At first it was a mental battle with my LO and I where my LO display that he clearly doesn’t wants to sleep but I insist on patting him, rocking and cradling him just to get him to sleep on the dot (by 9:30pm) until he got very frustrated and I got seriously tired. So I tell myself forget it, the more I try, the more awake he is. So I just leave him on his bed, let him wriggle, let him fidget and squeals all he wants, until when he starting to feel tired then he will just crank and cry a little, I will then approach him and start patting and sing to him (I will not try to pick him up). On good days, once I started patting he can fall asleep between 10-15mins. On real bad days, after trying to pat him for 30mins he will still continue to cry then I will just carry and hug him to make him feel safe, then he will slowly fell asleep. My way of doing is more of facilitating him to sleep than training him to sleep, which imo either works fine and most impt it suits both of you and LO. If you LO is really dependent on yaolan, you can roll a long blanket and just surround or tuck by his side so he feel more secure. I have been doing that for my LO since day 1 until now he is 7mo.
Looks like it’s time to bite the bullet and do sleep training:) No more carrying to sleep, no more yaolan. Only use his cot. You can read up on the various methods of sleep training (eg. No tears method, check in method, cry it out method), and choose what you feel will suit you and your baby. The important thing is to not give up. Persevere. It’s also okay if baby cries for a while... he will not be emotionally scarred.. and he will soon learn, and sleep time will no longer be a nightmare. When he wakes up, too, don’t pick him up immediately. At this age, you can afford to wait 5-15 minutes to let him self soothe/self-entertain. He will slowly learn, and will have higher chances of being able to fall asleep/go back to sleep on his own. My LO started sleep training early (because everything else failed) at 4.5 months. She cried it out. Wasn’t easy to watch (baby monitor), but it got better, and she finally no longer feared her bed after a while. She’s also a super cheerful and happy baby, and now, for naps and sleep, we just put her in bed, walk out and close the door. She goes to sleep on her own:) Hang in there!
Our 19 weeks old (4 months +), used to not be able to sleep at bedtime until we carried and rocked her or put her in the stroller and pushed back and forth. This goes on from 7pm - midnight everyday. Then we saw an ad for the Little Ones sleep program, purchased and started her on it since 13 weeks old (3 months). They use techniques like sleep associations and dark room, scheduled naps, etc. Now she can self soothe and sleeps well though occasionally still need to carry and rock but definitely not as bad. It took us around 5-6 weeks to get her used to it. This works for us, but not sure if it will work for others.
I let my baby sleep in yaolan during the day from 1 month old onwards. she wean it off at 16 months. what I did was after dozing off I carry her out to bed let her get used to it first. and slowly ask her to go directly to bed and sleep. it took me 2 weeks plus to fully wean off from that
My girl is the same, at 4 month old now. Just starting to sleep train her..
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