How do you teach a baby to settle themselves???????

[ANGELMOTHER]

Please help me here, any tips are appreciated. My dd2 is now 17 wks and a happy thriving baby if not the greatest sleeper. She sleeps little in the day and wakes 2-3 times a night but I know she's not always hungry and it's a comfort suck and back to sleep. She never goes into her cot awake as always falls asleep at the boob or bottle (mixed feeding). Night feeds always end up with co-sleeping as I feed her lying down and am reluctant to move and disturb her then.
Please help me break this pattern as I want to start her in a nursery just the one morning a week (for sanity reasons) but couldn't send her into new surroundings before acquiring this skill.

Karen99 what is the pick up/put down technique? this is a new one on me, might be worth a go

Hi Shari, here is a link to another thread that had several successes with the pu/pd method, but glancing over it again the babies were a bit younger than yours. Not sure how effective it'll be with a toddler.

After watching the "Little Angels" series on BBC3 they showed how effective using a sticker chart can be. Also for night-time problems they said something like "if you stay in bed tonight the 'night-light fairy' may leave you something in the morning" and if she does this for several nights a bigger gift can be given. We've talked about the 'Happy Families' series on here HTH.