How do I get him to go to sleep on his own if he won't lie down?

[Pipnik]

At 6 months DS was self settling with a dummy but waking regularly at night when it fell out. We made the decision to get rid of it and now at 9 months are having to do the sleep training all over again.

He will lie in my arms relaxed and passive and drop off to sleep without me doing anything. However if I attempt to put him in the cot before he is asleep he just rolls over, crawls across the cot and sits up.

And sat up he stays, at first happy (usually quite a bit of standing up and bouncing) then increasingly more upset. I won't do CC but have sat with him, patted, shhushed, picked up and put down whilst he gets increasingly more upset. Whatever I do though he won't lie down himself. I have to pick him up and lie him down and finally when he is totally exhausted he practically falls asleep between the picking up and putting down and stays down.

Yesterday after 1hr 15mins he was so tired that I thought he would keel over. I tipped him sideways and he was asleep as soon as his head hit the mattress but he just won't do it on his own!!

Anyone else had this problem? Anyone got any ideas?

Might not be what you want to do, but we always cuddle DD (10 months) until she is in a light sleep before putting her down for naps and nighttime sleep. If we put her in the cot sleepy but awake she would either cry, or do what your DS does and sit up, and then crawl around!

All the books (bar Dr Sears!) will tell you that this means that they won't be able to self-settle during the night, but we have been cuddling her to sleep for months, both when she woke up several times a night (4-8 months) and now, when she often sleeps through the night, or just wakes up once a night. So I figure the cuddling to sleep isn't actually linked to her ability to self-settle in the night.

Don't feel guilty if this is what you decide to do!

Thanks Wigeon but I'm not feeling guilty. He's a very active child and the sleepy cuddles I get putting/feeding him to sleep are priceless. However he's waking regularly during the night, 4 or 5 times and I usually find him sitting in the corner of the cot crying.

I'm exhausted and going back to work at the start of June so I really need him to learn to self settle and sleep a little better.

At what point did your DD go from waking several times a night to sleeping through and how did it happen?

Gosh, 4 - 5 times a night is exhausting (said with real sympathy / empathy!). I was tearing my hair out and to be honest improving my DD's sleep became a bit of an obsession. Now we are through the worst of it, I have to say that I'm not convinced that anything we did was particularly the magic bullet, and that she just learnt to sleep through when she was ready (she started sleeping much better at 8 1/2 months or so).

You probably already know all this, and as I say I'm not convinced this is what made her sleep better (as we were doing it for weeks/ months without it making much difference) but for what it's worth, we:

• do a bedtime routine (no-nappy time downstairs, bath every other night, new nappy on, pyjamas, bedtime milk, story, say goodnight to cuddly toys, cuddle and sing the same song). I also say exactly the same words to her just before we have the cuddle to indicate it's time to go to sleep.

• bedtime is exactly the same time every night

• she doesn't get fed to sleep (which she used to)

• she has a special bedtime bear which is only associated with bedtime

• attempting to put her in her cot very very sleepy rather than fast asleep (doesn't always work!)

• naps at pretty much the same time every day, which I established by keeping a log for a while to see when her natural nap times seemed to be. Trying to get her back to sleep if she naps less than 30 mins (which I was amazed to find actually works most times).

All this strictness and I'm definitely more towards the attachment parenting end of the spectrum than the strict routine one!!

I also found this book useful in making me feel justified in our decision not to do controlled crying, and helping me pick up a few extra ideas when I felt I knew them all.

I hope this helps a bit - I totally understand why you need to get it sorted before you get back to work.