What's the best (kindest) way to teach a 6 month old to go to sleep in her cot?

[Fevrier]

I have fed her to sleep so far and am now being paid back by hourly wakings ......

For naps I can rock her and put her in her pram and sometimes she just goes to sleep, so she has sleep associations with naps for her pram....

Bedtime it's a breast feed and then down when asleep but multiple rockings and feedings all night long - and it's getting silly.

Can anyone advise me how I should go about getting her down awake? I am so so so tired that I feel baffled by the whole thing and quite lost.

When he wakes he just wants a boob , very ocassionally he'll go back to sleep with me rubbing his tummy. It's depressing cos I used to be able to put him down wide awake and he used to sleep so much better but he's resisting it now I suppose if he did it before he'll do it again

Just to note that last night we had feeds at 10.10, 12.50, 3.30 and he took ages to go back to sleep at that point, then was burbling again at 5.30 and I got DH to take him at 5.50 when he began to grizzle! So it really does need patience!

Not sure if no dinner last night ( he was too tired) meant he was hungrier, the fab night before involved huge amounts of lamb stew at dinner - shall have to see!

How long I leave him depends on a few things, how awake I am (better resistance), type and pitch of cry, how long he's gone without a feed... Sometimes I can settle him by rolling onto his side, stroking head and shhhing, other times he gets crosser and wakes up more! If I'm ever really leaving him it involves shhhing every few mins and also occasional pats or strokes to calm him down, maybe up to 30 mins but not often. My babies both seem to cry a lot in cot. I usually sit by the cot but if very tired climb into bed and shhh from there . Sorry can't help more. Go with gut instinct is my approach but I do push myself to leave him a bit if seems appropriate, or I'd be picking him up at firstF whimper à la first six months.

Seratonin, how old is your baby?

I need to try and put her in the cot and let her cry but go back and rock then leave again etc etc etc.......

I am just so keen for her to go to sleep as I am so tired by bedtime and keen to get back to my son. But I think the first fall ing asleep really sets the scene for the night doesn't it?

I am bf ing and do feel she is hungry...... Maybe a bedtime bottle of formula would help but I don't want to start that quite yet...

went to my breastfeeding group this morning and they all commented on how big he had grown and he really has. He sat up on his own for about 10 mins today for the first time so I think its a combination of a growth spurts, teething and going through a new developmental stage. Lots of people have told me babies often sleep better from 6 months so 2 weeks to go.....!

fevier have to given her any solids yet? I started 2 weeks ago even though I thought I'd wait til 6 months. He did sleep better for a few nights but no dramatic improvement although he does love his food. My mother is a GP and can't believe I was waiting til 6 months to introduce solids, she gave us baby rice from 6 WEEKS so we'd sleep through the night. I'm hoping that he might sleep better when he's on 3 meals a day.....

DS is 6.5 months. Had a tiny bit of food around 5.5 then got ill so I stopped for a fortnight; he's mostly having breakfast and lunch or dinner, not much yet as I keep timing it wrong!

Though his night wakings are only a little better I feel this thread really helped me crack bedtime, as he either cries only for max 15 mins while he falls asleep, or just goes off gently (rare!) IN the cot but with help from me. I don't leave til he's asleep. I feel more confident sitting crying out as I know it stops after not too long. It seems to help set the scene, I agree, and also to have stopped his waking before the dream feed.
He is also sitting competently now so could be that he was struggling with that as well as being ill when he got really bad.

Ah, well dd is I think the oldest at nearly 7 months! A slow start to solids from 26 weeks bit picking up fast! Time to gradually withdraw the cot rocking methinks..... I was so much more consistent with my first baby but my excuse is tht I am tireder this time!

And dd is desperately trying to crawl so once she has that cracked I think she will be more tired! Here's hoping!

Milk has sleep hormones to help babies sleep, so it is completely natural.
But it doesn't work for you, so how about doing what I did and feed but make sure she stays awake or wake her up once off the breast. Then hold her until she goes to sleep to break the association.

she needs to learn to get to sleep on her own.

