How to get month old to self soothe, plus sleep in own room?

[Mogwai123]

Hi there, I wonder if anyone would be so kind as to offer me some advice to help us all get a better nights sleep please?! Our 9 month old Son is still in a cot beside my bed and sleeps from 7pm - roughly 6am each night, however he is up around 2-3 times each night and I have been bringing him into bed with us, then sometimes moving him back into his own cot when he is asleep (sometimes not). I have also been co sleeping with him for daytime naps on occasion as well and am recently finding it increasingly difficult to get him to sleep in his cot unless he is rocked, put in bed beside me until the point of no return, then transferred to his own cot. If I try to place him in his own cot he screams the place down, then instantly goes to sleep as soon as I bring him in with us. I know I am to blame for this bad habit, however would now like some advice on how to rectify this. I tried CIO for about 10 mins in total yesterday for his daytime naps, however couldn't bear to hear him crying so painfully (he very rarely cries, and never this intensely) and eventually gave in, brought him into bed with me...then transferred him to his cot. I would like to help our Baby to learn to get himself back to sleep when he awakes during the night, and to also move him into his own Nursery asap as I go back to work soon, however I'm not sure if I should do both things at the same time or not? I was thinking about trying CIO again, maybe going in every 5 mins, and perhaps even picking him up for a couple of mins then putting him back down again?, but don't know if I should move him into his own room at the same time, or if this would be too much? You see, I'm not sure if by seeing me when he wakes through the night this is perhaps making the problem even worse? He doesn't tend to actually cry through the night, I normally find him crawling around his cot and sometimes babbling and I tend to whip him into bed beside me asap just in case he gets to a point where he is too awake and can't be settled back down to sleep at all, especially if it's around 5am. I would consider other methods, but just need some guidance as to how to go about the whole sleep training and move to his own room , is it best to do one then the other, or just tackle both at the same time?? Help! My brain is fried with all the info I've been reading online! One minute I'm pro CIO, next I'm not! and I can't seem to find any info at all re. whether I should try to get him soothing himself before moving into his own room or not. Thanks Ladies. x

We used a microwaveable soft toy for our little girl to go to bed with. We also had to do a type of cc. Left her for 2 minutes, then 4, then 8, then 16. It was very hard to do, but worked for us. Took 2 days to fix luckily.
She had slept really well through the night, until she came down with a cold. That was when the problem started.
I never co-slept, so I'm unsure how helpful my post will be.
I don't think you need to worry about him babbling around in his cot. You may be making things a little harder on yourself than you need to.
I hope you get more responses, and find something that will work for you.

No need for CIO, unless you want to of course, and it's not a bad habit. You've had your son in the safest and most comforting place, with you. You sound like a great Mum who's doing a fab job.

As for getting him into his own bed and self settling, have you read the No Cry Sleep Solution by Elizbeth Pantley? I would move him into his own room and just go into him and settle him yourself for a while and then tackle the self settling. One thing at a time usually works best in our house .

Thought you might like 31 ways to get your baby to sleep and stay asleep, sleep trainers, 12 alternatives for the all night nurser and sleeping through the night.

Don't forget that waking in the night is normal, at 12 months half of babies are still waking at least once regardless of how you feed them and parent.

Agree that waking in the night is perfectly normal for this age. Are you breastfeeding? It's an age of big growth and development so he may genuinely be hungry. Both mine were still in our room and eating at night at this point - DD till she was 10 months and DS till he was 11 months. They both suddenly cut down to about 2 minutes per wakeup when they were ready and from there it was a piece of cake - DH would get up to them instead of me and they were sleeping through in three nights. Have done ever since. IME forcing the issue with sleep training is (anecdotally) a short term solution.

I have been working on this with my nearly 9m old. We co slept till 5m then had crib next to bed that I would move him into when asleep (most of the time) When 7m moved into cot in own room. I always put him down in cot after milk in room and he sleeps for half hour then the 'battle' begins. We are now picking him up and holding till he is calm then back in cot and leave room even if he is crying. I leave him for a few min then go back in and repeat. Sometimes this has taken 2 hours other times 10 min.
I am also doing the same for naps if we are in and today only had to go in once. He cried then chattered then fell asleep. It can be hard hearing him cry but I have tried staying in the room and it distresses him more that I won't hold him till he sleeps and he tries to reach me through bars. If he is on his own he stays fairly still which helps him calm down.
When I do pick him up he tries to lie in my arms and sleep so I know he is tired.
During the night I am trying to do this aswell and only feed if he has had at least 3 hour gap since last feed an am trying to get him to stay in room as late as poss though I often give up at 4 and he ends up back in bed with me.
I won't lie, I love having him in bed and miss him when he is not there but we both sleep better if he is in own bed. It is a bit fustrating that in my bed he will feed then roll on his side and sleep really well (once he has pushed and kicked DH away to get more room )
Long story short, we are seeing results but it can be tough some nights. I just think don't push either of you further than you are happy with. He will be in own bed soon enough and at least he is happy chap during the day (and ignore all your friends with babies that sleep through)

