putting baby to bed

[mustardtomango]

How do you do it?

Ds is 7 months, have happily co slept till now but feel it might be a good time to get him into his own cot. He disagrees. Our experiences are...

If we put him down awake/drowsy, he wakes himself up, then into a lather, crying etc, increasingly hard to settle

If we put him down asleep it's fine till he wakes up a couple of hours later (when he's trying to snuggle and can't find us) then is outraged and distrustful of falling asleep again

We take him out when he cries, cuddle him etc, but he's like a cat - knows what you're trying to do and resists it in favour of snuggling in with us. And I kind of can't blame him.

How did / would you do it?

How do you get him off to sleep? Feeding rocking?
I would personally not change too much at a time my DS didn't co sleep permanently but had a lengthy stay in our bed when poorly I found first feeding him to sleep then sitting with him for 10minutes before putting him in his bed did that a few times then put him in bed drowsy patting him then few days later held his hand and now just sitting with him. You might be up for a few long nights though sadly it's hard to change a habit :(
I also let him come to us when he was upset so started him in his bed and then he came to us, gradually increased the time spent in his room until he stayed there all night! He still wakes for night feeds though :(

I'm in favour of a gentle approach so use the no cry sleep solution, which is great for co sleepers, or ex co sleepers. But I'm still doing some cuddling and dd is 13m having started at 7m.

With DS we did PUPD and it was horrific and didn't seem to work at all.

Couldn't bear CC but totally understand why people do, and not sure it's such a bad thing.

My dd co-slept to 12 months and then gradually started putting her in her cot when she was just too mobile to safely stay on the bed.
It was a gradual process over a few months of feeding to sleep and transferring, letting her back in the bed if she was distressed/ill/teething without stress, but giving her every opportunity in her own bed too.
I do think that I've been lucky and am grateful for the good sleeper she is. At 18 months she now happily runs up the stairs to bed, says her night mights and can be left to settle herself when she's tucked in and had her bedtime song
I am sure there is a lot of luck involved in sleeping babies, but I do think that you need to follow the approach that feels natural to you.

For some people the cry it out or sleep training is what works for them. For dd it was the wait it out and avoiding tears methods that worked.
My personal motto has been whatever gets everyone the best nights sleep possible.

Thanks for the replies ladies, gradual does seem a good plan but it's just hard to see the best steps to start with

I feed him to sleep, so we're now, starting today, feeding in the nursery (not lounge), blinds down etc, and if he falls hard enough asleep I'll transfer him to the cot and stay here - figure gradually I'll move away, and hopefully slowly he'll get ok at going down drowsy. Once we've mastered the day we'll think about nights

The first step in the no cry sleep solution for a feed to sleep baby is to do the pantley pull off, this is basically teaching them to fall asleep without the nipple in their mouth. It's a massively important step and takes time.

So, feed til nearly asleep. Remove nipple gently. Baby will resist and root. Return breast to mouth. Count to ten feeding. Repeat pull off. Repeat and repeat until baby falls asleep.

Then wait ten whole minutes before trying to put down. Timed.

Continue to do this until they fall asleep without any fuss, off the breast. Took me about 2-3 weeks. Then move on to the next step.

Just incase it helps. If it does I'd thoroughly recommend reading the no cry sleep solution in full.

Good luck OP.

I feed downstairs and then take the baby upstairs - I think it's important they are awake when they go into the cot or as you say the baby freaks out when they realise you're unexpectedly gone!

With DC1 it took some trying to get him to go down awake - basically would rock til drowsy and put down and then pat in the cot, initially took quite a few tries but got easier.

Thank you sunshine, I think that approach might work. The rooting is, I think, at the heart of why putting him down doesn't work at the moment