12 month old dd will only sleep in pram

[pod3030]

we travelled round australia for 6 weeks and she occasionally slept in a travelcot, but most of the time rejected this in favour of her pushchair in the recline position. So i get back home, dp decides he doesn't like the lifestyle change that comes with a baby, cue me having to move out, find a place to live, furnish it find an income as was sahm etc etc. anyway, i never found the strength to get her back in her cot, and now she screams blue murder if i put her down in it, even if she is zonko from a mega bf session. sigh. i feed to sleep but can put her awake in pram and she self settles. but no chance with cot. hay-elp, as penelope pitstop would say.

can you try putting her down on her tummy? I can never put DD down on her back - she will always wake up. Do it after she's been asleep about 10-15 mins.

Also try getting her used to her cot more generally. In the mornings, when you're getting dressed, put her in it with some toys/snacks. Do the same during the day at various points so it's somewhere she knows.

BTW - sorry to hear about your shit of a DP :(

DS was exactly the same and so at 12 mo we decided the time had come to get him napping in the cot. This mainly involved putting him in it at the same time every day and letting him scream for half an hour until he went to sleep! It only took about five days and ever since then he's happily napped in his cot. One thing that did seem to help was putting him in his sleeping bag for naps. Also around this time he became quite attached to a particular teddy and giving him that to cuddle up to was useful.

Now he's 18mo and usually naps in his cot from 11.30am to 1pm.

The 'routine' is: take him into his room, close his curtains, get sleeping bag out and say 'nap time'. Let him run about a bit, playing at 'hiding' then after 5 mins or so pick him up and put him in bag. Put him in cot with teddy saying 'night night' then leave him. He still sometimes whinges a bit for a few mins but drops off pretty quickly.

We don't use it any more but initially white noise (app downloaded onto iphone) helped him go to sleep.

One word of warning though - he'll pretty much ONLY now nap in the cot and I do really miss him napping in buggy when out and about. Just things like being at a playgroup with friends the other day and when it finished at 12 they were all going out for lunch, knowing their kids would most likely sleep in buggies, but I had to go home as knew he wouldn't nap in buggy and would therefore soon get tired and cross.

Good idea about making it a fun place to hang out, thanks. As for dp, can't feel much atm, which is good as it let's me get on with practicalities. Hmm, sleeping on tummy, will try it. Think the problem is she associates the closed-in-edness of the pushchair with sleep. She liked to be swaddled as a tiny, and I think she feels secure. She flaps about in the cot like a landed trout

Ah easy a sleeping bag may have that swaddly effect yes. I have put her in and let her cry for a couple of minutes but she stands up and the pitiful noise she makes is horrific, I don't have the stomach for it, especially in my fragile state. We both want unstressful niceness at the moment!

I totally understand that the crying is not nice, but, honestly, whenever I've had to do a bit of CC-ing, he's got the message within days. It's never gone on for weeks and a few days of crying (which in itself has rarely gone on longer than half an hr) has always been worth the improved sleep we've all got as a result.

Watching with interest as having same issue with my Dd (11.5mo)...

I'll give it a go, my resources are very low at the mo but I know it's worth it in the long run. Thanks for the advice

Mmmm I wouldn't do cc when you're as you are. This is a tough one to crack and might be worth trying a gentler method. (I'm not anti cc in older babies btw - have tried it on my dd at 11 months and it backfired - she would get upset as soon as I put her down after a while. So switched to settling her in the cot)

so, update. she had a daytime nap in the cot ok, when she woke up she was very upset but i reassured her and played with her toys in there before i lifted her out. So tonight, i nursed to sleep and put her in the cot for the first hour and when she woke up howling in panic i calmly reassured her again but put her in the pram. tomorrow i will do the same pattern but reassure her in the cot for longer, a bit more each night. hopefully she will come to see the cot as a place of safety. thanks for the advice so far :)