With both of mine I had the same bedtime routine - dinner, play, bath, story, bed and both had dummies till 2yrs but...

With DS1, I would feed him, then very gently nudge him awake as I put him down in the cot, then walk out the room.

If he didnt settle, I kinda did the CC thing. I always let him cry for a bit before going in to him. I waited till his cry changed (you know yourself when they are just having a tired winge or are distressed) a couple of mins max, then went in, put hands on chest and "shushed" him. Repeated as often as required. This was usually enough and I very rarely picked him up to settle. I only picked him up if unwell/teething and crying persisted longer than normal.

DS1 has always been a fab sleeper because we were consistant with above method. (or just that we were consistant)

With DS2 I was unable to leave him cry incase he woke up DS1 or DH so I always picked him up the minute he made a noise. I also fed him to sleep & put him down asleep.

As a result it has taken to now - 2 1/2yrs for DS2 to sleep through the night without me having to go in to him. For ages he needed milk if he woke up as his sleep association was me feeding him to sleep. Then I cut out the milk at night and he wanted cuddling/stoking to sleep. (that started when he had croop) Now I do the supernanny thing of not talking to him & just put him back into bed and walk out the room. This has finally cracked it!!

I so wish we/I were as strict & consistant with DS2 as we were with DS1!

With the Dummy business, I would say the earlier you remove the dummy the better. I waited till mine were old enough to be bribed (they left their dummies out for the dummy fairy in return for a toy) around 2 yrs but that meant many occasions of having to crawl around on hands & knees in the dark looking for lost dummies. Many of my friends got rid of dummies around the 4-6 month mark & I wish I had been strong enough to have done it then too!

I would also say to introduce any changes to sleep routines at nap times. That way if it doesn't quite work out as hoped, you are not missing out on your sleep and there will still be other oppourtunities during the day.

We had all the routines and consistency and still DD wouldn't go to asleep herself.

So the best thing is really to do whatever it takes to get you both some sleep. Try the routines, try everything! But they don't work for all. I also tried the formula at bedtime, and this did longer sleep (or maybe she was due to sleep for longer at that stage anyway, who knows!)

I second Elizabeth pantleys no cry sleep solution.

Can I join you please? I also have a 6 mo who wakes all night. He settles to sleep okay at 6.30pm-ish, but then wakes every hour or so and insists on a feed every two hours or so. I'm exahusted, DP is going crazy and I'm sure it can't be good for DS either. Just about to read through the ideas here.

Well thanks all for contributions - going to have to leave her to it some time but am trying the gradual thing. Tonight didn't go very well. He obviously are far too much tea and so hardly b fed and therefore was not relaxed so her crying racheted up not down. I had to rock the cot to get her to sleep I am afraid. Need to make tea earlier and maybe a bit smaller!

Please join ATruth..., sounds pretty good that your baby will go to sleep at 6:30 - but how is that happening?

The hourly wakings stopped for me this week since starting this thread and not letting dd fall asleep on me but in her cot (and I am rocking it).

I feed until he's almost asleep, then move him to his cot and settle him into his grobag. He fusses as I put him in it, but usually settles within a minute or so (with me sat next to him - singing, rocking etc) I keep meaning to 'retreat' but am too scared to!

I'm trying to work out why that works in the evening but not for naps (generally need to be in buggy or fed to sleep) and overnight (only feeding seems to work)

Having said all of that, he's woken twice tonight and self-settled both times. PLEASE let this continue overnight. I don't mind getting up once or twice, but the current situation is breaking me.

Fingers crossed for you

Welcome truth !

