My baby is 7 weeks old and i wanted to start a sleeping pattern early on and i have started to put her in her crib while she is still awake but she cries I want to know how long should i let he cry before go and comfort her or pick her up or any other tips would be greatly appreciated.
I think it's important to have a good routine, but getting the baby to fall in with it is tough. My advice would be keep on putting baby in the cot on her own to try and get her used to going to sleep by herself. As for the crying, you'll know yourself just how upset baby really is, if you think baby needs you, then go to her. Establish that there is no other reason for the crying, like hunger, full nappy, or discomfort of any sort.
If it's just because they don't like being alone go into the room place a hand on them to reassure them and then leave. Keep doing it, it's exhausting and you'll be severely tempted to get baby up but try not to, if you keep it up eventually baby will learn that it's okay to be on their own and that mum will always be there when she's needed.
The other advice i'd give you is to try and make sure that your baby is taking as much milk as possible (without overdoing it, obviously) during the day, that way she is less likely to be hungry at night.
Originally posted by RRB1: My baby is 7 weeks old and i wanted to start a sleeping pattern early on and i have started to put her in her crib while she is still awake but she cries I want to know how long should i let he cry before go and comfort her or pick her up or any other tips would be greatly appreciated.
it is advised you dont leave a baby especially a newborn crying for longer than 10 mins.
you could try the 'pick up put down' routine when they cry pick them up with out making eye contact or speaking hold them close so they know u are there then put them back to bed.
they soon learn there is no point crying.
its really hard going and emotional trying to get your baby to sleep alone but if u stick to it then its worth it!
The best thing I can suggets from experience is to have a good evening routien sorted. Eg. Have a bath. Change into pj's. Have a feed - breast or bottle. Put down in moses basket, or cot. (I use baby sleeping bags). Give baby a big kiss and tell baby 'I Love You'. Walk out, but stay upstairs as you may need to attend to baby if unsettles.
If baby cries, as suggested 10 mins is the maximum to leave a baby. Not everyone will leave a baby to cry, but if you are trying controlled crying, you MUST be strong and always do things the same. If you do one thing one night and then sometimes you do something different for ease, baby will pick up on it, and play on it.
Check baby's nappy, make sure baby hasn't been sick and lying in a wet patch. Give a cuddle of reassurance.
Usually when you start a routien like this from an early age baby learns that it is bedtime, therfore leaving bedtime carefree.
When baby wakes for a night feed, feed baby as soon as possible. If you alow baby to drift back off, baby will probably wake back up after 20 minutes or so, because of the hunger. Keep the room dark and not too exiting and then put baby back down the same as you would have at bedtime eariler in the night. Baby will then begin to use these cues and know it it nightime, creating little fuss.
Never deny baby of it's need's. If all baby wants is a cuddle, giev baby a cuddle. It is a human after all.
Just don't make things to exciting, or baby will be awake loving nightime.
Originally posted by RRB1: My baby is 7 weeks old and i wanted to start a sleeping pattern early on and i have started to put her in her crib while she is still awake but she cries I want to know how long should i let he cry before go and comfort her or pick her up or any other tips would be greatly appreciated.
At 7 weeks your baby should be sleeping in your arms, or at least in the same room as you, not in a cot or crib all alone. You need to understand the instincts and needs of your baby, nurture her, don't try to "train" her. Read "Why Love Matters" by Sue Gerheart, "Attachment Parenting" by Katie Granju and/or "Three in a Bed" by Deborah Jackson, then you will understand your babys basic needs, and have an idea of what ignoring and denying them will do to her emotional development.
Don't leave her to cry, not for a second, she is a tiny baby, with no understanding of our unnatural Western parenting ideas, she needs to be held close and rocked in your arms, if you put her down and leave her she will be scared and lonely. Don't try to teach her anything more than the fact that you love her and are there for her, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Thats the job you took on when you decided to have her!!
