sleeping and self settling

Well, my opinion isn't popular or fun, but as I see it the only way she's going to learn to settle herself is to cry a bit first. She's not used to doing it that way, and it's all a bit strange and unusual, and she'll take a while to get used to it. In the meantime, she'll let you know it's strange and unusual and she's not happy! I do the verbal reassurance thing - to be frank, I don't think Jacob notices any difference between me popping in every so often to reassure him I'm there and I love him and me being totally out of the picture, but it makes me feel a bit better about listening to him. When he has a change (like when I took his dummy away, or when I had to stop wrapping him because it got dangerous) he'll usually have one nightmare day (perhaps a two-hour cry ), and then a couple of days that are slightly worse than usual, then he's fine.

In saying that, if you can't stand to let Gemma cry, I wouldn't stress too much about rocking her to sleep. She'll grow out of it one day. It really comes down to what you cant stand more - having to keep rocking her, or having a bit of a battle to stop.

I tried verbal reassurance for 6 weeks with no success, the no cry sleep solution for about 3 months with limited success as well as a few others that I can't remember the names of.

I was finally successful by using CIO at about 14/15 months after reading 'the sleep book'. Prior to this we had at least 1-2 wake ups per night. Next baby I'll try the gentle techniques again first but will use CIO much younger if we have the same sort of settling issues.

Hey there -- this comment might not be that useful for you -- but just another point of view for you to consider (and I really wanted to let you know that you're not doing anything wrong if your baby doesn't self settle).

My baby was a great sleeper up to about 4 months, and then started doing just what you describe. Even with feeding to sleep, he would wake up as soon as I put him down in his cot.

Neither I or DH could bring ourselves to do CIO, so we brought DS into bed with us -- and frankly, this has been great. He still doesn't self-settle, but pretty much "self-helps" (I barely wake when he feeds at night) -- so we have all got sleep ever since.

My first was very similar, a right mission to get to sleep, he did settle eventually, one thing we found helped we having comforters, specifically a soft toy and one of those light up seahorses that played music.
Also putting him on his side and patting until he settles then leaving, if he cries leaving him for a few minutes then going in and doing it again. You will find something that works for you and they do settle down heaps after 6months.

Thanks for that link princesspumpkin, that article is a good read :)