Rocking - how did you stop?

[LondonKiwi123]

My boy is 4.5 months and I rock him to sleep for naps. But he's already over 9kg/20lbs!! 99th percentile in weight and length.

I don't expect him to self settle yet but I'd love to be able to cuddle him to sleep instead of standing up and rocking. I've recently resorted to the carrier/sling cos it's easier on my back but this is not a long lasting solution.

Also, he only catnaps atm so I have to resettle after 40 mins if he needs a longer nap, which I can do in the carrier but never works if I rock just in my arms.

I managed to rock sitting down for a week, but it stopped working :(

I know many mums have rocked - how did you stop? I don't mind a bit of crying but I'm not ready to sleep train yet. I like the idea of doing it gradually, like less rocking over time but don't know how...

Thanks!

I found that sitting on a yoga ball was much more comfortable for me and meant I could watch telly while she napped.

When I was ready to stop and felt she was ready to self settle, I first introduced a dummy - this was key to self settling for me. The next step was to get her to fall asleep out of my arms. I waited until she was ready for a nap (sleepy cues) and laid her down on my bed with me lying down beside her. She did complain a bit (shouting not distressed crying) but I just kept shushing and popping the dummy back in. After 20 minutes she fell asleep. The next day it was 5 mins.

For a couple of weeks I did this once a day and held her for the rest of her naps because she would only sleep for 1 cycle independently. When she was happy with self settling, I progressed to introducing it at bedtime in the cot with me sat beside her. She was about 4.5 months at this point. The final stage was to introduce the cot for naps with self settling. Her naps then began to lengthen and she slept through the night first time the week she turned 5 months.

@Ihaveoflate thanks for your reply, I like the sound of that approach! I thought it would be too late to use a dummy but I can see why it's a really useful sleep cue and tool.

May I ask if she still uses the dummy for sleeps? And because she slept through, I guess you didn't need to put the dummy back in at night?

@Ihaveoflate also, does your daughter nap on the go as well as in the cot now? It's taken me ages to get my DS to sleep in the buggy so I'd like to still have that as an option so I can get out of the house for longer periods.

Ah, unfortunately the 'pay off' of having such a good sleeper is that she won't nap on the go! We are slaves to the nap schedule, which doesn't bother me at all - there's nowhere to go at the moment. Before lock down we just arranged trips around naps and had a cot at my mum's house. She will be napping for such a short time in her life that I'm happy to sacrifice my flexibility for her sleep needs. She is 1 yo now and only naps twice (45 mins AM, 2 hours PM) so it isn't really a problem.

She always had the dummy for naps and does so to this day. I actually took it away for night sleep and she self settled without it, which meant she didn't wake looking for it in the night. That coincided with the sleeping through. She has a muslin cloth which she uses as a comforter, which helped.

I gave her the dummy back at around 9 months when I knew she could find and reinsert it herself, because she settles so quickly and quietly without it (she was a bit 'shouty' without it). I just put her in the cot, switch off the light and leave the room - she's usually asleep within 5 minutes. She sleeps with two in her cot at night so she can always find one. She never calls for us in the night, unless she's poorly.

We relied heavily on rocking her in the moses basket to get her to sleep - finally had to relent and move her into her big cot this week as she was way too big for it. I was expecting her to be a nightmare stopping cold turkey, but the last 2 night's she's laid in her cot, happily babbled to the bars for a bit and nodded off!

Ah this takes me back. My DS is 4 now but I used to have to rock him to sleep for naps, unless he was in the pushchair in which case the motion did it for me.

He started nursery at 10 months old and they assured me that they would rock him if he needed it but that he would likely go to sleep for them fine without rocking. They were right. He would also go to sleep without rocking for DH on the rare occasions I went out. So maybe try your DH putting him down for a few days, to see if it breaks the habit?