Hi,

I've been a lurker on the belly belly forums for ages, but only subscribed now

I've got a 4 1/2 month old little girl who until last week slept in a baby hammock. Initially I'd been trying to use the no-cry sleep solution to get her to self settle in the hammock and it was starting to work (we could put her down awake but would still need to rock her to sleep). A couple of weeks ago she rolled over so I decided that it was time to move her over to the cot. I started off with day sleeps and found that initially I had to rock her to sleep and then put her in the cot very very carefully once she was asleep, then gradually I was managing to put her down half asleep and pat her to sleep. We moved her across to the cot for night sleeps l4 nights ago and she's been doing marvellously - going down around 7 and waking only once at 4/5 for a feed, then resettling herself without any problems.

BUT... all of a sudden for the last two days she's been screaming and getting hysterical as soon as we put her in the rocking position. She's ended up missing a couple of sleeps in the day because she's just become impossible to settle, and right now she's asleep in the pram which I pushed her around the house in! Last night it took over an hour of intense screaming to get her to settle, and then I think she only fell asleep because she completely exhausted herself, which is really wearing and I'm dreading the same thing tonight.

I think she wants to self settle, but when I put her in the cot she is just too wide awake and needs help to get sleepy before she can do the rest herself or with jsut the help of a little pat.

I've asked a couple of friends but they're all subscribers to letting them cry a bit. Even if it is only for 2 minutes at a time, is this really the only solution? Has anyone else who is using gentle parenting had any similar experiences and can you offer any advice?