Sleep training

Tell me about your experience. Success stories? Not so successful stories?

We are struggling.

My daughter is 8 months. In general, she’s a good sleeper. Most of the time, she sleeps all night or wakes up once for a bottle then sleeps until morning. Sometimes we have tough nights, but for the most part, we’re lucky.

I am really just wanting to help her fall asleep on her own. Right now, I rock her to sleep. Sometimes it’s fine, sometimes it feels like trying to hold a baby alligator. It can be frustrating and I’m the only one who can put her to bed.

We tried the sleep lady shuffle a month or two ago and had some success, but it took so long for her to fall asleep and she was hysterical when I finally got to the point of putting her down and leaving the room.

Tonight was a particularly bad baby alligator night, so i put her in her crib and walked away. She was fine for a while so I decided to try times checks. Every 5 minutes. But she was hysterical and it broke my heart. After 3rd check, it was clear that it wasn’t right for either of us.

So what next? Wait until she’s older? Try another approach when we’re ready? What are some other ways to do this?

I would love some input!