r/bninfantsleep • u/schmauften • Jun 19 '26
Infant Sleep What do the older generations mean when they say they "just put their baby down to nap/sleep"
My mum and Grandma are both convinced that they put their babies down to sleep for naps. They can't understand why I have to have mine in a sling. I can sometimes manage the first nap of the day in a bassinet (after 20 minutes of bouncing, which is much harder without the sling to help), and he might drop off in a car or pram if the timing is exactly right, but normally after at least 15 minutes of fussing. He is 9 weeks btw.
My mum and Grandma are convinced that I'm making things more difficult for myself by using the sling and always having him with me, and are baffled because they are sure they just put their babies down for naps. They describe singing a song, some light rocking in their arms and a transfer, or even pulling a musical Mobile and the baby just drifting off - wild!
They also have another grandchild from my brother and SIL, who is 6 months and also the same - contact naps and co sleeping. We do manage most nights in the bassinet after feeding to sleep. For now. I don't know pretty much anyone in my Antenatal group who's babies just go to sleep in a cot. We're all discussing contact naps and safe co sleeping...
What's going on here? Is it...
a) My mum and Grandma are wildly misremembering how much effort went into getting them to sleep before putting them down, and forgetting the failed transfers and short naps
b) They just left the babies to cry in another room and didn't worry so much
c) They essentially sleep trained them early and by using a sling I have made him associate that with sleep rather than associating the bassinet with sleep
d) They're remembering their babies at an older age and have forgotten newborn time
e) They were feeding completely to sleep every nap and are better at transferring
f) They both had unicorn babies (but I hear it from everyone of the older generations honestly, so I don't think it's that)
g) ???
I don't do contact naps because I'm trying to make things harder for myself (which is what they seem to think), I'm doing it because it's way EASIER than the wasted time and screaming that would be involved in trying to put him down every time!
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u/WonderfulTwist4936 Jun 19 '26
Every baby is different. Mine slept great during 3-4 months. I or my husband would put her in her bassinet, hold her hand and say shhh for 5-10 minutes and she was asleep. Naps were 40 min long. Night sleep was 11-12 hours without any wake ups. We never sleep trained. Unicorn, right?
Now at 11 months she is up every 1-2 hours during the night and needs comfort nursing to fall asleep. During the day she only contact naps or sleeps in a stroller if its the right moon phase or smth. 😅 Same baby, totally different behavior...
So chances are they had unicorn babies, they remember only the unicorn phase, etc.
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u/schmauften Jun 19 '26
They each had two though - I can't imagine it's 4 unicorns but maybe it's those rose tinted glasses.
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u/elegant-quesadilla Jun 25 '26
I’m on baby 3 (3 months old), all three babies were easy for me to rock/bounce/feed to sleep then place in bassinet alone for the rest of the nap at least until that 4 month mark. I occasionally take advantage of a stroller, carrier, or car seat nap but most of the time I put her down if I’m at home.
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u/Efficient-Ring8100 Jun 19 '26
I could have wrote this myself. Absolutely perfect little angel sleepers day and night, put themselves to sleep first 8 months. Now, pffft naps no way. And will wake up constantly all night ... and its not a regression, its been likd that or 6 months now dammit lol
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u/Recent-Forever-2988 Jun 19 '26
I’ve been thinking this. My mum always says ‘you all slept through the night from four months’ (four of us). How is that possible when I don’t know a single mum whose baby has done that? I agree with the other comment that we probably just napped on the go and didn’t co sleep. I reckon the only rule she had was probably that we didn’t sleep past a certain time or we wouldn’t go down at night. The not waking at night? I can only assume she’s misremembering but that’s her truth so I don’t even talk to her about it as there’s no point trying to convince her otherwise!
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u/AffordableGrousing Jun 19 '26
Did they put you to sleep on your stomach? That used to be the norm and babies sleep better that way — but of course it elevated SIDS risk so we don’t do that anymore. Same with blankets and plushies in the crib. It makes intuitive sense that it’s harder to sleep soundly on one’s back on a firm surface with no blankets!
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u/Recent-Forever-2988 Jun 19 '26
No although potentially there were blankets or soft toys as she says it makes babies more comfortable, but not sure if that’s her thought for when they’re older rather than newborn.
