5month old stirring several times through the night

[Yellow19]

Hi,

My little boy is 5months and is now sleeping pretty well during the night, with only 1 night feed. However, to get to this we started holding his hand when he is unsettled which is often a few times a night. Basically when he stirs we hold his hand and he settles back to sleep. This is fine at the moment as he is in a bedside crib so I can just hold hand and go back to sleep but i would like to break the habit in preparation for moving him into his own room… I don’t want to end unless sitting on his bedroom floor for hours during the night! I have tried just stopping but if I don’t settle him he just fully wakes up.

Any help with how to get him to settle himself would be much appreciated!

Thanks!

To wean off just start letting go of his hand as soon as he's calm, don't hold it while he's calm and asleep. He will calm down before he's actually asleep, so go to sleep without you. The more he develops the quicker/easier he will calm before going to sleep - so you then are just needed when he's upset, rather than to go to sleep.

Thank you, I will try that!

Does he have a blanket or a soft toy that you could hold together and then you let go? That was he can get used to having something else in his hand?

Perhaps try a white noise machine that automatically activates when he stirs. It's not the same but if you use that alongside the handholding for now, it might be that you can wean him off the hand holding and continue with the soothing white noise once he changes rooms.