Can someone help me PLEASE. I want to get DD in her own cot tonight but have no idea how...

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was all geared up to bath her then bed but no idea how Im going to do this.

She has NEVER been put down in her cot, she is 10 months and she will scream.

What do I do?

And what do I do if she starts int he night too??

where does she normally sleep/

does she sleep in her cot in the day?

if not I would start with daytime naps in the cot first tbh

I wish I could help. I was just having the same converstion with DH about dd2. She is 12 months old and apart from being put in there asleep for a few hours a couple of times has never slept in her big cot. She slept in a co-sleeper cot til she outgrew it and has been in with me ever since.

My dd1 is a terrible sleeper so never have the courage to try anything with dd2 that could result in her crying and waking dd1.

Hiya,

she sleeps in bed with me,

She has her daytime nap in the buggy where ever we are as we are out most days and have midday nursery pickups so theres not really a wondow for her to have a sleep int he cot everyday.

hi su, thats a problem too, i have 3 & 4 yr olds asleep in the next room!

How does she get to sleep at the moment?

Does she feed to sleep, dummy, self-settle or something else?

Is sleep training a definite no go?

The first time I put ds to sleep in his cot I sat in a chair next to his cot holding his hand and singing to him... after a couple of days I moved to sit across the room from him while I sang to him... gradually I reduced the amount of time I spent in there, starting with staying until he fell asleep, to the point where I could put him in his cot awake and say goodnight and leave him to it.

One thing that really helped was my sil bought one of those light projecter musical things and ds was so fascinated by it that it soothed him. He still has it playing to get him to sleep now at 2.2

Ghouls, she will either fall asleep in my arms downstairs after a bottle and I will then carry her up and get in bed with he and stay there.

Or

We get in bed together and she falls asleep after her bottle

occasionally I have fed her the bottle in the buggy and she has slept in there till I was ready to go to bed.

But never into her cot.

She has a dummy after bottle too.

What do you mean by sleep training?

hmm light projector sounds good, thanks

We did pick-up put-down from the baby whisperer when DD was around 6 months because she had never slept in her own cot and had to start as she outgrew the crib.

It's basically a sleep training technique, you don't leave the baby to cry on their own, but invariably they do cry when you first start it. But as soon as they cry you pick them up and comfort them and don't put them down until they have stoppped crying.

It sounds a bit mad, but we did it to get DD used to her own cot and not only did it do that but she was sleeping through within a fortnight.

If you don't fancy something like that, can you put her in her cot then give her the bottle in the cot?

I have tried that once or twice (bottle int eh cot) but afte the bottle instead of drifting off like she does in my bed she sits up and stands at the bars shouting / crying.

light show like this?

If you really really want to get your DD to sleep in her own cot, you wll have to work at it at this age, and be prepared for several pretty dreadful nights. That said, if you persevere it will be worth it.

Do a bit of research into the Baby Whisperer pick-up put-down method as Glouls said.

Start a bedtime routine and stick to it each night eg bath, story, bed

Plan your day so your DD has her naps in her bed so she starts to assiciate bed with sleep.

At the moment she associates sleep with your bed and her pushchair so you need to break that link. Be consistant and brave and you'll get tere. Good luck.

PS I can throughly recommend this www.tomy.co.uk/products/starlight-dreamshow/

great thanks,

would I have that on whilst doing the caliming bit beofore sleeptime or leave it on when shes supposed to be going to sleep?

Right, have bought on of those and will try it a bit more gradually I think with more sleep training,

shes very little ans sensitive and I feel quite bad thinking of doing CC etc ... so this relaxing/calming approach is much more welcome.

Thnaks alot,

I put it on after I've said goodnight. Just put some time aside and you'll be fine. As you sa, a relaxed/calming parent will be better equipted than a stressed out one from CC.

The second lightshow thing is more like the one I used for ds.... our routine was always the same, bath, milk and a cuddle in his room (I had a rocking chair in there for this) and then when he was really relaxed I'd put him him in his cot and turn the lightshow on and say goodnight... it was enough to distract him from me leaving the room and it just lulled him to sleep.

I started this routine after I'd done the gradual withdrawal thing, really because my sil didn't give us the lightshow thing until that point, hadn't thought of it until then. I started using it because I really hated the idea of ds being distressed as I left the room and it was a distraction thing initially.

I'm definitely too soft to do cc... couldn't countenance it, hence I took so long to get the bedtime routine sorted, but now I have he's brilliant at going to sleep, he even asks when he's finished his milk to go to his bed!

I just want to clarify, that what I've suggested isn't CC!

Don't forget lots of playing in the cot during day. Practise putting her in cot and 'playing' going to sleep and peeking through bars saying 'hiya!'.

The aim is for your dd to see the cot as somewhere safe and cosy to go to sleep. so try and work out how she will feel that? Can you sleep on the floor for a bit so you will be there when she wakes up? Light-show looks lovely. Agree with a clear bedtime routine too.

Good luck - I will be trying to get 15mth ds in a bed soon (he co-sleeps but put him in a travel cot the other day no prob, dd went into a bed after cot/my bed at 16mths) so will be following all this advice!!!

I know Ghouls, don't worry

I bought a musical cot projector for my son who is now 1 and I give him a bath, bottle then put him down for sleep, put the mobile on and then leave him!!!
I tried many different sleep training methods and although it broke my heart every night, controlled crying was the only thing that worked.
He was a clingy demanding baby from birth and we started taking him in our bed when he woke in the night, biggest mistake we ever made!!!
It took about a week and a half an lots of tears (both his and mine) but he now sleeps through the night and goes straight to sleep when we put him down.
I guess all you can do is trial and error and see what works best for you.
Good luck x

(Never done controlled crying, and both mine now sleep through the night mostly - though that's him I can hear now . Am v v happy we have babies in our bed often. We are all different.)

Never done controlled crying either and mine sleeps through too.

Little update, put DD in her 'Daisy' cot last night and fed her bottle in there, she went to sleep but after about 40 mins woke up, I wasn't pushing it last night so she slept with us.

Put her in the cot for few mins this morning,
and just put her swaddled in the cot, gave her a bottle and shes been asleep in there for about 40 minutes now

Well done. I am in favour of the gentle approach too. If she gets used to the cot maybe if she wakes in there at night she will be able to settle back to sleep.

I sometimes try putting dd2 in the cot asleep and she always wakes up within the hour but it is something to build on

I wimped out again last night and fed dd2 to sleep in my bed.

I have left it too long really as she is pulling up and almost ready to walk so if I put her in the cot awake she will not lie down. She does the same in the bed but at least I can feed her lying down and it lets her wind down enough to go off to sleep.