Joanna Fortune: My six-month-old baby cries every time I put her down to sleep

Joanna Fortune

CHILD PSYCHOTHERAPIST

My six-month-old cries hard whenever I put her down to sleep. She is being breastfed and wants to be in my arms all day long. I’m exhausted and not sure what to do.

The key part of your question is “I’m exhausted”. Of course you are. Parenting a small baby is physical and emotional. It is normal to feel exhausted and need rest.

Babies love to be in our arms, especially during these early months of life. It feels safe to be this close, lying against our chest, where they can hear that familiar rhythm of our heartbeat. This contact triggers a reassuring sleep association helping the infant to fall and stay asleep.

Babies also like the warmth such physical closeness brings. At this stage, touch is crucial for their development, they learn about themselves and the world around them through it. Lying in your arms is a rich and full sensory experience for a baby.

Here are some options that might help you:

1. Lying down side by side with your baby and letting them fall asleep for their nap with your arm underneath and their body tucked into yours. You can ease your arm out when they are asleep and allow some physical space while they nap beside you but not on you. Using a (suitably aged) sleep sac might also help as it can help babies to feel cocooned and contained.

2. Place a T-shirt you have worn for a couple of days close by when you transfer your sleeping baby to the cot. The familiar scent can provide sensory comfort and help them stay asleep.

3. Use a shushing voice, then add white noise in the background as you encourage them to drift off. Then build up to transferring into the cot but keep the familiar white noise on in the background to maintain the sound sleep association with the sound.

4. If you rock them to sleep gradually reduce this so they get used to falling asleep in a still position.

5. Consider using a sling so that you can move around while they sleep.

Some of these ideas might help, they might work one day and not the next or not at all.

Our babies choose to sleep on us as this feels so good, so it is not a surprise they will resist our efforts to make changes to how they like to fall asleep. You will need to try a technique many times in a calm consistent way in order for it to be effective. I am not suggesting you leave your baby cry or become distressed but try something for a short burst of time and slowly build up tolerance.

Tag your co-parent/support system when you are at saturation level as none of us is at our best when exhausted. Hand over your baby to a trusted adult and get outdoors for a walk: a break to reset your exhausted brain.

This phase does not last forever but it can feel like it when you are in the midst of it, so please take care of yourself too.

If you have a question for child psychotherapist Joanna Fortune please send it to [e-mail]