If I leave her in her cot to settle she just stands up and cries? What do I do then?
Leave her standing? Go in and lay her down? Then what -hold her down?
No. Yes. Yes, but in a kind, gentle way.
Sounds like the is due is method and place for going to sleep. Baby needs to go to sleep in the place they stay asleep and by 11 months, you could do with having alternate comfort mechanisms to replace movement comfort. I would work on establishing how amazing and lovely and great her comforter toy is.
Then work on in-cot settling. CC is not unreasonable at 11 months but is unlikely to help in your situation since baby eventually needs to learn the practicalities of how to go to sleep in her cot.
Many babies are like spaniels, they don't know how to switch off. It's not that they won't switch off and relax, it's just that some children don't know how to do this and it needs to be taught.
So she needs to learn that in order to go to sleep she needs to:
- Be in her cot
- Lie down
- Be still
- Be silent
- Close eyes
- Relax
If you did CC it would just teach her to keep going (crying) until sheer exhaustion causes her to give up. It's not actually teaching healthy sleep habits. Likewise shushing and patting is a lot of activity, it's noise and active movement, which isn't conducive to still and silent.
So you might need to be quite hands-on to physically teach her the practicalities of how to go to sleep.
It would be a good idea to routine the times of her naps at this age. Say 9am and 1pm. At sleep time make sure she's not hungry and has had a drink.
Put her in a cot and place your hand quite firmly on her chest/back. Spread your fingers wide to cover a big area on her body. The hand wants to be quite firm. Not pushing downwards but not gently laying there either. The idea is that she can feel the weight of your hand (your presence) even with her eyes closed when she goes to sleep.
Don't move the hand around, just hold it still. It is to reiterate the needs to lie down and be still in order to sleep. If having an especially wriggly day and legs are kicking too, it might need your send hand firmly over her hips/thighs too.
Lots of eye contact throughout. Positive, caring 'I'm here for you, I love you' look on your face throughout.
If baby then gets distressed, make eye contact, get baby looking at you. Lift and drop the fingers on your hand if needed, maybe a long, low, shhhhhhhhhhhh note. But mostly do it with eye contact. Anything things like "it's ok, mummy is here" is ok too. But these are all just while distressed.
The idea is that you use positive body language and physically holding baby to teach baby that luring still and quiet in her cot is ok. It may take a battle for the first few days, but she can and should learn this fairly easily.
Then keep the firm hand on her chest as she goes to sleep, stay still and silent, but positive and caring eye contact. Stay right through until she is asleep and then sneek out ninja style.
The mistake some parents make is sneeking out once the child relaxed and closes eyes, but before asleep. All this does is teach te child that they bed to not relax and close their eyes, because then you go away. If you always stay until asleep, you stop the baby's battle to stay awake.
Then, and this is longer term, work on reducing her dependence on your presence. So start lifting your hand but staying standing by the cot until asleep. Then lifting hand and waiting a step away from cot until asleep. And so on. But these are things for further down the line, when the basic skills of going to sleep are established.