She won't fall asleep by herself

mrs.bridgettkay

I know this is common in babies my DDs age since they can't self soothe.  Since she needs to be rocked or walked around to fall asleep is it too late to try some other self soothing technique to help her fall asleep on her own?  Do I just wait until she's older?  If I try to catch when she's drowsy but awake and but her in her crib she'll just wake up and cry.

papagena

What worked for DS at that age was to put him down in his crib drowsy (very drowsy!) but still awake, and then shh-pat him to sleep.  It sometimes would take awhile, but it would work (assuming he wasn't overly tired or cranky).  Now he is able to fall asleep on his own for nighttime.  We have other issues, but at least we have that down!

redleo_81

We did a Ferber style method.  DD would only sleep if we rocked her to sleep and then put her down fast asleep.  If she woke up we had to do it all over again.  I lost count some nights how many times I got up and would call my parents crying at all hours of the day!  We began by only letting her cry for 2 mins and then going in to soothe her but DONT PICK HER UP.  Of course you make sure she is fed, clean, etc before putting her to bed.  Then you wait up to 4 mins before you go back in and work yourself up to 10 mins the first night.  The second night, start out at 5 mins and then work yourself up to 15 mins.  You can use whatever time frame works for you and that you are comfortable with.  By the third night, DD was only waking once or twice and going back to sleep by herself.  Within one week she was only waking once and now she STTN or wakes only once.  We're still trying to work out the naps, but this totally worked for us.  It is not easy, but I don't feel it was CIO either.  DD would actually stop crying and smile when I came in, like, "hah, I got you".  She needed us to get back to sleep and didn't know how to do it herself.  We also stopped her swaddle cold turkey and she finds her fingers to suck and soothe herself at night.