how did you stop rocking them to sleep without doing Controlled Crying?

[pevie]

My DD2 is now 9 mths and has been more or less rocked to sleep since birth although we did try various other methods. For a while she was in a hammock baby nest thing and so we moved her in that which helped. For a little while we did let her cry a bit (at about 6 mths) and she did start putting herself to sleep at bedtime after just a little moan although she still didnt do this when she woke in the night. However she started crying more and more again at bedtime and cos she has had reflux type symptoms we started picking her up and rocking again. We did try full blown CC one night but it was too hideous and we gave in. She is now obviously getting a lot heavier and my bones and muscles ache so I would really like to stop rocking her. Is the best way to put her down and stay with her do you think or get DH to go in? She is still bf in night which I would also like to stop. DD1 was never rocked to sleep so we didnt have these problems. Any experiences?

We did the 'gradual retreat method' to go from bf to sleep to going to sleep on own and 'gradual reduction' to stop bf at night altogether. It took quite a while but was well worth it in the end and did not involve a huge amount of crying (20mins was the longest) and he was never left alone to cry.

The HV lent me a book called 'Teach your child to sleep' published by Hamlyn and written by the Millpond Clinic. It had lots of suggestions and we picked the one we liked the best.

Anyway. It went something like this...

First three nights instead of rock to sleep we held to sleep, then I led next to him on a mattress on the floor in his room until he fell asleep cos we could not make the transition to the cot, then into cot where I held him / comforted him the best i could, then stroked his back and ssshed him, then put my hand on him , then sat by him, then sat a little way away, then at the back of the room, then just outside the door with door open, then just outside the door with door ajar and now in another room! Each transition took between 3 and 7 days and we would (and still do) take a step back if he was ill, teething, away from home, etc. We had a large blip when I went back to work but sorted it out eventually. He is now pretty consistent in 11 hours a night and will usually go back to sleep if he wakes at night with a ssshhh and a back rub.

To give up bf I lengthed the time between feeds by 15 minutes every 2 days and usually used the method to get him back to sleep that we had been using successfully before rather than the method we were learning to get him to sleep in the evening. He was eating well in the day and once we had stopped the bf to sleep in the evening I realised it was not that he needed bf but just that was the only way he knew how to fall asleep. If I had felt he was genuinely still hungry I would have waited a little while whilst increasing the day time food but he did this naturally.

I am sooooo glad I used this method but it does take a long while.

Thanks lorisparkle. I thought it would be some sort of gradual retreat method but hadnt really seen one we were entirely happy with. Will definately try and get this book. It really bothers me that the only advice HVs give is CC and it just isnt feasible for some LOs. DD1 was really easy to fix sleep problems but DD2 with possible reflux, etc. we really dont want to have to do that!!!!

just waited for him to grow out of needing it. If you use a sling (ring sling type eg huggababy) it saves your arms - I used to sit against the wall on my bed and read a book - quite a nice time of day really

I had the same problem after my DS had a bad cold - would only fall asleep when rocked and then lost the ability to self-soothe so was waking a lot during the night. I also didn't want to do CC so used pick up / put down from the Baby Whisperer - worked fantastically, within about 3 nights he was back to normal.

See here - www.babywhisperer.com/smf/index.php?board=89.0

It just happened with DD (took a while but I slightly miss it now).

What age was your DS when you did pick up put down? Also wonder if some of these techniques work better when Lo has had good habits and lost them. This happended with DD1 when she had sickness bug and wouldnt settle for month or so, as soon as we tackled it it sorted itself. However, DD2 has NEVER had good habits as she has been so unsettled. Did these techniques work with babies who were hideous from outset? What about yours lorisparkle?

My LO was always a terrible day time sleeper and although slept well at night it was a nightmare to get him to sleep. He stopped sleeping at night and became worse in the day at 4 months. I accepted it until he was about 9 months old then decided I had to do something as he was waking up every 1 to 2 hours. He had never learnt how to self settle and was never one of those magical babies who just fell asleep (I did not believe that babies do that until I saw a friends baby do it!) Even now he struggles with the transition from asleep to awake but he learnt the awake to asleep transistion gradually.

Have to say we adapted the method we read in the book as it was hard to go from holding to sleep to in the cot to sleep. I never really thought he would do it but we got there in the end. We also were much more flexble with timings and followed his lead and what was going on at the time.

We were very lucky with our HV - one suggested co-sleeping the other gave us the book - fab! It does frustrate me that lots of the books/magazines that you get present CC as the only way to tackle sleep problems.

Thanks lorisparkle. Our LO also is uncomfortable and has reflux so really need gentl method. Where did you get book?

another vote for Baby whisperer pick up put down here. We rocked/fed ds to sleep until he was 9 months and got too heavy and wriggly. PUPD took one night (truly, just one night, I was gutted that I'd offered to do the first night as it meant dh got away scot-free) getting him to sleep took an hour nad a half of pupd, the night time waking took 45 mins and the next day's nap took about 40 mins. Following night he went straight to sleep. He's now 21 months and almost always gets himself straight off to sleep.
Only trouble we had was then finding a way of not having to sit in the room while he fell asleep so ended up using hte disappearing chair method.

You can find info about the book here...

www.mill-pond.co.uk/p/millpond-book

and also the website give more information. We only borrowed the book but I would have bought it if I had of known about it.

I put DS in the cot and put the hair dryer on. Not ideal, but it worked a treat and didn't take long for him to clock that cot meant sleep.

We did a sort of gradual retreat thing after dd started waking in the night at about 7 months - had been quite happy feeding her to sleep, but she stopped that of her own accord, and when she woke in the night we were often up for 3 hours with her - feeding didn't settle her (and lord knows I tried!). So we did something similar to what lorisparkle mentioned, cobbled a bit from Elizabeth Pantley's No Cry Sleep Solution, and dd seemed to really like it. During blips you have to go back a few steps, or change what you do a little, but it was good for all of us.

shoppingbagsundereyes - what do you mean by the disapearing chair method?