I have a 6.5 month old son. For a while I wasn't having him sleep in his crib just because he refused to do it. The past few weeks he will sleep in his crib half of the night and then normally his swing the other half. He also is napping in his crib. I have found that he has to go down while he is still awake (it takes about five minutes for him to go to sleep when he's really tired) because if I put him down when he's asleep he always wakes up. I have a few problems though. My son has to have a bottle 99% of the time to go to sleep. Even if he only wakes up an hour or so later, he wants a bottle or he will cry. He has completely rejected his pacifier over 2 months ago. He also rolls over and then sits himself up.. I found him crying with his eyes closed (still asleep) sitting up. Do you have any alternatives to a bottle/pacifier? My baby isn't that hungry as when he was in his rocker he only took a feeding to go to bed and then a feeding at 5 am. Thank you!
2 Answers
Feed your baby a half an hour to an hour before they normally fall asleep. Food or cereal in their bottle helps if they are over 4months. Make it a routine. Eat, change outfit and diaper, clean mouth, relax, play some music or white noise and cuddle up. Maybe a pacifier if they are a little fussy. Then, before they fall completely asleep, put him down in the crib or bassinet and let them fall asleep on their own. They may fuss a little bit as long as they aren't full on wailing they will fall asleep. At first you may need to hold them in until they fall asleep but I promise you after 3 kids my last one and my current baby sleep well since the second week of life. Routine, routine, routine right from the start. They will have bad nights from teething and such but just stick with it and after a bad night or two they will go right back to normal
I have an eight month old who used to do this same thing. What worked for me:
Give him five minutes or so before going to him. A lot of times, my baby would be at a light point in her sleep cycle, and start stirring and crying, but would still have her eyes closed. If I would let her fuss for a few minutes, she would often move back into a deeper sleep and never actually wake up.
If he's actually waking, and won't go back to sleep without the bottle, try to gradually transition to a different comfort item, like a projector, white noise machine, etc. When you go in, provide whatever the new comfort item is at the same time as the bottle, and gradually reduce the amount of bottle he is getting, until eventually, there is no bottle and he is used to the new item as a sleep signal. I'm using a projector/music player that has bluetooth, so now, if she wakes in the night, I can turn it back on using my cellphone and not even get out of bed. She goes right back to sleep. I've also seen voice activated soothers.
sing it to sleep. Babies also love a good peaceful song which make them go to sleep. You can always have it playing in the background on a CD player of something like that.