Falling asleep on their own?

Question

Is anyone successfully laying baby down drowsy but awake and baby falls to sleep on their own? My baby wakes from her naps after 20 to 40 minutes after I've bounced her to sleep for 15 to 25 minutes, and it would be nice if she knew how to go back to sleep on her own...just not sure how to go about getting her there.

Answer

Unfortunately we’re in the age of short cat naps :( cat naps are sadly totally developmentally appropriate for this age. Do you best to jump and try to get her right back to sleep when you see her waking. Showing her that when she wakes she should try to go back to sleep, if you can’t after a few min just move on. She will grow out of it eventually. We have been putting our twins down in their bassinets in our dark room with their swaddles Nd sound machines (like bedtime) for their long afternoon nap and they’ve been doing 2-2.5 hours there but in their swings in the living room they’ll only do like 45 min tops. I think it has to do with connecting sleep cycles as we already know, but also If you opened your eyes to lights and people and dogs and sounds and tv you’d want to stay awake too! It just takes time and practice honestly. My first born did this about a month straight before he started stretching out naps around 5 months. Number one recommendation is making sure baby has plenty of awake time to be really tired to sleep. My guys start getting crabby around 90 min and I try to keep them up 10 min longer than that before laying them down so they’re really tired! 
Follow takingcarababies on Instagram or her website for blog posts! She has really good info on infant sleep that is GOLD.

Answer

What happens when you try to put her down drowsy? My son will fuss a bit, I’ll place a firm hand on his chest and just wiggle him for a minute or so (like being rocked). He’ll often fight it a bit and yell out for 5-10 mins after I leave the room, but then he’ll put himself to sleep. As long as he’s not totally losing his shit crying, I will give him 10 minutes to make some noise if needed and 85% of the time he settles himself. Good luck mama!

Answer

I literally posted a post like this a week ago when I was at the end of my rope for the same reason! 
There are two elements to the issue.  First the falling asleep alone thing - we were having such issues with this! And it’s mainly unfortunately our fault for letting ourselves give in to rocking or bouncing him to sleep!  Anytime we would put him down he would just holler.  Then we read that as the 4 month sleep regression approaches you have to try to stop doing that as they form deeper sleep associations so after 4 months they will be harder to break out of the rocking pattern.
So this week we have been trying to set him down happy and drowsy.  We put him in his cot, put his dummy in and turn his cot mobile on which really zones him out and calms him down.  I then say night night, give him a kiss and walk out.  Then the fun starts! I have to basically go back in to turn on that mobile or put that dummy in at least 4 times before he’s asleep! Sometimes there’s lots of crying and sometimes he falls straight asleep but if we persevere he does eventually sleep.  It’s not easy watching him cry and not picking him up but 3 days in and we are seeing small improvements.  Just find something that works to calm him if it’s a song, a mobile or white noise etc.  Our hope is that he’ll associate the mobile music with sleep and therefore drift off much easier in time.
In terms of how long, our LO is still really unpredictable.  Sometimes 1 hour, sometimes 35 minutes and sometimes 2.5 hours (generally his afternoon nap is longer).  All babies are so different.  My friend’s baby takes two longer naps.  My baby seems to favour 3-4 shorter naps.  You have to figure out what works for your baby.  I was getting really frustrated trying to stick to rigorous nap times and length of nap but now I accept he naps for an unpredictable length of time but I basically work on 90 mins is awake time before putting him down to bed.  So for example today:
Woke at 6
7.45 to 8.35 nap
10.40 to 11.30 nap (longer awake time here oops) 
1 to 1.30 nap
3 to 3.30 nap then 4 to 5.15 nap (this should have been one nap but he had wind which interrupted things!)
So in total about 4 hours sleep I think which is right for his age.  It’s not any professional routine but it works for him.  Tomorrow the timings will be different but the principle the same - 90 mins awake then a sleep.  
We’re only on like day 3 so let’s see how long this lasts!!  Keep persevering! You got this Mumma!

Answer

I lay my son down, I walk away and do my daily routine of cleaning the house. He puts himself to sleep for the most part, others I have to feed him until he falls asleep.

Falling asleep on their own?

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