Our Little Miss is now 8 weeks old, and, as many parents out there are, we are currently struggling with teaching our little girl how to self settle. She is a pretty good night sleeper (which I am somewhat grateful for) and will normally go a minimum of 3 and a maximum of 5 hours through the night before waking for a feed. But during the day, we have a little catnapper who manages normally only half an hour to forty-five minutes at a time of sleep maybe three times a day.
So once again I have gone online to search for a good, practical self-settling technique. With our son, we went to sleep school where we were taught “responsive settling”, which basically involved us going in to settle our baby once he really got going crying (grizzling and whining were not counted) and we could do anything necessary to soothe him except pick him up. It took at least two weeks before we saw any kind of improvement at all to his sleeping, and a couple of more weeks after that before we reaped any benefits on a consistent basis.
This time around I have tried the same technique but am finding it is a massive fail. The crying (even though it is not for very long, isn’t timed and I go in before it is too intense) upsets my toddler to the point where he starts crying, which makes it even more impossible to settle our baby when a toddler is crying even louder at her door! And if he is asleep, it has been waking him up.
So I am in search for a technique that involves a little less crying and isn’t too strict in terms of routine as I am breastfeeding and am really demand feeding. Also, I think it would be very difficult to manage a strict schedule with a baby around the activities and schedule of my toddler. I am looking into the “No Cry Sleep Solution” as an option, but am still researching. Hopefully we will all be a happily sleeping household very soon!
What technique did you use in teaching your bub to self-settle? Please feel free to leave your experiences in our comments below.























