When did your baby start to self soothe?

[Summerdays2014]

Hi all,

Second thread from me today. My 23 week old son can not put himself to sleep. I rock/pat/insert dummy at bed time and nap time. This takes about 10 minutes and I don't mind it, I'm just wondering if there is anything I can do to encourage him or if it is age related? His naps last 30 minutes. At night he can sleep for long stretches (has very occasionally gone all night) so he is able to get himself back to sleep... I appreciate this question has probably been asked many times before, so thank you in advance for any help.

Patience. My LB is over 2 years and has really only just got the hang of it. Yours is still so very young. 10 minutes of patting is pretty good in my opinion!

Just keep your expectations low realistic and give him plenty of love. They all get there in their own time.

Without me in the room at all - about 18 months.

DS still needs me in the room to fall asleep and he is 2yo. Also sometimes calls out/walks in to us during the night if he wakes. It's a very a advanced skill that some get quicker than others (nothing to do with your parenting by the way).

2 years old

Yup, 2.2 years here too.

2.5 years, just before I went insane with tiredness

Mine's 3.2 and I still hold his hand to sleep. I was in the bed with him till 2 months ago so I count hand as a massive step forward...we're working on no hand next.
Ten minutes patting and he's out? Sounds flipping amazing. DD 5 months will 25% of time go down straight, 50% of time go down with running up and downstairs with repeated dummy insertions and 25% of the time after an hour of screaming and standoff I give up and get her up and rock her to sleep.

My Dd is 14 months on Tuesday, and has been pretty good at self-settling from around 11 months, in the sense that I can put her down in her cot, drowsy but awake, leave the room, and she will go to sleep. Before that, it used to take a hell of a lot of rocking to sleep and a little bit of sleep training, but we got there.
Your boy sounds like he's a really good sleeper!!!

First two children, about three/four months. Third child about 10 weeks - was incredible, he found his fingers and sucks them to go to sleep.

None of them had dummies and all EBF. From about 10 weeks I spent a lot of time shush-patting to try and get them to self settle where poss for every nap (wouldn't always work but over time they get the hang of it).

From around 3 weeks, discovered it when she was howling but I really needed the toilet. By the time I got back to her (a whole minute or so later) she was asleep.

I'll probably have a non-sleeper if I have a second child.

6 months after using sleep training (cry it out)

I think it was around 5-6 months when he went in his own cot and room

Mine is 4.4 yrs and still sometimes needs company to sleep he was 2 before he started at all we still have nights that he's tired or poorly and needs cuddled to fall asleep

Between 3 and 9 months DD would settle herself to sleep with no fuss if put down sleepy but awake. Then a lovely sleep regression kicked in! Now she's 10.5 months and slowly improving...

We were desperate as DD wanted dummy re-inserted every time she stirred, be it 5 minutes/20 mins/1 hour...it was a nightmare, so we went cold turkey, threw away the dummy and done sleep training (going back in every minute, then 2 mins, 5 mins etc). This worked in 2 nights and she self soothed for every nap/sleep and it meant she finally slept through the night and had longer naps too as she knew how to get back to sleep by herself if she stirred. We done the same thing with the next 2 as we knew it worked wonders! Your little one doesn't sound nearly as bad though. I'm not sure they ever just self settle by themselves unless you show them? I don't know...good luck!

Thanks all, I appreciate your replies.