[minidiamond]

DS has outgrown his bassinet and will be moving to his (very solid) cot soon. We are also planning to move him into his own room from ours.

At the moment he rarely goes to sleep without some kind of rocking and I'm not going to be able to do that in the cot. Obviously it's a habit I want to get out of anyway but in the shorter term, a bit worried about bed and nap time. Patting talking music etc just doesn't cut it.

He's four months.

[Lucretia Borgia]

Hi, yes I went through this with Ds2 at around the 5 month mark......rather than make him do cold turkey I eased up on the rock while he was still in his bassinet .....so where I used to rock for 20 minutes or so I would put him down, pat him ...maybe give him a gentle rock but then would stop......this kind of worked, it did involve some crying though, so I just patted and shushed him....he got there eventually....he now sleeps in his cot with no problems....

One thing I did read- in Robin Barkers Baby Love- was that if you want to get them out of your room and out of habits like rocking to sleep is to try to do it by six months.....not sure if you can truly say this of all babies, and I'm sure others will come in and disagree! But anyway...for what it's worth.....

[sophiasmum]

Hmm yes we were doing the same thing with DD1, rocking the bassinet & in fact it was starting to take longer & longer to get her off to sleep this way, up to 45 mins, so used to it was she. I ended up spending a week at Tresillian residential at 3 mths to break the sleep association, as well as get into a feeding & sleeping routine & help deal with her severe reflux (crying from one feed to the next). I can't tell you exactly what they did, because they did everything for the first 2 days & then handed over to me. First thing was move into a cot, with wheels so they could do some rocking, but basically they used other settling techniques first & saved the rocking (gently) for when all else failed. It worked fantastically & we came home with a settled, content, happy baby.

[AdelTwins]

I think it's important to tackle one thing at a time, otherwise it seems so overwhelming.
So I'd try:
Putting the bassinet inside the cot in his room
Remove bassinet
Move to sleeping bag
Reduce/remove rocking

Remember to only rock him until he is calm then pop him in the cot still awake. Try to drop the rocking for patting or rubbing head along with soothing words. The important bit here is that you are soothing him without holding him. Then slowly remove the patting etc altogether. So you might kiss him goodnight rub his back for a few seconds then move onto story time.

If he wakes in the middle of the night, keep rocking him, etc until you have the bedtime stuff sorted. There's no point trying to sleep train a baby at 4am when you are exhausted! Once you've got the bedtime stuff sorted, use the same technique as bedtime (minimal speaking, maybe some "shhhhh"ing, pat etc).

Of course when he is sick/teething throw all this out the window & cuddle him/rock him/co-sleep as necessary

You still have a few months to get rid of as much stuff as you can. Once they begin to understand "object permanence" they realise things have changed and freak out. Then need to wake up in the same place as they fell asleep with the same things around them (i.e. without you).

"Imagine going to bed in your bedroom. A few hours later you wake up on your front lawn. Would you simply roll over and go back to sleep in the grass? Or would you stand up and start screaming? Would you demand loudly to be let back into the house so that you could sleep in your bed? Do you think you would be freaked out by the mysterious force that somehow carried you out to the lawn?"

This is a website I read extensively & it really helped:
http://www.troublesometots.com/

At the end of the day, you might have a great sleeper, a not so great sleeper or a terrible sleeper. But at least by doing these things you are insuring that he sleeps as long as possible.

This post has been edited by AdelTwins: 01/12/2012, 07:23 AM

[minidiamond]

Thanks all. I have tried the patting/sshh-ing etc, rocking is really the only thing that's 'foolproof' right now. He just cries.

Earlier today I tried a new method of having my hand on his hip and gently rocking his actual body that way, he went to sleep but he was super-tired.

With regards to the transition to the cot & his room, we are going on 3 weeks holidays at the end of December, so I was thinking we might pop him in his travel cot between now(ish) and when we go away ... and then do another transition to his room when we get back eg have him sleep for a few nights in his travel cot in the room.

[axiomae]

Agree with the PP who said wean him off it while still in the bassinet. I did that with DD, gradually stopped the rocking over a period of two weeks. There was crying involved, but it was more gentle IMHO. Body rocking also helped me, hand on chest/belly, moving side to side, when first going into the cot. Then DD figured out how to roll and now sleeps on her belly so that went out the window too! But by then she had figured out how to self-settle which was good.

[baxlaika]

I Haven't had a chance to read through everyone else's responses but for us we moved DS out cold turkey at 5 months. He had been rocked in the bassinet, so what I did in the cot was to put my hand on his hips/tummy and rock/jiggle him side to side in the cot and that worked a treat. If he got distressed I'd pick him u and rock him. Good luck!

[meggs1]

Earlier today I tried a new method of having my hand on his hip and gently rocking his actual body that way, he went to sleep but he was super-tired.

I was about to post this. I changed to this when I switched DS to his cot. One hand on the hip, one on the shoulder and rock back and forth like rolling pastry. I gradually changed to patting his bottom.