Self settling success stories please

[Liveinthepresent]

My almost 5 month old DS was a fab sleeper until about 12 weeks and since then it's all gone horribly wrong.
He can no longer self settle and is now waking more and more in the night - on a bad night this is hourly.
I know he is still little but I feel like he won't learn how to settle if I keep putting him down asleep. I am on the NCSS thread but not making progress on this at all.
I am back at work in January and won't be able to survive if the nights remain like this.
Has anyone got any words of wisdom for me?
Anyone sorted it with a similar aged baby and if so how - or can anyone offer hope we might get there just by riding it out?
TIA

Hey op, you have my sympathy....sleep deprivation is a nightmare.

I have a succes story for you: my DS was a hideous sleeper around the 3-4 month mark. He was bottle fed and we gave him a large dreamfeed (7oz bottle) at 10pm when we went to bed. He would often then wake every hour or so in the night cos his flippin dummy fell out and he couldn;t soothe himself back off to sleep without it. a few times I tired feeding him but he pushed the bottle away. He wasn't hungry. Just awake and couldnt re-settle. One night when he was 3.5 months old I was in there every 45 mins putting it in and I thought this has to stop!

Me and DH decided to start to teach encourage him to learn to fall back to sleep himself when he woke after a sleep cycle finished in the night, without needing his dummy to get back off.

We started by tackling the early evening period first (ie 7pm - 10pm) cos we were more prepared to deal with stuff/crying/issues at that time of the night than at 4am, for example!

So we picked a day. On that day he went to bed around 7pm as usual. Then he started crying at 8.15pm as usual, asfter 1 sleep cycle had finished and he didnt have his dummy to go back off. We looked at the clock and sat on our hands. We said we would leave it 4 mins and see what happened. 3.5 mins later, he went silent. He had gone back to sleep! I never thought it would happen. But it did. previously i would have rushed in there to shhh pat him and put his dummy back in. He just needed to be left alone to figure it our himself.

Happened again at aroun 9.30pm that night. That time he cried for 4 mins and didnt stop so I went in and put my hand on his tummy and said shhhhh shhhhh. and then went out. He then grizzled/fussed for about 1 minute more then went back to sleep.

For the first few nights we didnt do this 'technique' in the wee small hours of the night....we just wanted to guarantee he would go back to sleep asap so we jumped right out of bed and gave him his dummy. But in the early evening we did the same thing for a few nights till he got the hang of it. Then we decided to see what happened in the middle of the night. By this stage he was nearly 4mo. I remember the first night we tried it: he woke around 2am and cried. I looked at the clock on my phone and decided to lie there and watch the clock for 4 mins (seemed kinder to him than 5), and lo and behold, 3.5 mins elapsed and then he suddenly went quiet.

Since this time, he has been mostly able to soothe himself back off to sleep in the night. There have been times when he hasn't gone back to sleep after 4 mins (my arbitrary 'line') and then I have always gone to him and tried to soothe with just a shhhhhh and a hand on his tummy or back. if this doesnt work I have picked him up for a cuddle. This has usually only happened when he has been coming down with a cold or cutting a tooth. A couple of times he has ended up in our bed usually before getting a cold the next day. But mostly he can self soothe (now 11mo).

I think there's a lot of anti-sleep-training younger babies info out there, but I think there's a big difference between leaving a small baby to wail for a long time, and sitting on your hands for a few mins to see if he'she can just drift off again on their own. I mean, I never would have known if DS could do it, if I didn;t try?? And in a way I think it's the kindest thing I could have done: he learned an important new skill: that he can go back to sleep on his own in the night. But it he's upset or in pain mummy or daddy will always come to him cos he wouldnt go back to sleep if he was in pain, right?

not sure if you're BFing or not, and if so, things might be a bit different, but I hope you find this story heartening :)

I could have written your post this time last year. Ds slept brilliantly until about 16 weeks then had an ear infection and it wad a nightmare. To cut a long story short we co-slept. I was going back to work and couldn't deal with the waking all night. It wasn't ideal and I wouldn't plan to do it again but it worked out well for us. Being close to Ds all night I could tell when he was becoming less clingy and starting to want more space and quiet.

We tried him.in his cot at about 8 months with no luck but by 11 months he seemed ready. We bit the bullet on a week off work, did bath and stories then put him down awake.

He went straight to sleep and stayed there for 13 hours He's 20 months now and we've only had 2 bad nights since then and they've been due to coughs and colds.

