Thinking of sleep training - where/how do I start?

[MaMaPo]

DD is 6mo. She has never slept through. She's in our room in a cot and won't be moving as it's a small flat. I feel like it's time to start some training for the following reasons:

• she is rocked to sleep with dummy and swaddle for naps.
• she feeds to sleep at bedtime and is swaddled
• she has a zip up swaddle and is now forcing her arm out the neck hole, sometimes leading to scratching herself on the chin with the zip.
• ultimately I feel the the ability to self-soothe is a valuable skill and I'd like to help her learn it.

With the above help she goes down to sleep around 6.30-7pm pretty easily, has a dream feed and then one more feed around 3-4am before being up at 6-6.30am.

Ultimately I think we need to wean her off the swaddle. I'm not too bothered about her using the dummy, but if her arms are free (eg in push chair) she always pulls it out.

To be honest I don't know if she self-settles! She is not a sleepy/drowsy baby and is hugely active in the cot if you put her down vaguely awake. It always seems easier to pick her up, rock her for 5 mins and put her down asleep than leave her and fret that she won't sleep

So where should I start? I'm thinking I need to bite the bullet, go cold turkey on the swaddle and stick her in the sleeping bag as a start. Then find out her settling skills by letting her stay in her cot for a lot longer - until crying, I guess, and then try pu/pd.

Does this sound feasible? Anything else I should consider? Please wish me luck!

if she is your first I recommend Tracy Hogg: the Baby Whisperer.

I found her advice very reasonable

other things - where are you with weaning onto solids?
if you haven't started yet this might be a good time to start, something extra in her tummy just before bedtime might just do the trick.

my trusted book on that subject is "What should I feed my baby" by Suzannah Olivier

what else - bit of extra play time to tire her out?

can you wrap her in swaddle with one or both arms out?

can you get rid of dummy, permanently? if you loose the dummy now, in a few days she will settle without it, and in a few weeks she won't even remember it.

I meant if she's your 2nd or 3rd etc loads of her advice is still valid, but settling baby for 15 mins may not be possible.

Thanks for the tips. She is indeed my first so I do have flexibility in implementing things. We
Have started weaning and it's going well so far

I don't know much about baby whisperer, except for coming across it online. I have to admit i get a bit intimidated by people posting specific EASY timelines their baby adheres to. We're much more laid back! But I will take a look at it.

The only thing that I found odd with the Baby Whaiperer sleeping techniques (shush pat and pupd) is the new for baby to be on their side at times. My baby has never slept on her side.

Good luck mama sorry no helpful advice as ds2 is still fed to sleep at night and pushed to sleep in the buggy in the day (takes 5 mins). Fx she picks up on it quickly for you. can't even remember how I got the other 2 to sleep when small, I must be losing my marbles

well, I'd say read the book and see if you find anything helpful, not every advice work for everyone!
and TH always says that she gives guidelines. you don't have to follow it rigidly!

I could not do any of the advice she suggested with my Dd (6th) but found a lot of things very useful with DS3

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

What Seeker says.

It sounds like everything is fine.

I wouldn't worry about the feeding and rocking to sleep if it works for both of you.

No, nothing's broken (except the swaddle, which is pretty much demolished) and I'm not trying to fix anything. But I think it's worth giving her some self-settling skills if I'm about to take away her swaddle (and probably dummy as well). I think I'm going to need a game plan with such changes. And given that she woke at 5am, yelled blue murder and needed loads f intervention before finally going back to sleep at 7.15am, I'd say things could be better! Poor neighbors.

I second the Baby Whisperer for sleep stuff. I never did routine and bfed on demand so couldn't really do the EASY stuff (trying to keep a baby awake on a tummy full of milk seems nuts to me ) but the ssh-patting and pick-up/put-down really worked for us.

There's no issue with putting a 6 month old on their side so you can pat them. They can still go on their back to sleep if you/they prefer. At 6 months, your baby might soon choose to sleep on her front once she is free from the swaddle anyway - lots do at this age and find it more comfy/sleep better.

The ssh-pat worked to get DS to sleep if he was out of sorts until he was about 2! It was like magic - as soon as I started patting his bottom his eyes would roll back

Thanks for all the tips everyone.

I'm not worried about propping my daughter on her back to shush pat, just that it seems awkward. I actually tried it briefly today. She's terribly ticklish all over her back, and so it made her giggle. Not sure if that's helpful for us!

Tbh, I think you can spend so much time, energy and effort trying to change their sleep and you think you've cracked it then in another month some other issue comes up and you've got a different sleep "problem"!

DD has always fed to to sleep, but at 11mo she just stopped suddenly. Now she's teaching herself to self-settle as it's the only way she'll get to sleep. I just sit by her cot til she falls asleep. Sometimes she cries and needs some patting, other times she just needs me there. It's time consuming but a hell of a lot less work than sleep training!

I wouldn't do anything in your position - your dd will sort herself out eventually.

Well, I'll see how we go. Bedtime and nap time have steadily become more tricky over time - tonight we were feeding/grizzling/fussing for over 90 minutes before we finally got her down. That in itself is a lot of time and energy anyway - I think it's worth changing the focus for a while and seeing what happens. Who knows, she may take to self settling easily and I'll wonder why I didn't help her achieve it before. Or it'll be a nightmare and ill end up back at square one. Won't know unless I try.

Hi.
My LO was also swaddled until very recently. He's 6 months now. What I did to get him out of it was to put him down not swaddled for one nap a day. He played up a bit so I took him out of cot for 10 mins then re settled him again 10 mins later when he's pretty sleepy. I did that and over 4 weeks he stopped using the swaddle. Nights are much easier as he settles with a feed and then just sleeps (not all night I might add) but swaddling is now a thing of the past. It's not helping that he now rolls over but that's something else entirely to deal with lol. X