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.

subscribing!... I'm in the same boat. DD has turned 6months and is getting quite "difficult" at night. she will pretend to sleep while i'm rocking and the minute i put her in her cot she is wide awake! will start grinning/laughing loudly, which will proceed to loud chatting, then eventually gets cranky and starts crying. last night it took 2 hrs to settle her again and she is getting heavy! I can use all the help i can get.

Kim - when you say you sat next to her for hours, is she still crying? I just down know what to do when DD cries. Am i supposed to pick her up? is it ok to let her cry for a bit if you are next to her? :dunno:

DD started to self settle at 6months without rocking or patting. They are all so different though and will do things in their own time.

Good luck with your journey make sure you reach out for support when you need it. :hug:

Ok, so I put DD into her own room last night (she has been in her bassinet in our bedroom). put a nightlight on so it was darker than our room (we left the ensuite light on). Fed her, put her into cot and she was awake. patted her for a few minutes then walked out. she cried. went back in and patted her in the dark for 5 minutes and she fell asleep! Woot! woke up twice in the night but went back to sleep! Woot! Woot!
I think we might have been keeping her awake :redface: Hopefully it works again tonight. just had to share.

I'm glad I got inspired by this thread and finally did it! There's hope for us all.

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 :)

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?!

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! :dance: :confetti: :cheer: 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!

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.

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 :cry: 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!

My DS is 4 months and is now moving towards self settling. I'm in the process of reading Sheyne Rowley's Dream Baby (all 800 pages of it ....phew!) and although it is geared towards 6 month to 2 year olds I have implemented a few of the techniques and things have improved a lot already. Half the book is dedicated to communication and play as she believes that this is important for good sleep, and the other half is about sleep and how to repair common problems. At her suggestion I reintroduced swaddling together with a firm tuck-in and set up a consistent routine and saw immediate results. Although I still do a bit of rocking to get DS drowsy (the amount of rocking has now decreased significantly) I can now put him to bed and even though he usually opens his eyes when laid down he can now put himself to sleep. Not only that he has gone from waking up 3 or 4 times during the night to once or twice.

Santosha, just remember that your dd is an individual and what works for others may not work for your bub. she sounds a lot like my ds2. he is a bit of a sensitive soul, and every attempt to get him to self settle has not worked. we are just plugging along doing what we know works the best for him, which is usually a breastfeed and rock until he is dead asleep, then i put him down in bed.
i guess the difference is that i have gone through this before (with ds1) so i know that it all works out in the end- some of them just take longer than others iykwim? ds1 really is a great sleeper now, but i have to tell you that he didn't sleep through until 14 months old and i don't think he really started self settling till about 18 months or so?
just hang in there, and most importantly don't 'do your head in' over it and start comparing your baby to others, as i have found that this simply gets you nowhere except way more frustrated!
i tried a few things out of the NCSS, but tbh none of it really worked on my boys. i do think it's a good book though and has some good ideas in it.
i promise you, your dd will get there in the end..but by the sounds of the other night i think she may not be ready yet and it may be the best thing to just give her a little more time.

Good to know there has been some success in here... maybe I need to try the patting thing?

We have always had the dinner, bath, (or bath, dinner) quiet play, b/feed, read a book routine... have had her in sleeping bag since about 3mths (swaddled over the sleeping bag for a few months) and she still needs to be rocked most nights.

She is quite adept at standing in the bag now... and also adept at pulling things through into the cot from the change table (cloth wipes, nappies, covers, anything)... we put her down and tell her its time for sleeping, close the curtains, give her a kiss and walk out and close the door... it'll be all quiet for 10 mins or so then she'll crack it, we go in there to find her surrounded by a colourful swathe of wipies, nappies, covers, liners... :rolleyes:

We do the tuck-in as well... she still twists straight around...

Basically we're at a point now where if she is moved into horizontal position anywhere near her cot she just loses the plot. Sigh!

Kat - Hope my response isn't too delayed

Re the Grandparents and Child care points - I ensure my Mum follows my bedtime routine pretty much exactly, then DS knows what to expect and goes to sleep without too much fuss. (assuming Ivy's grandparents are accomodating)

Re childcare, I asked this question when I put Baileys name down at 3 centres and they all said they will do what you ask re your babies routine - when I said "What if he takes 30 mins to get to sleep" they said they are happy to do what the babies and parents are comfortable with, so you'd be surprised

Cant offer you any tips re the self settling part, have tried it here with no success, just ended up with one very upset baby and a heartbroken Mummy so went immediately back to rocking/cuddling to sleep, I figure I will soon miss these moments as its all flying by so quickly :) But I so get that sometimes you just need them to go to sleep, as Mummy needs some Mummy time!!

My DD is 16 and a half months and is rocked to sleep (in the rocking chair in her room) most nights. We never used to, when she was wrapped she didn't need rocking but somewhere along the line we have ended up rocking. I can't quite remember how it happened! But I too quite enjoy it..some nights not tho when it takes an hour! Some nights I do have to put her in her cot and walk away cause I get a little frustrated and she will whinge for just a bit and I've calmed down gone back in and she's asleep!! Maybe she can jsut do it on her own?

I'm so glad I found this thread! It's made me feel better already!

My DD is nearly 10 months old, but she's in a hip brace, so unable to crawl, stand up, etc. so doesn't really tire herself out to self settle. She loves to be held before she goes to sleep and quite frankly, it's just heaven to have that happen. But I started to think I was doing the wrong thing, when my mother and child clinic frowned upon it and suggested we started the whole, put her in the cot and leave the room.

So I tried it. One afternoon, I put DD in her cot once she had almost fallen asleep, and instead of drifting off totally, she woke up, and started playing - she skipped the sleep altogether!!

I didn't know if babies will just start self settling on their own, but the advice in here is sort of indicating that its possible, so thanks. DD loves In The Night Garden and has fallen asleep in front of that a few times, and she really is quite a good sleeper, once she's fallen asleep. It's not like she falls asleep and then we put her in the cot and she's awake again. I suppose she might change too, once the brace comes off and she can get comfortable on her own. But for now, I'll still enjoy the cuddle time!

Corelly.