Is falling asleep alone developmental???

[charlie13032017]

My lb is 6 months and is still nursed to sleep for bed and then naps are he's bounced to sleep in the bouncer..
I'm wondering whether falling asleep on their own is decelopmental or something that has to be taught.
I've tried the pick up, put down method but he just seems to get angrier and angrier and could scream for hours on end.
Also, I'm not a fan of crying it out, don't want to do that one bit..

Any advice or suggestions would be highly appreciated

You'll get many different opinions on this. My thoughts are that there is a difference between:

● Parental settling
(when the comforting method can only be done by an adult)
● Independant settling
(when child can learn to comfort him/her self without the help of a parent)
● Self settling
(the point at which no comforting is needed for sleep. Just eyes closed and sleep without needing the 'comforted' feeling)

There's some research that says children's brains require them to need comfort to get to sleep until around school age. This does suggest it is developmental and the change happens in in the 3-5 years old.

What this research doesn't tackle is that babies can have independant comfort (dummy would be the simplest example of this) from birth. So be independantly settling at any age.

Many children change from parental settling to independant settling through sleep training or gradual change. There are things like comforter objects, blankie, lovie, thumb sucking, dummy, rhythmic self-movements. But there is still the factor of physically having the muscle control to do these. They may have independant settling techniques but still need parental help (like dummy reinsert) when younger.

Other children keep parental settling (cosleeping, feeding to sleep, cuddling etc) right through until self settling without any comfort around 4 years old.

I think FATE has described this perfectly although I would say children learn to self settle anytime before 4. A friend of mines cosleeping fed to sleep baby learnt to self settle at 10 months with no intervention. My husband did when he was 2. I did when I was about 15 joke! But I was a clingy child. They're all different, but it is developmental.

Thank you for your replies!
The thing is, I'm hoping to only breastfeed no longer than 18 months (personal reasons I wish not to discuss)
He doesn't take a dummy.
I've heard loads of mixed opinions about this being developmental and taught..
Out of all my mummy friends my baby is the only one breastfed and seems to need help getting to sleep..
My family nurse is also encouraging me that I need to teach him but nothing seems to quite be working, took him another 2 hours last night to get back to sleep (I have In and gave him the breast)

My son is nearly 6 months old and was breastfed to sleep until recently. We have switched to rocking him to sleep and plan to start some gentle sleep training after getting back from holiday.

I have been reading various resources for sleep advice, and wanting a "middle ground" approach which is gentle (i.e. not crying it out or controlled crying) but will still achieve results over time. The best two resources I've found so far are this website/blog: childsleepscience.wordpress.com
and the book "No Cry Sleep Solution" (reading it I don't think it was published very recently but it has loads of practical tips).
I am formulating a gentle sleep training plan based on those two resources.

I also read "The Gentle Sleep Book" but I found it was pretty pointless, very few practical tips indeed! And another book (I forget the name) which was more in favour of the stricter methods which made me feel as if I'd be doing it all wrong, so wouldn't recommend any of those either.

You've got another year until he's 18 months! So much time to get there. He might do it himself in a few months you don't know. I wouldn't even worry about it until nearer the time, maybe say at the year mark and then you can try the Pantley Pull off or the Jay Gordon method (if you want to do gently gently) xx

charlie13032017, forgetting what you think you 'should' be doing, do you want baby settling independantly now? Or are you happy feeding to sleep?

Don't let the attachment-type parents make you feel you should be feeding to sleep long term.

Also don't let the independant sleep advocates make you feel baby has to be sleeping alone.

Both are right. Neither are wrong.

You should not be judged by either answer. So, do you want to feed to sleep or stop? If you are thinking about stopping, consider how urgent that is, how soon it must happen by.

Again, no judgment but it is important that you are honest with yourself about how soon you are expecting independant sleep. Different sleep training methods work at different speeds. If you do a method that's supposed to give quicker results but do it half-assed (excuse my phrasing) because you can't face the harshness, sleep ends up worse. Better instead to find a less harsh but slower paced sleep training method that you can cope with.

All of this begins with being very honest with yourself and being confident in your decision.

Excellent advice, I agree with all that.

I also agree with everything Fate just said.

Keep in mind that lots of Mums who have breastfed to sleep in the first year wean from the breast before 18 months so you aren't alone in wanting to stop breastfeeding by then.

If you want to achieve independent sleeping before 18 months and use gentle methods, my advice would be to start making small steps from now so you gradually work your way there. Yes, he may do it himself but he also may not so making small steps from now will help you get there. If you slowly stop feeding to sleep and switch to rocking, for example, then reduce how much you rock each time over a few months, you will achieve it. You will move a few steps backwards every time you hit a developmental milestone/illness/teething but if you've removed the association between breast and falling asleep, thats no problem.

I'd try not to worry and be led by baby. Mine has gradually got to the point where she can settle herself to sleep but I only realised this because I left her whinging one day to finish a chore and within a couple of minutes she was asleep. I'm obviously pleased baby can do this but it's not my having taught her that means she can do it!

FATE Honestly, I am hoping he weans off the breast before 18 months if so, I don't really want to go any further than that..
I'm happy enough to feed him to sleep at night at the moment as I do think he's still very young!
I would like him to go down abit easier for naps but I suppose it's still the same thing really.. (either bounced in bouncer or pushed on pram)

I would definitely prefer to do a slow gentle approach rather than a quick one, especially as I have awhile.

riddles26 I'm hoping he weans, it would be easier but i thought I'd just come here for advice to prepare myself as especially as I thought I'd give it a go and nothing's worked so honestly I don't think he's ready one bit.

INeedNewShoes what ages was your lo, if you don't mind me asking?

