[thepixiechick]

I think temperament has a lot to do with it. I can do it with my son - to my astonishment as I was never able to do it with my daughter. Same with a dreamfeed - son will do it no problem, my daughter always woke up. Don't sweat it too much, and do what works for you and your baby.

[NewMumm]

Sure but 1.5 hours worth of intense human interaction in a row is not necessary. Babies don't need constant 'in your face' stimulation during play time. The noise of the workings of the house around them, voices, being moved from one room to another to outside and people moving around is all part of infant 'play' in my opinion.

Thankyou for that I spend alot of time talking and playing with my DD. Sometimes it is not always possible to play with her all the time when she is awake as I am doing Uni via distance education and I have house work to do. And i also believe that if my DD can amuse herself now then she will continue to do this as she gets older. I might just add that I have a very happy baby that very rarely cries. So thanks to Nat1976 for the critism.

[Cranky Kitten]

DS is a little unpredictable when it comes to this - some days he wants his own space to settle off to sleep on his own, other days he wants to be cuddled/fed to sleep. And it's hard to pick which it's going to be on any given day. But at 6-8 weeks of age, I'd go with whatever works. Worry about self settling and sleep associations when whatever you're doing either stops working or becomes a problem

[queeney]

Sorry I haven't read all the replies. But yes, I have twins and have done so from day one.

With DS 1 no, never. Infact he is just over 2 and we still lay next to him on our bed for him to fall asleep and he gets carried to his bed when hes asleep.

With the twins I started it from day 1, partly due to the fact that with twins I coudn't do it with 2 at once, but also because DS1 needed it! lol.

All babies are different, do what works and what you can cope with, dont beat yourself up over it. Dont listen to what other people tell you that you 'should' be doing.

Goodluck

[TheGrouch]

Hi OP. I took my bub to sleep school at about 19 weeks, and they advised me that this was pretty much the earliest time that a baby can start learning to self settle (if they are not just naturally good sleepers.) They basically said if I'd taken him much earlier than I did I probably wouldn't have seen the results.

Before sleep school we used to have to rock him to sleep and then hold him, and he would wake every 45 minute sleep cycle without fail. Bub is 6 months this week, and for the last month or so about 75% of the time I can put him in the cot awake and he will happily go off to sleep. The other 25% of the time he could still need patting to sleep, or even last night I gave him a few pats and then just stood near the cot and he went to sleep. He hardly ever needs resettling between sleep cycles now. I guess what I am saying is that if a baby doesn't self settle at 6 weeks, it doesn't mean they won't ever do it. There is hope!

I am sure some babies at 6 weeks will happily go off to sleep if you put them down awake, but really as PP have said it depends on the baby. At that age I just did whatever worked, which was mainly feeding to sleep (nights), walking in the pram or the ergo carrier, letting him sleep upright on my shoulder (reflux baby.) It was hard work though, no doubt about it.

Take care of yourself, as PP have said 6-8 weeks is tough going. I remember that being a bit of a feeding frenzy time too.

[Sunnycat]

When my twins (now 5) were babies I always put them to sleep awake. To be honest, I am surprised that people would not do this???

I wouldn't be able to put DS down to sleep awake because he falls asleep on the boob. When he's tired he wants boob and then goes to sleep.

[mum201]

Nope, does not work for us. I have watched the various videos in amazement, astonished by these children that just doze off when you put them down.

This is how the putting them down awake works for me:

Get child sleepy.
Put child down in cot.
Child screams in horror at this appalling abuse of innate baby rights.
Pat and shush child, stroke, massage etc.
Screaming gets louder. Neighbours wonder what we are doing to the baby.
Try patting and shushing and things longer.
Screaming becomes pathetic, sobbing tears where the baby is crying so violently she cannot breathe.
Pick child up.
Child goes quiet.
Put child down.
Child screams...

There is no such thing as leaving a quiet or grizzling awake child in the room - we never get to that point!

That said, our three month old does nap with this method:
Get child sleepy.
Lie down with child.
Have nose, face, etc, grabbed.
Tell child 'Why are you mauling me, kiddo?'
Child snuggles up, yawns.
Leave when child is asleep.
Child sleeps for 1-3 hours.

White noise makes no difference, swaddling resulted in shrieking constantly until the swaddling came off. Nothing works except parental presence, which works fairly quickly.

Similar in this house too! Likes fingers up mummy's nose and giving her cheek hickies.

[BeYOUtiful]

Every baby is different and every parent parents differently.

Tired signs - watch closely for them. When they rub their eyes, yawn, kick legs it's too late. You will get to know how long they can be up before they become tired again.

6wks is still early and you are still learning so much. Tiredness is tough, it does get better though, then they get teeth lol.

Good luck

This post has been edited by ~Jane05~: 27/03/2012, 03:36 PM

[vickyb94]

this is the only way my 14 week old will go to sleep he would never take to a dummy the day he was born but went for the fist sucking i kept being persistant with the dummy and he eventually took to it try different styles all my kids have only liked the cherry style. he will be awake between 1-2 hours and then will start to whinge i know this means he wants to go to sleep so i put him in his cot with dummy and nappy cloth and he cuddles up to this and goes to sleep the only other place he will sleep is in the car.When he is overtired he will just cry and cry so i put on some soothing lullabys from my iphone and he soons settle every baby is different and you may have to try something different dont worry i have done the 2am drive round the block to try and settle my kids once in a while.

[MAGS24]

I am lucky my DS2, who is now 5 months old, is such a good sleeper and has usually been able to go to sleep when I put him to bed awake. DS1 was the complete opposite. He never wanted to sleep and used to cry all day long.

I found that using a Ergo Bag as a wrap helps a lot with settling and stopped him from getting his hands free and waking himself up. The dummy always seems to help. I also found that DS1 slept better after going to a chiropractor at 6 weeks old.

If DS2 became overtired and not wanting to sleep when I put him down, I would put him in his bag wrap, put the dummy in and get him to lay on my chest while I was on the recliner chair and eventually he would go to sleep.

Keep experimenting and trying different things.