I suppose what I'm saying is that they do it when they're ready but it will happen eventually :)

He

DS was a horrendous sleeper until one evening when he was about 5mo. I'd fed him and fed him and he kept waking back up (this was at bedtime). I went downstairs and put the kettle on, burst into tears on DH saying 'he'll never sleep' and then suddenly realised he'd stopped crying. He'd fallen asleep in the time it took to boil the frigging kettle! To say it changed my life is no exaggeration. From then on I have always put him down awake. Sometimes he settles immediately, sometimes he plays in his cot for an hour, but I leave him to it. To be fair though he's not often a crier at bedtime.

Thank you so much all of you this is just what I need. I am not sure I will be as lucky as you Boticelli and teacher but I do kind of feel like he is ready for a change too. He was so much more settled after a 'good' night I feel like I owe him to try and teach him.
englishgirl I envy you for coping that way but know that wont work for us - practically co- sleeping would only work if we had a spare bed DH could decamp to.

Anyone else please do share!

Liveinthepresent my 5 month old is exactly the same, I could have written your post!

she slept beautifully until about the 4 month mark going from her last feed at 11pm until 7am and she slept the whole time in between. Now she wakes at 3 and won't self soothe back to sleep, if I leave her for a few minutes she's wide awake talking and trying to sit up. I'm at a loss on what to do so I usually end up cuddling her on my chest in bed back to sleep. Then after I put her back into her cot everytime she stirs I rush to get up and put her dummy in so she doesn't fully wake. I really need to teach her to self settle but just don't know how when she's wide awake after a few minutes.

I just wanted to say I know how you feel and ill be watching responces too :)

Watching with interest as we are also using NCSS but a bit stuck at progressing with pull off method.

Similarly to you, my DD was a great night-time sleeper until about 12 weeks, when it all went tits up. At worst, she was waking 6+ times a night (i.e. between 7pm and 7am). At 5.5. months I sensed we were out of sleep-regression territory and that there was nothing major going on with her (in terms of illness, teething, developmental milestones, etc) and decided to help her learn to self-settle. Up until then I'd always bf her to sleep (she was ebf).

So, instead of doing bedtime feed last thing in darkened room, I kept lights on and didn't zip her into her sleeping bag until after the feed. I tried not to let her fall asleep on boob, but if she did she'd get woken up by me putting her in sleeping bag. Then I read her a quick story and put her down awake. I did a version of sshh-pat to help her settle when she seemed on verge of crying. I'd rub her tummy or shoulder and say soothing words. When she stopped grumbling, I'd hide out of sight. Repeat until she fell asleep. Took about a week or two of me doing that until I could just put her down, quick rub of shoulder, soothing words, leave room and she'd usually be asleep within about 15 minutes. Sometimes I have to go back in for a quick reassuring rub/ soothe. I found it worked better not to pick her up - the one or two times I did pick her up it made her grumbling escalate into proper crying.

Now, at 7 mo, barring illness, teething, etc, I can put her down awake and she'll soothe herself to sleep. Some days she just drops off instantly, some days she'll moan and mantra cry to herself in her cot for up to 15 mins. If the moaning ever escalates to crying, I'll go in and reassure.

A few provisos, however. I've found her sleep development is by no means linear. So - the above worked really well for a few days at the beginning, but then we had a few days of her being hysterical at bedtime and I had to go back to bf her to sleep and then start again. Similarly, if she's going through a big cognitive leap she'll often get a bit hysterical at bedtime and need extra help like rocking or feeding to sleep. Generally, after that hiccough is over she'll go back to self-settling either immediately or very quickly. Obviously things like teething, illness like the never ending hideous cold she has right now also throw spanners in the works. The other thing is that her learning to self-settle didn't seem to make much immediate improvement to her night-wakings, at least not straight away. What did seem to help on that front was moving her to her own room and me setting limits on when I would bf during the night, sending DH in to settle at other times. And also, as someone else said above, not always rushing in to her. I'll try to give it at least 5 minutes if she's just grizzling, and sometimes she'll just go back to sleep. But still, her night waking is so random - one night she'll sleep 11 hours straight, the next be up every 2.5 hours. And there seems little rhyme or reason to it. However, it's definitely better than it was between 3.5 and 5.5 months.

Good luck. It will get better - if not through your efforts then just on its own. I think much of sleep is developmental, although we can definitely help them learn better habits and skills too.

Thanks everyone I have had a couple of improving nights so am feeling much more upbeat and clear about what to do. Citydweller your post is exactly what I need to hear - I am doing ok with some of the things you mention already and this is what makes me think both DS and I are ready for something like sssh pat - I just need to pluck up the courage and believe it will work!