Self soothing??

[Hanster85]

My baby is four months old this week & does not yet go to sleep independently. I keep seeing articles & being told that they need to get used to being put down “drowsy but awake” to get used to “self soothing”.

At around 6.45pm, she has a bath, book, massage & feed. I then hold my DD for around half an hour whilst she falls asleep & then once she is sleep I set her down in her next to you crib & leave her in the room alone to sleep.

She will sleep through until around 12 and then will wake for a big feed. She will then go back in her crib and sleep until about 2.30am/3am. She will have another big feed but will usually refuse to go back in her crib after this and will wake / fuss each time I put her down - this usually results in me co-sleeping with her for the rest of the night. She will then sleep again until 6am, have another feed & sleep through again until around 8.30am/9am. On the whole, the nights aren’t too bad and when she does wake, this isn’t for too long and she does seem to be waking as she’s hungry!

During the day, she will rub her eyes/yawn & I will pick her up, curl her in towards me, give her a dummy and she will go to sleep for a nap. If I try and put her down, she will wake up and become over tired.

I keep being told that she needs to get used to being put down for sleep, and so this morning I attempted the ‘put down, pick up’ method and it was a total nightmare. After two hours, she was completely hysterical and eventually fell asleep due to being tired from crying. This sleep lasted ten minutes and she woke up over tired and over stimulated! Her face was bright red and she was red hot... I couldn't put her, or me through that a second time for the next nap. It just felt wrong! It affected her naps throughout the day negatively and just seemed to have a negative effect on her mood and sleep in general!

I began reading some articles online & there seems to be mixed views about self soothing. Some people saying that baby’s naturally grow out of needing to be held sleep, and others saying that without teaching self soothing - a child will struggle to sleep as they grow and won’t sleep through.

I realise that she is an ok night sleeper & day napper - even though I am having to settle her, and don’t want to begin to push her to self sooth & subsequently undo the good sleep she does have. Other mums I have spoken to, whose baby’s do ‘go down’ appear to just do this naturally and their parents haven’t had to teach/implement a method to do this.

I am just interested to see if anyone has just rolled with it & continued helping their baby to settle, and self soothing has just come naturally later? Or whether not teaching this, had lasting negative effects on their child’s sleep?

Sorry for the long message - I just want to do the right thing for my DD, and don’t want to push self soothing on her if she is not ready or there are less stressful (to her) ways to encourage this!

I honestly believe you can’t teach a baby to “self settle” - they either do it naturally or they don’t. I spent ages trying to get my son to do it and never succeeded, used white noise, blackout blind, swaddle etc. with no luck. He will only fall asleep when feeding or when moving around in the car or sling.

I realised I was getting myself really stressed out and anxious and now I have decided to relax and just go with what works. He did have a brief regression at 17 weeks but it only lasted a week and then he improved again. Currently at 20 weeks I am still feeding him to sleep and he is doing 8pm-6am with just one 30 minute feed around 2am and I’m very happy with that!

It doesn't sound like you've got it all that bad, if she sleeps for long stretches. I wouldn't worry about it when she's still so little.

We did gradual retreat sleep training when DD was just over one, I think it was self soothing in the sense of changing the circumstance in which DD expected sleep to happen. If they always go to sleep in a certain way, they'll initially resist anything else. Like if you were told to sleep on Japanese floor mats or something when you weren't used to it.

I fed my DD to sleep for nights and most naps until about 7 months, when she stopped falling asleep feeding and was much harder to get down! I don't remember when she started settling to sleep but she did at some point without us particularly teaching her. She slept through (as in 11 hours) once we night weaned at 11m. For now I would just go with what works for you and worry about it later on if it's an issue then.

Thank you for your responses! I find those messages so reassuring and hopefully my DD’s sleep will only get better with time. She’s quite good, as she doesn’t need feeding to sleep, but does need holding. It can be a bit restrictive during the day, and I am trying to put her down now once she is asleep to get her used to this! The health visitors really push the need to do this early, and it makes me feel guilty that she can’t do this yet! But I was thinking, lots of people must not do this, and yet most kids sleep through the night by the time they start school? So it can’t be that essential?!

My HV used to go on about self soothing too and I never knew what she was on about. Babies like being held, nothing wrong with that. I reckon HVs must have had a memo at some point to tell people to stop them co-sleeping.

She won't do it forever and at some point you might get tired of any night waking and want to do something about it, but she's teeny tiny right now.

My son didn't self soothe at all and I didn't do sleep training to help him do it, he's nearly 11 months now and has just learnt it on his own. Sometimes still wakes up once a night but not for long.I can put him down to sleep now once he is drowsy but this is a very recent thing used to have to wait until he was in a deep sleep.

Op I basically killed myself from day 1 trying to get dd to do this mystical self settling thing that everyone kept talking about and I kept reading about. Dd did not read any of these articles, nor did she understand the people telling me because she never bloody did it. She got to 18 months and suddenly she could sleep through the night. She's 21 months now and still needs a hand on her to fall asleep but once she's there she does just get herself back to sleep if she wakes.