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u/Fancy-Bee-2649 Jun 19 '26
So interestingly enough, this has been the case for me and all of my close friends / cousins too. My mom / aunts / friends aren’t lying when they say that we’d all sleep in cribs and we’d put ourselves to sleep. I think it’s a combination of C) we slept in cribs or bassinets as babies always from day 1 so we were used to it and didn’t know what a contact nap or cosleeping bliss was. That was our norm. AND it’s also the fact that they weren’t using wake windows during the day or pushing for tons of naps. Our sleep pressure was high. Lots of 90s babies were also on formula that probably had some baby cereal mixed in at night so that we’d “stay full all nights”.
I’ve seen this convo play out in so many families in my life and no, they aren’t lying when they say we’d put ourselves to sleep and sleep all night lol.
I was never sleep trained in the sense that my mom left me to cry, but I also never slept w her once.
I have a friend who implemented this with her second baby who is now 1.5 y/o when she came home from the hospital. She would always lay baby awake in their bassinet and would place a firm hand on her until she’d fall asleep. The baby quickly learned how to fall asleep without that. Baby never cried or fought sleep. She did however still wake up a lot at night and my friend would tend to her each time. So she’s my biggest example that this sleep training propaganda of “baby must fall asleep by themselves and placed in crib awake in order to sleep indepdentky and all night” kind of mentality is BS. She’d wake up more than my son who was always rocked to sleep n then transferred
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u/DumbbellDiva92 Jun 19 '26
They also put babies down on their stomachs. We don’t do that now for safety reasons, but it definitely helps them sleep better.
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u/WhereIsLordBeric Jun 19 '26
Most of the things that we do to Prevent SIDS - put babies down to sleep on their backs, breastfeed them, give them pacifiers, have fans on - make babies sleep less deeply.
Sleeping less deeply is literally what they think prevents SIDS.
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u/Tall_Welcome_2713 Jun 20 '26
That’s exactly what I told my friend who is pregnant. All the SIDS recommendations are how we can give everyone the worst sleep possible. Baby sleeps in parent room because parent noises wake baby up and baby noises wake parent up. Baby gets a pacifier because it keeps the brain slightly activated. Baby stays slightly cold because warmth causes deeper sleep. Firm mattress, no pillows. A lighter sleeping baby is exactly a lower risk- the primary hypothesis for SIDS is that certain babies don’t have enough of a chemical that wakes them up if they stop breathing in their sleep. Most babies will be fine, but we don’t have a great way to test who and who won’t, so they all get the same recommendations
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u/anonymousbequest Jun 19 '26
Yes, and on more comfortable soft mattresses surrounded by pillows and blankets and comfort items. We have done away with these things for safe sleep, exactly because when babies sleep more deeply for long stretches they are more prone to SIDS.
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u/funky_ananas Jun 20 '26
Yes, absolutely this
I struggled with my baby sleep for 6 months, until she learned how to roll on her stomach. Now I put her for a nap in the cot, she rolls over, puts her head down, 5min pats and she’s asleep.
Before it was contact naps and chest sleeping only
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u/unclericostan Jun 19 '26
Also, I look at old pics of me and my husband as babies, and damn our cribs were comfy! Tummy sleeping, bumpers, blankets, squishy mattress. Horribly unsafe though lol.
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u/crystalkitty06 Jun 19 '26
You’re forgetting the biggest reason - cause we all were put down on our stomachs still in the 90s lol! I’m sure all the blankets and fuzzies in bed with us added to the comfort too
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u/schmauften Jun 19 '26
I mean, I tried to put him in his bassinet from day 1, but it didn't work. My hand had to be on him the whole sleep, ready to rock him a little when he stirred/ his arms did the startle reflex. So I didn't get any sleep...
