Getting 11 month old to fall asleep alone

[Flamingo84]

My 11 month old is a great sleeper. He goes off at about 7.30pm and wakes between 6-7am. Once he’s off he’ll sleep through with maybe one little stir in the night.

However, he needs to be rocked in my arms to fall asleep. This wasn’t so bad when he was little but he’s getting pretty heavy. I really want to get him to drop off in his cot but if I put him down awake, he instantly rolls onto his hands and knees and crawls around. He will not even lie down let alone drift off. I’ve tried putting him down when he’s in the half asleep stage but he rolls over rubs his eyes and starts crawling around.

I’m having visions of still rocking him to sleep when he’s in high school! Does anyone have any tips/recommendations?

Mine does this, but if you leave him will he cry? And by cry, I mean cry a lot?? If not, let him crawl around a bit/play with comforter etc and then he might settle himself after you've left.

It depends on his mood. Sometimes he’ll do a screechy attention cry. Most of the time he’ll drag his dummy along the cot bars like a prisoner, throw it on the floor, stand up, bounce around, babble loudly or laugh. He can keep it up for ages too!

He’s had a short nap this morning and we’re going out later so I might try letting himself settle for his afternoon nap. Hopefully he’ll be extra tired and might give up and lie down!

Mine DS did this - we rocked him to sleep up until he just got too heavy (by around 8 months I think). When we changed to just putting him in his cot awake, he used to climb around. Eventually he got the hang of it, and when he was tired enough he’d lie down and fall asleep. We did need to make his bedtime a bit later though, and have more quiet calm time reading and talking in his room before bed.
When his language improved, we did say ‘lie down and we can sing a song’, and that worked (still does at 2.5). It’s not forever (sadly).