Honestly? If I could go back I would just go with the flow and chill a bit. I had pnd which didn't help but I once sat in her room for 4 hours trying to get her down to sleep and I have NO idea why on earth I didn't just give up and give her a cuddle.

We used to do the same thing with our bubs... and I always was so panicked he couldn't self soothe, he'd wake up so often for his dummy as didn't know to feel around and find it... we'd always fed him/ rocked him to sleep and literally one day at about 9 months he just wouldn't fall asleep and I put him in his cot (he's a big baby and my arms were killing me from rocking him for so long) and he cried for about 2 minutes and miraculously put himself to sleep... since then at night if he doesn't fall asleep on his bottle we just put him in his cot and he goes to sleep.... I think they just learn to soothe themselves when they're ready.

I also was reading too much about it and comparing my situation to others and stressed me out but as soon as we took the pressure off it happened without us even trying xx

Google fourth trimester - all about baby development and why they like to be held. Try a sling/carrier for naps - then you can hold her and still do stuff.
I would agree with other posters who have said some babies are more inclined to settle than others. You can’t force it. Your baby’s sleep sound pretty good so don’t worry.
The fact you spent 2hrs today on pick up put down suggests baby isn’t ready yet. Don’t worry about what HV says; so many base their advice on anecdotal stuff rather than evidence (or reality!).

Thanks everyone, I think you are all right! I'm just going to go with the flow a little more & follow her lead.

My 27 month old doesn’t self soothe. She has started to roll over mid feed and go to sleep on her own and now wakes and doesn’t look for me all the time but she got there on her own. We have such strange views on infant sleep in the western world but it’s really normal :)

Just to give you another perspective - my little boy can and does often self soothe when I put him down at night, but it makes no difference whatsoever and he doesn't sleep through the night! I stressed about this for months, but once we achieved it it wasn't the holy grail it is made out to be at all. So I think it's best to just stop worrying about it!

Just to give you another perspective - my little boy can and does often self soothe when I put him down at night, but it makes no difference whatsoever and he doesn't sleep through the night! I stressed about this for months, but once we achieved it it wasn't the holy grail it is made out to be at all. So I think it's best to just stop worrying about it!

Self soothing isn't something babies do. They need help to get to sleep. It's normal. It won't get them into bad habits. Both mine were cuddled to sleep, and often during sleep too, until they didn't need it anymore. It was a short space of time and it's so good for normal development and mental health, in the long term too. Just cuddle your baby.

Good post nethunsreject, you've saved me typing that out! Maybe carry on as you are for another month and then re-assess?

Ugh, I remember that feeling of trying to do everything right when ds1 was little. It lasted about 6 weeks then I kept telling myself 'you don't see 18 year olds needing to be fed/rocked/patted to sleep, they all get there eventually'. With ds I we bed shared and I would sit with him or rock him until he fell asleep. At about 12 months he started to just take himself to bed for naps and bedtime when he wanted. We never taught him or trained him. Most nights he still likes us to be in the room while he drifts off but it isn't essential to get him to sleep. My theory is that with all the rocking and holding and sitting he gained a good level of security and confidence. Ds2 is now 14 weeks and although I can't hold him the same way I did with ds1 (toddlers don't allow the time for it) he is still rocked and cuddled before being dumped in the basket and I couldn't give a fig what hv's think, they have a great way of reeling off a one size fits all script which is just bloody infuriating and wrong.

The night wakes are completely normal until shes weaning but I always felt that self settling is an important skill and have tried to give my DD (8 months) the opportunity to develop this. DD likes to be swayed but I always put her down awake and sleepy, and she goes to sleep by herself. Sometimes she may grizzle for a couple of minutes. If she really cries I'll go and sway her but she mostly goes off without much of a fuss. I started the little ones sleep programme with her at 4 weeks so shes just used to going down in her cot awake. We couldn't co sleep because she was a low birth weight and she would feed constantly so I just had to do something! This worked for me and she now sleeps from 6:30 - 5:30/6. I dropped a 10/11pm feed at 5 months and she has now just moved to her own room (HV advised to keep her in our room slightly longer due to low birth weight). I would really recommend the little ones sleep programme.

I just wanted to update this post as my baby is 8 months old now & just thought it could help other mums to say what happened!

At 6 months old, she stopped falling asleep during her pre-sleep feed and was getting irritated that we were still holding her - trying to wriggle out of our grip, so we put her in her cot & like magic she went to sleep herself! And shes done that ever since!

It's no lie that we did sod all to help her self sooth, she just did it herself when she was good and ready! I know 3 months feels a lifetime in those newborn stages, but it really does get easier (I used to hate it when people said that to me, sorry)!

That said, she still wakes once during the night so it certainly isn't the magic cure to sleeping through as the other commenter says! I hope that helps someone who was struggling like me back then!