Help me get ds into his cot..!

[Fomalhaut]

Ds is nine months and a shit sleeper. Up to about six months he spent most of the night in his cot. After six months he refused to sleep anywhere other than stuck to one of us. So we co sleep.
Which is fine. But he's almost crawling and I'm worried about him falling out of the bed. I need to get him in his cot for naps and early evening

Walk me through how! I thought I'd try gradually- the sort of gradual retreat thing but I can't even touch him when he's asleep without him waking, much less transfer him into the cot.

Has anyone managed this? How did you do it?

[MoMandaS]

You could start by letting him play in his cot during the day, toys etc, to try to get rid of any bad associations he might have with it. We moved my ds1's cot to a slightly different position before doing that. Previously, he used to scream if we put him anywhere near it, no idea why! From there we tried the shush pat thing, so he would cry but while crying I'd be saying sh sh sh rhythmically while stroking and patting him. It got to the point where he would fall asleep with me doing that (and then often wake up as soon as I stopped, but I'd just start again). From there we slowly progressed to me leaving the room, but he would wake and cry every time I did. Eventually, I stopped going back in, so he would cry for 10 minutes with me sat outside the door, but then fall asleep. It was a long road but the results were worth it for him and for us - his night wakings massively decreased and by the time he was one he was only occasionally waking in the night. What I'm saying is it took lots of little steps, the very first of which was getting him to fall asleep beside me rather than on the boob after a feed (then did the other stuff I've already said about). The other thing I would say is tackle night time first - habits form much more easily at night. Good luck!

[Fomalhaut]

Weve done the toys in cot thing and he will nimble around in there for a bit.
Shh pat ... Hmmm, well that's never worked for us: he just gets really worked up then takes hours to calm down :/ literally hours.

[MoMandaS]

Yes, it did take hours with us at the start. I was highly sceptical but persevered on advice from HV as didn't know what else to do! I used to make sure I wasn't hungry or I'd just give up. It took weeks. If he's happy to play in his cot I'd guess the issue is he's cross at the idea of sleeping alone, rather than scared of it. The only other thing I can suggest is searching thebabysleepsite.com for ideas. I've always found it helpful. I hope someone comes along with a magic method for you! It's no fun being sleep deprived (including for him!).

[Fomalhaut]

We are going to try next week when dh is on holiday... He does sometimes fall asleep without boob and I'm working on that. Little steps it is. It took me almost two hours to get him down for his morning nap and he's woken three times already.
I've never met such a strong willed baby! He's adorable but by heck he knows what he wants...