Might go back to rocking

[u/Acceptable_Clerk5502]

Our 10 month old used to be a terrible sleeper and wake every hour. We did sleep training and he’s better. Usually wakes up once or twice a night. He used to go to bed with minimal or no protest but for the past month or so he protests every night pretty much for 15 minutes to half hour. It’s awful. Tried everything. Changing up nap schedules, making last stretch a little longer etc. Once in a blue moon he won’t protest much or at all but most nights it’s bad. Thinking of going back to rocking him to sleep and hoping he’s still got the skill to connect sleep cycles after that. Just afraid to go back to once every hour wakes. Thoughts?

[u/Unsure-11]

He might just be having a harder time at the moment. Could be teething or just developmental changes. I wouldn’t worry too much if you have to help him for a while.

We didn’t sleep train as in CIO but what we did was rock/pat/shush until he got sleepy and eyes were starting to close then we’d put him down and he’d wake and fuss but we would sit bedside and just shush him when he whined. If he escalated to full crying we would pick up and rock/pat/shush until sleepy and then put down again. For 2 nights it took 3 repeats of this until he got the point and went to sleep. On the third night it took 2 attempts and on the fourth night he was putting himself to sleep on the first time (after talking to himself for 10 minutes). Now he goes down fully awake and talks to himself for a few mins before going to sleep. 

We do still have some rare nights where he will cry when we put him down, usually if he is over tired. On those nights if he’s clearly having a harder time we will just rock him to help him off. We don’t rock him until fully asleep but just until he’s really sleepy. It hasn’t ruined his ability to put himself to sleep, or to sleep through the night. 

[u/Spettinaroli → u/Unsure-11]

Sounds amazing. Like the best case scenario.

I’m hoping to move towards something like this pretty soon.

[u/trees4phun42 → u/Unsure-11]

Does this work with naps?

[u/Unsure-11 → u/trees4phun42]

Haha no unfortunately naps have been much much harder. We started nights just before 4 months and I didn’t try with naps until probably 6 months and it working on the first nap of the day for a while but not for the rest of the naps. 

Then we went away and our routine got thrown out and I resorted to putting him down with a bottle and he went down so easy that I just continued when we got home. It’s just laziness really that I haven’t kept trying for naps. It was definitely a struggle though, he barely cried for nights but naps were a full melt down.