Help! Teaching baby to self settle

[Rapunzel91]

Hi, in need of some comforting words/guidance/mums in the same position. My lg is 6 months old and her sleep has been awful since day 1. I've got the Lucy Wolfe the baby sleep solution book and I'm in the beginning of implementing it but struggling so much!
I started on Tuesday and her sleep has just gotten worse, I was up at 10 min intervals at one point in the night last night. Bed time tonight's also been bad. I had to wake her at 5 as she was still sleeping and tried to put her to bed at 7. Fell asleep for 10 mins, I walked down the stairs and I hear her giggling away😫 tried again and she nearly fell asleep only to suddenly be wide awake and by that point I had tried to get her to sleep for 1.5 hours. She didnt cry much just seemed unable to fall asleep. I left her with my oh as I was in tears from exhaustion and I think she might just have fallen asleep.

I was really confident in the method after hearing so many great things but her sleep has just gotten so much worse, will it actually get better? I'm not even getting 1 hour uninterrupted sleep so I'm so desperate for something to work.

If she's not crying, if she's just giggling to herself just leave her in her cot?

What would happen if you just left her in the cot if she’s happy and giggling? Would she eventually cry? DS often wakes up in the night and unless he sounds upset or uncomfortable I just leave him and more often that not he will fall back to sleep. Sometimes this happens several times a night. What are you doing to get her back to sleep?

Don't go back if she's not crying! Also, does she have a comfort blanket or a bear to cuddle?

I would get the Gina Ford book, your lo is probably having too much day time sleep which is messing up her night time sleep.

I think you’ll have to find what works for your baby. Well-intentioned people told me to try all sorts of things, from bath before bedtime (tried not to rip their head off) to sleep consultant packages costing £180+

Six months was the hardest point for us and co-sleeping was the only way I survived. More recently I camped in her bedroom while she learned to self settle. She now says goodnight to her teddies and happily settles to sleep for naps and bedtime. I’m sure it will all come falling apart soon.

Try not to put too much pressure on a solution to ‘fix’ her sleep. I found that’s when I was at my lowest and I felt much better when I was following her lead.

For example, she used to wake up 30 mins after going down to sleep on an evening. Wide awake and absolutely would not go to sleep again for hours. So we’d bring her downstairs and have her with us. They were actually some of the most enjoyable times with her. Then we’d go to bed together. Her sleep deprivation hasn’t affected her developmentally at all. It wasn’t worth the mental health damage of spending 2 hours of my evening re-settling a baby that didn’t want to sleep.

10mo now and honestly our life (and sleep) couldn’t be more different. It does get easier

If I leave the room when shes giggling it quickly turns to crying. My partners tried to leave her to cry t out and she just escalates and is inconsolable and I just hate it so know I cant go down that route.

Thank you @selfdoubter123 your post is really reassuring. Hoping that's the way it goes her too, it's so hard when you're sleep deprived and do more or less all work with baby and housework😴

Thanks for the advice @ducky21 but shes not getting enough sleep in the day which is impacting her night time sleep sadly. I've heard of Gina Ford but dont know what she recommends?

Get the Huckleberry app free, log your baby's sleep and it will tell you when would be a good time to put her down for a nap. She sounds undertired.

Gina Ford is highly controversial and not really to be discussed on Mumsnet IIRC. Many people would say her methods are cruel.

I would remember that a six month old baby would not biologically sleep through in most cases- that's a societal expectation and goes against their biological programming which demands that they're close to Mum, where they'll be safe, and causes them to feel distressed when separated from you. You can't really teach them to self settle as it is developmental. You can teach them not to bother you when they wake up because they know that you don't respond to their needs at night, but that's not the same thing. Always reminds me of the old NSPCC advert. 'Miles is a quiet baby. He has learned nobody will come whether he cries or not.'

You won’t be able to get her up when she is a teenager!

Sleep deprivation is awful. Our first didn’t sleep properly until he was 5 DS2 slept really well but was always up at 5am. DS3 and DD were a bit mixed. I ended up Co sleeping which seems to be a thing now.

Trouble is the babies don’t read the books. Someone at work raved about Gina Ford but never mentioned her when DS2 was born so I guess it didn’t work. I used to try and put them down for a regular nap in the afternoon but not let them sleep too long. She is just little yet. Is she breast fed. Mine were so fed more frequently.

I dunno, I'm not sure that self settling is the be all and end all. I spent a good 3 months trying to encourage my baby to self settle, as thats what all the books told me to do, and when I achieved it her night sleep didn't improve at all and she still woke up on a pretty much 1-2 hourly basis.

In the end I went with the flow a bit more, and things improved with time. Now, at 13 months she gets cuddled to sleep, takes about five minutes and then gets plonked in her cot where she more often than not sleeps through.

Self settling is something they do in their old time, 6 months is still so young...

I personally don't agree with sleep training and would avoid, especially this young.

*own time