How can I get my 12 month old to go to sleep by herself?

[notsleepingbunny]

Every bed and nap time I have a battle with my DD: I lay her in her cot, she jumps up again and either sits or stands. This continues until I pin her down to the bed and pat her until she is very nearly asleep. How can I get her to go to sleep without me doing this?

We are very routine based, so she sleeps at the same time every day: 20 minute nap at 09:00, 1 1/2-2 hour nap at 13:00 and then bedtime at 19:00. We have a quiet nap time and bed time routine.

Despite doing this for the best part of 6 months, she still won't go to sleep by herself. Has anyone got any ideas how I can get her to learn to go to sleep by herself?

Its so frustrating isn't it! I don't know whether to just keep going, laying her down and patting her and eventually she'll do it herself, or whether I should also get tougher and try to get her to learn to lay down and go to sleep by herself.
I think if i left her to lay down by herself we would also be in for hours and hours of firstly playing and then grumping and then screaming when she gets tired! Any mumsnetters out there who have solved this problem??!!

I'm just starting to do this with my 8mo ds. Previously we cuddled him to sleep but as I'm expecting dc2 this won't be possible much longer.

We've had 3 nights so far. The first night I took all his toys out of his cot, let him mess around for about 20 mins then lay him down and held onto his sleeping bag so he couldn't roll over and sit up. I then shushed and sang lullabies til he fell asleep.

The second night I started doing the same but at the shushing stage he was just messing around so I got fed up and left him to it. Listened to him on the monitor making his tired noises for 15 mins them silence - snuck upstairs and he was fast asleep with his head squashed up against the cot bars!

Last night I did his routine as normal, gave him a cuddle whilst he had his milk then put him in his cot and left the room. He played and made tired noises for 20 mins then started crying quite a lot. So went in to him, laid him down and sang a lullaby and he was asleep in seconds!!

Before I started this I thought it was going to be horrendous - he has always been fed or cuddled to sleep. But so far it's going much better than I thought. Have you tried leaving your dd to it for a while and seeing what happens?

How did she fall asleep before you started this? Is there any way you could keep tweaking your routine until she's better equipped to fall asleep on her own? For example we started off rocking our son on our lap, but then got him to fall asleep sitting still. We also introduced a night time teddy for him to hold as he falls asleep. He got used to having this whilst sat on our lap and now uses it whilst he's laid down in his cot.

Sorry if this doesn't make sense, am also trying to stop said ds from pulling the tv over (children shouldn't be able to crawl until they understand the meaning of 'no'!)

It does sound a bit like your DCs are used to the attention and know if they mess about they'll get more of it. I think Natasha is on the right track. We went through this at 5.5 months with the help of a sleep consultant (and in retrospect boy am I glad we did it that early because the few times she does mess around now she's older she's virtually impossible to contain). Anyway, said lady was recommended by someone who had used her for their 15month DS who refused to lie down. The advice was to sit in a chair in the room with your back to them, listen to iPod to drown out noise, and just wait til they get so bored an tired they fall asleep. If they wake in the night, repeat. Should only take a few days til they get the messge. Then do a gradual retreat. I think you will have to be prepared for a few night's where they are persistent in trying to make you revert to your old behaviour, but you have to remain strong. Hard to do if prone to making themselves sick from crying though...