Seeing @EsotericCD going through the sleepless joy of first parenting, I thought I'd offer some hard-won wisdom about getting babies to sleep for dads, who of course don't come equipped with built-on pacifiers.
RULE NUMBER ONE: Accept your limitations. You are going to have some nights where the kid napped too much during the day, hasn't gone diurnal yet, doesn't like the bottle/Nuk/pacifier at that moment, etc.
You cannot overcome the baby's biology without drugs, and that opens A GIANT can of worms, believe you me. Modern Ireland's recent referendum is a testimony to how long-term brain damage can result from giving kids whiskey to shut them up.
RULE NUMBER TWO: Babies are stupid. Oh, I have no doubt that your precious little angel is unusually alert, inquisitive, smiles early, etc. As an aside, speaking as the father of a kid who was trying to walk and nearly succeeding at 6 month, be careful what you wish for.
But regardless of how cognitively advanced your infant may be, he or she is still stupid, prey to instinct, and without any knowledge or will to fight off what you're about to do.
RULE NUMBER THREE: Artificial sleep induction is your short-term friend and terrible, terrible long-term enemy. Taking your kid for a drive will knock her out. It will also make it harder to sleep without being in a car and there will be effects when she's older.
RULE NUMBER FOUR: Biology is your friend as much as your enemy, if you know how to harness it. Your kid lives off of biology no longer really important to your existence that is Lord and Master to him.
RULE NUMBER FIVE: No rule is absolute. Babies are humans. Ultrasound technology has taught us that each kid acts differently in the womb; this does not stop on exit and certainly continues into adulthood. Respect the difference and adapt plans as needed.
So with that in mind, here are my suggestions.
First, master baby biology. Your kid, if with a full or nearly-full tummy, is vulnerable to sleep even if he seems full of energy, because what he wants even more than play time is to cuddle, ESPECIALLY WITH TEMPERATURE DIFFERENTIALS.
A trick I didn't quite have down until the seventh was this: Set the temperature of the level or room you're in about ten degrees lower than usual. Make sure bottle/pacifier/nuk is inserted into the proper slot.
Slowly cuddle the baby in. Wave your fingers slowly and gently just beyond the eyelashes. Tuck the baby under your head. Increase your core body temperature by about 1-1.5 degrees F.
You are doing a few things here, which you may correctly consider attacking along multiple fronts to confuse the defenders and overwhelm at least a wall or two at once.
Babies both sleep better in the cold and get more inclined to seek warmth. You are making sleep last longer and bringing the kid in for the kill.
Pacifying is one of their instinctive urges and makes them sleepy for good biological reasons (allows healing/growth/development to take the bulk of the energy, etc.).
Raising your temperature very slightly makes you a more attractive cuddle target and also heightens the difference between the cold air and your body, which really messes the little buggers up.
Tucking the kid under your head is going to mess with their temperature a little because humans put out a lot of our heat through the tops of our heads.
Waving your fingers gently before the eyelashes tricks their eyes into rapidly closing, which because they're babies and therefore stupid, becomes a high likelihood of long-term eye closure.
Rocking, etc., is good too, but never lose sight of messing up their biology.
If all else fails, you must create a soothing audio-visual environment. Something boring and slow and lethargic, which may in fairness put you to sleep as well. I recommend this:
