Help with getting 6m.o. to fall alseep on his own?

[ellie3009]

Hi all, I need some advice as not sure where to go from here…

Bit of background…
DS is 6.5months old. Sleeps in cot, in own bedroom since 4 months because he was so long he outgrew the moses basket. However, he cannot put himself to sleep if put down awake.

He also wakes at night, is often not hungry, but cannot settle himself back to sleep once awake. He just cries until I go and rescue him. Sometimes I can put him back to sleep with a cuddle and some bottom patting, but sometimes I have to boob a bit to get him dozy enough. Takes minimum 30mins, but usually more like an hour before I'm back in bed.

DS' sleep pattern is erratic. Sometimes we get just one waking, sometimes 2, sometimes he’s up every 2-3hours. He generally does 3 naps a day, 90mins in the morning, then 2 catnaps of 35mins after lunch and late afternoon.

My goals are the following:

1. Be able to put him down awake, and he goes to sleep on his own.
2. That he can hopefully then get himself back to sleep when he wakes at night if not hungry.

Since he has been able to roll over (about 6 weeks ago) all he wants to do when put down in his cot is roll about and belly crawl.

I decided to do gradual retreat. I have spent a week now putting my hand on him and waiting for him to fall asleep. This does work, because the pressure of my hand discourages him from rolling around his cot. It has taken between 15 and 45 mins for him to fall asleep each night, no proper crying, just grizzling.

Tonight I moved on to next step of me just sitting by the cot, and do pick-up/put-down if he cried. I put him down very very dozy, eyes almost closed.
He was mostly quite cheerful and started trying to chat to me and play with me, despite me sitting with eyes closed completely motionless. A small amount of grizzling was easily sorted with a few words and brief pat on the back.
However, without my hand on him, he rolled about, played and chatted for a very long 45mins before finally falling asleep. Then he slept for only 3 mins before waking up proper crying, and would not be settled, even picking up and cuddling he just kept crying. I finished up having to put white noise on and pat bottom to calm him and put him to sleep. He finally fell asleep for good after 1hr5mins.

Where on earth do I go from here?
Do I persist with gradual retreat? It seems to me to defeat the point of gradual retreat if I sit there for 45mins while he rolls, if I then finish up having to put him to sleep using white noise and patting anyway. (I could have done that straight away and saved myself 43mins!!)
It looks like pick-up/put down is not going to work, since he still cries when picked up.
I am not prepared to do cry it out. I don’t really like the idea of controlled crying either.

Help!!!

[ellie3009]

No one got any useful ideas? Anything that worked for you with a super-rolly baby?

[KateTheShrew]

Oh Ellie I think you might be me! No advice I'm sorry to say but pretty much identical situation in terms of baby's age, inability to self-settle, lots of screaming if not fed to sleep and incessant rolling. I'll be really interested to see if anyone has a solution to this as I'm coming to the end of my tether, but like you I don't fancy controlled crying and won't do cry it out.

[ellie3009]

I can't even feed him to sleep! He now pops of boob awake and bright as a button. I can't rock him to sleep any more either, he fights me so I have to put him down before fully asleep, then he starts rolling.

Only thing I can do other than wait for him to stop the crazy rolling is to put one hand on back by his shoulders (front sleeper!!) pat his bum frantically with other hand and play white noise.
But bending over his cot is playing hell with my back, I reckon I spend about 2 hours a day hunched over it at the moment...

[KateTheShrew]

Feeding mine to sleep only works short-term. He'll go down for 20-40 minutes then roll over and wake up and scream. We then repeat this routine for anything up to 3 hours until he's finally so tired he stays asleep. You have my heartfel sympathy, no wonder your back is bad! I'm crossing my fingers that because the rolling is still a fairly new skill (about 6 weeks like you) maybe when it's less of a novelty he'll settle down?