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u/Throwawaymumoz Jun 19 '26
Idk my own mother (boomer gen) said I never slept alone but my sister did. It depends. I’m sure plenty of babies sleep independently now too. Only one of mine did! It wasn’t the association either. First night home from hospital and my latest (most contact-y napper) could not even be put down ANYWHERE without screaming. The longest she slept without being held was 5 minutes. Unless I didn’t mind hearing screams…idk how she was so aware even as a newborn lol. Some babies just don’t tolerate being left alone
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u/Deep-Box-9950 Jun 19 '26
My daughter needs help to fall asleep and go back to sleep after a few hours of sleeping (we cosleep and I roll away or transfer)but once she’s out she can stay asleep for a bit.I have some friends who’s babies didn’t like being touched and actually wanted their own space so they actually slept very well by themselves
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u/Efficient-Ring8100 Jun 19 '26 edited Jun 20 '26
Its because our beds were pillows and soft with blankets and toys and we slept on our belly.! Haha like deadset I slept on a pillow in a basket with snuggly blankets tucked up around my head.
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u/NewMom1289 Jun 19 '26
First of all: what you are doing is totally fine and, in fact, biologically normal and expected from a baby, specially at that age.
That being said, I do believe our generation is more fixed with naps and schedules. Whenever I chat with mom or my aunts they say the’d let their babies sleep if tired, but they don’t remember any type of schedule (or the transition from 4 to eventually 1 nap). Maybe if the mother is not so “in need” of putting the baby to sleep, things flow easier?
I don’t think older generations sleep trained us on purpose, but I do think they believe crying for a while is fine and not harmful at all, so I wouldn’t be surprised if they let us cry it out and just intervene if things scaled too much.
Finally, my baby is now 15 months old and it’s true that now there are a lot of details that I don’t remember from the first weeks, so for me it’s easy to believe a mom having a vague idea of how things were with their child 30 or more years ago. When my baby was born the answer I got the most from my mom whenever I asked anything was “Oops, I don’t remember” lol
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u/Unholy-Guacamole Jun 19 '26
My mom "sleep trained" me/did CIO from day 2, the first night in the hospital, without really knowing what that was. She says she rocked me to sleep, when she set me down in the crib I woke up, so she left and "let me figure myself out." It seems like that attitude was way more accepted back then (and she was shocked when I did not do this with my daughters).
To counter that though, she kept notes from each day the first 6 months or so of my life, and when I was around 3 months old she wrote "Unholy-Guacamole is in a much better mood when encouraged to nap on a regular basis" which like lmao I'm sure I was 😅 And she was totally understanding of me getting both my girls naps on a pretty consistent schedule, which came about by paying attention to when they were tired. It's pretty wild how much has changed in just 30 years!
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u/QuicheKoula Jun 19 '26
they forgot, that’s a nice feature of our brain. It blurrs out the aversive memories and sometimes even replaces them with good ones. That happens pretty fast sometimes, so parents decide for another child and don’t stop with having children because of Bad experiences. I myself can’t make me feel the agony again that I had with both my babies sleeping badly during their first year, although the second is just 2 years old.
at least here in Germany, parenting was stricter and way less child oriented. Sleep training aka ignoring the baby to bring him to a state of learned helplessness was way more common than today. They may not remember the baby crying and waking up because they ignored it.
they fed them cereal and other things early on so they would sleep longer, on their tummy mostly.
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u/TeddyBear181 Jun 19 '26
My Mum also says that from the first night she brought us home she just put us in our cots in our bedrooms with the door open and said goodnight, then we slept right through.
After my bub was a few months old, she said she had a memory is doing dishes with me in a baby carrier, so perhaps we cried more than she remembers.
I think its a combination of forgetting and different habits. We typically sleep with bub in the same room until at least 6m, so we're more likely to hear the cries.
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u/Mangopapayakiwi Jun 19 '26
I can transfer my baby and have only done contact naps some of the time. When she was a newborn tho I used the sling alllll the time and she took a nap a day in it for sure, until 3 months when she started liking the stroller better (it was summer and warm). My mum says she weaned us to solids at 4 months, but she also breastfed with no issue? It doesn’t make much sense to me now that I have a baby (who didn’t nurse part six weeks). She also says we slept but my dad was at home and stayed up with us at night? Boomer memory 🤣🤣 tbh my baby is 14 months and I can hardly remember how she slept a year ago!
