1 yr old sleeping well but still rocking

[Muffintopflop]

Hello, interested to hear other peoples experiences. I have been rocking my DS to sleep and because he normally sleeps fairly well I haven't been in a rush to train him to settle himself to sleep. However I know I can't do this forever and he is now 1 year old ! Just wondering what other mums in my situation ended up doing - has the rocking to sleep ever come to a natural end or does everyone end up having to sleep train? Any method that didn't involve too much crying and at what age? He starts at a childminder soon so he needs to get used to going down for naps without being rocked!

It came to a natural end for us at 10 months. Actually, it stopped working very well at 5-6 months, but I didn't know how else to get him to sleep and wasn't ready to sleep train so I muddled through. At 10 months (a couple of weeks ago) we did gradual retreat and apart from one bad night it went smoothly. I feel like it's a reasonable age to try as they are starting to understand more what you want them to do, plus it's easier to tell their protest cries from really upset cries.

Having said this, at nursery they are using a pram for his naps as he doesn't go to sleep quickly enough to be put down in the cot (ie he disturbs the other babies).