[TeaAddict235]

that bum patting and hand on shoulder is where we are at too at the moment with DS (5.5mo). I rock him after feeding with the musical mobile on and then (with a great deal of patience) we put down and pat to sleep( including bum patting). DS babbles a lot and does a great deal of head turning, but eventually and more importantly before the music ends, he's asleep. But self soothing....no way, not yet, sorry.

[missknows]

This is so me- even wrote a thread asking for help the other day.

I am in a very similar stage to you so can't really advice but I am soft of doing a combination of pu/pd as I find if I actually stay in sight with my hand on baby she takes longer to sleep but by picking up and putting down she goes to sleep much quicker. We have had a few tears and she often cries more when I pick her up but then stops when I put her back down.

Another super rolley baby too but now i leave her to it while watching her on the monitor and if her legs get between the bars or she rolls over and wedges herself against the side and cries I go in.

To my amazement she has fallen asleep a couple of times and she has stayed much more still than I thought she would once I left the room.

Nap wise we are having a disaster here. Will sometimes sleep for 2.5 hours- today- 4 naps of less than 20 mins!

[ellie3009]

So tonight he rolled for 35 mins. Then started grizzling. Grizzled for 10mins, looked as if he was trying to fall asleep but couldn't work out how. I bum-patted and spoke quietly to him to stop the grizzling. Stopped bum-pats when he stopped grizzling and he fell asleep quickly after.

However, he then woke up 45mins later. Resettled in 2mins with bumpatting.

Not sure if this is progress or not really, as still having to bum-pat, so he is not going to sleep with no help from me.

[Inapickle123]

Glad I'm not the only one!

DS is just 6 months and stopped feeding to sleep 6 weeks ago. The last week has been horrific; multiple wake ups lasting for between 1-4 hours.

Hand on tummy/shhhh worked for a few weeks but has lost all effectiveness. He gets himself into such a state twisting an turning and rolling that there's no way he'll go back to sleep.

To be honest, I've tough loved it (I go back to work in 4 weeks) and started CC last night. Took almost 2 hours for him to go back to sleep this morning after his 4am wake up BUT he's give down for a nap after less that 3min of fussing/tantrum tears.

It's not for everyone but the softly, softly approach hasn't worked for my stubborn DS.

[ellie3009]

We had a hideous night.

Woke at 12.45, finally went back to sleep at 3.45.
I am not feeling on top form today unsurprisingly. I am wondering more and more about CC, softly softly doesn't seem to be working for us...

[Inapickle123]

ellie CC isn't the route I would have chosen but needs must.

I don't know about your DS, but mine is super active and LOVES attention and company. Me going in and trying to comfort him was just riling him up more because he wanted to get up and play/have a chat/use me as a human trampoline. When I'd try shhhh/hand on tummy, he'd bat my hand away, grab my fingers and try and stuff them in his mouth.

I know that he can handle being left to cry. To be honest, he's so highly strung that I think he needs to cry to get all the excess energy/frustration out.

Don't discount it. We're only on day 1 and, while he was up for ages this morning, he slept for 90m this morning (aft only 3m of fussing-I didn't even get the chance to check on him) and it's now 745 and he's sound asleep. I'm not by any means suggesting his crap sleeping is "fixed" but it's a step in the right direction.

I read everything I could about CC in the run up to starting it and I'm sure it's the right approach for DS. All kids are different and there's no "one size fits all" approach.

[ellie3009]

Inapickle - thanks. HOw long did your DS cry for tonight before going to sleep?

I really don't want to do it, but I am running out of ideas to be honest. Your DS sounds exactly the same as mine. We went to a picnic with our NCT friends today. They were astounded that he was constantly rolling, crawling, playing and trying to steal the cake for the entire 3.5hours, didn't sit still for a single second. He should have had a nap after 2.5hrs, but no chance of that!!

Last night when I sat next to his cot he kept popping his head up to look at me and squeal. Sometime he sticks his hand through the bars to poke me... Eventually (after 30-45mins!) he slows and stops rolling and seems to want to go to sleep, but at that point he doesn't know how, and starts grizzling and eventually full on crying.

