To all of you who don't 'do' controlled crying, how DO you get your LO to sleep??

[StreetcarNamedDesire]

Just curious because I'm looking for an alternative to controlled crying and a strict routine (worked for DD1 but she found her thumb which I want to avoid for DD2)

DD2 (6.5 months) has been a very easy & peaceful baby and has always fallen asleep happily by herself UNTIL we started weaning.

I have been starting to BF again her during the day to settle her (despite dropping BF to just one a day) She won't take a dummy. I also want to stop BF as I go back to work next month.

DD1 is only 2 so I can't spend hours rocking DD2 to sleep.

Would love to hear how others do it, would prefer a gentler approach than controlled crying this time.

thank you!

well I just wait till they do it and whinge along the way

why would you not want her to find her thumb?

HAve you tried pick up/ put down.
With dd we would put her in her moses basket/pram/cot and sit beside her patting her on the back (quite firmly). Even if she cried she knew we were still there so didn't get upset. We gradually moved on to just holding a hand on her back then to sitting beside her and gradually she began to settle herself. We did have to do CC in the end but she was MUCH older!
With ds (10mo) he has self- settled for some reason- sometimes he cries for a minute or two then falls asleep. If I pick him up or shush him he gets more upset so he is better off on his own. If he won't settle I normally put him in the pushchair and rock him until he falls asleep

I just feed him to sleep. Sometimes he'll come off before he's completely asleep and I'll rock him for a minute.

No Cry Sleep Solution here too. I especially like the philosophy in this book that asks if you are trying to fix a problem that actually doesn't exist. We had to rock ds to sleep until he was about 18 mths old. I realised the only reason I wanted to change that was because I thought I "should". It wasn't actually a problem for any of us, so actually we didn't bother trying any of the techniques until he was nearly 2. At which point it worked fine and ds got the confidence to learn how to settle himself without absolutely no upsets at all.

The trust you build up "I'll be back in 1 min/2 mins/3/5/10 etc" also spills over into other things, and ds was less clingy at nursery for example because he believed me when I said I would be back in 1 hr, 2 hrs, lunchtime etc.

We didn't do controlled crying, but DD still found her thumb. I thought it looked cute.

Not so cute now - she's 10

We didn't do controlled crying with DS either - he still (aged nearly 8) has a smelly cloth!

IamthenewQueen DD1 is heavily reliant on her thumb, it's in her mouth constantly and she is very clingy. I can't help wondering if I scarred her somehow because I left her to cry (albeit going back in every 5 mins to reassure etc)

haylstones I haven't tried pick up put down. If I go in it seems to make her more distressed which upsets me. If I put her down after rocking her to sleep she gets very distressed,

If I leave her she does settle after about 5-10 mins. I can only deal with it if I go and have a shower so I can't hear her cry

Would anyone be kind enough to briefly summarise the no cry sleep solution?

I dont think you scarred her at all and she doesn't suck her thumb because of anythin you have done to her
be kinder to yourself
thumb suckin can be a helpful thing

dd2 is a thumb sucker and I never left her to cry, she just likes it

exacly like wenceslasmyeducation until they started nursery. then they were tired enought to fall asleep on their own (not always in their bed mind).

Did not Bfeed all the way until they statrd nursery BTW. From two onwards I just cuddeled them too sleep. Exept for DD4 who at 26 mths still rely on mum's own brand to go to sleep.

sometimes mine goes down ok but if hes overtired i have to cuddle to sleep usually only takes 5 minutes, sometimes nuresry rhymes on his monitor work.

As a thumb sucker until i was about 18 can i just say it didn't do me any harm and as soon as i was old enough to understand that it might bring on ridicule i didnt do it in public.

Look at the baby whisperer. There is a website but since we discovered this we havent looked back.