Settling baby by staying in room

[blushingmare]

I'm interested to know if anyone else has done what I'm doing with their dc to get them to settle and whether you made any progress.

DD (13 mo) is not a good sleeper, never has been. For ages I fed her to sleep, but this has stopped working now and I am gradually weaning off breastfeeding anyway. So now I put her down in her cot awake. If I leave the room she immediately becomes extremely distressed and I don't want to leave her to cry at all, so I stay with her.

I sit by her cot and she crawls around the cot, cuddling her soft toys, laughing occasionally, whinging occasionally, standing up and pulling at me occasionally and just generally entertaining herself and not sleeping! I largely ignore her, but offer her a drink of water and a few strokes of the hand if she starts to cry. As time goes on she becomes more sleepy and starts burrowing her head in the mattress and lying herself down a bit more. At this point I tend to rub her back a bit to try to get her to stay lying down. Once she's in the "staring mode" of getting off to sleep, I stop rubbing and gradually ease my hand off. I leave the room once she's asleep.

This process takes about 2 hours. I'm happy doing it and accept it's a phase she's going through and this is just one of the things that goes along with having a baby. However, I'd love to think that there will come a point that it takes much less time than this!

Has anyone else done anything similar and what was your experience?

I've heard of gradual withdrawal, but not sure if this is what I'm doing. It's hard to see how I can "withdraw" at all because I need to be with her until she starts to get sleepy and it's that which takes the long time.

Please don't suggest CIO or CC to me as I'm not doing that and as I say, I'm happy with this method, just interested to know others' experiences.

Thanks very much.

it's a pain isn't it. gradual withdrawal is something supernanny does which is where i picked it up for my ds. it does work but takes patience which you have tons of if it currently takes you 2 hours!

in a nutshell you start off with comforting then after a couple of minutes you stop and no longer engage or make eye contact, a couple of minutes later you take a couple of steps away from the cot/bed, and repeat the process until you get to the door at which point if lo hasn't fallen asleep, you stand there until they do. The point of this is they are learning to self settle but have the comfort of you there until such time when you lay them down and after just a few minutes of no contact they will fall asleep. as i say it takes time but can only be a step forward for you. if lo gets really frantically upset you, of course, cuddle and start again.

Alternatively you could lie on the floor with your eyes closed. again, did this with my ds (mostly for daytime naps and when he had a phase of my night waking at about 12 months). it was a comfort for him to have someone there till he went to sleep.

good luck!

Well blow me! I never knew that had a name. I was doing that nearly 8 years ago.

I used to start by the cot and gradually slide closer to the door, ds would look up occasionally then doze off. It took me weeks, but I eventually got to the point where I could get downstairs avoiding all creaky floor boards before he was fully asleep.

Have been doing similar with DS (almost 15m) with success. He is weaned from the breast now though. At about 11 months bf to sleep became a massive nightmare. So I moved the breastfeed a bit earlier so he wouldn't fall asleep during it. Daddy had to step in afterwards and rock him to sleep or cuddle him in a chair till he fell asleep. Gradually the BF got to be early enough so that it was before story and that broke the feed/sleep association (although he does use a dummy which helps).

What we eventually did about 12ish months was to put a mattress next to his cot with a pillow and duvet. Milk (after 13 months this was cup), story, teeth, back in room with blinds closed, sing a nursery rhyme while cuddling, put in cot with a kiss goodnight, then lie down next to the cot and pretend to go to sleep yourself. Concentrate on your deep breathing, say shhhh if you like. Ignore any "happy" playing in cot but if she crawls about or stands up, pat the head end of the mattress and quietly say "night night DD". If she cries then sit up and try to cuddle her through the cot bars before encouraging her to lie down again. Hold hands if it helps. Avoid getting stressed as far as you can. She will go to sleep eventually. If she gets distressed then of course you can pick her up, give her a cuddle, tell her it is time for night nights and try again when she has calmed down. The first time I tried this it took till 8.26, the next night we were down to 8.14 and now as a general rule he is rarely awake past 8 and often down by 7.30 so it has got quicker. I was hoping to have progressed to sitting on a chair but to be honest the mattress is handy to have in there for the teething wake up calls.

Thanks for your replies - very helpful, but I'm still not sure how I go about the "withdrawal" part of it! I'd I try to move away when she's still awake and moving around the cot then she screams. So I can only start to move away once she's practically asleep, but by then I've been in there for well over an hour and she's well on her way to sleeping so I don't think it's helping her learn the self-settling thing.

Any tips?!

DS is 12mo and am trying no cry sleep solution so no more bfing to sleep at bedtime but i stay with him until he falls asleep. Lots of picking up and cuddling and putting back down again, singing, sshhing, lots of 'bedtime, close your eyes' etc. Some tears and protests but mostly he's happy-ish it just takes forever!! At least 45/60 mins and doesn't seem to be getting shorter :-(

I did this with DS when he was 10mo, he is now 14mo and self settles for every nap and nighttime now. He fed to sleep or rocked to sleep and I began by putting him in his cot when he was drowsy but not asleep and sitting by his cot stroking his face as the act of putting him in his cot was enough to make him cry. After 20 minutes of stroking on the first night and second night he fell asleep. Third night he took 15 minutes and on the fourth night as I put him in his cot he rolled over and went to sleep. Naps took longer to follow suit. He now refuses to be held when he is tired (makes me a little sad) and instead looks for his shawl and waves at you telling us it's time to go to the cot.

Im still waiting for it to start taking less and less time each night....