She's 15 weeks now and has self-settled to sleep every night for the past ten days. She grumbles for a few minutes but can reliably find her thumb which seems to help.

Weirdly she can't settle herself for her daytime naps which generally require half an hour of me rocking the pushchair back and forth.

@INeedNewShoes I really hope this isn't the case for you but my daughter self settled and was the perfect night time sleeper (despite being a long term non-napper) until she hit 4 month regression then it all fell apart.

@charlie13032017 I'm a bit ahead of you - my daughter is 10 months now but I hope to have her weaned from the breast in the next 3-4 months. As solid intake goes up, he will drop his daytime feeds himself so once you break the feed to sleep cycle, it should be manageable by 18 months. Mine doesn't feed to sleep but the breast is a massive source of comfort for her - especially right now in the midst of teething and separation anxiety - which is why I've changed my initial plan of stopping breastfeeding completely by 12 months to only morning and night feeds at 12 months and completely off by 14.

Yep I know riddles! I'm on tenterhooks for the next couple of weeks to see if her lovely sleeping becomes a thing of the past! I don't know how I'll cope as I'm tired enough even with baby sleeping well at night.

riddles26
My aim to stop breastfeeding was originally just past 12 months, but not quite sure how that would plan out, which is why I set 18 months as a Max's friend of mine said that he would most likely drop his feeds as within the whole time of waking and then going to bed he has about 6/7 feeds a day x

@INeedNewShoes just enjoy that she is sleeping well right now and you will manage if it does happen. My mum said I slept through and self settled from 6 weeks with no regressions, hopefully that will be the case for you.

@charlie13032017 we've dropped to 3 (max 4) feeds each day in the past month so you will get there. She still feeds once in the night, I'm hoping this will drop as her solid intake increases but I'm not in a rush to drop it yet. If she needs it after 13 months, I plan to switch it to formula as I wean

riddles26 that's good, I guess time will only tell, until he starts being introduced with solids, I think it may take a little longer I'm not sure, as I'm going to start baby led weaning on 2 weeks when he's 6 months.
I won't be able to switch to formula as my lb won't take a bottle, never has done haha

I'm also BLW which is why we have only managed to cut breastfeeds in the past month and why she still feeds at night (all my friends babies who following traditional weaning cut milk around the 7 month mark and quite a few have started sleeping through from 8 months). For me, BLW is worth it for the stress free meal times and she loves tasting everything.

My health visitor advised me to consider formula in an open cup in place of snacks and then gradually add in at night once she is eating well because she isn't a major bottle fan too (will take it if I'm not in the house but otherwise refuses). I haven't tried yet but could be an option for you when you get there.

I honestly wouldn't worry too much - I can think of 13 friends who breastfed their babies and only one of them continued past 14 months so from my -admittedly small - sample, many manage to stop before 18 months.

It tends to depend also on the child - some children just feel safer and calmer around others to go to sleep. Some just nod off at the drop of a hat, others are so excited by the world they find it hard to switch off.

It's also whether it's developmental or cultural, as in reality, western children and people only stopped all sleeping together relatively recently, during the Victorian era. So it wasn't really a 'thing' before then.

A good way to slowly gently wean off the breast is to not offer but don't refuse.

I would definitely prefer to do a slow gentle approach rather than a quick one, especially as I have awhile.

In that case the things you mentioned in the OP (PUPD and CIO) really aren't necessary at 6 months old. These methods that make babies cry would only be necessary in a mum who wants/needs baby to sleep more independantly RIGHT NOW. They are the urgent "something must be done" sleep training methods if you cannot continue how things are any longer.

For you charlie13032017, prefering the slow gentle route, there's no reason to put yourself and baby through the stress.

Having said that, there are things you can do to slowly progress towards independant sleep. The Pantley Pull off from the No Cry Sleep Solution is worth looking into. It's reasonable to expect to have stopped feeding to sleep by 18 months if you are consistant with that.

The concepts behind NCSS begin with realistic expectations. These are not things that will have baby sleeping independantly any time soon, these are not quick fixes. But more about making small steps (that cause no crying) towards independant sleep.

The Pantley Pull-Off is the first step in this. It means unlatching baby when nearly asleep and rocking to sleep instead. Then progressively unlatch soonrsooner until feeding to sleep becomes rocking to sleep.

Then follow the same process to move from rocking to sleep to lying down reassurance. So stop rocking earlier as time goes by. Then baby gets used to sleeping stationary in your arms, then from stationary cuddles to gradually putting down and reassuring in the cot. Use of a comforter object comes into play nearer 12 months too.

So for now, all you would need to do is see if you can unlatch baby once dozing and get to deep sleep without nipple in mouth. This is not meant to be stressful or create any crying. Then do this increasingly earlier in the feed.

@FATEdestiny has managed to phrase what I was trying to say in my first post much better than I managed to!

Honestly, don't worry too much. You have lots of time, just take tiny steps from now and you will manage it

I realise this is totally anecdotal but in my experience it just sorted itself out in spite of what I did rather than because of any method I used. My dc1 always fed to sleep and I angsted about it for ages thinking I should be putting her down drowsy but awake etc. Read no cry ssleep solution and spent ages trying to do the pantley pull off. She woke up and screamed every time and conked out immediately she got the boob/dummy whatever back. At some point she just stopped feeding to sleep so I started rocking to sleep and that worked for a while until it didn't and I just put in cot. After a couple of days she was easily self settling. She also gave up breastfeeding, I would have happily carried on but she just refused.
Now I have dc2 and he never feeds to sleep or falls asleep in anyone's arms. Nearly all naps are in the bouncy chair. He was an overtired mess yesterday as visitors wanted to hold him and people never get that if he's upset he just needs the bouncy chair even if they can temporarily calm him down.