If your nearly 1-year-old cries in the night for a few mins, then self-settles, would you feel guilty?

[snottagecheese]

DS will be 1 next week and a month ago, after 11 months of him waking 3/4/5+ times a night every single night since birth, we decided we couldn't hack the mind-bending sleep deprivation and embarked on some CC. Now he will sleep through some nights, but on others he wakes once or twice and cries - low-level crying, more than grizzling but less than full-on distress - then generally settles himself back to sleep within about 5 minutes without us going in.

I hate to hear him cry at all, but can't get away from the fact that things are SO much better than they were, and I know that if we went in to him when he cried, he'd be up for ages, or I'd end up feeding him back to sleep, or both, and we'd be right back to square one again. And he's fine about going to bed, and usually very chipper and smiley in the morning, so I don't feel as though it's doing him great harm. Or is it?? If it was your DC, what would you do?

Leave him to settle it's fine :)

No, it's not doing him any harm. It would be far worse to go in and lose all the headway you've made. But totally get why you feel guilty, the emotional response to the sound of your child crying is one of the biggest, most overwhelming things I have ever experienced.

I wouldn't feel bad at all for leaving them. Mine does the same and I think if they can sort themselves out in a minute or two then thats fine. You can normally tell whether the crying is going to ramp up, or is just a little whinge before dropping off again.

I wouldn't feel guilty. He's just settling himself back to sleep, that's how he does it. You'll know if it is a cry that needs attention. Just leave him to settle back. Enjoy the sleep.

Leave him. Sounds like a success story to me.

That fine IMO. It's what I do for my nearly one year old (and used to do for my now nearly three year old). You'll be able to tell if their distressed from the crying. Enjoy the sleep!

Hi, snottage.

My DS is 1 next week, too, and, we're in the same situation re whining/grizzling in the night.

I leave him as long as it doesn't turn into a full-blown crying attack in which I know he's awake and needs attention.

If you go in you are really disrupting his sleep. Leaving him is the est thing for everyone.

Ah, thank you all for the reassurance, makes me feel a lot better. It's tricky, you sort of feel that either they'll just sleep through without a peep all night , in which case you don't need to do anything, or they'll be crying hard, in which case you probably should. The middle ground is so much harder to judge.

Also, once or twice he's done more than low-level crying and has ramped it up to proper wailing, and then it's very hard to know how to respond without going backwards on all the progress we've made. But when I've gone in on those occasions it hasn't really helped, just made him crosser/more upset unless I let him fall asleep while I hold him. Which I'd love to do if it didn't mean going back to doing that 4 times a night...

No, low level crying and dropping off back to sleep again after 5 mins I would definitely leave and not feel guilty. Its a self settling process and that soon will stop. You would cause more angst by going in. If he really ramped it up and didn't drop off after 5 mins or so, then I'd go in. But you can tell the difference between low level grumbling and full on distress.