So, err, how exactly do you get a baby to go to sleep?

[AnnaKissed]

I have an 8 month old baby, he has only very rarely settled himself to sleep at all, apart from a brief period about at 3 -5 months when he did go to sleep at bedtime on his own. He has never ever gone down for a nap without help.

To get him to sleep at bedtime, at the moment, I either hope he will fall asleep bfing, (not a long term solution I know!), or if that doesn't happen, I sit in his darkened room with him in the cot, either talking on the phone or messing about on the computer listening to him cry and watching him crawl about. This is having some success as he does now sometimes go to sleep like this, although it involves a lot of crying and time, usually about an hour. I sometimes wonder if him crying and being able to see me not picking him up is actually worse than controlled crying. He doesn't cry constantly, just on and off. I sometimes talk to him a bit and put him back on his back.

We have tried reluctantly and half heartedly controlled crying, both nights he cried till he projectile vomited everywhere and I just don't want to do it.

We have always had a proper routine, bath, pyjamas, milk etc. This was working a bit but seemed to stop when he was able to roll over and crawl about.

Naptimes are not so much of a problem, a short walk in the buggy, car drive or a rock in his rocking chair thingy and he is gone, although usually only for 30mins at a time. I have tried to get him to nap in his cot, but this seem to make bedtime even harder as he cries every time he is in cot, 2 or 3 times a day. Also a walk is much more preferable for me than sitting in a darkened room listening to him cry.

My husband works shifts so is often not around at bedtime so can only help sometimes.

We have hit upon things that work for a short time, like bouncing his mattress up and down, (movement/vibration is a definite help) reading aloud to him, but nothing works for long nor do we want him to rely on these kind of things.

Today has been quite a typical day:
6am wake up
9am half an hour nap
2 or 3pm ish half an hour nap
6.30 or 7 into bed. He's still awake at nearly 8pm

I sometimes wondering whether he is getting enough sleep too, although the HV assures me he is. He doesn't seem tired.

Please be gentle with me, first post although I have lurked a lot during the long evenings of getting him to sleep. Also, tell me this isn't all my fault for cuddling him so much when he was a newborn and not putting him in his cot for naps then!

Crikey sorry this is so long, I have a lot of time to waste on the internet at the moment, and this is getting to be a problem!

On the upside he does usually sleep through, but if he does wake it's a two hour job getting him back to sleep.

Sounds exactly like my little boy was who is now 2 and I felt like a complete failure especially as i'm a nanny so thought I should know what I was doing. However, I did decide to do controlled crying. I put him down in the usual way and then kiss him and leave the room. Obviously he cried so after 5 mins I went in tucked him back in saying goodnight to him and then left again. keep this going but after the first time don't say anything. It was torture but on the third night expecting the worst I left the room as usual and nothing. I almost went back in to check he was alright. It was brilliant. It is so hard not to cave in I did it so many times before but I can highly recommend that if you keep at it it does work. Hope this helps.

No suggestions but full sympathy. My 6mo DS also bf to sleep and even then it can take an hour or so. Will watch this thread to get some tips too!

I think if you really do want to get your baby to start sleeping and settling himself it is going to take a lot of work, baby is just sleeping how he has learned to so needs to be taught again....but it can be done :)

Sorry..... I have two sleepers. I put it down to no problems with feeding (luck) and CCT (judgement), but I have done this right from them being very small from birth put them down "sleepy but not asleep" was the advice fm by best friend and was invaluble.

I am a big advocate of CCT, but it cant really be half done as it will undermine the technique and wont work. Its really not for everyone and I totally understand why. But my advice is really go for it with the CCT, I found that my DH supporting me and reminding me why we were doing it helped.

Big CCT vote from me :)

My post reads like a proper know-it-all pratt! sorry its not meant to come accross like that.... im watching Eastenders and didnt read first.

I was similar. My DD is now 12 months and goes to sleep by herself.

I b-fed her to sleep at night until she stopped falling asleep on the boob. This just happened naturally. I think the thing that helped most for me was the routine, which did eventually work. I put her down now, and she takes up to an hour to go to sleep, but she lies there quietly. I often assume she's asleep well before that, its only if ii've forgotten something in her room and go back in that I notice she's still awake ages later!! (and panic- then she cries, if I go in then out again when she was fine in the first place) we have never left her to cry. Very set routine, but if she does cry I go back in. This happened last night and she did a big burp when picked up, so I'm glad I didn't ignore her.

I do think you should knock the talking on the phone/ going on the computer on the head, it's a distraction... My DD would never go to sleep if I did that, or it would certainly delay her.

We did try the baby whisperer stuff- pick up, put down, keep going out the room. That also did have some success,and i think would have worked, but I gave up when a colleague of DH said she bf her daughter to sleep up til 15 months when she naturally stopped herself and started falling asleep by herself. I then just decided to worry less and let things run their course- which, luckily for me, worked out fine.

I worried less once I realsied you can't MAKE a baby go to sleep. Believe me, I tried!!!!

He sounds entirely normal to me. But I belong to the other camp - not the cc one. Starting bedtime a bit later might be an option - it's not the law that babies need 12 hrs sleep; none of my three ever did.
Think I've come across the 'no cry aolution' here, although never used it.

Might be worth looking at to help you decide whether you want to try the cc again or go for the more child-centred approach.

