Can my baby self settle?

[Rachel153]

So I'm a bit confused with my baby (aren't we all?!)
My 5mo cannot self settle at bedtime and nap times nor often during the night. However on occasion she has 'woken' in the night or from a nap, whinged for a few mins and then gone back to sleep. Is she really self settling or does she not actually wake up properly? And if she is self settling why can't she do it when we put her down for bed/naps? I have tried everything but it always ends in complete meltdown from her

She's still very tiny. :)

It seemed to happen gradually for my DC. They did as you described, then when a bit older went to sleep ok at bedtime, settling for naps in cot seemed to come last.

I think settling themselves back to sleep is a developmental thing and maybe comes once they understand a bit better what's going on.

Ok thanks for that. Ftm not really having a clue about what to expect babies of certain ages to be able to do! Lots of people (mostly mum and hvs) keep telling me she's canny and leading me a merry dance... Why is this?! I'm sure she doesn't have that ability yet, after all the age of reason doesn't come till about 7 years old does it not?!

It's kind of an old fashioned view that you have to train babies to settle/not want picked up all the time and that they will 'wrap you round their little finger' etc.

Feel free to ignore it and cuddle as required

Hi OP to be honest we were helping our LO fall asleep for all her naps and night sleep until she was 11 months old (which is probably not what got wanna hear!) But it was relatively painless as we would shush/sing and pat her to sleep (it would take us a few minutes 15 min max). One day she was taking ages to a settle with this method and we left her to it. She had a shout / low level cry/grizzle and then feel asleep on her own. LO finally learnt to self settle at 11 months and we were happy that relatively no tears were involved. I think we probably could've encouraged this to happen sooner but we weren't too bothered.

We used a sleep consultant for the self
Settling and she told us that baby cannot manipulate you, she has just not consistently learnt to fall back to sleep. She told us to Sshush, pat, use quiet voice to settle.
Took a couple of weeks and baby not settled herself.
It will always stick with me that comment that babies cannot manipulate us and are just trying to get tier needs met. Good Luck

Brilliant thanks for all your support. I have to keep telling myself I know my baby best and I'm sure she's just not figured out the going to sleep bit yet :)