Help!! Rod well and truly made. Don't know what to do now...

[Babytalkobsession]

My baby is 7 months old today. To get him to sleep we have always taken him to his nursery, turned on his Ewan sheep and rocked ( fast!) whilst sshhing. Once he's properly asleep we can pop him into his cot for a nap (45mins) or bedtime.

He's now nearly 20lbs and its taking longer and longer and tbh I'm struggling to keep doing it, but don't know where to start breaking this habit!

So for the last couple of nights I've followed our usual bedtime routine, rocked slightly until drowsy and put him down awake. He springs up immediately and starts practising his rolling, crawling etc until he gets cross and cries. I stay with him, and loosely trying pick up/put down. The problem is he knackers himself out so much he eventually does fall asleep in my arms as part of the soothing, so still isn't drifting off in his cot.

I've just tried it now for a nap. He was rubbing eyes and has been awake since 9am (so 3 hours wake time when I first tried) I closed curtains, turned on his sheep, changed nappy, slow rocked / cuddled briefly then into cot. He rolled, played etc to the point he's now having a second wind and downstairs playing again. And no doubt will be overtired! I kept saying 'sleepy time' etc and soothing words, pats etc.

Where do I start? How do I help him to fall asleep on his own? His crying is frustration at not being put to sleep and he just looks confused!

In the night he'll feed around midnight and 4am. At these wakes I can put him down and usually he'll settle (I just leave the room and listen in). Occasionally I have to go back in. So he can do it!

Please help! Hopefully someone has cracked this before :)

You have to harden your heart and leave him to cry for a bit. If it were me, I would go back into the room every couple of minutes and settle him down again until he goes to sleep, but I wouldn't pick him up. Over the next days/weeks slowly extend time between going back and checking on him.
He might cry himself to sleep, but he won't hate you because of that anyway when he's a teenager.

My DD1 was in a bed by that age, because we needed the cot for DD2. We put a stairgate across her bedroom door, and she went to sleep on the floor a couple of times. Only a couple of times though, before she got the message.

It's not easy, but it works, and like I said, they won't hold it against you when they're older.

Ignore that bit about DD1 being in a bed by the same age - I read that your DS is 20 mths, but I see he's 20lbs! DD1 definitely wasn't in a bed at 7 months!

Does he still have a late afternoon nap, or is he on 2 naps (morning and after lunch)?

Also does he have an established bedtime routine?

If he has dropped his late nap, and has a bedtime routine, I would be inclined to try some gentle controlled crying as the previous poster suggests, to teach him he can self settle and doesn't need to be rocked. I did it with DD when she was in a rock to sleep habit and it worked within two days. IME it works quickest if you do it at the morning nap and at bedtime - the lunchtime nap is harder and I rocked DD to sleep for that one.

Thanks for your replies. His naps are a bit hit and miss but usually 8-8:45, 12-1, 4-4:45. He sometimes has 4 short naps, and very rarely goes longer than 45min/1hr. I'm hoping the longer lunch time nap will start happening soon. If we're out & about he cat naps in buggy but it can take him ages to nod off, even when tired.

His bedtime routine is fairly consistent. Solids at 5:30, play, bath/wash & change, story, bottle (still BF but just started introducing formula at bedtime, he only takes 5.5oz), then the rocking! He's usually shattered by 6:30 / 7pm.

I'm ok with letting him cry for brief spells, and think I may actually be causing more problems by staying in the room. It's so hard because its my fault he's used to the rocking. I do understand it's the right thig to do to help him out of it though!

Do you think I should look to put him down at more regular times? I currently just wait until he's rubbing eyes, and goes a bit glazed! Thanks again.

Tricky. At 7 months my DD was sleeping 9.30-10 and then 1.30-3 (and then no nap till bedtime) - so based on that, my inclination would be to try to push back his morning and lunch naps a bit in the hope of making those naps longer and cutting out the late afternoon nap. Then he would be more tired at naptimes and at bedtime and would self settle easier (though would still need a bit of crying I suspect).

However if he is clearly tired at his current nap times then maybe it's too early to do that, for your baby? (Mine doesn't need much sleep )

At seven months I'd say three hours is maybe a bit too much wake time - I reckon you want to catch him before he gets to the stage where he could get overtired and more energetic. It's hard to spot the right time though! When DD was born a friend sent me a chart with awake times for each month which has been invaluable, and spot on, for us anyway...

At seven months 2.5hrs is the advised length of time, so I'd go to the bedroom for some quiet time maybe after 2hrs 15, and do exactly as you do with Ewan and a quick rock / cuddle, tell him "sleepy time" once, kiss on the forehead and put down awake. Leave the room, and go back say every 5 mins to put him back in the right position...

We've had a similar issue with DD recently when we wanted to wean her off being bottle fed before naps, and then when she learned to crawl. Constantly getting back up in the cot, so I'd do the usual nap time process, leave her and go back in to resettle every so often but without taking her back out, just popped her back lying down and told her it was sleepy time, and left. You have to be super consistent and work at it for a couple of days, there might be a lot of repositioning to start with but it shouldn't take long to change the habit. If you have plenty of other sleep cues - Ewan, "sleepy time" and a pretty much identical process for all naptimes it shouldn't be too hard for him to work out what should be happening!

Ps I found this page helpful - www.babysleepsite.com/schedules/baby-sleep-wake-time-formula/

Whizz, thanks for your link. Until very recently I've been roughly following 2 hours of wake time, and that worked well when rocking him but its been getting harder and harder lately. That could be because his tiredness 'sweet spot' is stretching out to 2.5hrs as your link suggests. I'll watch closely for this over the next few days...it seems just as I get into a pattern it changes!

Minipie, interestingly he followed a very similar nap pattern today as your DD did, ie a short morning nap, then 1:45-2:50 and no afternoon nap (very tired though!) I basically couldn't get him to take the afternoon one so skipped it to avoid falling back into rocking. It meant he went down easily at bedtime (on his bottle) and has been easy to settle the few times he's stirred since :)

I'm determind to keep the consistency up and get this sorted! Thanks so much for your suggestions.