How do you get your baby sleepy/stopping sucking to sleep

[JudysDreamHorse]

I haven't started a thread on here for a while so thought I'd see if I can get anymore helpful tips....

DS is 7 months and a terrible sleeper (now sometimes manages 3 hour stretches but more often wakes every 2 hours). As we get closer to bedtime he gets more and more manic - lots of kicking legs, bucking his body, rolling around. If he is really tired he'll fall asleep while having his last feed but generally he'll still be wide awake when I put him in his cot.

The only way I can get him to sleep is by letting him suck my finger or a dummy. Most nights he'll fall asleep quite quickly and I wouldn't mind if he stayed asleep but I think I need to get him asleep without sucking for him to do longer stretches. In the evening he nearly always wakes up every hour.

I'd be interested to know how other people get their babies to sleep or got their DC to self settle. I've had some success letting him suck for a little and then rocking him in the cot and am trying to do something approaching the Pantley Pull Off but he just grabs my hands now when I try and take them away.

I'm knackered from all the wakings but I'd also love for DH and I to go out for an evening sometime. I don't really feel though that we can ask a babysitter to let DS suck their fingers for 15 minutes every hour! Thanks.

Hello

Didn't want your post to go unanswered. I'm in a similar position to you - it's really horrible and broken sleep has a massive impact on your life, not to mention the relationship, we also couldn't get a babysitter either and would love to go out - so not a massive help.

I've been trying pantley for a week and a half and my advice would be to stick at it. My ds also tries to stop me and I've just had to work at my timing, perhaps try again when he's more relaxed, it's a bit of a battle of wills but I figure he'd prefer it to crying. I've no idea how long pantley takes (I've posted this as a question, no answer so far) but there is improvement to self settling.

Lots of luck with your bedtime routine and nights.

Thanks liquorice - it's a pain in the bum isn't it? Good to hear you're having some success with pantley though. DS has to be practically asleep before I can get my fingers away from him. He was using a dummy for the last couple of months but I find it more violent to remove IYSWIM. The other reason I want to sort it out though is that he'll be starting nursery in 4 months and while that seems far away I'm sure the time will fly by. I just don't see how he'll get to sleep there. I'm really confused as to whether to get him back on the dummy (he won't really take it now since I've been letting him suck my fingers) or try and wean him off all sucking before then.

This sounds like me a couple of years ago with my daughter. What started off being the 'emergency finger' when she couldn't get to sleep escalated to her needing it every time she went sleep. What brought it to a head was she stopped feeding in the night at six and a half months but still woke and need to suck ? it went from once a night to four, five or maybe even six times by the time she was eight and a half months! I think at this point we were both at the end of our tethers and I had to tackle it.

I did it in stages, so first we did the waking during the night ? I'm afraid I had to let her cry. I know it's not for everyone but nothing else worked. The first night she cried for 45 minutes (with me checking her every 10), second night 10 minutes, third night slept through. I couldn't believe we'd left it for so long.

After that I moved on to bedtime and nap time. I started by putting my hand on her, she would try and manoeuvre my hand up to her mouth but I would just firmly keep it on her, then went to just sitting by the cot and eventually to just walking out. It was a bit hit and miss with the walking out but one day it just stuck.

I'm afraid I can't remember time scales but if it helps, she was a nightmare finger sucker (and still does suck her own finger) but she turned 2 in January and for a long, long time has just gone down to bed and naps without any fuss so there is light at the end of the tunnel. Personally, I found that my daughter just spat dummies out it had to be the finger or nothing but, as I said, she did start sucking her own finger.

I now have a five month old who yells like crazy every time I put him down for a nap ? oh to be able to put the finger in and guarantee he'd go to sleep .

I'm experiencing the same sleep problems with my 7 month old DS who has been using a dummy for naps and night time sleep since 2 months, and i'm up at least every two hours. I had never heard of the Pauntly technique before, but after seeing it referred to on here and 'googling' it, i'm going to start it next week (DH on nights this week and i think i'll need his support) it's got to be worth a try as i'm like the living dead at the moment.
Please keep this thread updated with your progress and good luck.

Well, at least I'm not the only one. Thanks for posting Susia - TBH I'm a bit torn about CC. If I knew it would work I think I might try it but I'm worried it would make things worse. I might bite the bullet one of these days though. I don't know if I'd not use my finger if I could go back as it was the only thing that settled him and even that involved a lot of screaming. Maybe we would have found a better way in the end. It started as an emergency thing for us too.....
Good luck barbie - hope this thread turns out to be helpful to you.