How did you get your little one to self settle?

[12weeker]

Have a 3 month old who I want to learn to self settle. Appreciate he may be a bit young but want to just give it ago.

Ive bought Andrea Grace’s book but wondering if there’s anything that specifically worked for you, how long this took and how old your little one was at the time?

Maybe I should add, mine atm will cry (and not stop) within 1 min of putting him down in the cot or pram or nap location. I don’t plan to let him cry! Just saying I am starting very much from scratch

Did it from birth with my second and third kid as my first was a nightmare (would still prefer me to be with him until he falls asleep now he’s 8!).

3 months is fine, you can start now IMO. Introduce a transitional object. Try and get them to fall asleep by themselves at least once a day. Ours all made the same very specific tired noise, so hopefully yours has some ‘I’m sleepy’ noise - put down and see if they doze off. Hope for the best!

Officially they're supposed to be in the same room as you when they sleep until 6 months, so if you mean self settling so you can be in a different room, you might want to consider SIDS risk.

If it's in the same room as you - is he waking to feed? That's a real need (as is the need for cuddles tbh)

Otherwise, you could try gentle techniques like shushing and patting rather than picking up, not going to him immediately (French call it le pause) - not cry it out but waiting maybe 10-30 seconds before you respond.

Nothing worked until we did sleep training a lot later, I wouldn't do it at 3 months. And tbh it got better and worse, it wasn't a straight improvement as teething and sleep regressions etc can worsen sleep too.

Way too young.

You can put him to sleep on warmed surface, having waited a while to ensure he's deeply asleep, and place hand on tummy for a while so he feels like he's still held.

Or sling naps, or cosleeping naps.

Not too young at all. My son could self settle at 11 weeks

Officially yes but you don't have to go by the guidelines. You do your own risk assessments

We did Ferber at 6 months. Magical.

At 5 months I tried to do drowsy but awake and get him to fall asleep in the cot with me sitting next to him and patting/ shushing / soothing. It didn’t work, he wasn’t ready and it just made me really frustrated.

We used happy sleeping babies book as a guide from about 8 months. But we were lucky and she slept pretty well until about 4-5 months.

didn’t do it with my first and he’s still unpredictable now at 6. My daughter has a great relationship with sleep and asks to go to bed /nap etc.

p.s. it’s much easier to fall asleep at night rather than the day.. so anything you do try, try it at night first.
People always seem to want to “practice” with naps but they’re much harder because there’s less biological urge to sleep.