Put DS in cot at 6.30pm wide awake and he went to sleep at 6.40pm but I cheated and gave him a dummy. I decided that a dummy was better than a boob because at least if I'm not there somebody else can put him down. He woke at 9.15pm, me and DH were making noise moving things from one room to another so maybe that disturbed him,anyway I went in to him and tried to calm him but he only cried louder, sobbing with tears so I gave him a bottle of expressed milk which he accepted (he started refusing bottles randomly about 2 months ago so this is a sucess in itself) he only drank 2oz but happily went back to sleep . Me and DH decided to try a bottle at night so he's not so reliant on me, he wasn't hungry so maybe he'll stop waking if only the bottle is offered?? worth a shot. Its all very stressful, me and Dh ended up having a big argument about it earlier what to do, what not to do, I think he feels left out and would prefer if we switched to formula or mixed fed so he could comfort the baby, he feels his friends can all mind their babies if their wives are away but he can't and also he feels it's unfair on me because I feel I can't go anywhere at night. I don't want to stop breastfeeding because of this but I'm running out of energy. I felt really depressed last night about being so tied down, it was my sisters hen last weekend and my DH and the baby had to be close by all the time, so stressful, I was watching my phone the whole time and couldn't relax.

Also I was reading www.thewonderweeks.com today and there are big mental leaps at different stages and these can affect sleeping patterns etc , worth a look!

Best of luck to everyone tonight, I suppose we should all keep in mind the age old MN mantra -this too shall pass

Woke again at 11.20pm just put dummy in his mouth and turned on music, waiting for him to go into a deep sleep so I can relax !

Dd slept from 7 to 11 but I made the mistake of feeding her lying down so the rest of the night was a bit messy.... Oh dear, so easy to go backward with no cry stuff.

Ok so here's what happened
6.40pm asleep with dummy
9.20 2 oz bottle
11.30 dummy
1.30 dummy
3.30 fed him - 9.5 hrs after last breastfeed at 6pm , he was just whinging so not even starving knew he could go that longbecause he was able to do 7 hours at 14 weeks and he's so much bigger now and eats solids
5 dummy
6 fed him because my boob was about to burst! Brought him into my bed
7.45 wake
So a mixed bag- only fed twice and would have got away with once but he woke every 2 hours. I didn't pick him up except the times I fed him so hopefully he'll get the msg that it's not worth waking up! And thank god he didnt cry at all, I would definitely have caved in cos I can't bare him crying. I know I used a "prop" ie a dummy but it's s step in the right direction and at least DH can help me out now,

Fevier 7-11 sounds great, how did the rest of the night go ?
.Seratonin and truth how did you get on?

Sorry about the random emoticons , I'm on my phone!

That's great reckless, it means you can cut out the feeds and give your baby a teddy with dummy attached and train him to find it himself!

Soon! I think the dummy could work or you. V helpful for babysitters!

Well I fed her at 11 lying down but she woke 2 hours later in my bed so I fed again and into her cot. Awake again at 4am and 5am and I fed and he woke again (with wind) so back into co til 7. Not so bad written down but I couldn't soothe her in the cot so did a lot if cuddling to sleep. When I feel the time is right I will focus again on self settling and going BACK into cot awake - it made a huge difference while I did that but I got too tired!

Not sure if anyone's mentioned it but Elizabeth Pantley's book 'The No-Cry Sleep Solution' for babies (or something like that) is good on this. I followed some of her suggestions with DS1 and DS2 and had (eventual) success - will be trying again in due course with DD.

Thank you, I am Trying her no cry solutions. Feeling a bit demoralised as my cot rocking magic has worn off and doesn't seem to soothe her any more - she just cried til I picked her up and se settled on me... Boo hooooo

Think I am going to have to do gradual withdrawal pronto before separation anxiety sets in. Suddenly realise she is starting to understand so much more.... I know I shouldn't compare but by now with me son the bedtime routine was easy and he boy ever cred for ten minutes.... With her I am caving in and trying to soothe.

Thanks for asking reckless - our night was better than usual. Promised myself I wouldn't feed more frequently than three-hourly & stuck to it (usually fold!) & tbh LO settled v quickly the other times he woke with little input from me. Progress at least