DD is 23.5w/o, we put a bedtime routine in place at 6w/o of bath, change & sleeping bag, story, milk & bed, she has since about 10w/o slept through the night. She has the occassional waking, usually she just chatters to herself and goes back off to sleep (so she can self settle) and if she wakes crying (perhaps once every 3 weeks) then I check/change her nappy and BF her.
About 3 weeks ago she stopped napping in her crib so 2 weeks ago we moved her to her cot and she started napping again. However she is now somewhat reluctant to go to sleep at night. I assume this is just part and parcel of moving to a new room but she doesn't have a problem with naps.
Routine for both is pretty much the same with the exception of bath and nap time. Naps and bedtime are proceeded with a bottle of expressed milk or formula and the rest of the day I BF. At nap time she will usually konk out on my shoulder after the bottle, when I put her in the cot she either wakes up and has a look around and then goes to sleep on her own or she stays asleep. She usually sleeps for 1.5hr sometimes longer. She has 2 naps a day. At bedtime she will have the bottle and then want to be BF, she wanted this when she was in the crib but it was just for a couple of mins and she went down in the same way she I have described for naps. However she now won't let me go. If she falls asleep on me then she wakes up screaming when I put her in her cot, if I put her down awake she cries unconsolably.
So she's either settling into the cot but I'm worried that she's becoming attached to being fed to sleep and I'm planning on probably giving up BF probably around 7 months. The other night DH gave me a break and tried playing her some music but I had to leg it up the stairs because she was in such a state, she'd gone red in the face and even when I picked her up she wouldn't stop crying. She even stopped breathing at one point because she'd got so worked up. She wouldn't stop crying until I BF her and even then she was in too much of a state to actually eat anything. When DH tried doing up her sleeping bag she latched off and got into a right state again, I had to tell him to stop.
I'm starting to think about some kind of sleep training. Overall I don't think we have a huge problem but I'd like her to learn to fall asleep without needing me because it just seems to be getting worse and I don't want it to become a huge problem where we can't put her down at all ever. I think the main thing is that whatever we do I don't want to undo all of the good habits she has learnt. The goal is to be able to put her down awake so for that reason I don't think CIO would work for us. I've read about the gentle retreat and that looks good but I do have some concern that she just will scream. I know the idea is that you pick them up and settle them but in our case she won't settle unless I BF her.
Does anyone have any experience of any other methods?