Help with getting 6m.o. to fall alseep on his own?

[ellie3009]

Hi all, I need some advice as not sure where to go from here…

Bit of background…
DS is 6.5months old. Sleeps in cot, in own bedroom since 4 months because he was so long he outgrew the moses basket. However, he cannot put himself to sleep if put down awake.

He also wakes at night, is often not hungry, but cannot settle himself back to sleep once awake. He just cries until I go and rescue him. Sometimes I can put him back to sleep with a cuddle and some bottom patting, but sometimes I have to boob a bit to get him dozy enough. Takes minimum 30mins, but usually more like an hour before I'm back in bed.

DS' sleep pattern is erratic. Sometimes we get just one waking, sometimes 2, sometimes he’s up every 2-3hours. He generally does 3 naps a day, 90mins in the morning, then 2 catnaps of 35mins after lunch and late afternoon.

My goals are the following:

1. Be able to put him down awake, and he goes to sleep on his own.
2. That he can hopefully then get himself back to sleep when he wakes at night if not hungry.

Since he has been able to roll over (about 6 weeks ago) all he wants to do when put down in his cot is roll about and belly crawl.

I decided to do gradual retreat. I have spent a week now putting my hand on him and waiting for him to fall asleep. This does work, because the pressure of my hand discourages him from rolling around his cot. It has taken between 15 and 45 mins for him to fall asleep each night, no proper crying, just grizzling.

Tonight I moved on to next step of me just sitting by the cot, and do pick-up/put-down if he cried. I put him down very very dozy, eyes almost closed.
He was mostly quite cheerful and started trying to chat to me and play with me, despite me sitting with eyes closed completely motionless. A small amount of grizzling was easily sorted with a few words and brief pat on the back.
However, without my hand on him, he rolled about, played and chatted for a very long 45mins before finally falling asleep. Then he slept for only 3 mins before waking up proper crying, and would not be settled, even picking up and cuddling he just kept crying. I finished up having to put white noise on and pat bottom to calm him and put him to sleep. He finally fell asleep for good after 1hr5mins.

Where on earth do I go from here?
Do I persist with gradual retreat? It seems to me to defeat the point of gradual retreat if I sit there for 45mins while he rolls, if I then finish up having to put him to sleep using white noise and patting anyway. (I could have done that straight away and saved myself 43mins!!)
It looks like pick-up/put down is not going to work, since he still cries when picked up.
I am not prepared to do cry it out. I don’t really like the idea of controlled crying either.

Help!!!

Bumpsadasie if you read my 3rd post, you would know that I cannot feed him to sleep because he is so active that he will not fall asleep on the boob, instead he eats until full and pops off raring to go.

It can take up to 2 hours to resettle him in the middle of the night, and with him still waking at least twice, sometimes 4 times this is not sustainable for my health or sanity in the long term... On a bad night I have not even gone back to sleep myself before he wakes again.

I'm not hell-bent on self settling, I would be happy to resettle him myself if it was relatively quick, but I am currently spending anything up to 4-5hours per night doing it. I already have back problems post pregnancy and bending over his cot patting him bum for hours on end is crippling me.

You have my sympathies ellie. DS was a fantastic sleeper (he went through at 12 weeks) until he learnt to roll. He's 7 months now and waking 2-3 times a night for patting, cuddling, dummy and ,sometimes feeding. i am dreading feeding to sleep stopping working as it really is the only thing which reliably gets him to sleep. I also find that he's the baby who won't just sit on my knee when we're out, but I suppose if I learnt to fly today I'd, well, fly every where! As feeding still ultimately works for us I'm not at the cc stage yet but a friend of mine (who was being woken up to 8 times a night) has had great results trying it.
If DS won't settle after his bottle at bedtime we now just bring him back downstairs for another half an hour. I suppose that's giving up isn't it, but if we don't I just end up frustrated in his room and he goes down at the same time anyway. It isn't very nice that he has to cry and witter for 30 minutes or have a feed before he can sleep though.

