Holding hands to settle - progress?!

[FebMama]

DS2 is just shy of 10 months old. He's been waking very regularly during the night for near enough 7 weeks now.

Whereas before I would have to pick him up to soothe him, I then managed to get to a point where I just needed to tap his bum back to sleep. Now, we are at a point where he simply just needs a hand hold for a few minutes during every wake up. Whilst in some ways this is progress, how can I work on gradually moving away from this?

He's been down since 7.10pm and we are already on 4 wake ups tonight already 😓

In terms of self settling, he goes down wide awake in his cot for all naps and night sleep. I simply say night night and walk out of the room and he does the rest himself with no tears whatsoever. Help please!!!

Anyone? Whilst settling him is relatively quick and painless, the frequency isn't. We are currently on wake up 7 of the night 😭😭

A soft toy

@FebMama a rubber glove filled with sand often works

How quickly are you going to him when he wakes up? If you leave him would he resettle? Have you considered a monitor where you could talk to him without going in? It's really difficult when you are all becoming light sleepers and easily woken

@Mirrormeback he has a comforter but doesn't seem to be having much of an impact.

@Badgrief I could try leaving it a few minutes. Where I've done this in the past, he's escalated in terms of distress and it's always harder to settle him when he gets worked up. Also he's woken up DS1 a few times! So admittedly I have been going in to resettle him pretty quickly when he's in a whingey phase before he gets really worked up to avoid a harder time of it.

If your monitor has a walkie talkie function I would begin to transition from hand holding to shushing in the room (take his hand at the start, as he settles let go and shush etc) and then after a while you can try to shush from the monitor before you enter the room.

That's what we did, and now he will usually go back down with a few mins of shushing, but sometimes needs a hand hold still.

@reabies thank you so much.

LO went to sleep at 7pm yesterday (in cot for 6.45pm). He woke up at 10.20pm and whinged a bit but left him as he wasn't crying. After 10 mins he did cry so I then spoke to him through the monitor. He eventually lay in his cot for around 40 mins, not crying, just shuffling about and then fell back to sleep himself!!!

I had to go in and wake him at 7.00am this morning which for the first time in almost 8 weeks feels absolutely MAGIC 🤩

How did you manage to get to bum tapping?! I can’t move past having to rock back to sleep!

Is it just too early for him to go to sleep? Mine always slept til 7ish but went to bed around 8.30ish.

@SunnyDazeYellowMaze lots of perseverance and some tears! Just kept verbally reassuring or saying shhhhh shhhhh continuously and suddenly it clicked.

@Gemstonebeach I don't think it's too early for him. He's up by 2.45pm in the afternoon as we have to do pick up for DS1 at 3pm so from 2.45pm he's absolutely knackered come 6.30/7pm!