Tips on getting my baby to sleep in his crib?

In My Humble Opinion
1

We have a very nice crib, and a seven-week old baby. We’re using the crib mostly as a change table. I’ll put him in it, he’ll wake a few minutes later, and freak out, I presume from Loneliness and Abandonment and Angst. Those are the looks he gives me, anyway. Most of the time we’re sleeping together on the couch or in bed.

I wasn’t planning on co-sleeping, he makes terribly obnoxious snorting grunting noises when he sleeps (which bother my husband more than me, I can kind of sleep through them), and I know that beside me on the couch isn’t, you know, the ideal safe place, but since I prefer some sleep, that’s what we’ve been doing. He sleeps from ten or eleven until three or four, wakes to nurse, goes back to sleep until six, wakes up again. We usually get up at eight or nine.

Oh, yeah, he also wakes up at three or four with terrible gas. No idea what to do about that. Doesn’t seem to be related to my diet, and burping etc. doesn’t seem to help.
So, hints? Tips? What worked for you? Should I just tie him there, or give up, sleep together with him, and buy Mr. Lissar some earplugs?

2

They have a nifty thing here in Holland which is a sort of bunting – it’s essentially a sleeping bag with arms or arm holes. They look like this. They do limit waking up in the crib because the temperature doesn’t change and because they act as a sort of swaddling which is comforting to the little guys. If you can’t find one I’ll send you one – or you could just swaddle the baby.

3

I second the swaddling approach. We did not know about this with our first daughter & she screamed non-stop for 6 months (no breathing, I swear). Nurse at the hospital showed us how on daughter # 2 & it was an incredibly different story.

4

Baby bag sleepers are great, but if he wants even more constriction, try making him into a baby burrito with a receiving blanket.

Also, don’t wait until he’s asleep to put him down! That’s the #1 mistake I see new moms make. Of course, you don’t want to play “cry-it-out” with a 7 week old, but that doesn’t mean he’s too young to start learning how to soothe himself to sleep. If you put him down when he’s already asleep, he’s learned that he needs you in order for him to go to sleep. Put him down when he’s *drowsy *and milk-drunk, and then sit there for a few minutes with your hand on his tummy, but not rubbing or patting. Just still gentle weight on his tummy. Don’t talk to him, don’t make eye contact with him. Hum tunelessly if you want to, but don’t give him “it’s time to play!” signals. Chances are he’ll drift off, and then you can gently remove your hand and leave.

He’s still very little. He’s not going to sleep for very long just because his tummy empties quickly, and then it hurts him. During the day, consider it a win if you get 15 minutes out of him. At night, you’ve slept like a princess if you get 2 solid hours!

My other advice is to not be quiet while he sleeps. Do the dishes, run the vacuum, chat on the phone, just live your life. Will it wake the baby? Yes, at first it will. But surprisingly soon, he’ll sleep right through it. If you’re quiet from the start, he’ll learn to only sleep when it’s quiet, and any noise at all will signal him that it’s time to wake up and eat or play.

In fact, my daughter spent 3.5 months in the NICU, which is constantly beeping and chiming and people are talking, and then came home to a house literally next door to a construction site. After we’d had her home for a month, we took her camping, and she could not sleep. We couldn’t figure it out, until finally there was a thunderstorm, and she smiled and snuggled into her blanket and drifted off. It had been *too *quiet for her to sleep! The next day we moved camp nearer to the all-night drum circle, and she slept just fine for the rest of the trip.

5

OMGosh, you just brought back a flood of memories about when my little Boots was a newborn. He was a snorter, too, and was waking up twice a night to eat. I was so exhausted I had to let him sleep with us for a few months, and the snorting would keep us up all night. Plus, he had the gas problem, too.

Swaddling does help a lot. Another thing you might try is letting him sleep in a bouncy chair if you have one…I found that having Boots a little more upright helped him sleep, and seemed to lessen the snorting and the gas. You could put it on the floor next to you, and then you won’t have to worry so much about rolling on him on the couch.

You can get over the counter gas drops for infants, and that seemed to help us a little…you might see if they help.

The one cure for all of this is time…believe me, I know how hard it is now, but in a few months, Baby will be sleeping like a normal person, no snorting, no waking up. You will have a whole new lease on life! :slight_smile:

6

I had no luck getting mine to use their cribs until about 3mo old. Prior to that, we co-slept.

I was sometimes able to put down a sleeping baby at that age, but one thing that helped was to have a light blanket under the baby while holding her as she went to sleep. I transfered her along with the blanket to avoid the shock of cold crib sheets when I put her down.

