When did your baby learn to self soothe?

[GimmeeCaffeine]

My girl is almost 22 weeks old and, in my opinion, is a pretty good sleeper. She will fall asleep at around 8/9pm and sleep until 5/6am, wake up for a feed and then usually go back down until 8ish, although sometimes she will be awake again at 7am. She has slept like this since eight weeks old, so I know we are very lucky in this regard! She also sleeps pretty well during the day, 3/4 naps normally lasting 45 minutes to an hour (although sometimes she’ll have more, shorter naps or fewer, longer naps).

However, she needs to be rocked/bounced to sleep every time, including day time naps. She doesn’t like dummies, has spat out or flatly refused every one we’ve tried. I’ve also tried putting her down whilst drowsy and that is hit or miss, sometimes she will fidget for a bit and then fall asleep, or she will jolt awake and either start crying or just lay there chatting away!

Just recently she has started chewing/sucking on her hands when she’s tired, and sometimes she will wake up in the middle of the night, whinge for about 30 seconds and then fall back to sleep, so perhaps she is already learning to self soothe?

Again, when she does fall asleep she sleeps well, but it normally takes a good 10 minutes of gentle bouncing and shushing/white noise to get her to fall asleep. Rocking the tiny 6lb newborn she used to be is much kinder on the arms than bouncing the 16lb nearly five month old that she has become!

Is self soothing something they learn on their own or should I try and encourage her to start? I got a lot of ‘rod for your own back’ comments when I started rocking/bouncing her to sleep, but the 8/9 hours of sleep she does after said bouncing/rocking is worth it! I just don’t want to be bouncing a toddler to sleep on my lap in the future!

When did your children start self soothing? Is it something they did on their own or did you have to encourage them to learn?

Thanks

Following because I love a good "when did yours self soothe/sleep through" thread, think I've read the entire back catalogue.

I'll swap your 10 mins of bouncing a 16lber for a full night's sleep for my only-sling-naps 14lber who wakes up 6+ times a night and shows zero signs of self soothing, self settling, or drowsy but awakeness

about 7 months? He was fairly good sleeper before that but once he was in his own room it was easier. He now self settles himself to sleep every night.

Although it does go a bit off whenever there is a sleep regression or teething 🤷🏻‍♀️ it's quite normal for sleep to be up and down.

My 7 yr old however never mastered it until about 5?

Self soothe was a game changer for us!

We had to shhh, rock, bounce, sometimes feed to sleep, but we started a little ones sleep programme and he literally learnt to soothe himself to sleep in a matter of a day or two. Not sure if we were lucky but it went from him waking every sleep cycle (45mins-1hour) to now sleeping 7-7pm.

Sounds like she know how to self settle as that's the winging bit during the night. They are in a similar sleep pattern to adults now where they sleep in cycles and as adults we can put ourselves back to sleep once the cycle ends - we may flinch or move position - just like that, babies need to learn to do this themselves too. So it sounds like she knows how to do it herself during the night but she's picked up a sleep association when settling down for the nap/sleep.

So she's got sleep associations with the rocking bouncing shhhing and because that's all she knows, that's what she needs to go to sleep. Just take those associations away and replace them with other things - that don't require you - such as a comforter, bed time story before every nap, white noise, baby sleep bag, and a sleep saying such as 'it's sleep time now baby' and a pat on the Tum or stroke.

I bet you she will learn to self settle herself down pretty quick! I really recommend little ones to hell nail those naps! Good luck x

Well ds3 is 3yrs8months and I'm still waiting for that day..... though obviously he doesn't require bouncing, just has to have one of us lying down next to him to go to sleep. A colleague recently told me his ds was the same and only recently decided he didn't need someone to lay with him anymore - at age 12 so I fear I may be doing this for some time now.
My advice? Definitely encourage at the youngest age possible. My other to ds's I was quite routine tough on and they are perfect sleepers. The youngest was a bit more spoilt (being the last) and we most definitely have made a rod for our own backs

@hellocoffee what was it about the little ones programme that worked? I have to bounce my baby to get him in the cot and then he'll only do 30 mins but I can't see how we could transition to anything else without crying.

I try to put him down drowsy every. Bloody. Day. but it just doesn't work. It only works at bedtime about half the time.

I just wonder of it's really the programme or if your baby was just developmentally ready

About 3 months. At first I fed to sleep at bedtime and naps were in the sling / pram.

He learnt how to fall asleep by himself for naps first once I got the timings between naps right (it was 1h45 minutes I think) so he was just the right level of tired. Also learnt to distinguish between an upset cry and a small tired cry (usually lasted about 10 seconds!).

Once that happened, felt confident to read to him after breastfeed rather than breastfeed to sleep at bedtime. The first night I put him down he was upset but I stroked his tummy and sang (which quickly calmed him down) for what felt like ages and slowly reduced the sound and relaxed the rub, then slowly slowly walked away. By the third night I left him to it and he fell asleep! Very lucky probably, but this is how it worked for me.