He finally sleeps in his cot!

The first two weeks my son was born were easy times to get him to sleep. He would simply fall asleep on his own in no time.

After two weeks, tough times came. He was able to sleep perfectly fine in my lap, but the moment I tried to put him down, he started screaming. I tried to sooth him in many different ways: singing, tapping, soft gestures, swaddling, swaddling again in a different way, waited and doing nearly nothing, etc. Swaddling helped a little, but a few days later he wasn’t happy with swaddling as well. I would eventually manage to lie him down, but a few minutes later he would wake up screaming. I tried for hours and hours to get him to sleep on his own cot, but nothing was working, except holding him again and letting him sleep on top of me. I still remember one day he was sleeping on his cot and he started moving his arms up. He opened his eyes, changed to an extremely scared face and screamed as much as he could. I suppose he had a very strong moro reflex (helpful tips on this link).

Until one day! I suddenly thought that the way he was sleeping on my lap was similar to sleeping on his stomach. This goes against all the recommendations of safety, but I decided to try it out. When I was born, every baby were sleeping on their stomach, because it was considered safer, at least in the country where I was. When my parents were born, every baby were side sleeping, because it was considered safer. Now the same doctors who said 30 years ago that it was safer for babies to sleep on their stomach are now saying that it is safer to sleep on their back. Well, I’m happy to follow these recommendations, but my son was two months and the safety rules weren’t working for him. Obviously a baby sleeping on top of me isn’t safe as well. I was very tired, so I could fall asleep (it happened occasionally) and an accident could happen. Taking all this into consideration, I lied my baby on his stomach and I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. He slept during hours and hours! I finally managed to rest.

Six months later, I still have to put my son on his stomach, or otherwise he wakes up.