I got ds into his cot for naps without crying by putting him down first of all asleep then just as he fell asleep then drowsy then settled in his cot. Took a good few weeks to get to just asleep then down. Then a few months before I could settle in his cot. In fact he self settled at various points from 7 months with plenty of regression. There's a big one around 9 months so you might find it hard anyway.

Thanks for your feedback Ladies. I hope things work out for you soon candr, I feel your pain. Well, last night I managed to shoosh him back to sleep by touching him only in the cot beside our bed about 3/4 times after 7pm bed, and began to think I had it in the bag, however at 3:30am the battle began. I think he cried for about 30 mins before I gave in and brought him into bed with us, one of the reasons being that my three Neighbours have their bedrooms to the front also and I was worrying that we were disturbing their sleep as well :( so the plan was to have him take his daytime naps in his new cot and then progress to night time sleeping in his new cot, however tried CIO unsuccessfully for 40 mins there and he is now in our bed with my partner. He wouldn't even lie down in the cot in his own room, every time we went in he was standing, crying his heart out and couldn't even be consoled with cuddles in the end, the only thing that helped was to bring him into our bed...where he crashed out instantly. I think things are actually getting worse instead of better now, I feel like he's now scared to even go into his cot in case he's left to cry again. I really don't know what to do. Every time I went in and tried rocking him in his cot or stroking him and saying 'shhh' it actually just seemed to make things worse and in the end I wondered if he would go to sleep at all. With it being 1-2 hrs past his usual morning nap as well I worried that he was maybe too overtired for it to work. I'm really stuck as to what to do. I go back to work soon so need to get a good nights sleep, plus wont always be here to get him to sleep during the day. I need for him to go down for his daytime naps easily in Nursery and for his Grandparents, otherwise he'll just fight it and I'll come home to a baby who hasn't had enough sleep, or who's routine has went to pot as he's fought it for so log then crashed out too near his bedtime as he seems to do when he's with anyone else. I'm kind of stuck now as to how to proceed as it seems like even the no cry solutions involve putting them down and involve some sort of contact or your presence in the room, but this doesn't really seem to help him. It's either go to sleep with me then move to his cot, or nothing just now. Help!

Honestly honestly - stop the CIO.

You could try sleeping in his room with the cot. Your aim is to get him into the cot - do it when he's asleep. Then work backwards. You're playing a "long game" here. Just keep doing it every single time he wakes, rock back to sleep and pop in cot.

Also my DS napped much better for other people than me. I introduced a short routine of lightshow, into sleep bag then feed before a nap. So other people could do the same and he'd know it was nap time. He would go down a hell of a lot quicker than when I did it!

It's stressful planning for someone else to look after your baby, but I promise it'll he ok.

Hi Mogwai,
I really wouldn't worry about him sleeping at nursery. Where I used to work we had loads of kids who were bad sleepers at home but fell into nursery routine quickly especially as they see the others babes doing the same (why do I find it so hard to get my own to sleep when I managed 16 toddlers single handed???)
Have you tried having him in cot to play with toys while you potter around his room? This helped DS get used to it. He is progressing with pick up put down so may be worth you trying. I also worry about neighbours as their baby sleeps well I end up giving in in the early hours as he sounds 10x louder than during the day.
I did start by putting DS asleep in cot so he became used to waking up in it.
I also found it useful to introduce new things ie from moses asket to crib when we went to parents for the night and then carried it on back home. I expect he will bug you by sleeping beautifully for grandparents. Just do what feels right without stressing yourself too much and as I keep being told 'enjoy them cuddled in bed with you for the first year as it goes so quickly'

CIO very bad idea. There's a lot of research that suggests that prolonged distressed and crying affects brain development permanently, I don't understand why this idea is still propagated in the 21st century (it stems from very outdated, disproved freudian theories). In fact, sleeping in the same room with a baby for a few years is proven to make the most confident children.

This is not figuratively speaking - In the two years I ve been studying psychology so far, I have read a lot of research papers, and this page provides a good summary:

drbenkim.com/articles-attachment-parenting.html

Salonikia, would you like to post that link on thisthread? I wanted to say I was pretty sure there was solid research about this but didn't where it was!

