Newborn Check In, week of July 3rd

cmb Thanks! I'm leaning towards just nursing to sleep bc I like the bonding time and I really think most baby sleep is temperament of the child, but the other part of me wants to not repeat what I feel were maybe "mistakes" with dd1 =/

cubbiebear325, I read something where it said to start slowly with putting them down drowsy. They said to try it first with one nap a day or with only bedtime and when that starts working, to start doing it for more naps. I totally believe that a lot of how a child sleeps/falls asleep is based on temperament. We tried drowsy but awake a lot with DD but she would cry incessantly every time. She was always a terrible napper, with only random 10-15 minute catnaps during the day most days and only if someone was holding her, or occasionally on her belly on the couch. She fell into a consistent bed time when she was around 3 months but we could only put her down in her crib if she was deep asleep. But once she was down, she slept great all night. Only recently, at 3.5yo does she fall asleep on her own, without one of us laying in bed with her. Drowsy but awake did not work for her, though maybe we just weren't willing to try hard enough (we couldn't handle hours of crying). But I think it will work with DS because he is a lot different than she was. He can fall asleep on his own sometimes (which is something she never did) and sometimes when he's super-fussy he actually prefers to be put down and will fall asleep. We still hold him to fall asleep a lot but he has shown the potential to fall asleep on his own so I definitely think we'll start trying it more when he starts getting into more of a sleep schedule.

lastkiss, sounds like the witching hours to me! DD used to fuss from 6pm until anywhere from 11pm-1am. Nothing made her happy and she would only sort of settle if you were holding her while walking around or bouncing her. Luckily it tends to get a lot better by 3 months so hopefully you're at the end of it!