Nickyeds - I appreciate the sympathy!
Bringing him back down unfortunately doesn't work. We just have the same whole palaver whatever time we take him back upstairs, because the fun and games doesn't start until you lie him in his cot. He is tired when we put him down, he is yawning and rubbing his eyes, but he just doesn't stop the crazy rolling/crawling.

I have always been anti CC, and I really really don't want to do it, but it can't be good for him to be awake for 3 hours during the night (which he was last night, again...) as he is then getting less than 10hours sleep himself.

We also have the secondary problem that OH cannot settle him, so it always falls to me to put him down for naps, bedtime and all night wakings and to be perfectly honest I am starting to feel like I have lost the plot.

Last night went like this:
7pm - in cot, yawning and rubbing eyes.
7.30 -asleep after 30mins of constant bum-patting and singing.

11.30 - awake, boobed him just in case thirsty with the heat.
11.50 -in cot, commence bum-patting and white noise.
12.30 - finally asleep after 40mins non-stop bumpatting.

3.30 -awake, boobed in case of thirst. He didn't want it.
3.50 back in cot, he starts rolling, so commence bumpatting.
4.20 - starts rolling and grizzling AGAIN despite bumpatting so pick up and rock.
4.45 - put down asleep, he wakes up instantly and starts rolling, restart bumpatting.
5.05 - starts grizzling and rolling despite bumpatting, so pick up and rock again. Rock him to sleep and then rocking for 15 mins until he seems in a deep sleep.
5.30 - put down asleep and he finally stays asleep.
8.30 - wakes up.

Frankly I would just rock him to sleep every time if this was a quick solution, except that 9/10 times he fights and struggles and will not settle being rocked anyway.

People keep saying this is just a phase because he has learned to roll, but it's been 8 weeks now and it is getting worse not better. His longest stretches of sleep are now about 3.5 hours, whereas he used to sleep an 6-8hour chunk before first wakeup, and it took max 40mins to feed and get him back to sleep.

No cry sleep solution would say you try to do less and less of whatever it is that works each time. So in your case try to bum pat till he's almost sleeping but not quite, then each time stop a tiny bit sooner. But.... ncss takes time. Lots of time. They suggest you only monitor sleep every ten days to look for improvement. I notice this thread is only a week old. ncss might take a month to work. In our case it did work but it wasn't a "solution" it was an approach we took for weeks.

Hi OP, I had a thread on here last week as having loads of problems with my 8 month old. Feeding & rocking stopped working and he couldn't settle himself. He'd just stand in the cot screaming.

I had some excellent advise from Lisa, the Blissful Baby Expert (I found her name when googling sleep issues and emailed her). She gave me advise on how to help DS settle. I started on Thursday night (45 mins of crying), Friday (maybe 30 mins but more moaning/protesting) and last night barely 10 mins of grumbling. He slept 7-5, and then went back til 6am. I know it's early days but this change is literally miraculous after 8 months of poor sleep.

She uses Timed Comforting. So you follow bedtime routine, cuddle & into cot as normal. Calming words etc, comforter, or whatever you use. Return after 2 mins and shh/pat for 30 secs to reassure then leave for 4 mins, then 6,8, 10. When you get to ten just keep going in at 10 min intervals until asleep. But if crying gets gaps / pauses like he's settling it might be best not to go back in.

Not everyone's cuppa but for me it was not as scary as CC. It's even working for naps.

When / if he wakes pick him up, cuddle, offer water (my ds isn't feeding over night now but is a bit older), check bum, temp etc, if all ok then pop them back & leave again. On night one my baby woke at 2 and took about 40 mins to settle himself again (no crying, just grumbling).

I'm no expert just sharing what's currently working for us (until the next phase!). I'm not sure whether this would work at 6 months.

Timed comforting = exactly the same as cc, from what you just described. Just a nicer name!

Oh right, well as I say I'm no expert. Just sharing my experience with the OP.