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

DD is rocked or fed to sleep for every sleep. 99% of the time, I'm fine with this. I love the cuddles and am unwilling to let her cry. But gradually she's growing out of feeding to sleep (just finishes her feed and grins up at me like 'what? am I supposed to have my eyes closed??!!') and my body is starting to give out from rocking her (I've got really nasty RSI in my wrists and neck and back pain).

I'm working on the assumption that I won't still be doing this when she's 5 :pray: but I'm not sure how or when to help her to make the change.

Anyone about with a rocked-to-sleep baby who now self settles?? When did he/she learn to get to sleep without help? How did you do it?

I'm in this boat too except we have an almost 11 month old...

Will be watching to see what advice you receive!

ok well ur probably not going to like me very much but Jamie just all of a sudden started whinging whn i was holding him its very rare for him to want me to rock him
have u tried patting her on the back or giving her a blanket or something to cuddle maybe staying with her till she falls asleep

Subscribing. My Bub sounds similar to yours, Im interested to what others have to say... Tonight I rocked her to sleep in the pram and then transferred her to her cot, not self settling by any means :)

J - very occasionally (like about 3 times in total) that has worked. (I did such a silly happy dance last time she did it!!!). Just sat by the cot and stroked her back and she eventually went to sleep. This was reassurance that she can do it... just most of the time doesn't want to or can't relax enough to get there. Usually if I put her in her cot she either just cries instantly, or crawls around, stands up... plays until she gets fed up and then cracks it.

sorry im not more help but Jamie is FF so he holds his own bottle and sometimes feeds to sleep but hardly ever he wont let me do anything anymore :( not even eat solids he's way 2 independant for my liking

We are still rocking or feeding to sleep here so subscribing for help!

I'm still rocking, but trying to change from feeding to sleep and that seems to be working. I put DD in a sleeping bag for every sleep ie nap & bedtime to curb the standing up stuff, doesn't always work, she's pretty clever at standing but it does help. Tonight I rocked but she really wanted me to put her in bed, the rocking was keeping her awake - so there's hope hey!? Maybe they just grow out of the rocking?

I'm subscribing too!! I want to hear success stories!! :cheer:

I have hope :D

DD is 12months old and still cuddled / rocked to sleep :redface: so that isn't your hope ;) BUT DS was rocked to sleep until about 12months and then we transitioned to lying down with him instead. He is now 2.5yrs and takes about 15 minutes with us lying next to him to go to sleep.

I have absolutely nothing to offer on self settling - mine just don't do it, but there is a time when you don't have to rock / cuddle / feed to sleep. And 15 minutes of cuddles at the end of the day is nice for everyone ;)

yep same as Michelle here.
ds1 was fed to sleep until he just sort of didn't need it anymore. then i went through a stage of lying down with him and kind of spooning him until he went to sleep and then sneaking out. we didn't do anything to force the issue of self-settling, tbh i think it just comes with maturity. now he's fine to jump in bed and go off to sleep. sometimes he'll need a story and a cuddle, other times he'll come and lie on the couch with me watching tv and doze off and then i'll put him to bed.....oh...and just in case that wasn't enough hope for you all...on saturday night he slept from 6pm to 10am sunday without waking once!

LOL my 3 year old DS technically still does not self-settle!

DS was always fed to sleep (or DH would sometimes rock him to sleep in our rocking chair - he was too heavy to rock standing up!)...until he was about 18 months and moved into a big boy's bed and I was pregnant with DD and bfing was so uncomfortable for me I had to wean. So it was quite a big change all at once but the excitement of the big boy's bed was a distraction from the absence of breastfeeding and he got used to it pretty quickly.

However it was DH who did bedtime for at least a month exclusively to start off with so DS automatically knew no breastfeed was coming.

DS has always had his Music for Dreaming CD played since he was a baby so that remained a constant in his bedtime routine. Even though it was a new bed and it was Daddy putting him to bed, not Mummy, he knew that the music meant sleep time.

So I would suggest introducing a new "constant" that means sleepy time before removing something else. Consistency, consistency, consistency is what worked for DS.

DH instituted cup of warm milk after bathtime in the loungeroom, then story time in bed (rather than before the breastfeed) and then lying down next to DS, quiet soothing words and maybe a bit of patting if he fussed a bit but otherwise staying with him till he fell asleep. Even better, the move to the big boy's bed also coincided with the very first time DS slept through the entire night without waking for a bf in his entire life!

So we segued into lying down beside him till he fell asleep and we actually still do this now. Including story time he is always asleep in 20 minutes and it is a lovely way to finish the day for him and both DH and I enjoy the cuddles and watching him fall asleep. However since DD was born DS will usually insist I take him to bed, not Daddy, so poor Daddy, who instituted the whole new bedtime routine, hardly ever gets to enjoy it now.

We were quite rigid really, it was the same thing every single night so DS cottoned on and knew exactly what was coming very quickly. The first couple of weeks were the trickiest in terms of getting him used to the new idea but there certainly wasn't a lot of distress, maybe a a bit of whinging because things were different but certainly no full blown crying - neither of us believe in leaving our kids to cry.

I hope some people get some ideas from this (rather than wanting to lie down and die at the thought of feeding off to sleep for 18 months LOL).

DD2 only stopped feeding or rocking to sleep this year! And she did it herself!
Gradually over the last month or so she would want to lie down on her own, so we would put her down on her flip out sofa. Then she would bring her blanket to me and want a cuddle/feed to sleep.
Then I thought - maybe its time to get her to sleep in her room instead of the loungeroom, so I took her upstairs and cuddled her till she indicated she wanted to lie in her cot.

It took a good 15-20 mins the first night, of her rolling around, wanting to be picked up - but then she just wanted to lie down again. Eventually she went to sleep, and it has been easier every night since.
In my experience with both my girls they just naturally grow out of being fed/rocked to sleep. Both of them have done it around 14/15mths!

I will keep gently putting her to sleep in her cot, until I can put her down awake and leave the room. With DD1 I did it gradually over about a month. But really, I will do whatever works :)
Not sure if that helped at all!

Thanks girls. Your examples do give me some hope. Looks like it might take a while longer yet but that you do get there. I'm fine with lying down with her when she's older... I think that's really lovely. I do wonder though... how does that work at childcare or when staying with Grandparents etc.?

I think I need to keep giving her a chance to try and get to sleep herself (even if it only works once a month!)... I rarely do these days as it's easier to go straight to rocking than to have to calm her down after she's got all angsty in her cot. I might try rocking her 'till she's drowsy and then lying down with her.

Kat- that's what I've been thinking. DD always needs to be rocked or BF to sleep, but I never give her a chance to self-settle coz I know it won't work, she'll just muck around and then be more awake when I have to put her to sleep, lol. I tried the ideas from the NCSS but it didn't help at all!! We couldn't even get past the first step!! pmsl. Yesterday I had DD fully asleep then put her in her cot but accidentally hit her leg on the way in and woke her up. I thought I'd just leave her for a bit and see if she went back to sleep on her own. Nope, suddenly she was wide awake, standing up, and laughing!!!!

I'm scared I'm still going to be rocking her to sleep when I have number two!!!!

Enjoying reading the posts though, there is hope!!

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 :lol:

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 :crossfingers:.

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.

There is hope for my DS yay! He is like your DD Nicambhar. Gets cranky in the "go to sleep" position & certainly not petite!

Thanks for sharing your success stories.

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.