Hello, I'll start with the background.
DD is 11 going on 12 months. We've always had difficulty getting her sleeping and napping regularly and for most of those 11 months she's been held and often feed to sleep. About 4-5 months ago we started sleep training, basically the 'disappearing chair' method and were having a fair amount of success (though it was hard). She was having every nap in her cot and was in it over night apart from feeds. However we rarely had sleep cycles strung together at nap time an only occasionally had naps longer than an hour (but it felt like things were going in the right direction). Then 'stuff' happened, teething, illness, traveling, christmas, etc and we slipped. After a while we ended back where we were and holding and feeding for naps and bed. We found that co-sleeping helped us all get a half decent night.
Anyway we decided to try again. Things have moved on and it's more challenging now since she bigger and stronger and can no stand up in her cot and compain louder and longer. We are having success at the moment with her in her cot and saying our 'bed time phrase' and keeping a hand or two on her. If she stands up, I'll give her a half a minute and then gently lie her down again. This is working well for naps and bedtime. She's now back in her cot for (nearly all) all naps and the first half of the night (more on that soon). When she wakes from a nap (or early in the night), I'll dash in and try settle her again with words and hands on her back, it's 50-50 at the moment if she'll go back down for the the rest of the nap. Between 11:00 and 14:00 ( but usually just before 12:00) she'll wake for a feed and we'll bring her into our bed and we'll co-sleep and (breast)feed until the morning.
I understand that whilst we are helping her to get to sleep she'll struggle to get herself to sleep an string naps together without help so...
Some questions:
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How do we move from helping to sleep for her doing herself. If we stop putting our hands on her I'm sure she'll just stand up on the crib and scream for ages... and I'm not sure that we can do that again!
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Any tips for how to deal with her standing up in the cot?
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we are relatively happy with the co-sleeping once we go to bed but can we really have the 'best of both worlds' or will it just make it hard for her to learn how to sleep in her crib?
Many thanks.