How to get baby to sleep without rocking her?

[Bobby99]

My baby is 5 months old and sleeps through the night. She has never been very good at getting herself to sleep - probably my fault for giving in and rocking her. She almost always needs me to rock her to sleep. If I put her into her crib while she is awake she instantly becomes wide awake even if she was sleepy, and starts kicking about and wanting to play. After a while she gets cranky then starts to cry.

Is there any way I can solve this without having to let her scream herself to sleep?

Baby Whisperers pick up put down method worked well for me when my DD was that age. She's now 11 months and usually we cuddle for a couple of minutes then I put her down and she'll go off to sleep.

The idea is you pick her up to your shoulder and when she calms and settles you put her back in the cot. Try to soothe her in the cot by pat/stroking or rubbing her back. If she becomes too unsettled or upset pick her up to your shoulder again. Don't rock too much or not at all if you can just pat her back. Again when she settles put her back down (always half asleep though). You may have to repeat this many times before it works but I eventually got to the stage where 2-3 pick ups would do the trick and like I said now we just cuddle for a bit then I put her down.

Rocking babies is absolutely instinctive - I really wouldn't get too hung up on the modern theory that it creates bad habits! If that's what your baby likes, do it!

We tried pick up put down and DS screamed the whole time and got incredibly upset (hiccups, snotty nose, tears).

So we gradually went from rocking to sleep to putting down drowsy to putting down awake (well sometimes awake - depends on his mood). Around 5/6 months he found it easier to self-settle. At 8 months he does need rocking sometimes but I don't mind.

So you could put down drowsy on her side after rocking, pat to sleep and roll onto her back, then work from there. After a while she'll get used to it, especially if you have a consistent routine beforehand, and relax ready for sleep. However, try not to get bothered if it doesn't work - it's a marathon not a sprint

agree with octavia, it's natural to cuddle to sleep.
you don't see chimps or lions faffing with sleep training.

ds is 2.4 and although not cuddled he goes to bed with me or dh snuggled next to him, goes off to sleep in about 10 mins. we have done this since he was very small and our lives got loads better when gf and baby whisperer went in the bin.

Have you tried holding her hand or resting your hand on her chest/stomach? My son doesn't self-soothe but I rarely have to pick him up when he wakes. If I hold his hand for 5 minutes or so he will settle and go back to sleep.

Exactly what Igglybuff says. We rocked DS until he was about 5/6 months, then gradually started putting him before he was all the way asleep etc until we could put him down awake and he'd drop off. I don't think he was really ready to do it before then. We had a few times when we needed to rock him again due to teething or illness but in general, after 6 months he was fine at self-settling.

Try putting her down not quite asleep. You can leave a hand on her if that helps, so she knows your still there.

Having a nap routine with lots of good sleep cues helped us too, I think. So we always did naps in the same way (i.e. nappy change in his room, cuddle/story as he got older, curtains drawn, into cot with dummy and toy, noise machine thing on). You can start incorporating some of those things now, for example playing a certain piece of music while you rock her so she associates that with going to sleep.

bamboo! I can see the lions at it now, doing a bit of CC.

I agree with Octaviapink. That is why I gave up on trying to put DD down awake. I'm quite happy and actually really enjoy cuddling her for a bit before she goes down to sleep.