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Re: Won't fall asleep on his own
Can I download the book for free? or do I need to buy it in the store?
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Re: Won't fall asleep on his own
Yeah I need time for myself too, even if it's for one or two hours a day, something I'm straggling with. my husband works till 18:30pm and when he returns he needs to eat and do a few things of his own so I'm basically with him all day. how can we have time for ourselves when it's not always available?
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Re: Won't fall asleep on his own
Actually animal babies (mammals) do feed to sleep and cuddle to sleep. If you separate a young baby from its mum they will scream (or squeak) for their mum. They get quite disressed. They need to smell and hear their mum and feel secure in order to fall asleep too. Once they reach a certain age they pretty much fall asleep anywhere with or without mum.
So it will get better, but it just takes time. At 3 months old it would be unnatural to fall asleep without anyone around.
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Re: Won't fall asleep on his own
Well, I'm fairly sure I won't be cuddling him to sleep on his wedding night.I come from a family where my sister would sleep with my mum even as a teenager when she needed it (ie not every night, or even most nights), so I do not see a problem with children needing their parents. Anecdotally, I cuddled my DS to sleep for over 2 years before I started to stop that, still had him in a carrier age 3 on occasion, and now he generally just goes to sleep. It's like how do you learn to read if your mum always reads the story to you? Or talk if you're talked to and you don't speak the language? The answer is you don't age 3 months, but you can just magically do it a few months/years later.
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Re: Won't fall asleep on his own
It took many weeks. And at the start it did take a long time for her to get to sleep. Taking up to an hour sounds about right from what I remember in the early stages. it wasn't until my dd was about 5 months old that she started going to sleep without being rocked/patted. You have to be patient and persistent. My dd didn't show many tired signs and at 3 months they are very hard to pinpoint anyway. So I found a loose routine helped me understand her cries and what she needed. Self settling is not for everyone, in the early days my dd cried when i left the room at nap times. It was only for a minute or two, but to a new mum it seemed like an eternity. But after a few days she would grizzle for a few minutes and just fall asleep on her own. If your ds is screaming and looking quite distressed, he is probably not ready to self settle on his own. Please don't let him cry for hours on end if you choose this method as there seems to be a bit of confusion on the subject of 'self settling'. It is a gradual process, not overnight success.
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Re: Won't fall asleep on his own
We are primates. Primate babies don't sleep alone. They are never alone. They are always in physical contact with their mothers or other parental figures. They don't have to 'learn' to go to sleep, they just sleep.
And yes, I absolutely positively promise you that when your baby is ready to sleep alone he will. You do not have to do a single thing to teach him this.
Let me ask you this: Are you teaching him to walk right now? What will happen if you don't start teaching him right now? What if you carry him around all the time, will he never learn to walk? No, of course not. When he's developmentally ready to walk, he will, regardless of you carrying him around or putting him in a pram now. It's the same thing with sleeping.
And every time you soothe your baby, hold him, cuddle him, whatever, you are teaching him to soothe himself. This is how they learn. Leaving them alone teaches them to give up asking for you help.
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Re: Won't fall asleep on his own
I don't really know the answer but I think in some way it probably relates to how much the human brain develops in the first 2 years. Their brains will never again expand at the same rate they are now, they are just learning so many new things about their world and how things work that when it comes to sleep in can be hard to reconcile all that new knowledge and just switch off for the day. BUZZING TOO MUCH TO SLEEP!!!!
What you do find is that some babies are just more happy to sleep than others, and some are looking for more help to get to sleep that others. I have a DD1 (5yo) who wants you there close as possible until she drifts off and a DD2 (3yo) who gets over stimulated with people too close when she is trying to sleep and needs her own space. It is a bit of a lottery what kind of sleeper you get, but I think whatever prize you get in that lottery there is a lot to be said for accepting the hand you've been dealt and not expending lots of energy trying to change it.
