Remind me how to encourage a 9mo to settle self

[mrsflux]

My ds has not dropped his night feed but still wakes/ stirs noisily in the night and I often end up settling him back to sleep. Yes I know I'm making a rod etc etc
how do I encourage him to settle himself?

Also how do I get him to stop crying in his sleep?

Does he settle himself to sleep when you first put him to bed or do you put him down asleep? As I understand, that is the key to getting them to self settle in the night.

Do you have a bedtime routine? That really helps my DS know whats coming, nothing fancy just bath, changed, story and cuddles. He is 14mo.

We have a bedtime routine of bath cuddle and milk and then bed. Unfortunately he either falls asleep while drinking his milk or is still a bit awake and starts crawling and climbing! He was knackered the other night but still crawled and climbed in his cot for an hour after bed time!

Hmmm, if DS was asleep after milk I used to give him noisy kisses and then say, in a loud enough voice to stir him, good night when I put him in his cot. As for the crawling, how dark is it in his room? We have blackout blinds and curtains so its pitch black, which definitely helps my DS as he is very easily stimulated.

thanks chocorange!
His room is dark but we have the bathroom light on so we can see! Maybe will try a darker room tonight and see what happens. I think easily stimulated would be a good way to describe my ds too!

mrsflux just a warning - my sleep training has started to work a little too well now, rather than lovely cling to my neck cuddles from DS, he kicks away from me and launches himself towards his cot then rolls onto his front and ignores me - preferable to the screaming but I miss the cuddles too!

Wow that sounds super effective! Sign me up! I'll squeeze my cuddles in elsewhere. Ds us getting less and less cuddly in any way so just means I'll have to give them up faster!

lol at ChocOrange - my ds seems to have stopped feeding to sleep this week, so after he's finished his bedtime feed, he sits up on my lap and looks around. So we look at each other perplexed a bit, then I put him in his cot saying, night, night, time for sleep. And blow me if he hasn't been going off to sleep by himself.

Didn't work so well after his nightfeed, when we had about a week of him being awake for up to two hours. But the last couple of nights he's gone back to sleep quickly by himself, so fingers crossed that lasts.

OP - sorry, not much help to you. We resorted to sleep training (controlled crying) in desperation a few weeks back. He was a nightmare though.

Have you tried leaving him and seeing how long he keeps making noises for (assuming he's not actually crying)? In the two hour wakes, about 30-40mins would be feeding, then all but about 5mins of the rest of the time DS would be happily chatting in his cot. 5mins crying, then DH would visit him to reassure him, and he usually settled down either to sleep or to chatting. Eventually he dropped off. Our theory was he needed a few nights to learn how to get off to sleep by himself when he was less tired than at bedtime. As I say, apart from one night when he cried for about half an hour with repeated visits from DH, he only cried for 5mins max. Just kept us awake with his chatting lol. But could be worse!

HTH

He gets cross and shouty as ge wants an audience fir his standing and cruising round the cot! He wouldn't settle himself while he's doing this.
I think our problem is having too long naps in the day. We are gonna try limiting naps and see what happens

Heehee, well he is very clever with his standing and cruising.

Hope the shorter naps work for you.

well we cut his naps down and last night he went straight to sleep! and slept till 6.15 instead of 5ish that he was doing before! BIG

Yay! Long may it continue.