Do babies learn to sleep if you don't 'train' them?

[Nausika]

Hi
My baby is 10 weeks old and unless in pram/sling, will only fall asleep and stay asleep in our arms. I can get her to fall asleep in rocking crib and bouncer but she always wakes up after 5 minutes really upset and will not fall back asleep on her own. Ditto if she falls asleep in my arms and I put her down. She sleeps in our bed during the night.

My attempts to change her sleeping habits have been tortuous and I am wondering whether it's worthwhile persevering. Won't she change her habits a few months down the road naturally when she is ready? Has anyone else been in the same situation? Did your babies grow out of it on their own? When does it happen?!?!

yes, they do!

but not at 10 weeks! she is tiny still, of course she wants to be held.

my lot were all fed/cuddled to sleep, the second 2 slept in my bed... all 3 now sleep fine in their own room.

I won't scare you with how old they were when they did it. But I can say that I feel very happy with the choices I made and the knowledge that my children were never left to cry or be upset when going to bed.
That said, my first self settled at a very early age and was sleeping through by 6 months. but I don't think that's the norm

Erm, not yet. Mine's 7 months. But DS learned to sleep really well without much help from us. My optimistic theory is that, just like talking and walking, they will almost all do it in their own good time.

Of course.

I think it's developmental. They do it when they're ready.

I didn't train dd in the slightest.

10 weeks is tiny.

10 weeks is very little. She is barely more than a newborn. It will get better I promise. At 10 weeks life is confusing. She has only learnt the difference between day and night, being hungry or wet is a shock. The only way she has of communicating with you is unfortunately crying.

There is a lovely book called "The no cry sleep solution" by Elizabeth Pantsey which has loads of excellent strageries to help your child sleep by herself without crying it out.

Or you could read "night time parenting" by William Sears.

There are plenty of goods to parent a child. You can either live with broken nights and make your life as easy as possible by co sleeping or using a bedside crib. Or you can be a bit strict. The important thing is to take an approach which suits your family.

It will get better. However there will be times like teething or colds when your baby wakes up more.

Yes, but by the time there was only one wake up per night I reckoned my second one was practically sleeping through! It was only one step away from no wake ups. As my first had made it to sleeping through I was confident my second one would.

It wasn't the waking, but the going back to sleep which bugged me. A teething toddler at 1-3am is not the same as a sleepy relaxed feed at 5am if the child walks to your bed without any crying, climbs in, feeds, then goes to sleep snuggled up right there.

If the child has not gone back to sleep after the 5am, say, wake up then it would have been worse for me, a much earlier start to the day. On paper it would be one fewer wake up but I'd much prefer the child to go back to sleep!

This is from a long time ago, so forgive me if this is not particularly helpful.

I asked my parents and in laws this over christmas. They had 9 children between them an never did any sleep training, just fed/ rocked to sleep then later they cuddled/ read stories till we fell asleep. Apparently the age when we slept through the night varied a lot but we all did it eventually

Gosh.
Well I reckons they do. I had a similar thing with my ds who is now 2yrs+2mo. He really would only sleep on my lap for naps and we also co-slept. At the beginning we tried to do the cot thing but once we hit the 4 month growth spurt I'd had enough of fighting it and decided to go with the flow.
I am pleased now I took this laid back route as I think the first year is full of developments which can seriously affect baby's sleep - teething/ crawling/ growth spurts/ separation anxiety. I think things really improved for us around 18mo. I would put him to bed and he would sleep as oppose to waking every hour or so (I used to let him sleep on my lap downstairs when he was particularly unsettled)
Now I generally don't hear a peep from him until he wakes around 6.30 - at which point I usually attempt to bargain another half hour!
We are by no means in the land of the perfect sleeper (I need to get back into my own bed!!) but there has been a slow but steady improvement - generally instigated by him.
I am expecting no.2 in July and am going to co-sleep from the off. No faffing!
All the best

Thanks, it's reassuring to hear that you guys think that 10 weeks is very young, that's how I feel too but have been receiving a lot of stick from grandparents because she sleeps in our arms all the time. I don't want to carry on with my attempts to teach her how to 'self-soothe' herself to sleep but I have moments when I worry that this is because I am a wimp rather than because it's what's best for her. Then I think it's a matter of development and she'll do things in her own time. Then I don't know what to think!

