self-settling - tell me how!!

[amachori]

dd1 always fed to sleep and this became a nightmare as she did exactly what I was warned against and became unable to sleep any other way. Or stay asleep, actually, so I would have to have nipple available on demand (we co-slept) through the night. So with dd2 I was determined to avoid this. And on the whole she is much more easy going. To start with she used to send herself to sleep quite often, just lying in her moses basket. We were amazed. But increasingly (now 5 months) she needs a feed to send her off. I can see this pattern developing but really what do I do? If I put her in her cot awake she cries. Whether I pick her up, cuddle and put her down again, or just leave her alone she cries more. And so eventually I give in and feed her. What else can I do? She's too small for crying it out and anyway after awful experiences (which ultimately failed!) with dd1 I am not keen to try it anyway. So what do you do?

hmmmm... i think I had this problem when ds was about that age. I wish I'd written down what I did to rectify the problem, as my memory is shocking!! I had many sleep problems, but I know introducing a 'comforter' in our case a little blanket with a bear on it, really helped, he loved snuggling with it to go to sleep. And we had a vtech light display thing which used to calm him and relax him so he could get off to sleep alone. Biggest thing I can say though is be strong. Make the decision today that you will not feed to sleep again. if she falls asleep, gently rouse her before putting her down again. These habits are so difficult to break, you just have to do it.

oh I've also remembered, what is key in getting ds to settle is timing, if he's over tired he won't settle. I did wind down books cuddles and milk before bed.

good luck.

Well I think that babies go through phases of needing you a bit more at times than others. I'm guilty of feeding DS to sleep but around 7 months he stopped. Then started again, then stopped, then started. It really wasn't constant. Sometimes I could put him down and he'd self settle, other times he wouldn't.
So if feeding to sleep is quick and easy, go for it. When it becomes a chore or doesn't seem to work, try something else - try putting her down and stroking her or something.

I'd always try and put DS down to self settle but wouldn't beat myself up if he fell asleep on the boob.