Help Me Get My 3 Month Old to Sleep!

I recently finished reading Healthy Sleep Habits, Healthy Child, and i thought it was a useful book. One thing i liked about it is that the author offers solutions without ruling out your general approach - co-sleeping is alright in his book, as is complete cold-turkey CIO. He just mentioned different things you need to be prepared for with each method, and then its up to you to choose.

Ideas from the book that may help you:
1) scheduling can be your friend (although maybe not for another month) - maybe you need to set aside time for a nap, whether your baby seems to want one or not?
2) getting in tune with when your baby starts to get tired (earlier than you think) will help
3) your baby may need to sleep more during the day, not less - when kids get overtired they don't sleep well, so having only a short nap during the day may have made night time sleeping worse. Trying for two or three naps during the day may help.
4) self-soothing is good

L.-

I feel much more comfortable with gentle methods for better sleeping. Sounds like you do as well.

From what I have read, keeping a baby up during the day does not help them sleep at night. I would suggest "The Happiest Baby on the Block" by Harvey Karp. My husband and I thought it was great. I also read "The No-Cry Sleep Solution" by Elizabeth Pantley. She has some great suggestions and methods to help baby sleep better. There is also some great information on the internet about sleeping. There are many schools of thought about this. Every mom just has to do what feels right for her and her baby!

My middle child was like that, I ended up getting a swing, which I swore I would never get, and i had to teach her how to sleep. Sometimes if you train their bodies to sleep at a certain time, they will get used to it and then you can get them to transition to the bed. That's what worked for me in her case, now I have one that is even worse than she was! My new baby takes naps ok during the day, but won't sleep at night before 12-1am, and when she does, she has to be in the swing or she wakes up every hour. I'm trying to train her, but it's a bit harder, I;m hoping that being in the swing at night will train her body to sleep at night and in time, i can get her to sleep in her bed. The most important thing is for you all to get the sleep you need and if that means retraining when the baby is older, so be it! Do what ever you have to to get your sleep.

Hi Katie,

I would suggest not co-sleeping with your baby anymore. That means that none of you are getting great sleep. My son also wouldn't nap much, or sleep well through the night, and although it was hard at first, we did the cry-it-out method and within a few days he was sleeping through the night in his crib. He still wakes up sometimes, but he always goes back to sleep within a few minutes. I would suggest letting him cry it out for 15-20 minutes or so, and eventually the time will decrease. As hard as it is to hear them cry, they need to learn to sleep on their own. You also don't want to get in the habit of letting him fall asleep while nursing.

I know how you feel. Does he sleep with you every night? if he does does he Sleep through the whole night? I went through the same thing with my daughter who is 3 1/2 months. If you have a bouncy chair, that is what I had to do with mine is have her sleep in it for a couple nights next to the bed and she did fine not waking up as much. Also maybe trying a swing. I preferred the bouncy chair. then after about a week if he is doing ok with that switch him to a play pen next to your bed or a crib and see how he does in that. I did it with my daughter and she is almost sleeping through the night in her play pen next to my bed.

Good luck. Please let me know if you have any more questions about it.

Use your burp rag or something that is warm and smells like you. When you put him down to sleep put it under him. He will think you are still there. Be a little bit slower to answer him when he cries and see if he can soothe himself. Try to limit the number of naps that he takes during the day so that when he naps he is sleepy.

L.,

At three months if your child cries, he needs something. If you are going to do the CIO method wait until he's at least 6 months old. Do you have a swing? Maybe the motion of the swing will help you little one.

When my 5 year old son was a baby we were given a swing that could swing either side to side or front to back. He loved the side to side, but wasn't too fond of front to back.

Another thought is to get one of those baby bjorn type carriers and just wear him around everywhere. My 19 month old daughter is still that way. She is so very much more clingy than my son was, and has yet to get out of her Mommy phase. She will get jealous of **anything** in my lap that isn't her. Even this laptop that I'm typing on. She doesn't really want to be in my lap, just doesn't want anything else there. <sigh>

Hope this helps,
Melissa

Hi L.,

My son does/did the same thing, and he's almost 4 months old. Motion has been our friend thus far. We bought a bassinet that rocks itself, and that worked for a while. Now he will only fall asleep in our bouncy seat in the living room. I bounce him with my foot to get him to sleep, and he'll usually sleep for about 45 minutes in a stretch. On really hard days I'll put him in the sling or moby wrap, and he will always sleep on me. (I care for other babies in my home, and having him on me makes it hard to care for them as well, so it's a last resort for me.)

I have a friend who always used to put her son to sleep by nursing him, and then around 4 months he began to stay awake past the feeding. He now soothes himself to sleep without being fed by sucking him thumb. She reminded me to not push things before my baby is ready. He'll do it when he's ready.

I'd recommend Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child. It has been so helpful for me in understanding sleep and its importance. The better a baby sleeps during the day, the better he'll sleep at night.

Good luck!
D.

I highly recommend the book "The Lull-a-Baby Sleep Plan" by Dr. Cathryn Tobin. It worked well for us with our little man, who is now almost 10 months old and goes to bed perfectly in his crib (used to fall asleep nursing as well), naps wonderfully (used to nap only in my arms and would wake up within 5 mins of putting him down) and can put himself back to sleep when he wakes during the night. The book also gives a chart on clues that you can use to help determine whether your baby is ready for "sleep-training", as we called it (although since your baby is 3 months old, he probably is). You can find the book on Amazon. Good luck!

I know people have a lot to say about CIO versus co-sleep type methods, and I feel everyone has to do what is right for them and their family, so I will just tell you my experience and let you take from it what you will.

My boys were both sleeping through the night by 2 months old. I co-slept for about 5 or 6 weeks while I was allowing night feedings. I never nursed my boys to sleep, they always went down at 8 pm, awake, and put them selves to sleep from about 10 wks on. I would put them in their crib, and let them cry for 5 minutes, and would then go in to comfort.(I used a timer so I would not go in to early). To comfort I never picked them up or gave them milk, I just hummed softly, rubbing their belly or holding their hand. As soon as they were calm I left. If they started to cry I waited 5 minutes and did the whole thing over again. I never had to go in more then once! My doctor said that night feeding was not necessary after the first 2 weeks, so it was fine to stop the night feedings after the first 2 weeks, and can actually be good since everyone gets better sleep. If my boys woke at night,(very rare), I would wait 5 minutes before I would go comfort. I almost never had to go in because they would wake, fuss a bit, and be calm and going back to sleep before the 5 minutes was up, a large part due to the fact they knew how to self comfort and they knew that they were not gong to get to nurse.