I gently taught my boys to self-settle by the time they were around 7 months old. I'm not sure if it works for everyone, but it worked for us
Both boys (and now DD) were rocked to sleep in the early day - DS1 in his hammock and DS2 in my arms. For DS2 I started rocking him until he was almost asleep and would put him down in his cot. I watched him and if he started getting upset I would pat him until he fell asleep, if that didn't work I'd pick him up and rock him off to sleep and try again the next nap. Over time I rocked him less and less so he was less drowsy and was mainly falling asleep by himself. Eventually he could be put straight in his cot and he would put himself to sleep. This took a month or two to finally work. Along the way we had failure with some naps and success with others, but I kept at it and it eventually worked .
DS1 was a different story because he slept in a hammock. I would do pretty much the same thing though and would bounce him until he was drowsy, but not asleep until he eventually worked out how to put himself to sleep. Hilariously he worked out how to bounce himself off to sleep in his hammock
I will do the same with DD once she starts getting closer to 6 months of age. She sleeps in a hammock for her day naps too atm, but I think I'll put her in her cot when I try teach her to self-settle. Hopefully my trick works for her too .
subscribing here too - Bella is 16 months old and I'm still rocking her to sleep. I do think though that she might be on the way to the next stage as she is getting annoyed and cracks a wobbly when I get her into position to go to sleep. I hope it's soon cause she aint a petite bub and my back is killing me LOL.
My DD was the same and we did similar to some of the other girls, sitting with her, holding her hand, patting etc. I have spent countless hours sitting or laying, singing, meditating, reading next to her cot and then bed.....
DS is similar but has just recently gone from needing me to rock vigorously to not wanting to be rocked, just held....I'm hoping he's getting ready to go to just laying down.
subscribing!... I'm in the same boat. DD has turned 6months and is getting quite "difficult" at night. she will pretend to sleep while i'm rocking and the minute i put her in her cot she is wide awake! will start grinning/laughing loudly, which will proceed to loud chatting, then eventually gets cranky and starts crying. last night it took 2 hrs to settle her again and she is getting heavy! I can use all the help i can get.
Kim - when you say you sat next to her for hours, is she still crying? I just down know what to do when DD cries. Am i supposed to pick her up? is it ok to let her cry for a bit if you are next to her?
My DS is 4 months and is now moving towards self settling. I'm in the process of reading Sheyne Rowley's Dream Baby (all 800 pages of it ....phew!) and although it is geared towards 6 month to 2 year olds I have implemented a few of the techniques and things have improved a lot already. Half the book is dedicated to communication and play as she believes that this is important for good sleep, and the other half is about sleep and how to repair common problems. At her suggestion I reintroduced swaddling together with a firm tuck-in and set up a consistent routine and saw immediate results. Although I still do a bit of rocking to get DS drowsy (the amount of rocking has now decreased significantly) I can now put him to bed and even though he usually opens his eyes when laid down he can now put himself to sleep. Not only that he has gone from waking up 3 or 4 times during the night to once or twice.
Santosha, just remember that your dd is an individual and what works for others may not work for your bub. she sounds a lot like my ds2. he is a bit of a sensitive soul, and every attempt to get him to self settle has not worked. we are just plugging along doing what we know works the best for him, which is usually a breastfeed and rock until he is dead asleep, then i put him down in bed.
i guess the difference is that i have gone through this before (with ds1) so i know that it all works out in the end- some of them just take longer than others iykwim? ds1 really is a great sleeper now, but i have to tell you that he didn't sleep through until 14 months old and i don't think he really started self settling till about 18 months or so?
just hang in there, and most importantly don't 'do your head in' over it and start comparing your baby to others, as i have found that this simply gets you nowhere except way more frustrated!
i tried a few things out of the NCSS, but tbh none of it really worked on my boys. i do think it's a good book though and has some good ideas in it.
i promise you, your dd will get there in the end..but by the sounds of the other night i think she may not be ready yet and it may be the best thing to just give her a little more time.
Good to know there has been some success in here... maybe I need to try the patting thing?
We have always had the dinner, bath, (or bath, dinner) quiet play, b/feed, read a book routine... have had her in sleeping bag since about 3mths (swaddled over the sleeping bag for a few months) and she still needs to be rocked most nights.
She is quite adept at standing in the bag now... and also adept at pulling things through into the cot from the change table (cloth wipes, nappies, covers, anything)... we put her down and tell her its time for sleeping, close the curtains, give her a kiss and walk out and close the door... it'll be all quiet for 10 mins or so then she'll crack it, we go in there to find her surrounded by a colourful swathe of wipies, nappies, covers, liners...
