How do I encourage baby to let go of sleep associations

The main concern I have for my baby is that he does not seem to know how to self settle. When he was about 3 months old, I would leave him to grizzle in his bassinette and he managed to put himself to sleep. I generally try to give him opportunities to do thisby leaving him for up to 30 minutes before his sleeps/naps but I find that lately, he becomes more and more agitated and is now rolling onto his stomach, unable to put himself back onto his back. The only technique that works is rocking him to sleep in my arms but he is approaching 8kg and I realise I cannot continue this. I have tried PU/PD and I think this confuses him because he thinks I am about to rock him to sleep again and becomes extremely distressed when I dont. I have also tried calming him in his cot by patting, stroking his head, speaking to him, but he will continue to cry, kick his legs and things escalate. In the worst case scenario, I end up feeding him to sleep because he is so distressed and by this stage, so am I! In terms of his sleep, he will generally settle at around 7.30-8.00pm and have a decent block of up to 5-6 hours. The problem I have is that he will then wake, feed and happily stay up for 2 hours in the early morning. On a few occasions, I have left him and he has put himself to sleep...but other times, he will roll onto his tummy and get stuck or become tired and need my help to go back to sleep. He will then generally sleep for another 2-3 hours. He is generally a happy baby during the day so he is getting enough sleep but the disruption to my sleep is taking its toll! I would really appreciate some tips. Thank you.

written 12 weeks ago by Sleepy10260 - 21 replies - viewed 156 times

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