From what you've described and your babies age, getting over tired may be a possibility. Tired signs can be tricky especially early on. Seriously every mother has missed tired signs at some stage and ended up with an overtired cranky mess that doesn't know what to do with themselves, it's just comes with the territory! Some babies are more clear with their tired signs than others so it takes longer to work the less obvious ones out - DD2 I'm talking about you
I remember one piece of advice some one gave to me that I've always remembered is that that once they do the obvious tired signs (like yawning or getting agitated) it is already too late, you've missed the window. The less obvious signs are the ones that indicate the window of 'sleepy but not yet overtired and cranky' and the ones to look out for. These can be things like movements getting more jerky or eyes seeming to turn in more or wanting to stroke a particular surface/texture. It can be pretty cryptic or very subtle, maybe try googling tired signs and see what others have found and see if any ring a bell for you.
At any rate, I think 3 months is a pretty difficult time for you and him, it is still really early days and you are both learning so much about each other. I think at 3 months you are still in my 'do what ever you can to get through the day' grace period so cut yourself some slack! You are doing a good job, listen to your instinct and don't worry about what a baby 'should' be doing at x age.
BellyBelly Life Subscriber
Re: Won't fall asleep on his own
I've once read somewhere that with controlled crying babies don't stop crying because they have learned to see self settle, but instead they have learnt that no one comes save them when they cry, so they just give up... If that is true that would be super sad and not something I want my child to think. I want her to know I'm always there for her. It makes her more secure and less unsettled.
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Re: Won't fall asleep on his own
A friend of mine (first time mum) recently went to a sleep school with her 4 month old. The biggest thing she learnt is that what she thought was her baby crying, was just grizzling and if she had left her to grizzle a couple of minutes rather than going in to her, she would have fallen asleep.
Holding, feeding, rocking and cuddling to sleep works for some people, and for others it doesn't. I guess you have to decide what you and your baby need and what you're comfortable with.
I know it's hard to see right now, but whichever road you decide to take it will get better. You're just exhausted right now. Even with my 2nd baby, where I knew I was going to get better, I had a few days where I worried about being able to have my evenings with my husband back.
What worked for me is having a routine. Both my boys have a routine, DS1 is 4 years old, he's in bed at 7 every night and we have no bedtime battles. DS2 is 1 and he goes to sleep at 6:30pm. They both wake between 7 and 7:30am.
So between 7pm and 7am my DH and I have time to ourselves and can relax!
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Re: Won't fall asleep on his own
I completely understand the exhaustion and feeling like you never get any time to yourself. DS was a shocking sleeper as a newborn and I felt like it was never going to get better and was constantly on the search for that magic answer. I had a hard time working out DS's tired sighs he would go from perfectly fine to overtired in a second. What worked for me was following a loose routine. I researched and found 3 month old babies usually could stay awake for 1.5 hrs at a time. So I followed this and made sure I started settling him before the 1.5 hour mark and it worked and he started going to sleep a lot easier and sleeping better. Sleep promotes sleep so once we had the day time naps sorted his night sleeps started getting a lot better. I had a blissful 4 months where he slept through the night then around 9 months it all changed and it's rare for him to sleep through the night now but I'm far more relaxed and just put him into bed with me once he wakes so we both get a decent amount of sleep. I do still rock to sleep he self settled for a while but started needing help again so I gave it to him. Every now and then I have moments of thinking he should be able to go to sleep on his own but I know it will come with time and as I tell myself he won't be a 20 year old still needing me to rock him to sleep. And plus I love the extra snuggles. The other day I was rocking him to sleep and as he was drifting off I was gazing at his beautiful face and smiled at him and he half opened his eyes and gave me a beautiful sleepy smile back before falling asleep. I'd much rather moments like that then listening to him scream. Hang in there I know it's tough at the moment but it will get better. As my child health nurse told me you can't spoil a baby that young so do whatever you need to do for you both to get the maximum amount of sleep possible.
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Re: Won't fall asleep on his own
I'm doing everything in my power to making fall asleep peacefully, the last two days at night he fell asleep without crying, one time in my hands and the other from a long ride home. About naps, he just doesn't sleep well in bed, I took him to sleep with me, he managed to sleep for an hour, he moved a lot, almost woke up a few time, after that I breastfed him and he fell asleep on me for two hours. besides that I'm using the carrier as well.
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Re: Won't fall asleep on his own
I'd say see a pediatric osteopath to see if he's outa whack from being in utero. Makes a world of difference.
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Re: Won't fall asleep on his own
I agree with you completely!!!!!
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Re: Won't fall asleep on his own
I wish my time will come too
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