10.09.2020
Mastering putting baby down drowsy but awake (plus the best newborn sleep tips I've learned)
Lack of sleep has been the #1 hardest thing about having a new baby for me, both times. I know occasionally there are unicorn babies that sleep in long chunks from day 1, but both of mine have given me 1.5-hour to 3-hour blocks of sleep the first few weeks, often interrupted by 1-3 hour-long sessions of feeding them and trying to get them back to sleep. Awful nights. It's so, so hard and has (both times) led to lots of Googling baby sleep tips and reading this book (quickly--plenty of time to read when you're awake another several hours every day).
This time I knew I had to do things differently!
Babies and toddlers can have sleep issues way beyond the first few weeks and months so most of the advice you find in that newborn haze is geared toward older babies. That and, once you've done all the baby sleep environment and setup tips like in the book, there's really not a ton you can do to get a tiny baby to sleep more--(based on all my reading) you can't really sleep train till they're 4-6 months old, and you can't night wean yet.
Why drowsy but awake?
There are a million methods out there for getting babies to sleep through the night, but almost all of them will tell you to put baby down for naps or bed "drowsy but awake" rather than let her fall asleep in your arms or nursing, then put her down. Or they even have you jostle baby a little when you lay her down to wake her up a little. They say reason for this is that babies, like all of us, have sleep cycles with a period of lighter sleep at the end. At first their sleep cycles are only 40 minutes or so. The theory is if the baby is used to being rocked or fed to sleep, every time they get to that light sleep phase they may wake up (could be as often as every 40 minutes, or maybe every couple sleep cycles) and then they'll want to be rocked or fed back to sleep. So, if you teach them to fall asleep on their own from a very sleepy state at the beginning of the nap/night, they should be able to do it again when they wake up (unless they're hungry).
Okay, great. Put the baby down drowsy but awake. I read this a million zillion times but never understood HOW to do it so it never worked for my babies (until now). Otto would just cry if he wasn't full asleep when I put him down! I would just give up and feed him again or wear him in the soft wrap.
So this time around, I read another, pretty different book that starts more sleep structure for newborns at day 1, and combined that with some patience, and I'm so so happy to say Lucy can put herself to sleep and even back to sleep sometimes. She's 8 weeks old. 😮 I think Otto was 4 months when we got him to do that. I figured I had to wear him in the wrap to get him to sleep, and stressed out about so many naps in those months!! Now with a newborn and a toddler I don't have time to coax her to sleep every nap (and my low back pain is back) so I am so glad I got to this point way earlier!!
Okay, so, unlike almost everything else I've read about baby sleep, I'm going to tell you HOW I've been able to put baby down drowsy but awake.
How to put a baby down drowsy but awake
I'm not a doctor, pediatric sleep consultant, or other expert. Talk to your pediatrician about your specific situation if you need personalized or medical advice. This is just what has worked for us! I am nervous putting this info out there since everyone parents differently and chances are something I've said may upset someone. But I just really wish I'd read something like this when I was a new mom, and hope I can help the majority of readers!
