How can I stop rocking to sleep?

[susiebee46]

My ds is 5 months old. I've always rocked or fed him to sleep for naps and when I first put him down at night. This wasn't ideal but I didn't mind too much.
Recently though he also needs rocking every time he wakes up in the night (which is a lot). I feel like I'm spending most of the night standing in the same spot slowly going mad.

Is there any way I can stop the rocking. I just can't see how to teach him to self settle. If I put him down awake he grumbles for a bit before it escalates into a full blown scream. Patting and shushing help a bit but he doesn't fall asleep unless held.
The only options I can see are to let him cry (which I'm not going to do) or rock him. Help there must be a middle way!

We use back stroking and shushing. This works well for us as picking him up seemed to wake him up more, but only after we had got our LO to learn how to settle himself and go down awake.

Thanks for replying. Did you use back stroking after your lo had learnt to self settle? Or was this how you taught him to self settle?

The baby whisperer pick up put down technique is worth a go (recommended for a baby of that age). You really have to stick with it but I was in your position and it really did work.

Hi we used the shush/pat method that didn't really help our LO self settle but gave us an alternative to rocking which was beginning to do serious damage to our backs and was taking an age.

We pretty much used the shush/pat method from when DO was 3 to 11 months old when it stopped being effective and that's when she finally learnt to self settle (with very minimal tears ie less that 10 min one night) and then no tears for subsequent sleeps.

We rocked to sleep for all naps and at night up to about 5 months and were getting completely exhausted. At night I then gradually persuaded Dd to go to sleep with my hand on her (in cosleeper cot), gradually removing it more and more quickly. During the day I did controlled crying for one nap, on the doctor's advice. (We were in the US.) I still kind of regret resorting to CC but I think the idea of introducing a new and initially less effective settling method for the first nap of the day, when you're fresh, was a good one. Then if whatever technique it is works you can extend it to other times of day.