Yes. Some quicker than others. Mine varied but they all sorted themselves out in the end. I never did any sleep training.

Grandparents had their babies at a time when many things we would look askance at were considered perfectly fine practices.

I had the same comments. DS still sleeps in my arms from time to time but he is a happy outgoing bright wee thing - they all told me he would be timid and afraid to leave my side. Not at all.
Just go with your instinct. As long as you and your baby are happy.
The grandparents will forget they ever said anything in a year or 2 when she is running about causing all kinds of mischief!! (My mum has)

Thanks stottiecake and mathanxiety - that's v reassuring! :)

My ds co-slept with us until he was about 8 weeks then we had a crib which slotted next to the bed - it becomes part of the bed iyswim with 3 sides.It was great!
So I wd feed ds to sleep then put him in the crib but I could still have an arm around him so he felt secure.
Then at 4 months he moved to his cot (in our room) and finally at a year moved to his own room! He is now 3 and is a great sleeper.
We also got "the" comments from in laws, annoying but not unusual from the threads on here!

We've had stick from the grandparents about co-sleeping, rocking / feeding to sleep etc.

Our parents didn't have access to the scientific research we have now. We now know that there are lots of benefits to babies being cuddled, helped to sleep, and we know about some of the potential health implications of too early 'sleep training'.

My mum was told of instances of people rolling on their babies in the night so she gets scared at us co-sleeping, but research now shows it's safe if you're bf and not using drugs/alcohol/smoking etc.

I spent ages in the early days trying to get DS to 'self-settle'. It was a real waste of time and next time I'd not even bother.

Until 14 weeks he would only sleep in the sling in the day. Then rocking worked, then feeding, then he briefly self-settled, back to feeding, then at 8 months that stopped working in the day and now I rock him again. The sling doesn't work any more, but the pram does even though it didn't use to.

It changes all the time and I think they do get it - anecdotes I've heard vary from 6 weeks to 4 years.

The No-Cry Sleep Solution is a good read for babies from 4 months up. And after about 3 months it gets easier. Before then babies go straight into REM sleep, which means they're twitchy and wake very easily. After around 3 months, they go straight into non-REM sleep which means they're much less likely to wake when you put them down.

nauslka we're in exactly the same position as you! Think we (me and DH) have decided to manage our expectations, go with the flow and try and get her sleeping a bit more independently at her own pace.

We've had lots of that tutting reaction too but tbh we're all about dd so it's water off a duck's back.

I'd be really interested in hearing how you get on over the next few weeks/ months though...

There´s nothing wimpish about letting your child develop at their own pace. Don´t even think about sleep training!
I completely agree with Angeldog that this was a fashion in the past. Nowadays, very many parents have moved on or moved back. We cuddle and co-sleep and now dd is 5 (ds is 2) I feel quite amused when I think back to how I worried about what I SHOULD be doing at the beginning. On day 3 at the hospital, I worried that I was getting started on the wrong foot because dd would only sleep in my bed. Luckily I had a really good midwife who made clear there was no such thing as spoiling a child (except for neglecting it) and told me to respond to her every cue. I read the Sears Baby Book which reassured me that my instincts weren´t crazy and I now see how silly it was that I didn´t feel confident to follow my own ideas and instincts in the first place. Now I just do what I think is the best for my children and that means responding to their every need all the time!

I think the "No Cry Sleep Solution" is great from birth. It teaches parents what is normal sleep pattern.

I love the Sears books. My grandparents from rural Ireland were too far from anywhere to have heard of fashionable baby care practices - they would have shared the perspective of Dr Sears imo.

