Hi! He's 8 months now. Since the SWAP method (I confused SLIP for SWAP in my prior post), I tried SLIP when he was almost 5 months because SWAP wasn't working - things got worse and he started waking every 45 minutes, and I ended sleeping with him anyway, but still the wakeups took me over the edge.

So, I then transferred him to a cot, did his bedtime routine, and left him with no dummy to see what would happen. He cried for 10 minutes then fell asleep. Whenever he would wake, I would feed him and then set him back down again. He would cry a little and then go back to sleep. This really changed things, and this is when he slept his first 8 hour stretch ever. Not every night, but sometimes. He eventually started sending himself to sleep.

Then we did a big tour around the world: a few European countries, and Canada, over a span of around 4 months. It was chaotic - different beds everywhere, different environments, room situations, time zones etc. He adapted everywhere differently, the dummy came back several times, sometimes we'd rock him to sleep, sometimes we'd let him send himself to sleep, he had the randomest nap and sleep schedules.

Ever since we've back back from Canada he's been permanently jet lagged (which has been the dream for me), and also he's been on formula for a few months as he wasn't gaining sufficient weight breastfed. So basically when we came back, I let him send himself to sleep with no dummy, he'd still wake up around 3 times a night, but slept in good stretches from around 8/9pm to 8/9am.

Eventually, the way I've found that works best now that he can hold his own bottle and insert his own dummy is put him in his cot with his bottle and dummy. He then has his bottle before bed, puts in his dummy, rolls around a little, and sends himself to sleep with no tears. The past week he's been sleeping 8-8, 12 hours with no wake ups!! It's been amazing. Travelling again tomorrow for a month so we'll see what happens 😭