Thanks again everyone. I've taken everything into consideration and asked myself what I feel comfortable with and have now decided to ditch the CIO. I just can't bear to hear him cry so hard, and can't say I believe 100% that it is the right thing to do therefore can't commit to seeing it through. Last night he was only up once - 4:30am, I couldn't get him back to sleep with rocking so in to bed with us it was. I made sure I put him back in his cot before he woke again though. I'm thinking, at least if he 'wakes up' in his cot thats a start?! I did manage to get him to nod off to sleep in his cot himself a couple of nights there as well, but for some reason he still can't seem to do this when he wakes through the night. Daytime naps are slightly more difficult, I've went back to rocking him to sleep again, placing him in his cot, and doing this as many times as need be until I can place him in his cot without crying (normally only 2/3 times though). I'm planning to completely move away from co-sleeping for daytime naps now and make sure he always sleeps in his cot during the day, or in his buggy when out for walks with the Dog. So basically, I'm only going to take him into our bed as a last resort through if no amount of cuddles or 'shhshing' in his cot seems to be working. This is what we have always done really, well, when he was younger he wasn't in bed with us at all. It's only been recently I've taken to co sleeping when he wakes through the night, and quite a lot during the day, so I've created this issue myself without realising how confusing it could be for our wee Boy, so now I just need to try to undo this slowly and steadily.

I'm just wondering though - if I carry on as above, eg shhsing to sleep through the night and only co sleeping as a last resort through the night, and sometimes rocking to sleep during the day...will he ever learn to self soothe? How will I ever break the habit of rocking, shsshing or co sleeping to sleep?

Lastly, he's still not in his own room yet, I'm thinking maybe we should try that at night first, perhaps after a week of trying to really limit the co sleeping? I'm thinking doing it at night first may be best as that's when he seems to go down better in the first instance. What do you Ladies think?

Thanks again for all your support and for taking the time to help me. It means a lot. xx

Thanks again everyone. I've taken everything into consideration and asked myself what I feel comfortable with and have now decided to ditch the CIO. I just can't bear to hear him cry so hard, and can't say I believe 100% that it is the right thing to do therefore can't commit to seeing it through. Last night he was only up once - 4:30am, I couldn't get him back to sleep with rocking so in to bed with us it was. I made sure I put him back in his cot before he woke again though. I'm thinking, at least if he 'wakes up' in his cot thats a start?! I did manage to get him to nod off to sleep in his cot himself a couple of nights there as well, but for some reason he still can't seem to do this when he wakes through the night. Daytime naps are slightly more difficult, I've went back to rocking him to sleep again, placing him in his cot, and doing this as many times as need be until I can place him in his cot without crying (normally only 2/3 times though). I'm planning to completely move away from co-sleeping for daytime naps now and make sure he always sleeps in his cot during the day, or in his buggy when out for walks with the Dog. So basically, I'm only going to take him into our bed as a last resort through if no amount of cuddles or 'shhshing' in his cot seems to be working. This is what we have always done really, well, when he was younger he wasn't in bed with us at all. It's only been recently I've taken to co sleeping when he wakes through the night, and quite a lot during the day, so I've created this issue myself without realising how confusing it could be for our wee Boy, so now I just need to try to undo this slowly and steadily.

I'm just wondering though - if I carry on as above, eg shhsing to sleep through the night and only co sleeping as a last resort through the night, and sometimes rocking to sleep during the day...will he ever learn to self soothe? How will I ever break the habit of rocking, shsshing or co sleeping to sleep?

Lastly, he's still not in his own room yet, I'm thinking maybe we should try that at night first, perhaps after a week of trying to really limit the co sleeping? I'm thinking doing it at night first may be best as that's when he seems to go down better in the first instance. What do you Ladies think?

Thanks again for all your support and for taking the time to help me. It means a lot. xx

sorry, I missed a bit out there...meant to write in the first paragraph, "So basically, I'm only going to take him into our bed as a last resort through the night if no amount of cuddles or 'shhshing' in his cot seems to be working"

Thanks Ladies

He will get it, and you don't have to feel you need to teach him. When DD was 11m putting her down for naps or sleep became an issue - basically either DH or I had to sit with her on our laps on a chair rocking her until she nodded off and then we'd put her in her cot. This went on for a few weeks and every now and then we tried putting her down awake. One day it was just fine - went into her cot no problem and just turned over and went to sleep. Don't worry about the future - it's an adult habit to think of things forming patterns and setting up habits. But with babies, they don't. One day it will just quite simply be fine - until then he needs what he needs when he needs it. And that's all.

