Experiences teaching toddler to self settle

[Keha]

DD is 15 months, always fed/rocked/cuddled to sleep. At the start of the night we put her in the cot asleep, she will sleep for a good few hours, wakes in the night, bring her into bed with me, back asleep till morning. This has worked pretty well, and whilst she's not a perfect self settling, 7-7 kind of gal, we thought if it ain't broke don't fix it.

In the last few weeks she has stopped feeding to sleep (still BF). We now have to rock, pat, cuddle holding her all the time. She is tired, will point at her cot and if we put her down and say "sleep time", will lie down and close her eyes...for about 10 seconds. Then will wiggle and flip around and get up and start playing.

We can get her to sleep in our arms, once asleep she stays asleep for a few hours. I think she wants to go to sleep and wants to be in the cot.

How do we join the dots? We've tried waiting till she's quite sleepy to put her down but unless she's fully asleep she just wakes up and gets excited.

We're having a very similar experience. 14 month old who was previously put down asleep is now being put down drowsy, we say good night and shut the door. We'll go back in if she gets really upset but most of the time she'll have a whinge, have a little chat to herself and then go to sleep herself. After we realised that us staying in winds her up more, we started letting her self settle. I was surprised at how quickly she took to it.

There may be a battle to get her to go to sleep in the cot. How do you feel about that? She may well cry and fight against it, but to teach her you'll need to insist.

If this doesn't fit with your parenting style, it might be better to move to more longer term cosleeping. So feed/cuddle her to sleep on your bed, then leave her there.

Hiya, thanks for your replies. @FATEdestiny, to be honest the rocking to sleep and putting her in the cot isn't the end of the world and she often stays asleep for 4-5 hours. However, I'm not sure how easily we'll rock her to sleep as she gets heavier. I sometimes feed her to sleep in our bed then move her to the cot so she is safe. I don't mind doing this for now. What I don't understand is how people who do this ever get them to go to sleep by themselves? What age can I teach that without a battle, or will it always be a battle so might as well do it now?

@Waitwhat23 how long does she take to go to sleep? I do sometimes put her in the cot and leave her but she just seems to get giddy. Did you do anything to build up to this?

It's routine - do the same thing every time
So feed, put in cot, read a story/sing a song etc, then say night-night and leave. Wait outside, let her flip around for a bit and as long as she isn't getting upset don't worry. If she starts showing signs of getting upset, go back in, lie her back down and tell her it's sleep time and leave again. And repeat. Regardless of whether it's bedtime or the middle of the night.

By the way - some don't need to learn to self settle. My first was a nightmare - didn't need much sleep at all. My second, right from new born, I would just put her in the cot and she would be asleep in seconds. Flatly refused a dummy, never had a comforter. I couldn't believe it!

@Seeline has put it brilliantly - it boils down to stick to a routine for day naps and night time sleep and lay him or her down with a phrase (we use 'it's time to sleep now) if they are getting upset. An exception to that if it's a daytime nap and she just keeps getting really upset - we just get her up and try again later.

It very much depends for my wee one how long it takes - sometimes she drinks her milk, lies down and is asleep in 2 minutes. Other times she'll lie there chatting to herself for ages!

At that age we switched to a 'normal' bed, worked fantastic. DS loved the extra space