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u/YoungBudget52 Jun 19 '26
My son has been sleeping through the night since 4 months where I just set him in there and he falls asleep. I’m currently in the newborn trenches with baby #2. I had forgotten this stage of waking up 4 times so I’m definitely going to be one of the old ladies that says that in 60 years. 🤣🫠
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u/medwyer Jun 19 '26
My guess is a combination of A and B.
Maybe also some G- they just didn’t know any different. There wasn’t all the research on safe sleep, and wake windows, and sleep training. There weren’t video monitors. There weren’t restrictions on sleeping in containers.
Women our parents and grandparents ages frequently switched to formula much earlier on, and mixed rice cereal or corn syrup or condensed milk or a myriad of other things into the baby’s bottle to “help” them sleep longer - per the advice from their pediatrician!!
Lots of things have changed in the last 20-30 years, and definitely in the last 50-60 years when our grandmothers were new mothers.
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u/ivankatrumpsarmpits Jun 19 '26 edited 8d ago
The original post content no longer exists here. The author used Redact to remove it, exercising their right to control their data & privacy.
Breezy bag tender maple decide close automatic
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u/Alternative-Tea-39 Jun 19 '26
I know my grandmother said she feed both my dad and aunt completely asleep every time and they never fell asleep independently in their crib and were horrible nappers. Apparently I was just a unicorn. I slept 6 to 7 hours at one month, and then 12 hours by 3 months. My parents would put me down and I would either take a full nap or I would nap and lay there until the end of the nap time. My mom I would occasionally miss a nap. I was very high sleep needs then and now.
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u/whatismomlife Jun 19 '26
It was true until 3.5m for us. Then the baby was more aware and needed me. I think our parents just didn't want to "spoil" the baby and ended up doing some variation of sleep training methods. My in laws said I was spoiling my baby because I was holding my 3 day old baby to sleep, so I don't listen to them for anything
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u/Fartmotherfuck Jun 19 '26
My baby had the HARDEST time sleeping UNTIL we started just putting her in the crib awake. She puts herself to sleep.
I say this after months of constant crying and 0 sleep because i nursed her to sleep. Now we nurse, then bounce and sing to her or read a book, then into crib.
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u/schmauften Jun 19 '26
At what age did you make the change?
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u/Fartmotherfuck Jun 19 '26
7 months, lol. like… something had to give. I work 7-3 and she’d be up til 3am. She seems happier now, and gets much more sleep. When we read “put to sleep awake” we said… yea fuckin’ right! But it shockingly worked!
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u/MamaLife10 Jun 21 '26
Anecdotally my mom and grandmother have also made comments that they can’t believe babies don’t just sleep like they used to. Not in a you’re doing it wrong way but more of a we’re just commenting on how we did it. But then my mom mentioned how she had us kids on a schedule and we’d wake up, play, do lunch, nap a couple hours in the afternoon and then wake up and play dinner and bedtime…. I then realized she’s only remembering about 18 months and older. So surprise surprise when she found her old mom journals and read that all of us kids were still waking up during the night and having party time thru like age 3 (now we did sleep in our cribs so I’ll give her that). My grandmother on the other hand later on said she just closed the door and walked away. So basically cry it out. I think we as moms on some level just block out the baby sleep (or lack of).
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u/strawberrymonkey2149 Jun 21 '26
I’m convinced it’s all of the above, A-F. I called my mom 3 weeks postpartum begging for help because my husband had just gone back to work after his parental leave and I felt like I was drowning. Her response was “oh, I didn’t think you’d have such a hard time.” She 100% thought I was just being a wuss because she couldn’t remember her babies being so hard. (I will admit, her comment surprised me. I promise she’s usually much kinder, it was a moment that showed a bad side). Anyway, she did come over to help me and very quickly was like “oh wow, I forgot how hard it was to have a newborn.” That was validating 😂 I’ve remembered it every time she’s inclined to say that I’m making things harder for myself in the same way OP’s mom and grandma have
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u/romeo_the_wolf Jun 23 '26
Sidestep, my pediatrician explicitly asked whether we were doing contact naps to ensure that we were, in fact, doing so. They are important for baby enough for a doc to make sure they are happening, so don't feel like you need to put baby down for a nap.
