CIO alternatives?

[vgiraffe]

Have previously posted but no replies. DD (15 months) settles well for naps but at bedtime has got back into the habit of breastfeeding to sleep... this has been to a montrh or so since she randomly stopped self settling at night.

We 'sleep trained' at 8 months to stop the feed to sleep habit and at that time I suppose used CIO but she never properly cried - just whinging/tired crying. Now when we try leaving her, she seems to get more upset (not straight away but after a while) and I don't want to do CIO when she's like that. Going in and shushing her/picking her up doesn't seem to help, she just gets more upset! So any ideas on what we can try??

Is it a real problem if she feeds to sleep though? Or do you just feel pressure to stop? It’s quite natural.

I would like to stop feeding to sleep because I'm starting to find it restrictive if I want to go out in the evening, or just want DH to put her to bed! I'm also finding that now she's older, she doesn't feed to sleep as easily so I feel an alternative would be better for us both.

We were recommended the book ‘teach your child to sleep’. It has different approaches explained with step by step instructions. It also gives factual information without pushing towards one particular approach. We chose the gradual withdrawal/ gradual retreat methods as it suited our family. This involved gradually increasing times between feeds and gradually reducing the amount of support you give them to go to sleep - from feeding, to rocking, to cuddling, to lying with, to holding hands, to sitting near, to sitting further and further out of the room.