Self Settling - Advice?

[winnerwinnertofudinner]

I'm a recent FTM to a little girl, currently 8.5 months old. She was a fantastic sleeper until 6 months when she started teething on an epic scale (6 teeth through in the space of around 6 weeks!) and everything got a bit disrupted. During that period, we were having a lot of night waking, and got into a habit of feeding and rocking to sooth her. We put her down drowsy but awake, but she still needs rocking first otherwise she will just cry and flail once placed in the crib. She doesn't always need much soothing, but 75th centile and getting heavy fast - I'm not sure how much longer my back and knees can take it!

I have no idea how we get to a place where we can lay her down and not have to go through this routine of rocking and shushing before she's able to get herself to sleep! I'm not keen on CIO methods, and I'm not sure they'd work for us, as she just gets increasingly upset the longer she's left alone. Basically, I'd love to know if any more experienced mamas have any wisdom they can share that may help! Is there an age they get better at self-settling? Or a routine or method that might help??

Babies need support to sleep, some more than others. Self settling is developmental, not taught. Some kids do it when a few months, others need support for years.
Habit stacking can help move away from feeding to sleep, or reduce rocking and use more patting etc.

Thanks. She did used to self-settle before 6 months, she would be placed in the crib fully awake and would take a dummy and settle herself. But ever since the teeth started coming through she's wanted nothing to do with the dummy, and rocking has been the only thing to work so far. We have started to habit stack, we now rock, shush, and then pat her once we lay her down, and are trying to shorten the rocking. I guess we'll just continue with this! I'm just baffled that it's taking so much effort to get her sleep now.