Drowsy but awake?

These guys typically nurse and fall asleep or they are WIDE awake The doctore suggested that we put them down drowsy but awake. I tried last night but I fell asleep, oops. How do you do it and when?

 

These guys typically nurse and fall asleep or they are WIDE awake The doctore suggested that we put them down drowsy but awake. I tried last night but I fell asleep, oops. How do you do it and when?

 

We put our guys in awake. They used to fall asleep while drinking the bottle but we make sure they don't fall asleep now by moving them around a lot etc. We then keep them up right after their bottle for about 15-20 minutes (usually exersaucer, jumperoo, floor mat) and then we put them in there once they are acting tired (grouchy, whiny etc). They are sleeping better and longer again now that they are falling asleep on their own in their cribs.

 

I think the key is making sure the bedtime nursing/bottle isn't too late in the day. If they're consistently falling asleep during the last feeding, just move it up a little bit. When my girls were that age they started sleeping through the night, and within a few weeks their bedtime went from 8 p.m. to 6 p.m.!

 

We BF too and I've always put them down right after they are done when it's bedtime, no matter what their state of wake is. These days they are very alert after bedtime nursing and know it's time for sleep and are out within 10-15 minutes.

 

FWIW, "drowsy but awake" never worked for us. All the sleep books say to do it, but we always found that drowsy became wide awake really fast when the head hit the crib. So we put them down asleep until about 5 months, when they started resisting sleep harder and harder, at which point we started just putting them down at bedtime, drowsy or not (and letting them CIO).

That said, we never made a serious effort to re-soothe them back to "drowsy" after the head hit the crib -- maybe that would have worked.

 

When you say you fell asleep, do you mean during one of the night time feedings? We don't bother to do drowsy but awake then -- only for naps and bedtime. Ours don't usually fall asleep nursing anymore, but if they do, I just gently jiggle them until they flutter their eyes open.

 

Our ds goes down, thankfully, pretty much awake. However, our dd is the one we put down VERY drowsy but awake. What we do is this...I mostly nurse her in the living room (sometimes in our bed in side-lying position)until she pulls off. She's usually pretty out of it at that point. If I detach her rather than letting her pull off the breast, she gets worked up. It's like she's telling me "Hey, I'm not finished eating!"

My husband is the one who takes her from me and puts her down in her crib. She may open her eyes for a moment or two and then closes them. We implement some of the suggestions made by Weissbluth, the author of Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child, and they seem to work. We're hoping that eventually we could put her down more awake than drowsy, but that will come in time. If she's really worked up, then I'll nurse her in our bed, but that's usually because she's overtired. We try to avoid those situations. I do have to say since my husband has been putting her down, she goes down much more easily with only one or two wakings before she stays asleep, which is a big improvement. I'm not expecting her to go to sleep and stay asleep for 12 hours. I'm sure that will come in time. At this point, I'm happy with the progress she's made thus far.

 

Wow, this is tough. We don't CIO so its put them down and if they wake, we try and get them drowsy again. Last night was awful, they kept waking up and was awake from 4 pm until almost 10 screaming and fussy. Every time dh took one, that one would scream and then he'd take the drowsy one so I could nurse the screamer and we did that for two hours!! Forget drowsy, I nursed until comatose!

Today went a little better... I had to nurse Norah three times because I think I pulled her off to early. Nevan went right down and they are both sleeping!

 

quote:
Originally posted by Erykah:
Wow, this is tough. We don't CIO so its put them down and if they wake, we try and get them drowsy again. Last night was awful, they kept waking up and was awake from 4 pm until almost 10 screaming and fussy. Every time dh took one, that one would scream and then he'd take the drowsy one so I could nurse the screamer and we did that for two hours!! Forget drowsy, I nursed until comatose!



This has definitely happened to us. Thankfully, it has improved in the last couple of weeks, but it has taken several weeks of roughly consistent effort. I think the husband is a key component to helping with the bedtime routine, especially the one who physically places the baby down. After reading that in the book and adhering to it, we noticed progress with our dd. Again, it takes time. Some babies don't take as long as others. Our dd likes to take her time