My daughter is 11 months, and even though she was an appalling sleeper, things have improved a lot over the last month or so since she's started walking and eating more. She can now be put in her cot on about 50% of occasions awake, and she'll put herself to sleep (for naps and for the night). The rest of the time we hold her, or sometimes rock her until she falls asleep.
The issue is that her method of self soothing, or soothing in general, is to pinch skin between her fingers, and rub it. Like you would the tab/tag on a label. It's disappointing that I have this sort of skin on my neck really, but there you go!! She also does that to herself - pinching her own neck. It's at the point where she sees a bottle, and starts pinching her neck.
We've tried everything to get her to pinch something not human, but it doesn't work in the same way (or at all). Jelly cat type things have been sort of all right, but now she just plays with them. The pinching of us is SO painful, I've got holes in my neck from her nails, even though I keep them filed.
Any ideas? If you hold her hands down she just yells until you give up and let her get back to pinching.