How to Stop Rocking Your Baby to Sleep

Do you want to stop rocking your baby to sleep?

Rocking is often a fail safe way to get babies off to sleep and certainly not something I would ever recommend avoiding. Many view rocking as a negative ‘sleep prop’ or an ‘unhealthy habit’, however I don’t agree. Babies need to feel safe and secure and they need our help to calm them to a level where it is easy to fall asleep. The close contact and movement of rocking meets all of these needs. In time all babies will grow out of the need for rocking, the question is whether they outgrow this need before they become too big and heavy for the parent to rock. If you can still rock your two year old to sleep there is absolutely nothing wrong with continuing to do so, it is very unlikely that it will affect their night time sleep negatively, despite what others may tell you. If you do want to reduce the rocking however read on for my three step plan:

1. Step number one is to introduce other calming methods alongside the rocking so that the baby associates them with rocking. Here I would suggest calm, rhythmical music, such as my Gentle Sleep Music, a calming scent in the room, such as lavender, and using a small very soft and sensory blanket to hold around or against the baby. I would also softly speak key words repeatedly while rocking (e.g “close your eyes little sleepyhead, it’s time for sleep and time for bed”) or you could read a short rhythmical storybook if you can read one handed. These should be used for a minimum of two weeks, whilst rocking as usual. Read THIS for more on crying.

2. Step number two is to keep a log of roughly how long you rock for over the two weeks when you are introducing new calming methods. Keep a log of how many minutes you rock for each night and calculate an average over the two weeks.

3. Step number two starts after two weeks. On the first night you should rock for two minutes less than the average you calculated in point two, this is repeated each night adding another two minutes. For instance if you calculated your average rocking time to be ten minutes you would rock for 8 minutes on the first night, 6 on the second, 4 on the third and so on. At the end of the rocking time if your baby is still awake then continue to hold them but don’t rock (or move in any other way). This applies whether you are sitting in a rocking/nursing chair or are standing and rocking in your arms. If your baby cries (which they probably will) continue to hold them and comfort them in any other way other than rocking (or moving in another way) once the rocking time is up.

After a week of point 3 (which is 3 weeks since you first started) you are aiming to reach a stage of just holding your baby to sleep with no movement. If you want to move on past this point and wean off of holding to sleep altogether I would recommend that you adopt a floor bed or co-sleeper set up where you can lay down and cuddle the baby to sleep and then move away when they are asleep.

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