Am I causing bad sleep habits?

[Sunday89]

Hi, my DS is 5 months old and every time he goes to sleep I pop a dummy in and I basically hold my arm across his chest to pat him for comfort and also to stop his arms flailing around and to stop him knocking his dummy out. I try not to talk to him or distract him. This technique generally means he falls asleep quickly at night and nap times (although naps are annoyingly short, usually 30mins).
I’m worried that if I carry on he’s not going to learn to self settle to sleep, any tips or should I carry on for now?
Thanks

I’m not an expert as my first is nearly 5 months but that sounds perfect to me?... it’s not rocking or bouncing or feeding to sleep, it’s getting nearer to self settling. I would be pleased with that.

That sounds really good as you aren’t rocking or feeding to sleep. Once he’s a bit older you can always slowly withdraw your role in helping him sleep but assuming that he’s sleeping well at night and you aren’t spending hours getting him to sleep I’d stick with what you’re doing

Thank you, what sort of age do you think he would be ready to go to sleep without any help from me? Yesterday I tried leaving him to it but it did not go well

No, you are not. You are helping your small baby get to sleep

i read an interesting article- not sure how accurate or right it was. It explained that at six months babies develop object permanence and if they get put to sleep a certain way and it changes when they wake up they cry rather than falling back to sleep.

Have a read- its interesting even if not true and has led to me putting my 9 week baby to sleep on its own (with no rocking, dummy, white noise etc) just in case it is true.

www.preciouslittlesleep.com/what-you-need-to-know-about-sleeping-through-the-night-part-i/

I think once they get to a stage where they can put their own dummy back in you are onto a winner, and they will self settle quite quickly then