How / when did you move from rocking to sleep to self-settling?

[Peach*]

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

[Santosha]

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?!

[Winter]

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!

[Willow]

I did pretty much the same thing as Trish with my first two. Gently taught them to self settle over a period of time using the same techniques. DS1 was not a good sleeper as a younger baby although he did learn to self settle quite early - the issue was he had a lot of trouble resettling himself once he woke.

I've struck it lucky with DS2 - he has been self settling from very early on, probably about 6-7 weeks. It wasn't anything I did, I assure you! He has just always been able to calmly put himself off to sleep, I sometimes sit and watch him cause I'm so amazed by it! LOL.

[Kristin27]

Hope my ideas help....

When DD was younger like 6 months old we did this night routine-
Dinner
Bath
Walk
Into her room and read the same two books each night
BF then bed gradually putting her to bed more awake each night until she was wide awake after her feed into bed.

Now she's 18 mths old she wants me to put her straight into bed I hardly get a cuddle now the best thing we ever did was put a few books in her bed, so she reads before she falls asleep then when she wakes up and she loves the time to herself.

I don't think theres anything wrong with your bub crying in their cot if your there with them patting, singing or something. Sometimes they need to cry to just let out some energy and wind down before falling asleep.

Good luck - it will happen!