Sleeping from Carseat to Crib & Sleeps terrible. PLEASE

[ralynne2005]

I need some help.  My dd is 6 months old and up until she was 3 months she slept all night.  Ever since then she wakes up constantly.  She has been sleeping in her carseat since she was a newborn, because she slept so much better. 

I don't know how to approach to put her into a crib and get her to sleep better at night time.  She always wants her bottle or pacifier to sleep.  She didn't use to be so attached to it, but now that is all she wants. 

What should I do?  PLEASE HELP!!!

[Maddy's Mum]

Hi there,

I think the first thing you could do is to make her crib feel a bit more like her car seat felt - you can do this by raising the matress slightly - we used a pillow under the mattress to do this and then we put rolled up towels down the side of the crib and put a fitted sheet over the top of them - so that it was more cosy for Mads.

I would also recommend having a read through one of Tracy's books on the suject of Pick Up/Put Down - a technique she uses to get older babies off to sleep - this will help teach DD how to get to sleep by herself so that when she wakes in the night, she can soothe herself back to sleep.

Also - do you think the dummy may be causing problems at the moment with her sleep - does she need to it to go to sleep and wake up when it is not in her mouth in the night? If so, may be wise to ditch the dummy now too..?

HTH!
Dee
x

[ralynne2005]

I will try this starting tonight.  I have her book and have read through it, but it seems hard to get her to do it or maybe it's myself that is so hard to get to stick to it.

I will definitely try the pillow and towel trick.  Thanks so much.