Around 6mo we were able to put them down awake. It took a couple days of brief (<30min) cry-it-out to get them to sleep, then all was well. We also used the soothing techniques WhyNot mentioned, but with the second child instead of a pat on the back, she liked to hold your hand as she drifted off. She’s 26 months old now and still likes to hold my hand while she’s falling asleep or just cuddling. (she also insists on jamming her feet between my legs (which sounds odd, but it’s hard to explain) if we’re lying down together - she’s very particular that way)

7

7 weeks is too young, IMHO. I had Ivygirl in a cradle next to my bed so I could pull her up and nurse and put her back to sleep (if she had a dry diaper) with a miniumum of fuss.

I did have a crib, but she only went there for naps during the day while I was doing housework. At night she was in the cradle in our room.

Once the kidlet is sleeping through the night, then you can let him “cry it out” in a crib.

8

He does sleep very well, when he sleeps. I know we’re lucky to have a kid that managed three and four hours at a time from the moment he was born.

I’ve made him a few baby bags. He’s a kicker, and hasn’t liked to be swaddled. And although his night sleeping has been pretty regular from the start, his daytime naps are totally irregular still- he sleeps from ten minutes to three hours, and I never know when he falls asleep whether it’s a short or long nap. Wait, I’m not sure that’s relevant. Oh, well.
The crib’s at the end of our bed. There’s about a one second delay between hearing him and us getting there- he’s not in his own room.

I’ll try putting him back in one of the bags, and… well, quite often he falls asleep in the middle of crying, but if I can gauge his sleepiness and put him down before…
Yeesh, this is complicated.

9

Every kid is different – if you find something that works for you, assuming it is not unsafe, do it, even if it is the opposite of what the baby books tell you. The books are only expert on the “average” child - you are the expert on YOUR child.

For our son, we completely ignored the advice about not walking your baby to sleep and did it nightly. (He slept in our bed for about the first 4 nights of his life, then in a crib pushed next to our bed, then in a crib a few feet from our bed, then in his own room at 5 months.) From about 1 - 2 years of age, we’d cuddle in his papasan chair at bedtime and I’d sing to him until he fell asleep, then put him in his crib.

Most of the above should have led to disaster if you believe the books, but it never did. His sleeping habits were the envy of all my friends. He’s 10 years old now and in all that time (once he was through the stage of needing middle-of-the-night breast feeding at 6 weeks or so) probably only ever got us up in the middle of the night with his crying about 15 times, I’m not kidding. Awesome. (But don’t feel jealous, he has found his own unique ways to torture us.)

ETA: Just realized, he was probably afraid to call out in the night for fear I’d sing to him some more. I don’t carry a tune very well…

10

I guess it depends upon the kid. We brought ours home from the hospital and right into her crib in her own room. I don’t recall having problems getting her to sleep, but it’s entirely possible I blanked those memories out. I do recall a few times that I just let her cry herself out - it doesn’t seem to have caused any lasting damage. She was never one to try to crawl into bed with us as she got older either. Independent little cuss.

11

We had to move our daughter out of our room, her breathing kept us awake - new parent worries. Once we couldn’t hear and react to every little sigh, both she and we slept better. My take is that a Mommy who can be Mommy when she and baby are supposed to be awake because she got at least some sleep is better than an Mommy always there but incapable of being anything other than a cranky zombie - even if that means Mommy isn’t reacting to every little whimper.

12

We used a heating pad to pre-warm the spot in the crib, to avoid the shock of cold sheets.

13

I was speaking more of ease for nursing moms than the kidlets. With Ivyboy, who was in another room, I got up, went into his room, took him into the kitchen, nursed him, then tried to get him to go back to sleep. He didn’t sleep through the night for seven months.

With Ivygirl, I stayed in bed, kept the lights dim, and some nights she’d fall right back asleep as she was nursing. You learn a lot from one kid to the other. :smiley:

14

Our youngest at the outset preferred his car seat to sleep - so for a month he slept there. He sleeps like a champ now in his own bed, and has slept through the night since he was six months old.

15

I suspect I might catch some flak for this, but you might want to see if he likes sleeping on his tummy better.

ETA: I’m assuming you aren’t putting him down that way currently.

16

We had an Arm’s Reach Co-Sleeper from day one, and it was fantastic. Basically, it’s a bassinet that attaches securely to your bed with nylon straps, so that there’s no chance you’ll tip it over. One side can be lowered, and we left it down all the time, for easy access. The result is that the baby’s sleeping right next to you, but there’s no chance you’ll roll over and squish him, and when baby fusses, you can just reach right over and soothe him without even getting up. Something like that could help you out a lot. The baby will get used to sleeping apart from you, and when he fusses, you’ll be right there to take care of it.

