AIBU to think self soothing is a myth?!

[nonamesareavailable]

Can babies actually self soothe? Mine won't go to sleep without a lot of help (pram, boob, rocking etc - often all of these!)...

Do babies ever learn to self soothe? How?! When?!

Both of mine did from around 3/4 months but I had to train them. I Put them in the cot awake, picked them up if they cried, soothed them , put them back in the cot, repeat. Initially I could only step away from the cot but eventually I got out the room. I think it took 2 weeks

Sorry you feel I was being smug Raspberry88 that wasn’t my intention. As I said in my post I learned the hard way with DD1. I wasn’t “fortunate” with their temperaments believe me! My first in particular was (and still is) quite high needs. They both had severe reflux, were on a concoction of meds and were terrible feeders which complicated matters.

I agree many babies need help to go to sleep, but the “help” I gave mine was the dummy/blanket in the cot, swaddling (and white noise with DD2) so lots of “help” but just not help by rocking/bouncing/lying beside them.

I did the bounce/rock thing with DD1 at the start and it was awful and drove me to the brink so I’m just giving advice to people to put the habits in place from day one, stick with it as best you can and it will most likely be easier in the long run (there will always be exceptions obviously).

I think though that parents have only a certain amount of “control” (for want of a better word) over how an individual baby gets to sleep - and that will of course vary for each baby. Some are very amenable to ways of getting to sleep that require less parental input and others aren’t. So saying “put the habits in place from day one” is not especially helpful because I think most people start out with minimal intervention and work upwards if their baby doesn’t respond to their efforts to get them to sleep. No one starts out thinking that the only way to get their baby to sleep is by walking up and down stairs for 45 minutes or something - people get to that point when lower effort things fail! I think you’re being a bit hard on yourself about it being your fault that your first daughter needed lots of motion etc to fall asleep - if she hadn’t needed it in the first place you likely wouldn’t have done it

It's not a myth.

Pernickity1

Well, I'm sorry if I was a bit harsh but it's incredibly frustrating to be told again and again that there was something I could have done. I tried to start as I meant to go on but DS would not be put down, not for a second without screaming fit to burst. I couldn't put him down in the cot for a second, he never ever slept in there. I never intended to do what I did, I just responded to his needs and that's fine...it was bloody hard at the time and I really dislike being told I could have done it differently when it would have resulted in extreme distress for DS. I've had all of the routines in place and he's getting better in his own time as he's ready too. I agree with all of HerSymphonyAndSongs excellent posts here.

I think its absolutely essential to set up good habits early on Her

Where is the logic that suggests walking up and down stairs is going to help the child learn to sleep in their own bed ?

If you think of it from the childs point of view the message is completely confusing.
I want you to sleep in your bed but Im going to walk you about/go for a drive/bring you downstairs .
I appreciate this is desperation on the parents part but it doesnt work.

I read everything about swaddling and using a dummy when they're little and fully intended to do it. Unfortunately DS wouldn't take a dummy - and believe me I tried, I bought loads of the bloody things in the hope that I could find a type he would take.

Also, DS could roll onto his side from birth by lifting his legs up. I was worried about him doing this while swaddled and getting stuck so I did a bit of research and it turns out that swaddling isn't recommended for a baby who can roll as it's dangerous.

So that was swaddling and the dummy out of the window.

Despite this, we did actually go through a period of a few weeks when DS was 4/5 months where he would be put down wide awake and would drift off. This coincided with him sleeping longer and longer at night and I was thrilled that it seemed to be working! Then at 6 months he suddenly was having none of it again, screamed when I put him down awake and started waking up lots, sometimes every hour.

But Quite you’ve said yours ‘just went to bed’, didn’t need rocking or jiggling or any amount of walking up and down stairs; that you followed ‘sleep cues’ and did a ‘nice relaxed’ routine at bedtime.

Can you appreciate that for some babies you can do all of that - even from the very first day they’re out of the womb! - and it doesn’t work? So parents try different things, instead.

I agree with everyone who has said that it depends on the baby. Forcing it before your particular baby is ready is just going to be horribly distressing for everyone. But, equally, if your baby's personality means that they sometimes need a little quiet and space in a safe environment, then treating them as you would a "Velcro" baby is going to lead to misery too.

Speaking from experience here. My DD screamed a LOT during the first few weeks and I used to wonder why she was so unhappy when I was giving her everything according to the books and websites I'd read: cuddles, more cuddles, boob, cuddles, boob, cuddles, never being separated from mummy's body for a moment. One day, I put her down on her playmat in despair and she instantly went quiet and relaxed completely. It was a complete turning point for us. I think she just used to get ridiculously overtired and over-stimulated and was trying to tell me to put her the fuck down and stop rocking her for once. They're all their own little people from very early on.