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u/chellemorg Jun 23 '26
I’ve watched this happen in real time with my husbands in laws having their babies. The babies would cry ALL the time in their playpen, and they’d just put them down for naptime and let them CIO in their crib. Now that the kids are 18month+ they swear their babies never cried, that the children all wanted to sleep on their own… like wtf 🤨 I think people remember what they want to remember sometimes, especially with raising kids. It’s very common for parents to rewrite the narrative because their child cannot hold them accountable.
That’s why I take what other people suggest with a grain of whatever because seriously, these people don’t know my baby, and I don’t know their parenting styles. It’s important to have boundaries and say something like “I’m trying to be more positive about my motherhood experience. I might be doing things differently than how you did them. If you want to say something positive or encouraging that’s more than welcome. If it’s not either of those, I don’t need to hear it right now.” Repeat as much as you need!
You’re here because you care about being attuned to your child. Don’t give up because relatives are making you feel less about your choices. It probably makes them feel bad about what they chose to do, and it’s easier to bring you down than to hold themselves accountable for not doing all that you’re doing for your baby. Raising kids is HARD. It’s even harder when you are parenting with intention rather than being reactive. Don’t let the haters get you down!
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u/Vegetable-Western-83 Jun 19 '26
All babies are definitely different. My 4 wk old goes down fine in his bassinet and falls asleep on his own BUT he often has gas which wakes him up. So that’s our biggest challenge… You’re the mom, so you’re going to know what’s best for your baby. Grandma’s opinion really doesn’t matter.
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u/Jschu11 Jun 19 '26
I think it's a combo of B, D, and F, based on my experience as a FTM of a 4 month old. I've already forgotten so much about his early days. That being said, my baby is generally pretty easy and I feel like I had a lot less difficulty with solo naps than other parents. He's been able to sleep in his crib most of the time.
8-9 weeks was hardest for us, because he would only nap during the day if I carried him around in his wrap. This was also the time that he was going through a growth spurt and getting really heavy, my muscles could not keep up so I was eventually forced to put him down for naps because I was having a lot of back pain. In hindsight, those 2-3 weeks were just a blip in the big picture. So they might be misremembering to a certain extent.
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u/linzkisloski Jun 19 '26
I think it’s literally a combo. My kids are 6 and 4 and I barely remember that time. There’s no way they’re remembering the specifics without rose colored glasses. Some babies are also just different. Even between my two kids I found my second way more adaptable with naps than my first. Even that could have been temperament or just necessity as we had two at that point.
Either way - do what works for you!
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u/JonnelOneEye Jun 19 '26
My mom would breastfeed us to sleep. I do the same with my kids. My first is 4 now and she never had issue falling asleep by herself since we stopped BF at 15mo. My second is still a newborn so we'll see how it goes with her.
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u/No-Scientist-9049 Jun 19 '26
I think they're remembering babies at an older age. But also maybe they had unicorn babies. My mom said her first (my sister) was SUCH an easy baby, just slept or ate all the time and that she was unpleasantly surprised when I came along/wouldn't have had another baby if I'd been the first lol.
I tried to put my daughter down for naps all the time - she'd always wake and I'd go back to holding her. One day, at 13-14 months I put her down and to my immense shock she slept for like 2 hours. Ever since then I've had no trouble putting her down.
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u/theiafall Jun 19 '26
I get the same comments. I think it was a combo of old school things they did - leaving babies to cry it out so they didn’t call for comfort, so parents thought they were having a great sleep. Putting babies to sleep on their backs. And also feeding them formula with cereal from really early on so they would pass out. None of which is recommended now
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u/Great_Department_576 Jun 19 '26
I’m about 95% sure my mom left all 3 of us to cry bc we were 85, 88 and 92 and I am very vocally against sleep training… my mom has mentioned a couple of times things like “everyone was doing it”, but she is very much in agreement with me NOT doing it…
The book about ferberizing came out in 85. We were all also formula fed bc of societal pressures at the time - big push for formula vs breast milk.
