Have a plan for sleep training - come and tell me if it's any good or not!

[Conkers32]

So, my DD is 15 months old and has slept through once

We've slowly made progress, so she's now night weaned, goes down awake and wakes between 6.30am and 7am most days (which I love, as the months of early waking were rubbish). Through necessity, we now partially co-sleep - so she starts off in her cot and then comes in with us on her first wake, anytime between 11pm-2am, but normally around midnight. Generally she then sleeps through. So this was working, but as she's getting older, she likes to hold hands (or any part of my body, really!) to get herself off to sleep, which would be fine, except she likes to pinch/scratch etc which is not relaxing

So my plan is this - keep her in her own bed for all wakings but still keep holding her hand through the cot bars (will set up a bed in her room to help with this) and then when she's got the hang of that (overly optimistic emoticon), then start doing gradual withdrawal of the hand holding to get to sleep. Gonna give it 2 weeks to see any improvement.

What do you think? Any tips or improvements? Or any encouraging stories? Will need something to keep me going at 3am...

My DD has a very similar pattern and basically do the same as you - take her into the bed once she wakes up in the middle of the night. Although she loves falling asleep on us or near us and so is gradually refusing to sleep by herself at the beginning of the night...grrrrr!

Your plan sounds good. I have tried rocking DD's belly, then went she settles holding my hand still on the belly, then moving hand away, finally moving myself away. It is much the same as your hand holding. I have to admit that in the middle of the night, I don't have the patience for it and DD mysteriously ends up asleep in bed with us in the morning. Your plan has the advantage of no backache.

Good luck! I'd love to hear in two weeks time, if your DD is sleeping through.

Thanks GloucesterGirl, we're actually starting the plan tonight - waited for the weekend so I can have a lie-in tomorrow, as I can guarantee I'll need it! Will keep you posted on progress, my main problem will be staying firm on keeping her in the cot and not just putting her in bed with us so I can go back to sleep...

We had something similar over Xmas where DD was crying and fussing over going to sleep at the start of the night in her cot, which made me think about starting to keep her in her bed all night, as I don't really want to co-sleep long-term. She seems to have stopped that now though, so it might pass with your DD too.

I go between thinking that one night, she'll just sleep through of her own accord (as that's what's happened with all the other sleep-related progress) and being scared that it might not happen until she's 5!