I second “don’t try to be too quiet while the kid is sleeping”; the little Torqueling could probably sleep through a hurricane. In fact, this weekend we went to a nephew’s baptism, and the church was one of those “modern” affairs, with a big stage and basically an entire rock ensemble performing for much of the service. The wee one slept through at least two full-volume songs, complete with electric guitar, drums, and singing. She only woke up when I straightened up because my back was hurting. Anyway, get your kid used to some good background noise, and he’ll learn to sleep through anything.

17

We did that for a while as well - particularly when the baby cold season was upon us. Sleeping sitting up helped her breathe easier.

One piece of advice is stop projecting Loneliness, Abandonment and Angst on it. Is more likely a want of movement, warmth and comfort. Some people have luck with jiggly seats (movement), some with sleepsacks (warmth) some with swaddling (comfort). Project too much onto your kid and both you and he will be miserable before he gets to kindergarten. Angst is a teen thing - you don’t have to worry about that emotion for years… :wink: Children are more resilent than new moms give them credit for - yes, if you institutionalize a child and do no more than change his diaper and feed him, you can create some major attachment issues - but we aren’t talking about that. Plus, eventually you may want number two - and if you have a toddler used to having mom jump to every cry, and a baby who you want to do the same for, you’ll drive yourself crazy. There is a difference between “cry it out” and “give baby three minutes - even at seven weeks - to try and self comfort.” Let your child know that barring severe injury, they will need to endure enough seperation for Mom to pee in peace - it will make toddlerhood so much more enjoyable.

18

I do know I’m projecting. It’s just that his expressions are so good. :smiley:

We live on a very busy street, with traffic and streetcars, and I’m not quiet when he naps unless it’s because I’m trying to nap. He slept through half of his first church service on Sunday.

I’ve thought about a co-sleeper attachment recently, and I just don’t think our bedroom could be rearranged to fit it. It’s about a foot and a half wider than the bed, and if we attached something to the side and turned the bed sideways we’d have to put all our dressers in the livingroom.

I know I have to stop jumping every time the baby makes a noise, because we do want more than one. I think. Ask me in another year or so.

19

The other thing you can consider is an Amby motion bed. It’s a hammock of sorts, that provides a gentle motion as the baby sleeps and a yielding (although not squishy soft dangerous) surface which cradles him more like arms do. It’s great because the baby doesn’t wake up somewhere still. When the baby wakes even a little and wiggles, the whole sleeping surface moves gently, just like you would if you were holding him. It’s like a sling you don’t have to hold. I forget the actual footprint, but it fit at the end of our bed in a very squished bedroom.

It was recommended to me by a Doper, and I heartily endorse it as well. http://www.ambybaby.com/

20

I agree with this wholeheartedly. Letting a 7-week-old baby cry it out is generally not the best idea from what I hear (never tried it myself, mostly because I couldn’t stand to, but also because I read it was a bad idea), but giving the baby a few minutes to calm down or even just for your sanity doesn’t mean you’re a bad parent. If it’s ever a choice between your sanity and letting your kid squall for a few minutes, getting hold of your emotions is always more important.

Plus, as stated earlier, every kid is different. I got a very attached screamer. In other words, I spent the first three months wearing him, and not wholely by choice. Basically if I put him down, he’d scream non-stop until I picked him up again. When he reached 5 months, he magically began to sleep through the night. This lasted until he was nearly 8 months when he got RSV and developed bronchiolitis and we had to take him to the ER one night because he couldn’t breathe. Since then, he’s slept with us periodically - he’s 22 months.

Initially, we let him because we never knew when we’d need to give him a shot of albuterol in the middle of the night. Then he went through some separation anxiety and was really tenacious about crying - he’d cry for hours until we finally picked him up. Now he’s finally starting to sleep on his own all night. He still wakes once or twice, but we go in and just talk to him for a minute and he’s out again for four hours, which is like heaven considering what we used to go through.

Regardless, I try never to look at it as his trying to manipulate me. Yes, little kids do manipulate. But with sleep, he thinks he needs something (or, when he was much younger, actually did need something - namely, food) and wants me to provide it. I try to meet that need, but I also try to provide him with an environment that helps him meet that need himself so he doesn’t freak out if he wakes up by himself. With a 7-week old, that’s a little more difficult since they really do need to eat at night. But it certainly won’t damage him to let him fuss - just recognize it when he starts to get truly upset or needs something.

If what you’re looking for is a suggestion on stuff you could buy or try to help you out, swaddling worked wonderfully for our son at night when he was little. We usually combined that with letting him sleep in a bouncinette since it was smaller and didn’t leave him lying on a huge, empty expanse of crib mattress. Later, when he was older he did move to his crib for a bit and then a mobile helped. When he had a cold, his carseat was a godsend.