How do you settle your baby for sleep ?

How do you get your baby from the eye-rubbing, yawning, I look like i need a nap stage to the drowsy heavy eyelid stage?

I have a 6 month old who is very good at going to sleep in the cot once he has reached that drowsy stage, but lately that transition has been getting worse and worse and I don;t know what to do!

We used to go into his room, check nappy, put sleeping bag on, close curtains, quick rock and cuddle and song and then down in his cot. About 50% of the time he would settle himself and about 50% he would need extra cuddles, songs etc but we would get there in the end. Now when i try to settle him in my arms he thrashes and beats me and starts crying, if I put him down he cries, and most naps we are spending about an hour until he gets to the point of screaming til he goes blue in the face and I end up feeding him to settle him and sometimes he crashes with exhaustion. Other times I just give up, and other times take him for a walk in the pram just so he can have a sleep.

He's always been a catnapper and sleeps 3-4 X 40-50 minute naps in the day- I cannot get him to have longer sleeps and he wakes up happy and ready to play, so this means that a good 3-4 hours of our day is spent trying to get him to settle down for a nap. It's not fun for him and not fun for me. It breaks my heart when he gets so tired and is screaming- what am I doing wrong??

I have read about patting to settle, which might work better as he doesn't seem to relax in my arms any more, but I can't really work out how to do this- he just rolls over onto his tummy if i put him on his side and pat his bum, and screams louder! I'm trying to find a video of how you do this but can't- does anyone use this technique?

Not keen to use a dummy as we used one until 4 months and then took it away because he was still struggling to settle (would spit it out and then cry until you put it back) and was also waking +++ overnight for it. Things have been MUCH better since we took it away until this little hiccup so I am not keen to give it back. I think this would be too confusing for him.

So my question is, how do YOU get your baby to settle down and become drowsy when they are tired, and do you have any tips for me??

Thanks !

LS x

You're not doing anything wrong!! I understand how disheartening & helpless it feels though as it sounds exactly like my DS around that age!! I was tearing my hair out, trying everything & nothing worked. He'd just get so tired he'd eventually crash. It was affecting both his day sleeps & night in the end until one day he just went to sleep. Have had no trouble since thankfully.
I think it's a stage they all go through & we just have to ride it out as best we can. Do what works at the time & please don't beat yourself up over it, it's not your fault.

Oh & about the patting. I roll Moo to face me, put my left hand on his shoulder & pat his back with my right. He prefers to be on his tummy so I'll pat his back or rub instead if that seems more effective at the time.

I usually feed my DS to sleep, it was the only way I could get him to sleep usually but now he's 11 months it doesn't always work and I have started doing the patting thing a bit more. I can't rock him only DH can, he won't have a bar of it from me! When he was around your little ones age I could usually feed until he was in that drowsy state then pop him on his side in the bassinette and pat his bottom. Now he wriggles and tries to sit up, roll over everything except sleep :lol: So now I often lie down in bed to cuddle feed him in bed so he is close and can't wriggle so much. If he gets restless and decides he doesn't want to drink anymore I'll just hold him really close, he'll usually whinge and try to look around for a few mins but soon enough he'll fall asleep and I'll transfer him to the cot or just leave him in the bed.

I also breastfeed to sleep (about 70% of the time). The other times he is just tired and goes off by himself. I do a sleep, play, feed routine and sometimes he gets really drowsy on the breast and other times he actually goes off to sleep.
Re patting- you can roll up a wrap/cloth nappies and put it under his tummy to stop the rolling and then take it from the cot when asleep, or hold the shoulder, or pat the side of the thigh when he is on his back. I gave up on the patting due to me getting a sore back stooped over the cot!

With DD, I fed her to sleep till she was about 7months old, when it just stopped working at night, so changed to patting to sleep - but I think she was ready for it, so it only took 2 nights to get her to sleep this way with absolutely no tears. Day time, however, was a completly different matter -nothing worked, apart from either a feed or a walk in the pram. Most of the time, I chose to go for a walk. It was much better for both of us - I didn't get stressed that she wasn't going to sleep, I lost the last of my baby weight and DD went back to having great sleeps. As time got on, she'd only need to get in her pram at nap time to fall asleep, which was great on wet days! But, about 9months later, DH put her in her cot for a sleep and she slept really well - so now she just sleeps wherever suits us best at the time.