Yes he'll get it. I remember stressing about having to 'teach' ds1 to self soothe and my mum said, 'none of you (me and 4 sisters) were ever left to cry. Do you have any trouble getting to sleep?!
It Just took all the guilt I had away, and gave me permission to follow MY instincts and cuddle him, and my other two dcs after him. And of course they all sleep fine! I don't think theres anything 'wrong' with cc or even CIO when they're old enough, but it wasn't right for us.

Thanks again Ladies, I really do feel relived and a lot more relaxed about it all now. I have always been quite laid back and haven't ever tried to 'force' baby into any routines etc and everything seemed to go quite well without having to do this, however recently the wakings through the night were just getting too much for us and after doing lots of reading and turning myself inside out with it all, I all of a sudden thought I had to 'teach' baby to self soothe otherwise he would keep waking through the night for cuddles or to get into our bed for months and months, or even years to come. I actually enjoy rocking and cuddling him to sleep, I just started to worry that it was going to create problems with his night wakings. I'm now going to try to chill a bit more, but try as much as possible to limit the co sleeping and also try to get him to sleep in his cot at night initially while drowsy but awake (which has been working for the past few nights now! woo hoo!) and just remind myself that these are small steps, but steps forward nonetheless, and that he 'will' just 'get it' one day and eventually sleep through without waking for cuddles. Thanks you all so much you fantastic Mummies!

It seems you are doing a great job and it's probably what mums did from the dawn of time. It's only about 50 years now that people can afford separate rooms and beds for their toddlers and I don't see why it is important for a baby to self sooth so early - conscious thinking patterns don't develop before the first year usually. Before this time any crying is for a good reason - even if this reason is reassurance.

I actually feel it is quite unnatural to have to put my 5 month old in a cot rather than next to me (attached to my bed, mind!) but my partner is worried that he might hurt him accidentally as he is a fussy sleeper. I have found however that I've bonded with him a lot on the few occasions I put him in our bed early in the morning-it's been lovely!

Btw, mine wakes up to feed 2-3 times a night and if he wakes up more often it's because of trapped wind so have to hold him upright for a bit and rub his back until it's out!

Thanks Salonikia. I too sometimes feel like it's strange putting my wee one in a cot, however I just worry that my partner may roll over onto him during the night, plus I don;t get as good a sleep if he is in with us for the full night as my arm tends to get a bit sore in the position I lie in to make it safe! However I do love it for a wee hour here or there, but am going to try to cut it out for now to see if it helps with the night wakings. The past couple of nights he has actually been better, only up once each time, however he has now taken to waking at 5:30am and being completely awake :) Anything after 6am I class as morning, but 5:30am is just that bit too early to be starting your day in my eyes! He was very hungry this morning at that time though so Im wondering if he is eating enough solids throughout the day, Im thinking maybe I need to limit his milk to get him to take more solids at lunch and dinner as he's currently on 4 8oz bottles each day and sometimes then doesn't have enough of an appetite for his food. Maybe this isn't it, maybe he's just a proper little early bird (help!, but I'll give that a bash and see how it goes.

How old is your little one Salonikia? Are you b/feeding? We're on bottles, have been since day 11 as I was in agony with breasfeeding, had a third degree tear, and had lost lots of blood after the birth, there was just so much else going on and I couldn't take it any more, I was ready to break so had to give it up as I was in such a state mentally and physically after all the trauma of the Birth and through hormones being all over the place etc. I felt terrible at first giving up the breastfeeding, but soon came to terms with it, it obviously just wasn't right for me and an unhappy Mum can't be good for Baby.

I really do feel certain that CIO isn't for me now, however we might try him in his own room overnight this weekend, part of me thinks he may actually sleep better in there, but part of me thinks the opposite may be true! We shall see! I guess all you can do is try.

I hope your wee one starts to sleep better through the night for you soon, and thanks again.

xx

I did co-sleeping, then cuddling to sleep before putting in cot when asleep and now I put DD in her cot and then i get into the single bed in her room, opposite so she can see me but far away from her cot. I keep shhhhhhhushing and telling her to lie down. Then i close my eyes and tell her its bedtime, she lies down and keeps her eyes glued to me, then she either closes hers and goes to sleep or jumps up and starts crying.
If she stands and cries i just go over, tell her its bedtime and she should lie down and then gently place her back down (she sleeps on her front). sometimes i do that 10 times, sometimes once but i never have to get her out.

I like it because shes not alone and can look at me if she needs reassurance but shes falling asleep by herself and getting used to self settling. Shes slowly understanding the words 'lie down' and the last few nights i have just been able to whisper it when i can see shes starting to get up and she lies back down.

Just do everything gently, if it doesnt work this weekend, try it next weekend, or next month. Babies love to learn new things when they are ready.