(Doesn't seem to have much bearing on their later personality. DD is now a very cuddly preschooler whereas some of her friends who were the biggest Velcro babies are now going through an "ugh, stop it, mum, I hate cuddles" stage. God knows what they'll all be like as teenagers).

53rd
I did not expect my small babies to sleep through therefore I didnt jiggle or rock- they had a sleep/eat/poop schedule of their own as all tiny babies do.
I had them in a sling most of the time .
I EBF and its normal for small babies to wake to feed.
As they got older 8/9months I introduced the bedtime routine and they got used to it very quickly.

I think the answer is to have incredibly low expectations. Then anything good is a bonus.

I didn't expect mine to sleep through either. I really, really doubt that the parents who jiggle and rock are doing it because they think it'll make their baby sleep through for 12 hours or not wake for a feed - they're doing it because otherwise the baby won't go to sleep at all.

QuiteFrugal2019 my approach was the same as yours and he was in the sling most of the time, though we had a bedtime routine from much earlier because it’s what worked for him. I had no expectations of him “sleeping through” and still don’t and I don’t see how my (extreme) example of walking up and downstairs (which I fortunately never had to do!) would make any difference to “sleeping through”. Everybody starts as they mean to go on! I wish people wouldn’t assume parents who have to help their babies sleep more than others are somehow stupid. There is something to be said for re-trying a technique that didn’t work before a few weeks or months later and not assuming it will never work, but no one starts out trying to make life difficult for themselves and it is insulting to suggest that they do

“Where is the logic that suggests walking up and down stairs is going to help the child learn to sleep in their own bed confused? ”

No one thinks it does. But if you have a 5wo who you need to get to sleep and right now this is the only thing that works for them (and these babies do exist, I feel lucky that mine found it easier to fall asleep!), what are you going to do? Yes it is desperation and when you can’t think beyond the next couple of days being told that it is stupid to do it for the longterm is really unpleasant and unhelpful. Saying that it is not going to help them sleep in their own bed is as illogical as saying that breastfeedihg isnt going to help them eat with a knife and fork. Things are different for small babies

Some parents do need more help and unfortunately they dont get it.
Surestart closed down,little access to HV etc
As I said its in desperation that parents turn to various means to get their child to sleep.
If you want your child to sleep in their bed doing anything else isnt going to achieve that ,you form other sleep cues,rocking etc
Not sure how thats insulted anyone ?

My 10 month hasn't fallen asleep on her own since she was newborn. She is fed or rocked. But her 8 month old cousin gets her bottle, a cuddle and her dummy then is put in her cot where she chats away for a while and falls asleep! She is such a dream sleeper and will sleep for 12 hours. It is possible! Although she is child 4 so my SIL doesn't have as much time as I do with my 1 and has always had to leave her happy in her cot while sorting the others so baby had gotten used to settling to sleep with the Hubbub of family life around her!

But sometimes you can't get your child to sleep in their own bed, no matter what you do, no matter what good or bad habits you set up, no matter what the HV or the Baby Whisperer or those online sleep consultants that charge ££££ tell you.

So it's all very well to say "well walking up and down rocking them won't get them to sleep in their own bed!", but if you've got a baby like that then nothing else will get them to sleep in their own bed either. So parents do the second-best thing: get them to sleep somewhere, somehow, for now.

Imo parents think they need to do that first not second 53rd
It doesnt occur to them just to put the baby in their bed.
Because I assumed the same until I realised DD wanted to be left alone !

Trust me, most will have tried putting the baby in their own bed

Just because whatever you did worked or didn’t work for your baby please stop imagining all other babies (and parents) are the same

It doesnt occur to them just to put the baby in their bed.

Yes. Yes it really really does.

I did have help from HV. She said I needed to break the feeding to sleep by doing gradual retreat. We tried for a little while at about 10 months. DS cried so hard, he was a complete mess. When he was 14 months I stopped bf overnight and he barely whimpered. He just hadn't reached that point yet.

And yes, it had occurred to me to just put him in his bed. He was hysterical when put down.

Mine wouldn’t even sleep in the crib in the hospital! It was too far away from me for him, as was the sidecar crib attached to the bed. Of course I kept putting him in it from time to time to see whether he still felt the same, and it was clear when he was not ready for it, but fortunately for me over time he has progressively spent more time in the cot. But had I insisted on him sleeping in the crib early on he would have been miserable and I would have been suicidal with sleep deprivation.

Erm, just for the record, in case anyone was wondering, I do try just putting my baby in his own bed - every. single. time! As I said, it worked for a few weeks and he went to sleep, then it stopped working and he cried his eyes out as soon as I put him down. Tried settling him in the cot by shushing and patting, and he became more and more hysterical. Now I usually attempt a half way house of putting him in his bed just before he falls asleep. Sometimes it works, sometimes he screams.

I'm definitely not a person who has never tried!

yes “shushing and patting” really did NOT work here. Resulted in baby who took far longer to console than he would have slept for in the first place