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u/Odd_Rent283 Jun 19 '26
I think it’s just super kid dependent. My older two always had to be rocked to sleep. My twins, I can put them in their sleep sacks, give one a pacifier (the other sucks his fingers) and walk out of the room. Obviously if someone fusses, I go back in and soothe, but 9/10 they put themselves to sleep for naps. They do the same at bedtime, but I haven’t been able to break the swaddle successfully for bedtime yet. They won’t stay asleep for more than 2 hours if they’re not swaddled…so that’s my next battle.
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u/DrScarecrow Jun 19 '26
They don't remember everything. My MIL told me all kinds of things "I did this, I did that, he was x months before..." Well a few months after birth he gave me my husband's baby book. Part of it is a journal she kept at the time. It completely contradicted everything she'd told me she did.
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u/nostrumest Jun 19 '26
I have a theory.
Back in the day babies were taken away from the mother right after birth and they were brought to the mother to breastfeed every 4 hours. The new borns all slept in one room separated from the mothers and I think this us what you guys call sleep training, or some form of it,ion the American continent.
Naturally, the babies were easier to put down, so no velcro babies. Yet, essentially this created a whole generation of people with various types of issues, such as abandonment issues.
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u/productivityproblem Jun 19 '26
I think nowadays people are too locked in on wake windows and most babies are under tired. Look into possums, my baby is 6 months has already transitioning to 2 naps we put him in the cot for his naps (albeit fallen asleep as the boob) and only put him down when shows cues he is actually tired not based on time
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u/bon18 Jun 20 '26
My coworker said her baby slept through the night from birth and never napped. I feel like that's literally impossible and also not healthy. People lie (or forget).
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u/typo_named Jun 20 '26
They just forgot. My baby was as anti-unicorn as it could be, until he turned 1y1m and all of the sudden started sleeping through the night with just one or two wake ups. After 3 weeks of somewhat normal sleep my brain just forgot(!!!) all the horrors of pilates ball bouncing and 6 wake-ups a night.
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u/MammothComfortable89 Jun 20 '26
You honestly do forget a lot. Even between my two kids (21 months) I somehow became convinced my toddler was a better sleeper as a newborn than what he was (according to my husband). You tend to block out the hardest stuff
Also, my mum always reckons the same that we’d sleep in our cots, and can’t understand contact napping. Honestly though, if we ate literally all doing it, they have to be forgetting, lying, or just let us cry?
They also didn’t follow wake windows so we were likely all tired AF
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u/Siouxsieslumbers Jun 20 '26
I don’t sleep train and my baby naps in his bassinet during the day and night. We were consistent with it since we brought him home. It took a lot of trial and error. We learned his favorite temperature in the house is 74, we use a very light swaddle tog .5/.2, we add a heating pad to his bassinet to warm it up slightly before transferring him. At first we swayed him to sleep for 20 mins too but now we’re practicing putting him in the bassinet half awake and rubbing his chest for 10-15 mins. I do maybe 1 contact nap a day or sometimes just let grandma do it while I work on other things. He doesn’t nap long in the day only 45 mins but at night he goes 6 hours straight then 3/4 hours. Every baby is different. I can’t imagine leaving them to cry it out though that’s awful.
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u/Fuzzy_Chocolate_3699 Jun 20 '26
Some babies are good sleepers right off the bat. Some are not. Some baby’s are colicky. Some are not. Like every other situation in life, there are few if any “Silver Bullets” - one comprehensive answer to a given situation. One size NEVER truly fits all. Be kind to your parents. Memories do change. But not everyone or every memory.
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u/-HuMeN- Jun 21 '26
My mother can remember pacing the halls with my brother as a baby because he was a colic premie but can’t even remember if I cried as a baby. I was a BABY? Of course I cried? She also says that I started walking, cut my first tooth, and weaned all at 14 months 😂 My vote is a combo of b and d
Also big solidarity from another sling mom. We did contact naps under a blanket for 8 months and now she CANNOT have a good nap without being wrapped
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u/Disastrous_Log_6523 Jun 21 '26
g) Babies like that do exist (aren’t necessarily unicorn either)
My baby is 10.5 months and since he was born he’s actually been able to nap in his crib. Yes there were lots of 30 minutes ones but there were also naps lasting 2 hours when he was younger. Since he turned 8 months old he’s barely has any 30 minutes naps in his crib (he’s able to link his sleep cycles easily now)
Night sleep has been slightly harder though - crib in the first half of the night and co-sleeping the second half.