We do the tuck-in as well... she still twists straight around...
Basically we're at a point now where if she is moved into horizontal position anywhere near her cot she just loses the plot. Sigh!
Re the Grandparents and Child care points - I ensure my Mum follows my bedtime routine pretty much exactly, then DS knows what to expect and goes to sleep without too much fuss. (assuming Ivy's grandparents are accomodating)
Re childcare, I asked this question when I put Baileys name down at 3 centres and they all said they will do what you ask re your babies routine - when I said "What if he takes 30 mins to get to sleep" they said they are happy to do what the babies and parents are comfortable with, so you'd be surprised
Cant offer you any tips re the self settling part, have tried it here with no success, just ended up with one very upset baby and a heartbroken Mummy so went immediately back to rocking/cuddling to sleep, I figure I will soon miss these moments as its all flying by so quickly But I so get that sometimes you just need them to go to sleep, as Mummy needs some Mummy time!!
Ok, so I put DD into her own room last night (she has been in her bassinet in our bedroom). put a nightlight on so it was darker than our room (we left the ensuite light on). Fed her, put her into cot and she was awake. patted her for a few minutes then walked out. she cried. went back in and patted her in the dark for 5 minutes and she fell asleep! Woot! woke up twice in the night but went back to sleep! Woot! Woot!
I think we might have been keeping her awake Hopefully it works again tonight. just had to share.
I'm glad I got inspired by this thread and finally did it! There's hope for us all.
Thats awesome Belle75! When we put DD into her own room she slept better too, I think all our tossing and turning must have been unsettling her.
Im suprised at how long it takes untill they self-settle. If someone had told me this when DD was born I would have been horrified! I guess there is a light at the end of the tunnel though
That's fantastic Belle! Unfortunately we had the opposite happen. Inspired by these success stories I decided to give it another go last night. DD just mucked around for aaaages. Kept standing up but this is quite dangerous at the mo as she's still hopeless at getting down again and tends to just let go and whack her head. So just lay there by the cot... got up, lay her down again... watched... tried not to giggle when she started wresting with her little toy...
Then eventually she got fed-up and cracked it. Now very over tired, she continued wailing when I picked her up and kept crying and grizzling for almost 2 hours. It usually takes about 15 mins to rock her to sleep. This turned into an epic 3 hr mission and left me very discouraged. Added on to this she slept worse over night, i think because she had gotten so upset when going to sleep that she kept waking up crying.
I want to keep giving her a chance to settle herself but I'm just not up for this kind of outcome on a regular basis.
I'm not quite sure if there's anything else anyone can suggest other than to just keep trying?!
Have you got a sleeping bag Kat? Might make it harder for her to stand. I've had to do this with my little one. I would say it was more successful when she was just learning to stand than now that she is really good at it, but now the bag is part of her routine.
I have had 3 night sleeps in a row where I haven't had to rock her to sleep! YAY! Routine, warm bath, routine - I reckon that's the key and I'm using suggestions out of NCSS too which are working for us.
Day sleeps are a different matter - today she has had dinner, bath and in bed by 5pm because her day sleeps have been a bf / biting nightmare. Went to put her down at 3.30pm and she bit me so then there were wails (from me!) and waterworks (from her!) so that was the end of that... I find putting her to bed early works on days that are not going so well for either of us!
I'm so glad I found this thread! It's made me feel better already!
My DD is nearly 10 months old, but she's in a hip brace, so unable to crawl, stand up, etc. so doesn't really tire herself out to self settle. She loves to be held before she goes to sleep and quite frankly, it's just heaven to have that happen. But I started to think I was doing the wrong thing, when my mother and child clinic frowned upon it and suggested we started the whole, put her in the cot and leave the room.
So I tried it. One afternoon, I put DD in her cot once she had almost fallen asleep, and instead of drifting off totally, she woke up, and started playing - she skipped the sleep altogether!!
I didn't know if babies will just start self settling on their own, but the advice in here is sort of indicating that its possible, so thanks. DD loves In The Night Garden and has fallen asleep in front of that a few times, and she really is quite a good sleeper, once she's fallen asleep. It's not like she falls asleep and then we put her in the cot and she's awake again. I suppose she might change too, once the brace comes off and she can get comfortable on her own. But for now, I'll still enjoy the cuddle time!
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Hopefully it works again tonight. just had to share.
Routine, warm bath, routine - I reckon that's the key and I'm using suggestions out of NCSS too which are working for us.
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