How, HOW did you get your baby to self-settle? Please help :(

[Regressionisreal]

I'm having a bad day. Tried to put DS (nearly 6 months) down for his second nap of the day, in his cot, but couldn't settle him. It wound up with me downstairs crying and him upstairs (safely in his cot) shouting. I'm very lucky that DH works from home, and he quickly went upstairs to settle him (and managed it in 10 minutes).

I briefly felt at my wits end, which is stupid as DS is a beautiful, happy, healthy boy who doesn't have awful broken sleep generally.

The thing is he will only fall asleep while feeding, while being swayed or in the buggy. Before people chorus "he's still only little, he's too young for sleep training, he needs comfort from his mum and food etc etc", the trouble is that feeding doesn't always work and he's just too big for me to sway anymore. He's 98th centile and was nearly 10kg when last weighed about a month ago so probs over that now. And I can't be bumping him around the park in the middle of a heatwave twice a day.

I desperately need him to learn to self-settle. Very occasionally he's briefly half woken up when I put him down post feed, but if I quickly get in with 10 minutes of stroking the bridge of his nose he'll eventually conk out again. That's the closest we've got to self-settling, and it's still with me helping him. And I can't do that when he's properly awake - he just thrashes his head back and forth and tries to eat my hand!

Last night I tried drumming my hand against his cot to the rhythm of his heartbeat white noise and he was calm and quiet for about 20 mins then started indignantly shouting! So picked him up. Settling at night is also an issue but that's been the subject of a whole other post..

He's very alerted and interested in everything. Turn his head at the slightest noise, will stare at even the most boring objects (radiators, door handles) with intense interest rather than close his eyes! He doesn't hate his cot though - I can kinda tell he's shouting not because he wants to be picked up, but because he simply doesn't know what to do to get to sleep once he's in his cot.

Please - any tips? Did you babies just one day start being able to fall asleep without help? Or did you sleep train? If so, what technique did you use? I could never do CIO. I like the sound of Lucy Wolfe's approach - has anyone tried it?

Does he have any kind of comforter? Mine at about that age would suck on a muslin square and rub it on his face. He never had a dummy but he absolutely associated those muslin squares with sleep time and comfort.

I know it sucks when you’re in the moment but it goes by pretty fast. I think 6 months is still a bit little. My first self settled by herself at around a year and my second is starting now at 9 months. We’ve made a big double cot so that we can lie with him. He has his bottle/breastfeed in our bed with in the night garden on then we take him through to his bed, put him down and now I just sit and ignore him and he rolls around a little, then falls asleep. When he does this for a few weeks I’ll start sitting outside the cot then eventually will just potter about in his room then leave. It’s a slow process but unless your willing to try controlled crying it’s pretty much a case of waiting till their ready. Plus there is a big sleep regression around 8 months that will throw it all back up in the air again so you might as well wait till that’s passed! Hang in there, do whatever is easiest for you but know that it will get better.

Might have worked out OK for you, but this is bad advice, as anything in the cot with the baby is a suffocation risk til 12m.

OP, we did CC when our DD was a bit bigger than yours, worked in one night and then she slept through too.

I think some babies are just happier to self settle. My second was always happy to be put down with a dummy and suck himself to sleep on his own. My first was fed to sleep and then we did a bit of controlled crying around 6/7 months to teach him to settle himself (also with dummy).

If he likes to be swayed, will he lie on you whilst you rock in a chair?

Did controlled crying for falling asleep at night time and once we did that then falling asleep alone for naps was no problem either. Only took one night.

Yes we did sleep training at that age so worked on self settling at night and for day naps simultaneously. Went with a sleep training consultant who gave us a plan but was essentially a gradual retreat method like Lucy Wolfe. The nap self settling took time but you will get there. I would just set a limit of time I would try and if it didn't work would head out in the pram/something else so I didn't get too stressed. Might want to look up Shush/Pat as a way to self settle without milk. Good luck

@Skinnermarink @MolliciousIntent So I gave him one of those little fabric comforter things for a few nights a few weeks ago. Not too worried about the suffocation risk at this stage - he shuffles around a fair bit when he’s asleep and I think is big and mobile enough now to wake up and knock it away from his face if it ended up there. All he seemed to do with it was wave it around his head in the cot, but may I’ll give it another go, see if I can make it something he associates with sleep.

@OhImVisiblyOver25 Thank you - that’s really reassuring to know that he might just grow into self settling in a few weeks time. I seem to be surrounded by mums in my NCT group with sleepy babies. I asked one the other day how she settles her baby back to sleep when she wakes in the night for a feed and she said “I just put her down”. 🙄

@OhImVisiblyOver25 - typo / wishful thinking. A few months time, not weeks!

Advice about the comforter I slept with it for a night so it smelt like me before introducing it the second night and spent the naps that day placing it near him so he nodded off with it or woke up with it there- it might have just been a fluke but it worked and hadn’t previously

We did gradual retreat at around 6 mi this for both. Don't agree with pp about 8 month sleep regression - both of mine had learnt to self settle by then so it never happened. Good luck with whatever you decide to do.

