Hi, this is my first time posting but have been reading the forums for weeks. My 8 week old son is a nightmare to put down to sleep for his naps. We had a rough first 5 weeks with BFing and so I didn't put him on EASY until about 6-7 weeks. So really we've only really been doing this for about a week or so! Anyway, he HATES being swaddled and has hated it from the beginning. He fights it and it actually makes him more angry and will fuss until he has worked his arms out. I have discovered that he sleeps much better on his tummy (I know, not suppose to at this age but he can lift his head and move it side to side if he needs to and I check on him every 5-10 minutes during his naps). I don't sleep him on his tummy at night. At night I can swaddle him as long as he's pretty much asleep and relaxed so he doesn't notice. For naps I use a sleep sack so that it's part of our routine. This is how it looks: I feed him (can take up to 45 mins - I have a delayed let down reflex so it can take a little longer for him to feed), I change (5 minutes), I start the wind down. For wind down I put him in his sleep sack, we go into a dark-ish room (it's not completely black but dark), I sing him a song while holding him, and then if he's calm I'll try putting him down. If he's not calm, I try to shush-pat him but that usually works him up more! When I put him down when he's calm, he does not fall asleep. In the 8 weeks that he's been alive he has fallen asleep on his own maybe 2 times. If he fusses after I've put him down, I try to shush-pat him in his bassinet but more often than not that doesn't work. What usually happens is that he starts to cry, I pick him up and then he spends the next 45 mins-1 hour crying because he's overtired and won't/can't go to sleep. More often than not he will fall asleep after crying for so long but that kind of defeats the purpose. The only reason he falls asleep then is because he's so tired from crying! We got a white noise machine and that helps keep him asleep once he is asleep but doesn't really help put him to sleep. Night time sleeping is better but not great. He skirms a lot at night and usually ends up waking himself up because he's on his back and swaddled. I guess I feel like I have no idea what I'm doing. I really want to get to the point of independent sleep but have no idea how to get there. I know it takes time and I know he's still young but I feel like I'm ill equipped to get him there. Advice, suggestions??! PLEASE!! Thank you!
