how can i get my baby to self sooth to sleep

[StormyBear88]

My baby sleeps so well at night. 8 - 11 hours (13 weeks old). And I know alot of people will think Im so lucky with this and why on earth Im looking for advice... BUT I would love to know how I can train her to sleep on her own. I have to get her to fall asleep on me, wait 10 mins for her to be in a deep sleep and then gently put her down. If she stirs when Ive put her down I have to do it all over again!! I would want to do sleep training (Ferber CIO) just to be able to teach her to fall asleep once she is already in bed. If she were to wake in the night for a feed then I will feed her and lay her back down to go back to sleep.

Please let me know if this is how it works? I dont agree with letting her cry in the night if she wakes up without feeding her first because she is still little and I would never want her to be hungry.

During the day she has lots of little naps, or sometimes naps for up to 4 hours so its really all over the place.. I want to work on having a set bedtime and then 2 - 3 naps in the day all at the same times (eventually) to get into a bit more of a routine.

Thanks everyone. p.s: I know the CIO method isnt for everyone, so please keep all negative comments to yourself. Im genuinely just after some advice here.

13 weeks is way too young! 13 weeks!!!!! You've got the 4mo regression to come yet anyway. Seriously, some babies don't work it out for ages, and leaving them to cry, especially at such a young age, will not help at all. Just count your lucky stars that you've got an 8-11 hour night sleep! I know 3yos including mine that don't do that yet.

Babies don't learn to self soothe. What they learn is that nobody is coming for them so they better keep quiet. Studies show that stress hormones are elevated in babies left to cio . The stress hormones remain elevated even if the baby is quiet. They remain elevated for years, they don't disappear when the parent reappears. From an evolutionary perspective, a baby in its own would be eaten by predators by nightfall. When you go, your baby doesn't know you're ever coming back.

Babies need their mums or dads with them all the time.
Please read up on this a bit more before continuing. I know it's hard to get time to yourself but it has lasting effects on a baby to be left alone, that are only being properly researched and discovered now

Mine both slept through the night from eight weeks. I gave them both dummies from the start. Have a very standard routine at bedtime, eg feed, bath, clean nappy, cuddles and lullabies, then into cot with dummy. Mine sucked themselves to sleep quite readily . If their dummy fell out in the night, you would see a little hand groping round for it, then stick it back in with a little sigh of contentment!
I know opinions vary on dummies, but as long as they’re not in the mouth all day, limiting speech or communication, and are quickly outgrown, I think they’re a godsend at night, and help baby to settle off to sleep easily.

Agree with the others. Leaving a 13 week old baby to cry is cruel. They're still learning they're a separate being from their mother. If all the baby wants is comfort then I don't understand why you wouldn't want to comfort them.

I should add that I kept the cot next to my bed for the first year. I think babies feel secure when they can hear you breathing beside them.

What is this 4 mo sleep regression? Certainly not every baby has it. Mine didn't child 2 slept well from birth, child 1 was crap from the off. I hate it when posters state this as a fait accompli.

If I'm being completely honest it sounds like you're living the dream if baby sleeps for that long!
And if all it takes is a feed and a cuddle to get them to go to sleep, happy days. It's not fair to expect a 13 week old to self soothe unless it starts to happen naturally. Crying it out seems so harsh to me 😞
If all you have to do is feed and cuddle them and they sleep for 8 hours, call it a mega success, feel smug and enjoy it.
The longest my 8 week old will sleep is 2 hours, maybe 3, plus cuddling or feeding to sleep every time in between. So chill and enjoy your amazing sleeping, snuggling baby, they won't be that little and snuggly forever 👶😊

You can't teach a 13 week old baby to self settle.
You shouldn't do any kind of sleep training before 6 months.

I didn't say I was starting it now! I said I was looking for advice. I've got the books to read and I'm just looking for actual advice from people that have done it. And FYI you can start from 4 months as long as they don't need food all night long. So that's not long off for me.

How long do you spend on average trying to settle them to get them to go to sleep?

Honestly I think self soothing is a myth. Sleep is a developmental skill like walking or crawling. They get it when they get it.

You can certainly help them along a bit with good routines (light days, dark nights etc) but there’s only so much you can do.

Of course you can train almost anyone to do almost anything - it’s just how far you have to go to do it. CIO and cc bit far for us - we tried cc after a year of no sleep and it just made stuff worse. Kid learned to sleep without any input from us about 18m and has been great since.

The word "self soothing" means that you start off being upset and then calm yourself down. I don't think it's the right way to teach a baby to sleep. If they are upset when they're put down you need to stay with them, have a cuddle etc until they are calm.

Well if the books say 4 months...

Not sure what the problem is tbh. Babies aren't machines and what works for one certainly doesn't for another.

donajimena and I had the same children though by the sounds of it

Baby books that make parents think there is a "secret method" to make babies sleep are best used as kindling. Your baby will sleep one day. It will feel like hell at times but you'll get through it

Agree on baby books. Best used to prop up tables/as firewood. Also on ‘schools of parenting.’ Anyone who tells you they have the one true way of doing it is lying and/or trying to make money out of you.

They’re all different, different things work for different kids. Stuff like the wonder weeks isn’t actually based on much science so a lot of these regressions aren’t really what people think they are (although sleep architecture does change at 3-4m ish.)

Just try to keep a very very rough schedule, and go with it. What will save you if you have a bad sleeper is you and your other half working together to make sure both of you keep blocks of sleep sufficient to maintain sanity.

Gina Ford and a dummy. I've had a 'difficult' baby and an 'easy' one. Worked with both (took longer with the tricky customer!)
Ignore people who tell you stupid stuff about dummy and teeth or delaying speech - they're just being snobby about dummies.
My dummy-addict toddler gave it up at 2.5 ish with only one night of loud whingeing for an hour.
Good luck xxx

13 weeks old is so tiny and I'm afraid that things normally get a bit worse around 4 months so If what you are doing works at the moment then carry on as I found even my tried and tested methods to get baby to sleep were challenged at around 16 weeks, let alone my baby self soothing! I did controlled crying with my eldest daughter, now 5, as it was recommended by health visitor at the time. She was 1 at the time, and she hardly cried at the time however she then woke screaming inconsolably in the morning, every morning, for about 2 years which I def believe was linked to the Sleep training. Also it only made her sleep better for maybe a few weeks, really was not worth it!!