Sudden dislike of being rocked

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?

My DD did almost exactly the same thing at almost the same age- we ended up just putting her in her cot and patting and singing to her, once she got used to that we decreased the amount of time we stayed in with her. So to start with we would pat and sing her to sleep, and as she got used to it, we would pat her till sleepy, and then just a quick song and pat and we could leave her to fall asleep on her own. It did take a little while to get her into the new routine, but it was awesome once she got it and started to self settle. Good Luck!

My DS also did the same thing a few weeks back. So now we just pop him straight into the cot, generally if I get the timing right he will simply roll on to his side and nod off as soon as I leave the room.

Sometimes when he wont settle we also do the shhhing, and gently patting him or stroking his face until he is nodding off. Once he has nodded off I leave the room and wait, if he starts to grizzle I will go back in and do the same until he is sleeping.

Every now and again it wont work, and I need to wrap him (with his arms out and he is a tummy sleeper) and hold him close... I figure he must need that extra security some nights.

my DS was like that around the same age. for us, it was a change to feeding to sleep - which i think started because feeding him was the only way to get him sleepy enough to put down without screaming. at some point he started to fall asleep completely & that's where we're at now. he still hates the rocking position!

Thank you all so much for your replies. Instinctively the first night I put her down in the cot and stayed with her until she stayed asleep which took quite a while but did work. It's nice to have the reassurance that Others did this and it worked :)

Last night I tried introducing a massage into the bedtime routine, she wasn't sure about it, but conked out in the middle of her milk and I just lifted her into the cot (it was only 6.20pm!) Unfortunately, as has always been the case when she falls asleep on the breast and I then move her, she woke up after 1 sleep cycle and was inconsolable and had to be re-settled 5 times over 1 hour. Think I'll try a little bit less lavendar oil for the massage tonight!