age what age did your baby self settle?

[mrsmoomoopoopoo]

How old were they when they started self settling to sleep and did you teach them or is it something they just do eventually?

Dd is 5 months and has to be completely asleep before I transfer her to her crib. It's getting more difficult the bigger she gets.

I'm dreading when she goes in her own room at 6 months as it will be harder transferring her into her cot.

Absolutely. I remember it being a revelation when I learned the difference between the sort of mumping which happens immediately prior to sleep and crying.

6 month after sleep training (at the advice of the HV FWIW)

5 months for DD but it's her personality rather than anything we've done. She prefers to settle herself now at 7 months rather than be cuddled to sleep. But for naps she will only sleep on me or in the pram and will not entertain the possibility of the cot.

11 months. We did a mix of gradual retreat and CC in the end.

About 5/6 months for naps, she always sucks her thumb to get to sleep. Only fully for bedtime at about 9 months when I stopped feeding her.

This last week, at 6.5 months. We've done some sleep training (Kim West - good night sleep tight). It's cooincided with DD learning to roll though and she sleeps much better on her tummy. I can generally feed her, put her down on her tummy and leave her to nod off. I have also worked to form an attachment with a comforter.

Honestly I'm astonished. A week ago I was an exhausted cosleeping wreck. I really hope this new sleeping phase sticks!

DS 1 was 2.5 - I did a bit of sleep training, took a couple of weeks but got there in the end.
DS 2 was 4!
DS 3 (now 16 months) was 12 weeks and is great, I put him down in his cot and he sings himself to sleep.
I didn't do anything differently with any of them, I think it's largely just down to 'them' - different personalities.

18mo and still waiting... planning on working on it seriously after his paeds appointment in may when I know there isn't a physical reason. He snores and gasps and chokes and seems to struggle to pull in enough air all night long so quite happy with him co-sleeping where I can keep an eye on him.

We sleep trained at 7 months. Never left DD to cry, but would leave her to whine and chat and play. She's almost a year old now, and is only now starting to sleep solidly from 7pm to 6:30am with no input from us. She does still mess about a little bit a nap times, just seeing how far she can push I think! But as soon as I talk to her through the monitor, and tell her it's time to sleep, she lays down and whines for a few minutes before falling asleep.

2.11 and still doesn't. Plus wakes up every 2 hours in the night.

Dd is 12 weeks and since she was born ive fed her cuddled her and put her down. Not intentionally doing it to self settle, it just happened and she fell asleep. Shes got a seashorse that lights up and plays a lullaby which I think she now associates with sleep. She won't be put down in the day though so I suppose you can't have it both ways
I'd recommend introducing a comforter just for bedtime, ewan the sheep is popular, introduce it now and then when she gets put in her own room just press it while she's awake. Good luck

Dc 1 -8 months
Dc - 3.11 years.

About 8 months then stopped at 11 months when separation anxiety kicked in. Self settles during the night but not to start with. It's all completely biologically normal so just go with it. She'll show you signs in time!

My ds is 3.5 he has stories with daddy and then I come in and sit on his bed till he falls asleep. This tends to take 5-15 minutes. No skin off my nose so I'll stick with that routine until it doesn't work anymore.

When you guys talk about letting them whinge for a bit, do you mean a little bit of crying?
And how big on the scale of crying?

If at nap time I were to kiss and cuddle (16mo) DD then put her in the cot and walk out I guarantee (but should keep testing as she's getting older) within 20 seconds she'd be screaming with big fat tears running down her face. I don't know how long she'd do this before she decided to stop and lie down and try to go to sleep on her own. I hate having her cry and me not go to her, again, my choice and I respect others'.
So I won't do that.

Do you have babies who just lie down and whimper for a bit or do you mean proper crying like that? Maybe I'm being massively pfb!

dd- from birth! very easy baby all round

ds!- 5yo!! it took an epic tantrum on my half to get him to go to sleep without me in the bed cuddling him! hardest baby out of the two of them.

dc shouts - more an indignant I don't want to be in here rather than an upset cry, I leave it a couple of minutes and he will "cry down" so his whinges become quieter and more spaced out. Sometimes he will shout and get louder/more irate so I go in give him a cuddle and soothe then when calm place back in the cot. I generally leave it at least 5 minutes to see what he's going to do; can you imagine if you were just about to drop off and someone popped their head into your room to check you were okay - you'd wake up and remember you didn;t want to be in bed. Babies cant read or soothe themselves like we do to go to sleep so chatting/whingeing etc is their only way.

Thanks Iguess that sounds very different to my DD. Just tried it this nap time and as expected she was screaming to the point of coughing and gagging (I was having a wee, I wasn't just sitting outside the door listening to her gagging) and I don't have the heart to leave her doing that. She'll get it. Eventually. [Hopeful emoticon]

Thanks for your replies everyone!
Sounds like it's going to take a long time for my dd to self settle reading everyone's comments.

When she gets to 6 months she's going in her own room so will try the ss thing then.

My friend put her dd in own room st 8 months. First night left her to cry for one hour but only winging not full on crying. She fell asleep after an hour. Next night it only took 45 mins and night after 20 mins and then she went to sleep on her own fine after that. This was a baby that had to be fed or rocked to sleep and would only sleep in her mums arms for naps.

Yeah with dd it's definitely not a cry, I'll put her down with her dummy and rabbit and leave the room she'll normally spit the dummy right out and start shouty groaning, but it's intermittent, after a while I'll go in and put the dummy back in and stroke her face and she'll normally close her eyes and nod off.

I guess that isn't actually really self settling is it , well it's an advancement on me having to transfer her from the sling every evening

DD, from birth.

DS1 8 years.

DS2 ould have been quite young, but we were so used to DS1 needing us, we automatically stayed with him. When he was 4 he asked us why the baby sitter didn't snuggle him to sleep. Because she was brilliant and realised DS1 needed her much, much more

Dd is 8 months and not even close. Like cashmere she wails if I leave her. They are all so so different and I've come to the conclusion it will happen when it happens and it's not something you can force without distressing the baby. But that doesn't mean I won't keep trying every now and then to put her down on her own to see if she's ready yet.

By whinging I mean little groaning noises, definitely not a cry.

DD always needed to be cuddled to sleep. One day it wasn't working, so I decided to put her down in her cot to see what happened. She babbled happily to herself for half an hour and then fell asleep. DD seems much happier being put down awake now, than cuddled/pushed in the pram. It's her current preference.

Occasionally when I put her down she has a little groan. She doesn't cry tough. I definitely wouldn't leave her to cry for an hour! Sometimes I get the timing wrong and she's not happy, so get her up and try again later.

I agree with those who say that it'll happen when it happens and not to force it.

It depends what you mean kind of! DS self settles in that he isn't rocked or fed or shushed or anything but I have to be in the room :/

12 weeks.
Now at six months he will no longer donor 😪