How to stop rocking???

[mummymariee]

Our little boy is 13 months old, we still rock him to sleep. But we are starting to find this really hard as he weighs so much it's not good for our backs!
Is their any gentle ways to stop rocking we can try for him?
Thanks!

Bump

Sorry I don't have an answer because I'm in the same boat with my 20 week old, only feeds or rocks to sleep, and currently waking every hour.

Can you try placing ds in the cot and getting as close as you can to him and sort of gently rocking him as he is lying down. Can’t describe what I mean, but I know I have had to climb inside the cot at times in the past (my dc are older now) and it can allow you to try and gradually change the habit to a new one. With mine I gradually changed it to me with my arm draped over dc and patting dc while I shhhhd or sang. Then over time I gradually withdrew arm/pat until just singing/shhhing. By the way there is a sleep section on MN - which I didn’t realise for ages but might be worth posting there.

My DS just outgrew rocking one day and hated being rocked,and preferred to be put in the cot/bed and then patted. He just decided for himself. It was very odd.
When he got too heavy during the rocking phase we would sit on the very edge of the bed and rock him,which took some of the weight off and on the very edge it still vaguely feels like you're standing up for him.
They're funny fish aren't they?!

@Donhill oh really how do you find that part?? I didn't know either!!

Thank you all for your help I think this is going to be a hard one to break!

It’s under the “being a parent” section and it’s just called “sleep”. I think MN should advertise it better for all the sleep deprived parents!

What other methods have you tried in the past and how long did you try them for? Have you always put him down asleep? What happens if he wakes in the night, will he go back to sleep of his own accord or do you pick him up and rock him again? Sorry for all the questions, just trying to get an idea of where you are currently at as you said 'gentle methods' which makes me think that you're probably not up for any of the varients of controlled crying?

We've only really just started to decide we want to give up rocking but the hv gave us a method called the dissolution chair but we started it that instead of putting him down in the cot we rocked him in the rocking chair because I feed him before the rocking-another thing id like to reduce!- but when I did that I felt awful, I hated every second of him crying! So only the one day (only one nap and I caved!) he isn't fully asleep when we put him down as he usually gets himself comfortable as we put him down. If he wakes in the night I usually feed him and then re-rock but there has been occasions when I've waited before I've gone in and he's resettled himself -so he can do it!!!- I think we are just very soft and don't want to let him cry (which I realise he's going to because it's different!) but it's very hard to get past that.

Also thank you @Donhill!! 😊

It sounds like you have the insight to realise that being a softie is probably not helping matters! I understand it's very hard to listen to crying and I'm definitely not advocating cry it out methods but as I'm sure you know to break these habits is probably going to require a bit of tough love (or at least slightly tougher love). Maybe give the method the hv suggested another go? You sound like you really do want to give up the feeding/rocking to sleep so I think you will just have to steel yourself and understand that there will be protests, but if you know that he is fed, changed etc and not in genuine discomfort then the crying is out of frustration /annoyance and won't hurt him! Best of luck!

@mummymariee just wanted to leave a post as I had a very similar scenario with my 14 month old.

I would constantly walk him around for naps and bed time including when he’d wake in the night and my back just couldn’t take it anymore. We had tried the cry it out method when he was around 7/8 months and he just continued to cry so we gave up. When he was around 9/10 months we decided to try again and he cried for the first 2 nights for about 20-30 mins and for the first time ever slept through the night - and touches wood frantically has done ever since. I couldn’t believe it changed like that literally over 2 nights!

I know how hard it is to hear them cry but it really did help my boy. He sleeps so much better now! Totally get why people prefer not to do it, but to make it easier we chose to let him cry for 5 mins then would go in, kiss him and put him back down then leave it a bit longer etc.

Good luck whatever method you choose! :) x