rocking to sleep

[littlestrawby]

I'm stuck in a cycle of rocking my 5mo DD to sleep. We have a good routine and she has a decent wind down period before sleep. Nap and bedtimes are well timed so she is tired but not too tired, I try to follow tiredness cues etc etc...but she just cannot get sleepy without being rocked!! If i leave her she just gets over--tired and then its even more difficult to get her to sleep. It's got far worse since 12 weeks when her regression kicked in (early :()
i'm getting desperate because
a) i'm wondering will she ever sleep for more than 1.5-2 hours in one go at night?! TIRED.
and b) i'm going away for a hen do weekend at the end of June and i'm panicking about my husband managing this (he's a fabulous daddy but gets very hot and bothered after a few mins of rocking!).
Any tips for how to wean off this and encourage DD to get herself off to sleep?! I'm not keen on crying out/controlled crying...

I remember rocking my 9 month old - more like swinging to be honest - and being frantic about how to fix it as I was doing my back in.

I think I very gradually changed it by swinging until nearly asleep then sitting in the chair and rocking until asleep. I spent less time swinging until I could sit straight down and rock in the chair. Then I moved on to just gentle bobbing/bottom patting. Eventually I got to the stage I could put her in the cot and stroke her face to sleep but I think she was a fair amount older.

Your baby will eventually sleep longer I promise. I have an almost 11 month old who went through a stage of waking every 45/90 minutes all night. Just when you think you can’t do it any more a little change happens and that change gives you just a touch more energy to keep going.

It sounds twee and not much help when you are exhausted but one day you will put your child to bed and they will just sleep. This won’t go on forever

I had this with dd.
We did gradual retreat but I couldn’t get it to stick before 8 months.
I started by just holding her, rocking if she became upset but stopping as soon as she calmed.
Then I would hold her still until she was asleep.
This moved on to holding her until she was almost off and putting her down on her side with my hands down her front and on her thigh. (She still puts her hand up my sleeve when she is sleepy)
Then I put her into bed awake and help her in the same position.
This moved onto one hand on her chest.
Then sitting next to the bed.
Then leaving her to it.

The problem I find, is that I think I have it sussed and then something comes along and changes it; she is poorly, teething, going through a leap or anxious.
We have just (at 19m) gone through a phase of having to be held again, after months of independent sleeping.

Other practical stuff - I introduced white noise and it made an enormous difference. We ended up buying a myhummy which we use for every nap and her nighttime sleep. She also uses a dummy.

Our sleep cues are - I give her the dummy, zip her into her sleeping bag, pop myhummy on and give her a fluffy rabbit to hold. We then sit in the chair and she falls asleep within max 5 minutes.

passmethecrisps thank you! I read so many things about how if the baby has sleep associations (such as rocking) that they need to get to sleep then they'll never learn to sleep longer than 2 hours at a time as they can't get to sleep again between cycles! I've tried several times to gradually reduce the rocking but I think I fall down at the consistency - things keep getting in the way such as colds, teething, wind pain, hot nights etc which make me feel cruel denying her her comfort rocking. :( Think I need to just bite the bullet and force myself to stick with a plan...

winky thank you for your help! sounds like a great plan and something I need to stick at. I just posted exactly the same to passmethecrisps about things getting in the way such as illness etc just when you start to see progress! I think I might just have to get DH to suck it up while i'm away as it doesn't sound like there is a quick fix...

I tried at 5m and 7m and just couldn’t get it to work. Dd got so upset and I felt utterly terrible.
I got such a shock when it worked so easily at 8months and she slept through very quickly after I got her used to going to sleep in her cot. I just don’t think that she was ready before.

I’ve just decided not to let myself get too stressed when we go through a bad patch and to remind myself that it’s what is needed now and will pass, just like the other stuff.
I have had a lot of threads about sleep on here though!! It’s so hard and always feels like you’re doing something wrong.

He will just need to. Or find his own way.

I remember thinking that every time I had it cracked something would happen and I would need to change method again. Hence finding myself standing at her bedroom doorway with my back to the room singing twinkle twinkle endlessly while drinking wine and browsing MN. That stage passed as well.

With dd2 I am trying to be more pragmatic about it. It would be great if we could all just plop babies to bed and they fall asleep but many need more than that and sleep is critical to you all at this early stage. The way I see it is that they have many years to learn independence- it’s fine to help them a bit and you can gradually work out a plan which moves you forward.

winky you're quite right about this just being what our little ones need and they have to be ready. I would happily rock her forever (or as long as she needed it) if it wasn't for the pressure of this upcoming trip away and the thought of her getting heavier and heavier...as you say, must remember it is just a phase and this too shall pass...

passmethecrumbs hehe!!! love the image of you at the doorway with a bottle glass of wine singing lullabies! yes you're right, DD has her whole life to learn to get herself off to sleep, and I will probably look back at this precious time and wish I had just enjoyed the cuddles at bedtime!