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Nestle boycotting,nappy washing, co-sleeping, baby wearing, home birthing, tandem nursing Momma
Routines are for dancers, shedules are for trains
Attachment Parenting; the radical notion that babies and children are people too!!
It sounds like your instincts are screaming out to pick her up. Listening to your baby cry is so hard - and it is hard for a reason! If you lie her in a crib all alone -, she will have no idea where you are or when you are coming back. He cries are her only way of expressing her primal- and primary- need for you.
You are Mum - and do not underestimate the power you have to comfort your baby by holding her!
However.. I want to ask how you are coping with this crying. Are you wanting to leave her to cry because it's really tough going at the moment and you are exhausted?
If you are really tired, I know a lot of friends of mine have found sleeping next to their babies really helpful so they don't have to 'wake up' when their baby cries.
Are you bottle feeding? That can make it quite hard if you are really tired.. but there is information out there about sharing sleep safely for breastfeeding mothers.
CM I think that this is so for a young baby, but as they get older their understanding and cognitive skills develop, they do not just rely on their primative instincts as young babies do. When Katie was older6 months plus, i did not dash straight to her when she started to cry, i would wait a couple of minutes. There is nothing wrong with them crying for a short time. When i used to get the changing things ready she was crying, and when getting her bottle, i cannot do things all at once, so she had to cry a little.
Now is is 13 months old, we moved her into her own room a month ago as we felt she was ready to have her own space. She has adapted very well, and sleeps much better in the night in her own cot in her room, than she did in our bed or when she was in her cot in our room.
There is nothing wrong with routine it depends how far you take it or how strict you are. We all rely on routine, it is comforting to know what you are going to do each day. You get up at a certain time, have breakfast at a certain time, nothing wrong with that. I think that children like a routine, it is comforting to have some predictability in their lives. Katie now has a bedtime routine, and she gets the sleep that she needs, instead of waiting till she is very tired which could be late in the evening.
I feel for you, it's realy hard to know the right thing to do... My mum would say "they're not babies for long, enjoy and confort, before you know it they will be 16 and have left home", no confort realy but I now know what she means... 7 weeks old is so young..but I'm with sillycat, just hang in there!!! keep doing what your doing it seems like an eternity, but eventually your baby will learn to fall asleep on their own...mine are 6 and 4 and can still be troublesome!! xxxx
..... I am sure we will all agree that a baby grows up very very fast and that time should be cherished, but in my case, on an evening where dad was NOT here, I Could not possibly sit with both of my children while they went to sleep.
The minute I felt my son could tell the difference between day and night, that was when I started giving him a helping hand.
Both my children love going to bed with no fuss, however my daughter is teething at the moment, but things are ok so far.
Having a routien for your child by no means has to have anything to do with controlled crying at all. Controlled crying has nothing to do with a baby having a bath, bottle, story, cuddle and being put down.
YES, controlled crying to the extreme probably could be upsetting, but no mother can leave their baby crying when they need something.
A baby who needs something in the night will not 'give up hope' or 'ignore their instincts to cry'. When a baby is hungry, baby feels a pain in it's stomach and cry's, the same as when baby has wind, baby will cry. It is rediculous to say that a baby can switch off to this, and CONTINUUM MOMMA, I think you are very narrow minded if you think this.
I love coming on here to get different advice of parents, and see all the different tricks and methods we have come up with when caring for our children. But unfortunatly there are always a handful of people on here who cannot see past what they do, or have done with regards to bringing up their own children.
Continuum Momma does give some good advice on occasion, but unfortunatly fails to see thet we can't all do everything the same, and there is nothing to prove that what she does is right or wrong. The same goes for everybody else. I agree with BETH&BABY
The only problem is ... I have said the same sort of thing to Continuum Momma before, but she fails to admit that she cannot always be right, fails to apologise for hurting and upseting peoples feelings, and fails to realise that everyone goes through very hard times in these first few weeks and that we need all the positive support that we can get.
