How the heck do they self settle please?

[Dalesgirl16]

My 6 month old slept in a positioner up til now to stop her slipping down the cot (as she has reflux and her bed is tilted). We have taken her out of it as she was getting a bald spot on the back of her head and now rolls out of it. She is finding it very hard to get to sleep now as she rolls about everywhere and is starting to cry when we put her in the cot as she cant self settle. So, please, if you have any tips, do share! How the heck can she self-settle? We dont want to do controlled crying.

It's a developmental milestone that they get to in their own time (sorry)

It's hard to accept when you are sleep deprived but they do just get there in their own time.

For one of my DDs that was 12 months, the other 3 years. It does pass. Just do what you can to cope, be that co-sleeping/bed in their room/controlled crying. There's too much judgment on here about the latter, just do what you can to get through it. We are finally just past that stage but it's been a long slog

With ds1 I did gradual withdrawal at 12 months. Fed to sleep prior to that.

We used a Sleepyhead at first and did find once DC was too big for it they would flail their arms around and wake themselves up. We got some rolled-up towels and put them either side of DC under the cot sheet. This meant they were less "held" but still a bit cocooned, which seemed to make them feel secure enough to settle down.

We did also do the sleepy-but-awake thing so they didn't need to rely on us to settle them if they woke up in the night. They are now 10 months and sleep 12 hours straight almost every night.

She sleeps through after a 10pm feed. It's just the getting sleepy but that is awful.

She's doing better than my 20mo 😂

You can get sleepy head type positioners for older babies if you feel this is needed?

She's doing better than my 26 month old too! We tried EVERYTHING and I've just had to accept that she's just not there yet and will do it eventually.

I was after self settle tips

Probably too late for you now but I had my baby years ago and jut assumed you put them in the cot after bath/last feed and left the room - I think times have changed and no parent seems to want to leave the room until the baby is asleep.

I was probably just extremely lucky - DS self settled from the day we got home from hospital - but we never got into the rocking/stroking/feeding to sleep routine thank God.

That's the thing Dalesgirl there aren't any. Ok, some suit in a marketing department wants your money so will sell you all kinds of nonsense books but, actually, cuddling your baby until they're ready not to need that us by far the most effective strategy

Do what you need to to get through

Great!

Here's one perspective on self settling: sarahockwell-smith.com/2016/04/25/the-real-reasons-why-you-cannot-teach-babies-to-self-soothe-to-sleep/ Basically calming yourself down when upset is a really advanced skill that doesn't develop until at least 3ish; some babies don't get upset when laid down so they can fall asleep on their own but they're not really "self-settling" because they weren't upset in the first place. You can work at helping your child feel more comfortable/sleepy on their own, so they don't get upset in the first place, but for most young children their main strategy for calming down when upset is to call for parental help!

More practically, a sleepyhead grand might be a good transitional step between a positioner and sleeping in a cot - pricey but it definitely helped our wriggle monster to settle. It's also worth thinking about light in the bedroom - trying to get a child to feel sleepy when there's daylight filtering in can be really hard, and blackout blinds (or cheap alternatives like sticking foil to the window with a water spray) can make a huge difference.

The other thing you might want to try is gradual fading: section 1 of this article has a good explanation: www.parentingscience.com/infant-sleep-training.html

Finally, remember it will get better. At 6 months I would have given anything for a child who slept through from 10pm, DS was still every 90 minutes at the time! He's still not great but vastly improved.