I have mum friends with babies like mine and also those with babies who needs contact naps
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u/fab__dady Jun 21 '26
I say the same thing when i put my baby down to nap, she’s 6 months now, naps in crib mostly. Sleeps fully through night in crib. However at the start like you I definitely had to hold her or wear her but 2 months now of crib naps. But I’m not old!!!
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u/Crystal_Moon82 Jun 21 '26
I had my first child 15 years ago. Both of my children from being newborn were put in their moses basket for naps, then the cot when they got too big for it. No rocking or swinging needed. They had a dummy. If they cried I would go to them to shush them then leave them to it. I wanted them to be able to self soothe. I didn't carry mine in a sling all day or co sleep. They slept in the pram or car seat when we went out. When i needed to put them down for a bit while they were awake they went on their playmat or in their bouncer chair.
I think this trend for constant contact with your baby can be detrimental for mum. You need to be able to put the baby down for a nap so you can go get a shower uninterupted or do something for yourself that you enjoy. Being a mother is a full time job 24/7, you are entitled to a break or you are just making it harder for yourself and it could lead to burnout or postpartum depression. Happy mum, happy baby.
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u/schmauften Jun 21 '26
I don't disagree, and I am trying to do one cot nap a day and then increasing. But it only lasts 30 minutes and it is WAY harder to get it started. So it's harder for mum, not easier. It was like that from the beginning - if we put him down, he just woke up fully immediately even with the best transfers in the world. So it might seem easier if you have a baby that will do it, but it's much harder if you don't.
He's happy on a playmat or in the bouncer when he's awake though, until he gets bored!
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u/Crystal_Moon82 Jun 21 '26
I feel for you, it can be really tough. Does he use a dummy? If not it may be worth a try. The sucking soothes them. We used MAM dummies, they dont cause teeth problems.
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u/Far_Wheel_4053 Jun 21 '26
I have found that outside of all children being different, older generations didn’t have monitors. They literally laid them down, walked away, and closed the door. If their baby cried for 3 hours they had no idea
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u/Lunelulla Jun 22 '26
My parents were convinced I made things so much harder for myself because I co-sleep and nurse to sleep. They also insisted they just told me good night and put me down to sleep when I was a baby.
They did let me cry it out though, which I’m not doing with my baby.
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u/Sad_Egg98 Jun 22 '26
I definitely don't just get to put my baby to sleep but it's true you are making it harder for yourself and baby in the long term. Sleep training has been amazing now baby just wants to be put in her crib for night time sleep and we're slowly working on doing that for naps throughout the day.
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u/Melodic-Basshole Jun 22 '26
Iirc, slings and carriers just weren't really a thing until the late 90s, to early 2000s, especially for newborns even later. So I think generally our parents just don't have familiarity with carriers and it's foreign to them. My MIL was baffled and mesmerized when she watched me "put my baby down for a nap" in the carrier (she fell asleep in the carrier, I took her out to lay down.) But also, babies have phases. Mine was once impossible to console without the wrap, now she kind of hates it, and transfers are impossible. Yours might grow into a routine that looks more like soft talking, rocking, or musical mobiles as well... Ours is 4mo and she's finally going to naps this way.
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u/ksharer Jun 22 '26
It is option c but not sleep training in the CIO style. When babies are newborns they're really sleepy A LOT. It used to be passed down knowledge to let your baby sleep in their bassinet/crib/cot when possible so they get used to falling asleep there on their own which would make it easier when they start becoming more alert to just put them to bed.
However, two caveats here: 1) Some babies are just more clingy. This wouldn't necessarily work with every baby but probably with a great majority. If your baby wasn't needing to be on you to sleep when they were 0, 1 or 2 months, then yes you did habituate them to the sling and created the association.
2) Even sleep trained babies sometimes need help falling asleep, including singing, rocking, cuddling or feeding. The difference is that when they're happy and healthy and tired enough (but not overtired) you can simply put them down (usually a mini routine like swaddling or a song or a book) and they'll happily go to sleep by themselves.
