how do you get your babies to sleep?

i still swaddle my 4 month old but am worried about how to get him to sleep when he gets too old. how do you get your baby to sleep??

When my daughter outgrew her swaddle, I started using a sleep sack instead.  She got to a point where she didn't like her arms swaddled, so she loves the sleep sack since she's free to move her arms about.  :)

We use a sleep sack, too.

John started rolling over at 3 months and slept on his stomach at that point so we stopped swaddling. He sucked his thumb and was always good at self-soothing until he got bronchitis and had to sleep upright on my chest for a few nights.

I've just now gotten him back into the habit of going to sleep on his own. Even though I hated doing it, we used the cry-it-out method. It only took a few nights of crying before he got the hang of going to sleep on his own. I now put him down in his crib on his side (which is how he sleeps now) and I put this musical, glowing seahorse thing against his back. Sometimes he'll fall asleep like that and other times he'll cram himself into a corner of the crib.

We, of course, do the whole bedtime routine, too. We do the same routine every night so he knows what's coming. Bath, book, nursing, saying goodnight, rocking, bed.

When Julia was that age, I would feed her with a bottle, rock her and place her in the bassinet.  She'd fall asleep.  I made sure she was awake so she would get used to falling asleep on her own.  I put her in a sleep sack-  the fleece ones-  OMG she was so cute.  just thinking about it makes me want another one!

Now, for the past few months; after dinner, the lights get dimmed.  At 8PM we go upstairs and either have a bath; or; we go into her room to play for 15 minutes. lights OFF but have her night-light (or natural sunset light) in the room.  She then goes into her crib and we play peek-a-boo for about two minutes; and I wak out of the room waving bye and blow her kisses-  she giggles A LOT-  when she realizes I'm not there she'll cry for about 1 minute, then stop ; and fall asleep within 10 minutes.  Rarely do I have to go in there and calm her-  and she does get a sip from the bottle/cup before bedtime to smooth her out.  All in all, a painless process.  She has her aquatic crib thing and I put on classical ballet music that is soothing.  sometimes enya/new age stuff.

I take care of twin girls. They just turned 11 months old :) when they were only a few months I would put one in the swingand when she had fallen asleep, I would move her to the crib. While one baby was swinging, I would rock the other to sleep. They have pretty much stuck to that same routine even now that they are older. Sometimes its more challenging, because they like to fight sleep, but usually they fall alseep within 10 mins of swinging or rocking. :)

While I was looking for info for your other topic, I found several articles about infants and sleep on KellyMom.com. I really value this website because of the amount and quality of information provided. Here's an entire section about infant sleep:

http://kellymom.com/parenting/sleep/index.htm l

-tranquilizer darts

-grind sleeping pills into their formula

-a swift blow to their soft spot?

:)

I HAVE to rock Pearl until she's out cold, if I try putting her down drowsy her eyes pop open and she rolls onto her belly and cries every time without fail! I don't mind, though... she's not going to let me rock her to sleep forever. :)

Since I sleep with my baby boy at night (we are bedsharing) our "routine" is pretty simple.

My husband and I usually spend a little time watching TV before we go to bed, so one of us has him on his lap where Ace usually falls asleep. I am going to bed at midnight, so I just pick him up and go to bed. We have one night light on, so that I can nurse him (it's kind of a good-night-nurse, I guess) and when he has enough I roll him onto the side since that is his favorite sleeping position. I usually hold his legs or touch him somewhere else and then he falls asleep within minutes. Sometimes he does not like to lie between my husband and I and fusses, I guess because he wants to lie on his other side, so I put him next to me on the other side and that usually does the trick.