My son is 6 months old. The first 3 months of his life he slept great. The last 3 months he’s regressed. Some of this is normal but it got to a point where he wouldn’t sleep in his crib anymore. He either wanted to be held to sleep or to sleep in bed with my wife and me.
I love holding my son for naps and him sleeping in bed with us. I didn’t want to stop but it wasn’t realistic to continue on and it’s not safe for a 6 month old to be sleeping between two adults in bed. It only got to that point because he refused to sleep in his crib anymore.
He’d just cry nonstop every time we’d put him in or if we did get him asleep in the crib he’d be awake again crying within an hour.
Two days ago I made a decision that I was going to get this sleeping in the crib situation solved. I thought he needed some type of sleep training to learn to self-soothe himself. I did some research and wanted to try this method where you place the baby in the crib and then sit next to the crib until the baby falls asleep.
Over the past few weeks, my son has also figured out how to roll on demand and can even roll across a room now. He can hold his head up and get into the crawling position. I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s crawling within the next month.
Anyway, I put my son in his crib, pull up a chair, and chill. He’s tired but still awake. I put him in the crib on his back and he immediately rolls onto his stomach. I put him back on his back because that’s how babies are supposed to sleep. He then rolls back onto his stomach again and I put him on his back again.
We go through this non-stop for about an hour. He’s crying his head off and I’m mentally drained from his crying. I decided to leave the room for 5 – 10 minutes to see if maybe I was distracting him and he’d go to sleep without me in the room.
Well, as soon as I leave the room he rolls onto his stomach. He fusses for another 5 – 10 minutes and then falls asleep on his tummy. I’m freaking out a little bit because he’s not supposed to sleep on his stomach but I’m also amazed at how he just fell asleep after I let him lay on his stomach.
I do some Googling and apparently, it’s okay to let your child roll onto their stomach and sleep if they are capable of doing that.
My son then sleeps for 2 and a half hours. I’m pretty sure it was the longest nap he’s ever taken. Later on that day, I put him down for a nap and he did the same thing. He rolls onto his tummy and falls fast asleep for an hour and a half.
I then put him down for bed at the end of the day and the same thing again. As soon as he can get on his stomach he falls asleep within 10 minutes. Incredible!
All it took for my son to sleep in his crib was for me to allow him to sleep on his stomach. Small adjustments can make a big difference. That’s a life lesson for you!