Hi Guys,

I'm really confused about sleeping. I'm all for gentle parenting, I don't believe in CIO personally or controlled crying (much to my familes distain) and want to be as supportive of my new DD and future children as possible. I'm not getting much help from my family all I get is "your making a rod for your back" sigh

I've been trying to start following Tresillian's recommendation of Self Settle training, as soon as DD yawns after a feed I take her upstairs, change her nappy if needed talk to her about getting into her PJ's and tell her its time for bed and put her down in bed. I put on music for her as she loves music and I have a Sleepy Sheep that makes waves sounds. I leave her unless she gets upset, as soon as she cries I'm in reassuring here and trying to settle her but TBH after their recommended 20mins of this in and out I end up needing to use a dummy or patting her to sleep in the cot or using the swing to get her to sleep. Majority of the time I have to pick her up to comfort her, as she dosent calm down after starting to cry being in the cot. Rocking to sleep stopped working when she was about 5 weeks old, which is what I used to do prior, and she also used to feed to sleep however we have stopped that now as we were giving some dodgy advise in hospital, being told that sucking hands means food, when in fact for my DD it means she is tired. So we were overfeeding and causing more issues :/

I fell like there has to be a better way? She is 8 weeks old, and while I would like her to be confident enough for sleep not to be a drama, it is even worthwhile doing at this age? Tresillan says yes, but I find sleep time very frustrating not because DD can't sleep but because it seems to just be upsetting. She is a more high needs baby I guess, she is very demaning of my time and I don't mind but my family keep telling me to make her more easy going (however you do that) and how easy going I was as a baby blah blah. There only soloutions so far have been CIO, Feed to Sleep and Dummy. So no real support there.

Before 5 weeks old we could either rock to sleep or just place her down as she was asleep in our arms and she woudl stay alseep, now even if I rock to sleep and she is sound asleep she will wake when I place her in her bed.

We did have her in the bassinette but she is rolling around now in her sleep quite alot sometimes so I feel it may be dangerous to keep her in there much longer is this right? Or should I keep her in the Bassinette a while longer? She seems to like the space in the Cot and is the length of the bassinette mattress now. She can't yet roll over when she is awake, and we have recently descovered she is a side sleeper, which was one of the reasons she didn't like going to sleep, as it was on her back as educated by the hospital. She never changed position in the Womb so it makes sense to me after sleeping for 9 months there she would want to be on her side. She is also a star fish and hates wrapping, so we have bought wraps that zip up and let her star fish which she is happier about, otherwise she just sits fighting the wrap and getting upset.

DP is very frustrated at all of this, as before 5 weeks old she was easy to get to sleep and over the weeks it is getting progressivly harder and harder and it now seems like he can't get DD off to sleep no matter what he does and he is starting resent sleep times and not be involved in them which is a shame because DD just loves her Daddy and wants to be with him alot. I try and get him to do other things like Bath and Nappy times, but he is struggling becuase Sleep is so hard. This in turn makes it more difficult for me because I feel like I have to do it all.

Can anyone offer some suggestions? Especially for day sleeps, she seems to have a hard time getting to sleep and staying asleep, but from what I've read that isn't uncommon. Night sleeps are usually much better as she seems to have an easier time getting to sleep with less need for me.
I would Co Sleep, but and uneasy about having her in our bed due to fear of something happening to her. We did have her bassinette up against our bed when she was in our room but I dont think the cot will fit in our room.

I really would like sleep times to be a stress free event, both for DD and for me and my husband but everything I read is so conflicting. I'm not sure really what I should do.

Thanks for listening guys.

L