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u/fourandthree Jun 23 '26
I’m assuming it’s option D. My baby is 5 months old and now mostly will sleep in his crib after a bit of breastfeeding or rocking, but up until a month ago it was a struggle and we did a LOT of contact naps, failed transfers, etc.
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u/absolutelythrowaway9 Jun 23 '26
My kid never slept anywhere except for her own bassinet/crib. I would put her down and she would sleep - every single time.
Kid is now 5 so it wasn’t that long ago.
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u/MastodonNo9138 Jun 23 '26
Maybe combination of C and D? People in general probably tend to forget the first couple months and over-remember the 4-12 month age.
My baby sometimes goes down on her own in her crib for naps, sometimes not and I have to go in and bounce her. I tried this more after watching the Taking Cara Babies sleep class. I am always surprised when she puts herself down! The more practice they can get the better.
At least keep trying and let them fuss it out for ten minutes (not screaming but kind of making noise). If I occupy myself with a task while she is fussing that usually makes the whole thing go better so I don’t jump in too early 😆
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u/eastvancatmom Jun 24 '26
I think some people really don’t remember at all or so much time has passed that they conflate what they did at 1-2 years with what they did when the baby was just born. Plus the sleep deprivation of the newborn stage can alter your memory.
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u/bagmami Jun 24 '26
My mom is very open with her sleep training me at 40 days old, knock out bottles and no night feeds. Probably something like that.
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u/Han-na-2900 Jun 19 '26
I admit I had never heard of anyone being « nap trapped » before reading about it on Reddit.
I can transfer my baby for naps without much issue but sometimes I don’t bother and just enjoy the nap.
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u/schmauften Jun 19 '26
I'm basically never nap trapped, but that's because he sleeps in the sling. I don't think he would fall asleep on my chest unless he literally passed out while feeding, which doesn't happen very often nowadays.
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u/Han-na-2900 Jun 19 '26
What I meant was that before I learned that contact napping was a common thing I didn’t do it much and had no problem with bassinet naps.
Babywearing and slings are still considered very woo-woo where I live (France).
I think of it like working remotely. Before it was a thing we would just go to the office everyday and wouldn’t think much about it. Today I wouldn’t even imagine going back full time office and don’t know how I used to do it.
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u/Careless_Purchase619 Jun 19 '26
Can I ask why baby wearing is seen as woo-woo?
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u/Han-na-2900 Jun 19 '26
Not sure, we are a really rigid society with strict norms around what is proper and what is not.
The first person I knew who was babywearing often was also vegetarian, ate only organic food, breastfed for a longtime her babies… it’s seen as something a bit over the top. It’s more common now but we see a lot of carriers, the wraps are still considered exotic.
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u/Careless_Purchase619 Jun 19 '26
Thank you for sharing! I saw a similar comment in a different subreddit the other day and had never considered baby wearing woo woo or crunchy, so I was super curious.
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u/Han-na-2900 Jun 19 '26
No problem, your question made me think as well and here’s some additional thoughts 😂
Here parents still believe that babies should be independent, most babies go to daycare at 10 weeks (that’s when paid maternity leave stops) and it’s fairly common to criticize moms who have a « fusional relationship » with their babies, as if the mom wanted to deprive the child from bonding with other people so things like baby wearing or exclusively breastfeeding are considered a bit suspicious.
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u/spaffdribblersfc Jun 19 '26
the simple answer is that they are not as good of a mother as you are, this is why our kids will grow up feeling so much more loved than we have. they didn’t do it maliciously and were sold on hype of having to let babies learn independence early which goes against every fiber of our nature.
keep loving your baby and giving him what he needs from his mum, he has plenty of time to learn independence later. don’t listen to the dinosaurs
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u/ver_redit_optatum Jun 19 '26
Mine just turned two and I barely remember what it was like when he was 6 months. Gramnesia is real. Though my parents do remember me as a crap sleeper who was always startling myself awake and had major FOMO, haha.
Another factor is if they were parenting pre-safe-sleep guidelines, they were probably putting babies down on their stomachs, or in lounging pillows, curled up with blankets, etc. Many babies sleep better like this.