Having said that - a bit of a miracle just now. I had just lay down DD in her crib for her usual little light show and then book before rocking to sleep...and she just closed her eyes and drifted off!!! I was flabbergasted! now racking my brains to work out exactly what we did in the run up to nap so I can replicate it exactly next time no doubt it was a complete one off!!

thank you ladies for your lovely helpful comments :)

If you work it out, let us know!!!

We have a 4.5month old who needs rocking and doesn’t sleep for much more than 2 hours...but it’s always changing. Last night he slept for just over 3 hours in one stretch, twice, it was glorious.

He will occasionally fall to sleep when lying down. We shush him as we rock, and sometimes if very dozy the shushing works alone. Hand on stomach also.

He is an absolute chunk - wearing 6-9month clothes already and we are knackering ourselves. But he’s showing signs that other options are/will be available so I’m not stressing. I did somewhat want to brain my mil who helpfully suggested we should just ‘put him down’ and by rocking him we’ve created dependence. Sure, I’ll do that next time I want a crying vomity baby.

Do you track feeds and naps little? I do and was rigorous about it with DD1. If we ever had a really good night or something just worked well I would spend ages staring at the graph trying to work out what the magic formula was. I never found it sadly!

I hope you have a peaceful night

It is so annoying reet. How can it be a bad thing for tiny little babies to be dependant?

I heard someone recently ‘blame’ the hospital for insisting on skin to skin saying that it ‘set a poor tone’

oh my goodness - to argue that skin to skin is a bad thing is actually a really worrying precedent!!

reet - I've had similar suggestions to just 'put her down' yes thank you that normally results in a tantrum!!

I did have a really strict schedule pass - for about 4 weeks I'd say I was very regimented with fees and naps. The problem is things got progressively worse at night during that time, and I also struggled to stick to it unless I stayed in the house all the time and had no life!! so I'm trying to be a bit more relaxed about it now and stick to a loose schedule that is flexible around DD's needs, which i guess are constantly changing at this stage anyway.

Had an interesting development though at bedtime today - DD was crying a fair bit when trying to rock her so I just stopped rocking and swayed a bit, singing her favourite song (edelweiss from som!). I thought I'd just try putting her down awake once she'd calmed down (ever hopeful!!) and she looked up at me, closed her eyes and went to sleep!!! I was trying for weeks and weeks previously to 'train' her to achieve the infinite 'awake but drowsy' state about 1.5 months ago but she just wasn't ready and would cry if I put her down before she was fully gone. So this has given me renewed vigour to just follow her needs and hope that gradually she will wean herself off the rocking!! We shall see...

Basically just stopped working for DS about a month ago (he's now 10 mo)

He now has milk, arses around sitting up and chatting in his cot for a bit, quick pick up and cuddle then lie down and goes to sleep, with varying amounts of shush and pat.

if i do it

if his dad tries, well, it doesn't usually go well for various reasons

But I'm still up several times each night, although the 'feeds' are barely more than latch on, suck, sleep now

ANd as for the 2 hour thing- given a baby sleep cycle is 45 minutes, that's absolute BOBBINS!

My son is 12 weeks and he catnaps through the day and is so crabbit cos he's only sleeping 30 mins. But even then we need to hold him tight and bounce him to sleep and he kicks and screams til he sleeps then we do it again. At night time though once he's asleep he sleeps through the night. I don't know how to stop this, we use white noise and a dummy but we try to get him to sleep 9n his own he just screams due to being so tired.. Sorry for railroading your post lol but any advice?

little edelweiss was one of dds favourites too until recently. Now she likes to shout ‘baaa baaaa’ as a way to keep herself awake as she’s dropping off and says ‘no’ if I attempt any songs other than that.

reece my dd only napped on me up until she was 5 months. So no advice really. Lots of advice on here says to put baby in the bouncer and keep going as a way to extend naps.

It’s amazing that your lo is sleeping through at night though.

Hi all,
I've posted a large comment about my DD in the below thread.

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/sleep/1394888-What-worked-for-us-Hope-this-helps?pg=32&messages=25

Feel free to follow.

My only comfort at the moment is that I am not alone and that many many of us parents out there have had to try something to break the cycle.

thank you so much for posting that link cooper! Something for me to try when she is a bit older :) hope you're getting on ok xx