I can bum-pat him to sleep, but this is not a viable long term strategy as I am spending several hours a day hunched over his cot between naps and nights, and it is playing havoc with my back which is still not right after pregnancy. We are going away to in-laws for 3 weeks on Tues, he will be in a travel cot and it will be impossible because it's so low to the floor.

Tonight his room was 28degrees at bedtime despite windows open and blinds down all day, so I just bumpatted and whitenoised to get him to sleep as fast as possible. He gets really hot when left to roll about and I didn't want to risk him overheating with the room being so warm already.

[Passmethecrisps]

My dd is 20 months now but she went from being a fantastic self-settler when swaddled to being incapable of self-settling when in a grobag at 6 months. She was bottle fed and uses a dummy still at bed time and had Ewan the sheep on as well mind you.

I ended up rocking her to sleep and regretted it many, many times. However, looking back it took us from 90 minutes to settle for very short naps or night time to 10 minutes max. I gradually went from that to sitting in a chair rocking slowly to sitting still then went back to putting her in the cot awake. This worked well looking back. It was slow but gentle.

What I have learned though is that it changes all the time. 4 weeks ago dd suddenly went from a full bottle at night to nothing at all -literally over night - and this made a change as well as all of a sudden she wanted twinkle twinkle sung to her.

I don't know of any of that ramble helps but best of luck

[Inapickle123]

He didn't actually cry going down and probably grizzled for about 10m. I'm luckily in that he's so unbelievably knackered by bed time as he literally doesn't stop moving (even when he's sitting still, he's still bloody moving) during the day, that he tends to drift off without a fight. Our issue is multiple wake ups as he can't self settle back to sleep and awake time is play time. It's our fault really; he went through a terrible period where his reflux was really bad and we were guilty of giving him a dummy and rocking as it was the only way to calm him down. Regrets? Yep.

He's not actually woken up yet which is a miracle in itself (he'd usually have stirred once or twice by now).

I've found the best sleep nights always come after knackering him out from 2pm onwards, so we tend to do active play between 2-4 as this means he crashes for a 20m nap on the go. He's still little so doesn't "get" much from out outings but he is so alert and nosey that he overloads on what's going on around him, if you see what I mean? To be honest, I often leave him in his jumparoo for slightly longer than the recommended 40 minutes (cough, four hours, cough)

Soft play (DS is desperate to walk and he's almost there so I just let him repeatedly walk and fall on the crash mats as he finds this endlessly hilarious), swimming, painting with hands and feet, paddling pool in the garden and the aquarium have all been winners. I know that after swimming he's likely to sleep until at least 4am before he starts his nonsense.

Obviously you need to do what's best for you. My DS is a bit of a bruiser. He's not a cuddler, loves rough play and finds punching me in the face the funniest thing ever. He's not a sensitive soul so he can handle being left. He has worked out that even when he can't see me, I'm still there (he no longer screams if I leave him in his pram) so he's ready for this approach. If he was different, I'd consider doing something a little softer but he simply doesn't respond the way that "normal" babies do.

I know what you mean about other peoples babies. We stopped going to and baby groups as it just depressed me to hear/see all these static and content babies hugging their mums while DS tried to launch himself off my lap while screaming his head off.

[ellie3009]

Another awful night.
DS in bed at 8pm, asleep 8.20.
Woke 10.30pm, went 0-60 on screaming in about 10 seconds. Settled and back to sleep in about 20mins.
Woke at 1.15, took 2 hours of grizzling, crying, rolling to get him back to sleep.
Woke again at 5.45, took an hour to get him back to sleep.

He has just gone down for morning nap without a murmur, as he is totally exhausted. So am I.

[Inapickle123]

Oh dear ellie , that sounds awful and VERY much like the last three weeks of sleep hell we've been through.

Perhaps tonight may be a good time to trial CC? It's possible that he's getting more and more wound up with you in the room/trying to placate him when what he needs is just to be left to it.

