Rocking to sleep...

KarliB84

The only way my girls will fall asleep is being held, on rare occasions one of our girls will fall asleep in the bouncer. This creates such a problem when my DH is not home so I have to put the girls to bed or down for naps alone. I have been swaddling and rocking them both in the glider and once they are out putting them in their RNP but the problem is they are getting bigger and it's just not working anymore without one or both waking while putting them down! Help! What should I do??

amanda31H

Stop doing it

I had the same problem.  My girls would only fall asleep unless I rocked them, and it started to get really hard right around 3.5 months.  My friend whose second child is the same age as my girls told me to learn from her mistakes! She rocked her son to sleep for EVER.  She didn't make that mistake with her second.  Around 4 or 4.5 months I stopped rocking  the girls to sleep for naps.  Once they got good at it- a week or two, we started doing it for bed.  Depending on your baby, it can be hard and take a little while, but it's worth it.  It was better for my kids to learn how to put themselves to sleep. 

I started by rocking until they were drowsy, not asleep.  Then I'd put them in their crib, re-position their paci if necessary, and shhhh them, rub back, etc....  Slowly I had to do less and less.  By 6 months we would put them in the crib awake, turn off the lights and leave the room.  Bliss!  So much easier too for a baby sitter!

KellyD01

If you don't want to stop rocking them, work on a system for rocking them to sleep separately. At this stage I would rock on already IN the rock n play and rock the other in my arms. Then would switch for the next bedtime so the got and equal share. As they got older, I'd set one up w/ some toys in a safe place. The other I would take to their room and rock to sleep. When finished (and it really didn't take long most of the time) I'd get the second one and rock her to sleep... sometime she would fall asleep on her own. This has worked really well for us. I really enjoy rocking them to sleep. It's pretty much the only real chance I have for one on one time w/ the girls each day and we're still doing it now at almost 15 months old.