible - but he wouldn't go to sleep with me in the room either, so I had no choice! Was miserable all around...

And his habits definitely formed before 5-6 months. He just would not go to sleep without all the rocking and jumping around with him in my arms. Oh, and when he WAS in my arms throughout this, he would just scream and scream.

Again, he'll grow out of the swing in just a few weeks at this rate, so I'll need something for after then. He can now wear 12 month clothes - that's how big he is. And I just can't carry him anymore.

He's obviously exhausted. He's happy, happy, happy while up for about an hour and a half at a time, sometimes two hours, and then he crashes. I try to get him to sleep right before this crash, sometimes right when it happens, and sometimes right afterwards. No matter what, he won't go to sleep easily at all. And if I keep him up, he just cries and kvetches constantly until he goes to sleep. Once he sleeps, he's happy again.

Rodent

Wed, Jul 28 2010, 9:20 pm

Do you have any other sleep cues? Is he still wrapped? Mine weren't by that age but I know some are.
My kids are all very attached to their blankets and it was about that age that it started to happen. Personally I'm a big fan of crochet blankets especially and have given each child one from birth. The reason for it is that they're light and ok in summer, holes breathe. The holes also mean that if they pull it over their head they can breathe and won't suffocate. My babies have loved to put their fingers through the holes, it becomes a textural soothing mechanism. And it's portable so it doesn't matter where we are, they can settle.
Once you have a different sleep cue than rocking them they will learn that when they get the blanket, or when music is put on, or they're wearing a sleepsack, or whatever it is that you decide that it is ok to go to sleep.
And don't wait until they're really tired or they'll be over it and really have a battle. When you know they 'should' be tired but not showing obvious signs, that's the time to start.
I dunno, maybe I'm naive. Mine haven't been horrid sleepers really, the middle one was harder and did require holding for a while until he developed his blanket attachment. And they've generally done it naturally rather than being forced per se.

Good luck!

amother

Thu, Aug 26 2010, 1:51 pm

I'd love to hear from the OP about how things are going, since I have the same story. I was just looking for ideas when I saw this post, and it's almost the same with my dd, except she's our first.

Also for us she’s generally a happy cooing baby, who is content to lay on her back reaching for nearby mobile, or examining her own hand, but once it’s time to sleep she’s crying (anything from a whimper to a wail) while being held, swayed or rocked in our arms, all after an enjoyable (for all it seems) bedtime routine including bath, book, and lullaby. The paci, carrier, swing, options don’t work, and if she's awake in her bassinet patting and shushing only calm her into a wide eyed stare with kickboxing, as I call it (wild arm and leg movements while swaddled!!). We use the 5 s’s to eventually get her to sleep, but I’m not sure if swaddling helps or hurts since she struggles so much, but her kicking will wake her up once asleep, if we don’t do it.

Now once finally asleep, she's started waking after being put down, sometimes 3 or 4 times within the first 30 min, all requiring another round of swaying, rocking, shushing. It can take another hour to get through it from the time she hits the mattress (asleep) or when I nurse her overnight.

If anyone has suggestions on how to help her become more self-soothing please share. I'm getting more and more frustrated and that doesn't help in putting her to sleep at all!
Thanks

amother

Thu, Aug 26 2010, 9:00 pm

Sure, OP here. I was so surprised to see this post come back up again!

Boruch Hashem, it's only about a month later, and things have gotten SO much better. My last post described how things looked then. Here's how things work then.

Baby starts a very minimal amount of kvetching. I look at my watch and say, "Oh, looks like he's getting tired, that makes sense." I immediately swaddle him (he does scream through this part), lay him in his crib, and pop a pacifier into his mouth. His eyes immediately close, he turns away, and he's fast asleep. If not, he just sort of lies there looked at me, and I walk out of the room and close the door behind me. A few minutes later, he cries for about three seconds, and then is silent. That's how I know he's fallen asleep.

Isn't that wonderful? Boruch Hashem, I'm so glad things worked better this time around. Here are the things that helped me:

1. Making sure he was REALLY tired. I think that's where I went wrong with my last one. It's obviously bad to let them get overtired, but also bad to put them to sleep too early - and I think that's what was happening at the beginning with this one as well. As a newborn, he could only stay up for a bit more than an hour before getting tired, but at some point that changed, and I didn't change along with him. Once I left a bit more time before putting him to bed, he started sleeping better.

2. Swaddling. Splurge on one of those velcro swaddle blankets. He also got frustrated when I swaddled him with a regular blanket, even as a newborn, but the velcro ones really keep him secure, and I can still use them now at almost 4 months. When I nurse him right before bed, he usually doesn't need a paci, so I leave his hands out. When I don't, he does need a paci, so I keep his hands wrapped in because otherwise he knocks out his paci.

3. Don't go in too quickly. Give him ten to twenty seconds before going in. My little guy sometimes cries for that long and then puts himself back to sleep again. Obviously, if you hear he's getting hysterical, go get him. But you'd be surprised how often you wake him up just by going in there to see if he's okay.

4. Put him down and walk out. It goes against everything you feel like doing as a mother, but I read this somewhere, and my baby surprised me so often! I would put him down with his paci and walk out, thinking that he would for sure start screaming...but he wouldn't. He would either kvetch for a bit and then fall asleep (kvetching is NOT crying, and you don't need to go to him if it's just minimal kvetching - that could be him putting himself to sleep) or else I'd just never hear from him, which meant that at some point he'd fallen asleep. Of course, there were plenty of times when this didn't happen, but when it did, I think it laid the groundwork for how he falls asleep on his own now.

Obviously it's not ALWAYS this easy. There are times when he doesn't want to go to sleep, or times when he wakes up ten minutes after I put him down. And there's also the fact that he wakes up several times at night still. I'm fine with all of that. It was the whole "dancing the chacha" every single time I wanted him to go to sleep, along with his waking up ten times each time I put him down, that really bothered me. And although I'm sure he'll go through some phases of bad sleep (as soon as they finally get to be good sleepers, they always seem to go through a bad sleep "phase"), right now I couldn't ask for much better than this.

Hatzlacha!

amother

Fri, Aug 27 2010, 3:46 am

thanks op, second imamother here. I'm so glad it working out better for you. How did the situation change with the paci? ours will take it only very occasionally if she's tired and not hysterical, and I move quickly from nursing to paci, but otherwise she can't keep it in. did it just take a little more time?

I think I can't get the timing. it seems no matter how calm she is, even if I've only seen one yawn, the moment we go towards her room she's crying. I always read a book with her(for bedtime there's also bath and sometimes nursing) and she'll calm down during that, even allow me to put the swaddle over her legs ( the velcro one), but the moment she's in it and picked up, even if her eyes are practically closed she cries and won't calm down unless completely out in my arms. But if I just swaddle her and put her down it's the same thing, because the swaddling gets her going. I also think she needs the soothing of the paci. I hope she takes it soon. We keep trying, and I'm also trying to put her on the bottle for pumped milk which, although another battle, will help with the paci I assume.

thanks for the ideas. hope it continues to go well.