You don't say whether he sleeps through or not; I'd have sat with mine for 2hours to get a full night's kip!

With both of mine I took them up to darkened bedroom and put in cot.I laid on bed beside them and stroked head/just laid there next to them till they finally went to sleep.It took a long time sometimes (could be 2 hours sometimes) but after a couple of weeks of doing this I was gradually able to go out of room for a bit,then finally just put them down and hung around a few mins before leaving.I never ever took them out of bedroom once they"d gone to bed unless they were ill.

I found it hard going doing it but it was worth it! I"m not saying it"d work for anyone else but that was my experience.At the time it was sometimes hard as I kept thinking of all the other things I could/should be doing,but now,a few years later I have lovely memories of spending that time with them at bedtime!

By the way I did also strictly control daytime sleeping.

How could anyone attach any blame for cuddling your baby as a newborn?IMO they need the security of knowing that Mummy is always there for them.I believe for them to get themselves off to sleep they need the security of knowing that Mummy will ALWAYS come if they need it.How can they feel safe otherwise?

I"m no expert and I"m sure others will disagree but I can only say what worked for me.

Take all the advice and try what seems sensible to YOU!

(BTW my first never napped in her cot...)

Thanks everyone for the suggestions, I do appreciate it. A lot of people have said CC is now the only thing left for us, but my husband doesn't want to and I'm not keen either.

Dreamfeeder (appropriate name!) I know exactly what you mean about the computer/phone, but if I leave the room he will suddenly burst into tears which stop as soon as I come back in. It's something to distract me, for me to be there but not focussed on him iyswim. Have tried leaving the light of the laptop in there while I nip out to have tea but it didn't work.

I have got the no cry sleep solution, the whole of the first chapter is about how bad cc is which is what puts me off it, and some of the idea seemed good, but ... well I don't know why I haven't used it more actually. Will dig it out.

WWWY He does sleep through (don't blame you for not getting to the end of the megapost!) and he has done for a long time, which I know is a huge blessing and has kind of stopped us asking for help before, cos we've been so lucky with that. He slept actually through his first night alive, but that's another story...

...Or maybe it's relevant, for the first 2months or so we were waking him every four or five hours to feed at night (on MW/HV advice) and he would go back to sleep easily then. Never connected it before.

Babycham your experience sounds like what I am hoping for! What do you mean about controllling daytime sleep? he only sleep usually 1 - 1 1/" hours in total during the day. Today he was awake from 2.30 ish til 8pm.

Make that 60 -90 mins in total during the day!

ds is child#5. he gets cuddled to sleep.

Have you tried Pick-up put-down? Worked well for us.

Also I lie ds on his tummy and pat his bottom quite firmly - it jiggles him a bit (like being in motion) and sends him straight off.

Anna ,basically not letting them sleep too long or too late.

I found it quite noticeable that a late sleep had a knock on effect at bedtime and sleeping late in the morning pushed the daytime sleeps later.So I gradually "pushed" daytime sleeping around,just slowly,to make it more likely for them to sleep at bedtime

I"m sure you"ll see your own patterns.

I also agree with dreamfeeder that you being on a phone/computer could well be too stimulating. I was just there doing nothing and trying to relax myself!

Again, probably no consolation, but you have just described my 5 month old son, except for the sleeping through bit. Some evenings he can be fast asleep within 15 minutes of getting out of the bath and other evenings can take at least 20 renditions of 5 little speckled frogs before he drops off. He does nap in his cot but not without lots of coaxing, and still wakes at least twice in the night every night. All I can do is ride it out I think! Good luck, and I'll watch with interest!

Update for those of you in similar situations:

Afte several consecutive nightmare evenings (1 or 2 hours of crying even with our help to get him to sleep) we decided to follow almost everyone's advice (in RL as well) and try controlled crying.

Night 1 - he cried on and off for 30mins then fell asleep.
Night 2 - he cried on and off for 8 mins.
Night 3 - hardly cried, was asleep after 8 mins.
Night 4 - wouldn't even call it CC, he just went to sleep!

No-one is more surprised than me. I was dead against CC initially, but had run out of other options. Obviously it is early days, but it has been much more successful than I could have hoped.

He cries as soon as he hits the mattress, but only for a minute, then settles himself to sleep. I had always picked him up when he does that sudden cry when put in bed, and it is still hard not to, but I would say that the last 4 nights, he has cried significantly less than normal. So the horrible phrases 'cry it out' and 'cry himself to sleep' don't really apply. [hsmile]

Also, we made his bedtime later, 8pm not 7, and I think that contributed.

Night 2, we did it again at 4.30am for about 40 mins, that was the hardest time cos I was wondering whether he was hungry) he was then still asleep at 8.20am when we woke up!

Amazingly, he has also got his first two teeth this week!

Im in the same camp as babycham I put ds (15 months) down in a darkened room, I read a book then say night night and sit next to him stroking his head and saying sshh. It takes roughly half an hour every night, sometimes less if hes really tired but never more.

This is after being bf and co-sleeping his whole life and hes never cried hysterically when going to bed since starting the new routine.

Anna kissed. Sometimes it is called crying down, and I think that suits it. My DD does it sometimes. I just take it as a sign she is properly tired and it lasts for about 30 seconds. If you think their only voice of upset is crying it doesn't mean they need picking up, but are just saying "holy shit I'm worn out today"

And WELL DONE!! I bet you feel super relieved!!