How do you get your DC to sleep if not by BF them?

[StuckUpTheFarawayTree]

Just wondering, as the only way I can get my DD (10 months) to sleep is by BFing her. If I try to put her down awake she just jumps up and laughs.

How do you do it?

Bedtime routine - food, bath, milk, story, song, bed. Get her down before she's too tired or she'll be cranky and cry, but not too early or she'll crawl round her cot for ages. If she's a bit unsettled, a cuddle for a while until she calms down, before laying her in her cot (still awake) works too.

Try to stick to sort of the same routine every night- it gives babies sleep signals; we've always read to ours in the evenings. DD3 used to have her bath, then say goodnight then stories. More usually now she has bathtime before supper as she eats with us (since she's been eating food).

Usual actual bedtime routine with DD3 is milk, say goodnight to everyone, teeth, one story on the lap, second story in the cot. If she stands up, pick her up, hug her quickly and lie her back down again. She'll soon get the idea. She may be quite angry at first- try to weather that and she should start to go to sleep of her own accord.

It's tough, we've all been there. Courage!

Wow! Can't see it working for me, but might give it another go soon. Already been up to feed her twice

You have my sympathy. I had exactly the same problem with DS. By the time he was 11 months old, I'd had enough and DH and I decided to be tough. One night, every time DS woke, in went DH instead of me. DS wasn't impressed and, despite the presence of DH, there was a lot of crying. DH went in and out of the room, gave some cuddles etc, but I stayed in bed feeling rotten. However, as horrible a night as that was, the following night he slept through and a week later, he was settling for naps independently, too. I know not everyone gets these speedy results, but I reckon DS was just ready.

I'd also like to add that we've always had a bedtime routine and we had to alter it then so that the BF didn't come at the end. Now we have a 12 week old DD and I'm trying to avoid a BF-to-sleep scenario, but only time will tell...

Rocking in a rocking chair until asleep, then put him down. It was easier when I started to sing when feeding to sleep, then used the same song when rocking.

He's 20 m.o. and getting closer to self-settling (he sleeps through or nearly through when not teething, ill or working on a developmental leap), but he's not ready yet to go to sleep on his own at bedtime.

You're probably in the middle of the 8-11 month sleep regression so attempts to teach self-settling will probably be harder till it's over. (More info here, here and here.)

Thank you for suggestion of making DP go in. May try that.

And thanks for the link. Will have a read after brekkie

We stopped feeding to sleep as it started to cause more issues than it solved. It has been a long process, we started by feeding, then finishing a feed before he fell asleep, and then rocking, shhing and patting. Then just shhing and patting in our arms, then shhhing and patting in the bed, then either just shhing or just patting (I can?t remember which we did, I think it was just patting). Then just putting him down and sitting next to the cot, and now are doing gradual withdrawal ? I am now standing about 6 inches from the door facing away from the room. We started this in about March / April, so it?s not been a quick thing by any means, but we wanted to do it gently with as little crying as possible, so this hasn?t been done in a completely linear fashion, it has often been one step forwards two steps backwards, but we are getting there!

I won?t lie, at times it has felt like we would never get there and have been tempted to do cc as it might work more quickly, but we haven?t been able to do it as I honestly think it wouldn?t work for DS ? I just don?t think he would go to sleep, he would be one of those babies you hear about who ends up so hysterical he vomits.

Oh and DS is the same re jumping around his cot. I just lie him back down each time and eventually he gives up. At first it took over an hour though! He just thinks it is a very funny game.

We share night wakings between DH and I as DS doesn?t get fed at all in the night anymore - he?ll be one next week, decided to stop feeding in the night last week ? before that I would only feed him once, so DH would do the other wakings and I?d do the feeding one.

I just wish he?d sleep through more now, he?s capable, he?s done it on his own a few times.

Thanks for posting as have been curious myself about this. I bf to sleep too and dd is just 9mths.

One question is and it's only by seeing this all written I've thought of it, but why are u trying to stop bf to sleep? Are you switching to formula? Don't they just drop off after that too? I've been heartened by those saying they can bf am and evening around work you see which was why I thought I night stop and panicked at how to sleep her. I assume that if bf stops things move on automatically and dd will find a new way...?

LaC, I did it because it became the only way DS would get to sleep and it was causing a lot of problems. A lot of babies just grow out of it on their own though, or can be got to sleep in other ways, so then it?s not an issue.

You can definitely combine bf and working, I went back to work when DS was 7m and we are still bf at almost 12m and no signs of stopping yet.

Thanks for the replies.

The reasons I want to (think I want to) do it are: I want her to find her own way of settling herself, so I'm not up every couple of hours feeding her; I also want her to be able to be left with someone for the odd hour in the evening or more (thinking ahead to DP's Christmas do, and missed a party due to this; also I want to get a job and think it will make it easier childcare-wise.