I did a modified version as I couldn't bring myself to get rid of DS's dummy at the same time (too much change). So we get in the sleeping bag, read 3/4 stories, cuddle and kiss then into cot with dummy in. I'll shhhh for a minute then leave. Wait 5 min and if he's still shouty, I'll go back in and put his dummy in and shhhh. In and out in less that 2min and then I won't go back in for 10m, 15m etc. I know the dummy sort of defeats the purpose of self settling but taking it away seemed cruel.

You can't sustain the wake-ups and it's not like you can sleep when he does during the day. What you're doing doesn't seem to be working so you may need to modify your approach until you find one that suits DS and yourself. You are important too!!!

The other option is gradual retreat but I'm not sure if you've tried this already. Was a resounding failure for us though!

[ellie3009]

Yeah, we have tried gradual retreat. I Have managed to retreat precisely nowhere after 8 days of sitting by cot with hand on baby. Tried 2 days of just next to cot, but as soon as I take hand off him he rolls about insanely, and it's just too hot to let him do that at the moment, he was sweating loads the other night after 30mins of crawly-rolly madness.

[Inapickle123]

The heat does make things more difficult but I think you can trust that-when he gets tired- he'll stop. I'd be inclined to leave him to it until he falls asleep and sneak in with an extra milk feed or water to ensure he stays hydrated.

[ellie3009]

He does stop in the end... and that's when he starts crying!

If he just stopped and went to sleep I'd be happy to leave him.
He does also end up crying because he throws himself about so violently that he crashing into the sides/ends of the cot despite airwrap bumpers.

[mummymay19]

Ok maybe I'm missing something here but what is the problem with using the white noise? I used it with ds1 until he was a year old. Then I gradually weaned him off by turning the volume progressively lower and the timer for shorter and shorter periods until eventually he didn't need it. Thing is, with white noise he is self soothing, he's learning those skills without the crying and without you being in the room. Ds1, now 2.9 is a great sleeper and goes to bed very happily.

Unfortunately now with ds2, aged 6 months, he's a lot like your little one. White noise works, but only to a point so started cc last night. Amazingly after taking about an hour to go to bed (with us going in every 5 mins) he only did one wake up. He usually does between 2 and 6 wake ups, depending on the night. Could be coincidence, but I'll be watching this thread with interest as we stumble through sleep training! I always thought nude number 2 would be easier!

[mummymay19]

Damn autocorrrect changing 'that' to 'nude'. Obviously a word I use much more often....!

[ellie3009]

mummymay the white noise doesn't work alone. It has to be accompanied by a couple of mins of rocking to calm him then endless vigorous bum-patting in cot. If I could just put white noise on and wander out I'd be delighted!!

Have tried a few times leaving it on all night to see if it helped - made absolutely no difference to how often he work or how long he took to settle. The only advantage was that in the early evening we didn't have to creep about like mice for fear of waking him up

[ellie3009]

erm, work=woke

[ellie3009]

Last night was weird - Mum babysat as we had a birthday party, our first couple night out since he was born 6.5months ago.

He woke at 9.30, and wouldn't go back to bed, so they watched tv together in the dark. At 10.30 he seemed sleepy so she gave him bottle and tried to put him back to bed again. He refused and started sobbing every time she put him in the cot.

We got home at 11.30 to find him sobbing inconsolably and searching desperately for mummy. He was fine as soon as I'd cuddled him for a minute, but when I gave him to OH so I could pop to the loo he started sobbing again the second I was out of sight. Clearly worried I'd abandon him again. . (cue huge Mummy-guilt for going out)

Eventually got him to sleep at 12.30 (after 3 hours awake!) and my poor little sausage was so tired he slept until 6, had a quick bit of boob and slept again until 9am. And now he's asleep again.

[Bumpsadaisie]

Fwiw my view is that your babies are very young for you to be expecting them to self settle at bedtime and when they wake in the night.

Why don't you just feed him to sleep OP then put him down?

I wouldn't do sleep training at this young age, myself.

[Bumpsadaisie]

Ah, I see you said he won't feed to sleep.