Feeding, nursing, or comforting your baby to sleep is perfectly fine and will not create habits that cannot be improved later. If what you are doing is working for your or you can put your baby to sleep and transfer him into the crib you probably don’t need to try this.
To do a nap trial:
- After feeding and calming baby put baby down in his crib drowsy
- You can pat, hold, or stroke to sleep if you feel it is helping
- If he starts to fuss, do what you can to comfort him in the crib and see if he is getting closer to sleep
- If he escalates or cries, pick him up and put him to sleep as you normally would. You can try again in a few weeks if you want.
- If he does settle to sleep for this first nap, continue putting him down for the first nap each day and try to gradually reduce your support. Once he is going down in the morning with very little assistance you can try the next nap, however he may only be able to do this in the morning.
- Your baby should not cry during this process (or cry a maximum of 5 minutes if you have a baby who tends to cry no matter what you do)