My newborn will only sleep on me...

.I am the proud father of a newbary baby girl, she is 3 weeks old today. She will take great naps during the day, however, she has to be held by either myself or my wife, 5 min's after we put her down, she'll wake up and fuss and as soon as we pick her up, right back to sleep. This is starting to carry over at night, too. we have a co-sleeper which she will sleep for an hour or two in, but once she wakes up to eat, she'll fall back asleep but once we put her back in the co-sleeper she wines and cries and morning comes and there she is, in our bed sleeping in her boppy. Anyone have any advice as to how we can get our little girl to sleep on her own? My sister in law had the same problem with her son, and he's now 14 months old and still sleeping in between mom and dad!!! I don't want that to be me!!

Your problem is typical with a newborn. This type of problem is right up my alley because of my profession.

In order for you baby to learn to sleep on her own, is to let her cry her heart out. Everytime you pick her up because she's crying, you're teaching her that she will be cuddled whenever she cries. This will result in you not being able to sleep of course.

You need to be hard and let her cry for a while so that she learns to sleep on her own. You can find this type of technique in any parenting books. I know it's hard to not run to her everytime she cries, but you're not doing yourself any favors in the long run.

Let her cry for maybe...10 mins. Keep doing this on a regular basis, not just once or she'll never learn! Good Luck and congrats!

And it won't be easy, either! If you're like me, that baby girl already has you wrapped around her finger! ;-) Congrats and hang in there! I have a two-year old and to hear her crying because she wants to sleep with Mommy and Daddy is heartbreaking, man... But, tough it out and soon you'll be sleeping without her.

Babies and toddlers learn quickly. They quickly learn what your response to crying is and if they like it they will continue repeating it. The good thing is they are also creatures of routine and learn routines fairly quickly too.

You will not find the advice "let them cry" in most child books because it is not a very good way to treat this issue. Babies and toddlers can get themselves extremely distressed when they cry they get a sense of abandonment if just left to cry. Some people do it but it is not the recommended method.

The best way takes a bit of work.

When he/she crys, go to them and pick them up as you do. Calm them and put them back into their cot. Do not take them out of their bedroom.

When they cry again, wait an extra minute and repeat process though this tiime spending less time calming the baby. Keep doing this, the gap between crying will eventually increase, your baby will start to learn a) how to put itself to sleep and b)that crying will not result in it being getting into your bed.

This will take maybe a three or four days and a fair bit of vigilance outside the bedroom door but it will pay off in the long run.

Allowing a baby to just cry and cry will only get it to the point that it is either so distressed it cannot sleep or it will eventually fall asleep but may develop a fear of being put to bed in the first place. This can cause major problems when it becomes a toddler.

Your baby just wants to know you are close. A routine of reassurance will eventually teach the baby that you are close at hand.

Yes, letting her cry gives her the ability to "self-soothe." It's something all kids should learn in order to be healthy adults. Google it -- quite an interesting concept.

Just to add some things to what richgabe said, I concur that simply letting them cry themselves to sleep isn't the best idea at 3 weeks of age. What worked best for my children was having me stand by the crib and massage their back and sing or talk softly to them until they went to sleep. This is assuming that they've already been fed, changed, burped, cuddled, etc and it really is time for them to sleep.

I'd only pick them up if they absolutely would not calm down, because that usually meant there was something else bothering them (bad dream, hungry, gas, cold, whatever).

But I really recommend you do not let your infant sleep in bed with you. There are several cases of parents rolling over and suffocating their infants. So it is not really safe to do that when they are that young.