So by the time our little man was around 11 months, he was solely relying on us to walk him to sleep every night. This would take up to an hour to work and it was becoming more and more difficult for us to handle as he was getting to heavy.

We decided it was time to teach him how to get himself to sleep.  So our initial strategy was to leave him in his cot for 5 minutes at a time and go in and try to settle him after each session.  We would only leave him for two 5 minute sessions each night and then come in and rock/walk him to sleep. This strategy didn’t work because he just kept waiting for us to come back (screaming the whole time)

Our next strategy was to put him in his cot and stay with him (next to the cot) until he fell asleep. This didn’t work either because he spent so long standing at the cot edge, reaching and grabbing at me while crying that he actually fell asleep standing up. This made him fall down on his bum, waking him up and starting the cycle again. We decided to leave the room and he lay down and fell asleep 5 minutes later.

So after that night, we implemented a routine (bath, bottle with book and bed) and put him down in his cot alone. For the first few nights, he would cry for 40 minutes. Then after a week, it was 20 minutes. By the time he had been learning to put himself to sleep for a few weeks, it would only take him 2-5 minutes to fall asleep.

The amazing thing about him putting himself to sleep is that he stopped waking in the night. He started consistently sleeping 12-13 hours straight every night. 🙂