Controlled crying is sounding very appealing - amazing how quickly it works! I really want the Lucy Wolfe gradual retreat approach to work, but will have controlled crying up our sleeves to try if not.

Feeling much calmer now after getting out of the house this afternoon to meet a friend for coffee. Though the planned nap on the walk home didn’t work…

Despite being sleepy, DS got so excited by the trees when we left the cafe that he gave himself hiccups, I then helped him get rid of them when we got home with a feed. He then did a massive poo. Once he was changed I tried feeding to sleep again but by that point he was so relieved at having done the poo/ excited by who knows what, that he was literally bouncing sideways on me on the sofa while feeding, ignoring the white noise and my ssshing and stroking. So I gave up and we played until he started shouting at his toys and then he finally went down for a buggy nap at 5.30pm. Just in time to totally screw up bed time. 👍

I should wake him up shouldn’t I? But I spent nearly all day trying to get him to sleep! WWYD?!

We never really did any kind of training. I just let her contact nap and do what she needed and eventually she just did it on her own. Same with night sleeping.

I know it's very trendy to talk about self-settling like it's some sort of milestone that must be achieved or you are failing at parenting, but kids get there in their own time if you just leave them to it. Sometimes it's easier to accept that's just the way things are than constantly be trying to 'fix' normal behaviour.

DD contact napped for a while, stopped needing that, coslept for a while, stopped needing that, without any stress or need for sleep training.

If it's making you both stressed and crying then do whatever works without hassle 🤷‍♀️ I wish I'd done that more with DD1 tbh than being taken in by all the guff about 'rods for your own back'.

@Readytogogogo That’s interesting to know - thanks. I’m not sure I want to or physically can wait until 9 months to try something other than feeding or swaying, so may give it a go when we’re back from holiday in a few weeks time, so he’ll be 6.5 months.

@LoHD Good tip - thanks! Will sleep with it tonight.

@Hugasauras I probably needed to hear this too, thank you. Just as I think I’ve got the measure of him he mixes it up again too - just growing and changing so quickly. So I need to remember that everything is a phase and, as you say, he’ll get there eventually.

@Regressionisreal i know this is an old post but I'm in the exact same position with my chunky 98th centile6 6 month old son. Did you ever get him to self settle at 6 months, and however it turned out...what happened please?

Ah I'm sorry to hear that @PixieMother ! It was a frustrating time. You won't want to hear this right now, but I did struggle with naps for a while longer. My DH would usually walk / sway him until he got bored and fell asleep, then put him down. For a long time I could only feed him to sleep, but then would struggle to transfer him to the cot - he'd always wake up. So DH would put him down for a long morning nap before work, and I'd do a feeding sleep for 40 mins in the afternoon - totally the "wrong" way round but it got us through!

We ended up doing Ferber (controlled crying) at around 13 months and GOD I wish we had done it earlier! Not loads earlier (when I look back, 6 months was still so little to expect him to know what to do on his own), but maybe around 8-9 months. The first time we did it he was asleep after 12 minutes (left him for 3, went back to comfort, left him for 5, comforted, then he was asleep after 2 more minutes). He has always been a very alert and curious little boy, and was trying to communicate from a young age (he's now a very very chatty nearly 3 year old!). In hindsight I think that he needed us to leave the room so he could be bored, realise there was no-one to interact with anymore, and just accept his tiredness and sleep.

I was so scared of leaving him to cry for any amount of time, but a lot of that was first-time mum fear of the unknown, fear of him holding it against me etc.. He's the most well-attached, happy little boy though. I was also afraid of doing anything "wrong" or different to what the books / internet said. "Gentle" methods like stroking his nose or hair didn't work. Even now I get told "Mummy, get off my head." Gradual retreat (Lucy Wolfe) helped a little but if we were there, he would try to "talk" to us. It worked wonders with a friend's 2 children though, so worth a go if you haven't tried it already.

I'm now pregnant with number 2 and next time will try to ignore all the noise around baby sleep - sod wake windows and self-settling and what they "should" be doing. I'll probably also feed in him my bed, try to roll away when he's asleep and just leave him there (with a monitor) for naps, rather than fight to get him into the cot. I'll also do Ferber much earlier, if needed.

It's so hard to believe this in the moment, but they all get there, in their own time and in their own ways... All you can do for now is do a bit of trial and error of different things, being as responsive to what baby might need as possible, but mainly focus on doing whatever keeps you a calm and happy mum. I promise this will pass :)

Sorry to not have a concrete "fix", but I hope that helps x

@Regressionisreal thank you for taking the time for such a great reply and for being so compassionate. It is very much appreciated. I'll certainly take a look at what you've recommended and keep it all in mind too. Congratulations on baby No. 2 too. What an exciting time for you. My son sounds very similar to yours! Thanks again