Please share your 'winding down' secrets

[vvviola]

I'm trying to wean DD2 off feeding to sleep/sleepy and eventually off breastfeeding altogether. She's almost 14 months. She will sometimes settle to sleep in her cot from very sleepy, but only after bf for quite a while.

I'm trying to put a bedtime routine in place, but everything seems to wind her up instead of calming her down enough that I can put her in the cot. We can't give a bath every night as is aggravates her skin.

I've tried music (she claps along & giggles), reading stories (she gets really excited, takes the books and turns pages back and forward), singing (she tries to put her hand in my mouth!)

Now even the previously reliable bf is beginning to fail - she stops to 'chat' and this evening (For the moment I sit on a mattress on the floor to feed), she hopped off my knee and headed for the door to play in her sister's room.

Does anyone have any tried and trusted wind down methods I could try? Bonus if they have worked for a wriggling curious live wire!

No tips I'm afraid as watching with interest (and mild desperation). Self settling went out of the window when DD was 6 mo and learnt to roll. At 8 mo the novelty still hasn't worn off and she's now about to crawl. Arghhh!

Just bumping in case anyone has any ideas....

Massage? Audio CD? White noise? Bathing a doll together then snuggling down with it? Warm milk? A walk? Something really soft and cosy to stroke? The same book every night?

Sorry, I can't help either I'm afraid, but you have my sympathy.

DD is 20 months old and still takes ages to settle. She sits up, plays with anything she can find, fiddles with my hair/face, chats and laughs to herself. All this in a darkened room with white noise going. Even when I think she has finally given into going to sleep and has been lying still for 5 minutes, she'll still sit bolt upright and "chat" some more...

Oh I'm in exactly the same boat. DS is 16 no and still bf to sleepy every night. Even then sometimes he's wide awake. He's like a little meerkat in his cot. Hilarious but infuriating.

He self settles amazingly for naps but no such luck at bedtime...

I generally have to resort to DD being exhausted (bath does that for her because she gets so over excited about it, and then cross when I take get out :) ).

Otherwise white noise & rocking or a walk in the pram are the only things that calm her down. Sometimes. :(

Hmm, white noise might be an option if I can get her to the stage of being sleepy enough to go in the cot.

If she isn't at that sleepy snuggly stage she screeches when I put her in the cot & there's nothing that will stop her except taking her out again.

So far, only way I can get her to settle is put her in cot, leave the room, come back in a minute later & then feed to sleep. I hate it. It's like upsetting her on purpose so I can comfort her .

Neither of my children did the chatting to themselves in the cot stage, either when going to sleep or waking up. Straight to screaming, my two...

I sometimes end up doing that 'upsetting on purpose so I can comfort' thing. Although I try not to bf after the 'bedtime bf' and try and comfort in the cot. But often leaving just to return again is the only way I can get DS to lie down!

DS (nearly 13 months) is full of beans and into everything.

I used to feed to sleepy or sleep but he wakes up so much in the night I decided I needed some sleep training. We've roughly followed Andrea Grace's sleep training and it's pretty successful - at least for getting DS to fall asleep in his cot, but not for sleeping through the night but that might be because I haven't followed through to the end yet.

(Lucidlady did a thread on the AG method in sleep which is worth looking at here).

Our evening routine is bath, BF sitting in chair next to cot, book (always the same one - Peace At Last which is fairly short, nice rhythms to read), then light off and into cot. I sing whilst keeping my hand on him (would love not to have to do this but he cries).

Usually falls asleep in less than 15 minutes, and although he tries to get up once or twice I immediately stop singing (he then complains) and I lie him back down again and start singing again.

We don't start the routine until 7.30pm unless DS is particularly tired, i.e. he didn't have enough naps or he woke up from his last nap a very long time ago. DS tend to fall asleep between 8 and 8.15pm.

Oh and recently we're trying to introduce DH into the mix so I BF DS then keep him on my lap (snuggled under his duvet) whilst DH reads the story. Might stop your DD from touching the book? (sometimes I have to hold DS' arms!)

DS also does the "I'm falling asleep, haha no I'm going to jump up and start shouting" thing which is really annoying as it always happens just when I'm about to leave him and have started dreaming about my dinner and an early night