AngelDog - is it possible that some babies continue to fall straight into REM sleep? At 7 months it is still impossible to put DD down anywhere. Even if you think you've managed it (rare) she wakes crying within a minute or two.

Lol Simic. I was so indoctrinated from childhood that I was worried about picking DS up on our first night in hospital for fear of spoiling! There is a night I can never ever get back and I regret it so much.

we had DS with us all the time, co slept after the cot came out (at about 6 months) because he HATED it! He had no training whatsoever and is now a very happy confident sort himself out 3.4 year old!

yy, no training at all with DS, co-slept, used a sling etc. He slept through consistently from 18mo (but even before that, fewer wakings). Others I know slept much earlier without training too. Those that were trained often ended up waking later in their toddler years anyway.

No criticism of OP but so sad that a few GPs have such unrealistic expectations of what is normal for a young baby.

10 weeks is still very little.

Babies and cildren vary so much. My DD didn't learn to settle well on her own and at 20 months we did take action, but when she was so tiny I had no intention of "training" her. Most babies do just gradually learn themselves. I am sure DD would have eventually too.

I disagree with almost everyone here, sorry. It's my first time in the development forum and it seems like there's a bit of a skew towards fashionable co-sleeping, baby-wearing types. I come from a more strict bent so maybe I won't fit in here. But I had to say something because 10 weeks is a critical juncture in baby's sleep development.

I really do think babies need to be 'trained' into good sleep. And 10 weeks is an excellent time to start. Training is the difference between a baby who sleeps on his own from say 10-12 weeks (like mine), and one who takes 7 months, a year, maybe even a year and a half to do it. So it depends what you want to do. Do you want to keep rocking, soothing, waking up in the middle of the night, feeling exhausted. Or do you want to create good patterns around sleep?

There is A LOT of misinformation out there about what 'training' entails. It is NOT letting your baby cry for hours on end. Quite the opposite. It just means following a consistent routine around bedtime. My routine goes like this (if you're interested). Instead of feeding to sleep you allow baby some activity time (40 mins or so) after feeding. Then when they show 'tired signs' (e.g rubbing eyes or grizzeling) you swaddle, then you lay down the baby in the swaddle, then shh shh shh until they are starting to doze and then walk out of the room. A dummy helps. Only go back in if they are really crying (not for little cries).

Contrary to popular opinion, doing this does not make me an unsympathetic,disconnected mother or one who doesn't have a close maternal connection with her baby.

I would strongly recommend reading the Baby Whisperer book. It is excellent. It will give you everything you need to know about sleeping patterns.

I'd be interested to survey the folks who recommend rocking/patting/feeding to sleep about what age their babies slept through?

Kiwiinkits - why is the age of sleeping 'through' relevant? A baby who 'sleeps through' isn't a baby who stays asleep, just a baby who doesn't disturb their parents when they wake.

None of us 'sleep through' - we all have arousals between sleep cycles. As adults we just don't remember waking. A baby who co-sleeps, rouses briefly and drops straight back to sleep with parental help is no different.

Babies are different though. Some need to cry to release tension & relax, whereas others increase tension by crying. My DS never 'started to doze' without rocking or feeding, even in the first weeks of life, and when I tried what Kiwi suggested, it took approximately 30 seconds for his crying to reach the point of hysteria. Work out what works best for your child.

A consistent routine is helpful, I agree, but doesn't necessarily mean your baby will sleep on their own. Lots of people who help their babies to sleep (including me) have a consistent routine.

'Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child' (which is a great book on nap scheduling - I'd really recommend that bit of it) is a classic sleep training manual. The author recommends leaving your baby to 'scream his brains out' (his words) for an unlimited length of time. Anecdotes which are supposed to encourage you to sleep train include babies 3 months + who scream for 3 hours non-stop, and who for several weeks after the 'training', still cry for 30 minutes before every sleep. So I don't think it's fair to say that 'sleep training involves letting your baby cry' is 'misinformation'.