RRB1 Keep doing what you are doing, and follow your instincts, you and only you know what is best for your baby, us Mums can give you advice to take on board and I hope it helps. You will be pleased in 10 months when you can both cuddle, kiss and play all day, and then both have a rested time when it comes bedtime.
I do agree, the Continuum Concept is not the only way, it may not be the best for everyone, just because you dont use it, does not make you a bad parent or mother. My mum never used it, I dont hold it against her. I would never ignore my babies cryies, when she does cry at night, i go to her room give her milk, check nappy give dummy and put soothing music on and off she goes for a few hours (Katie as I have mentioned is 13 months so not a tiny baby). I personally would not leave her to cry, I tried that she got really distressed and so did I.
Now if she cry in the night, I come after a couple of minutes, not straight away, do what i have described earlier and back to bed. Eventually she will sleep longer once she get used to her own room and cot.
At 7 weeks (well, 8 1/2 by now) she is too young to leave to cry alone (controlled crying shouldn't be done before 6 months). You can get her into a sleeping pattern without leaving her to cry. Just get a bedtime routine sorted, do it without fail, and once it's done, only speak softly to her and feed/cuddle/rock/sing her to sleep, don't take her into a brightly lit room, or play with her. This should quickly help her to know the difference between night and day, which will help her to (usually) go back to sleep easily once her nighttime needs (feeding, changing, comfort) have been met.
Yes, it definatly does get easierr, stick to what you feel is best, I agree with not making night time to exciting, baby will not understand the difference between having fun in the day and having fun at night.
Just do things the same each night before bed, if you are consistant with this baby will learn the difference between day and night.
I hope that mine does aswell lol. We put her in her own room a month ago, she now prefers her cot than our bed. Sometimes, when we put her in our bed in the early morning when she wakes, she does not like it and wriggles about, when I put her back in the cot she goes to sleep and settles again. Katie does not go the whole night, wakes every few hours, hope eventually she will get used to the routine and sleep the night.
Meeting every single demand of a baby immediately may mean that the baby expects this to continue as it grows into toddler-hood and so you have to be very careful about the trouble you may be storing up for yourself and your child later on. I believe that habit forming only starts at around 12 months old, so as long as things are on the right track by then you shouldn't worry about it, but make sure you plan ahead to get you on the right track by that point in time.
There are pros and cons with the continua system just as there are with any other system.
The most important thing is that a mother trusts their own instincts, each baby is different and each mother is too, so the fact that somethings work for some and don't for others is hardly surprising. I think it's important though that we don't all start becoming martyrs to our babies. Babies are just tiny human beings, yes they need more care at the moment but don't loose sight of the long term goal of parenting - to enable baby to grow up into a capable, independent, happy and resorceful adult.
My daughter slept in a moses basket at the side of my bed for the first six months and then went into her big cot in her own room from then onwards and it worked for us.
RRB1 simply says that baby doesn't like being in the cot while awake and I agree that it's important that baby feels safe in the cot awake so that they can eventually learn to get themselves off to sleep but you shouldn't expect this to happen for the first few months. Getting baby used to lying in the cot on it's own without crying would be useful preparation for this.
I would put my daughter in the crib in the living room while I did my cleaning or whatever and everytime I passed by the crib I'd stop and touch baby, just so she got used to the idea that even though she was in the crib alone I was still around. Again this may work for some and not for others.
to get my babies used to their cots when i realised there wouldn't be much time left in their moses basket (due to growth room) i placed them to sleep in their moses basket inside the cot so they could get used to the different surroundings but still feel the security of their moses basket.
i felt this helped a great deal with the transaction, but like they say, what works for some... may not work for others!
Babies are definatly weird and wonderful things. My son even now at 2 years of age loved a cuddle when he is tired, but my daughter hates it and writhes around in my arms and much preferes her own space.
