Is it possible for a 10 week old to self settle / soothe?

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Because mine will only be rocked or fed to sleep...

Have others had success with self settling/soothing at this age? If so, any tips?

Alternatively, when have people found this happens and does it happen by themselves or did you have to introduce it / train them...?

Thanks!

Not biologically possible (sorry). Have a look at Sarah Hockwell Smith.

I don’t know if this counts as self settling but at that age I could put mine down sleepy but awake after a feed and she’d suck her thumb and go to sleep. You could try a dummy.

As in be able to lie down and be content/dose off? Definitely possible. I have over the years come to decide it depends more on your child than anything you do though unfortunately.

Some babies don't get upset or stressed when laid in a cot and will happily fall asleep on their own. Some get stressed and upset in the same situation. No babies can settle themselves when they are stressed (it's a fairly sophisticated skill), so if you have the second sort there's not much you can do. You may be able to find ways to make being lain in a cot less stressful and you can gradually reduce how much contact they need to stay calm.

Sarah ockwell Smith talks nonsense, she is a homeopathy, though now hides it on her website
Both mine slept through from 12 weeks in our room, so self settled at that age.

I guess it depends what you mean by self settle/soothe... Being rocked or fed to sleep is perfectly formal for a 10 week old... my 8 week old is often quite happy to be put down sleepy but awake and is beginning to find his thumb as a comfort as well, but I would imagine that totally depends on the individual temperament of each baby... but if you mean putting them down and letting them cry them self to sleep, then no, it's not possible for a baby to soothe them self when upset and crying (as an adult, I would hate to have to do that with no comfort so I can't imagine how awful that would be for a tiny baby!)

Some babies can, some babies liked to be held close and rocked. Neither are wrong.

It's possible for some babies; I don't really think you can change the one you have, at least not at that age. They're not old enough to understand what you're expecting from them. And even if they fall to sleep by themselves they can still wake up for the 800 reasons babies wake up; it's not a holy grail for sleeping through.

Absolutely nothing wrong with feeding to sleep, rocking to sleep, cuddling to sleep, etc, if it works for you. I love feeding DD to sleep at the end of the day and the bedtime routine. Though I am looking hopefully towards a cuddle-to-sleep future where her dad can put her to bed. (He can rock her to sleep but hasn't mastered the cot transfer.) It feels like a magic trick, and it's not forever.

Thanks everyone. Absolutely don't mean cry to sleep, just be put down sleepy and fall asleep.

Mine wakes a lot in the night and needs feeding back to sleep (not hungry, just comfort) I googled (I know ) how to stop this and it suggested getting them used to falling asleep themselves so they get used to self soothing and if they wake up, they'll be able to fall back asleep themselves... I just can't see my DD doing that! But it means I am up every hour until I give up and she sleeps on me.

Have tried multiple dummies and she hates them.

Sounds like it's luck of the draw as to whether a baby will or not

I did this, started around 8 weeks or so. It did take until 6 months to put him down completely awake but it was very gentle and didn't involve crying. Plus didn't involve doing anything extra!

But self settling didn't help completely with the waking in the night - we eventually night weaned at 11 months before he slept through. It did help a lot though, as we progressed he woke up less and less.

Google the fourth trimester. Your baby should still be inside you, being fed on demand and gently rocked to sleep so it’s highly unlikely they could self settle.

I fed to sleep until my DD was about 6 months old when she naturally stopped doing it. That would have been my opportunity to let her self settle but I then started rocking her which I had to undo with sleep training at 11 months. I think at 10 weeks you do whatever gets them to sleep and think about the putting them down sleepy thing later on.

Yes, mine did, I never fed him to sleep, just put him in his cot, a couple of soft pats and left the room.

I think it was probably just luck though.

Yeah mine did but I did pick up put down with the aim they would be content to be in their cot awake.

I do think there is a huge element of "luck" as well whether the baby is neurologically ready to do that.

At 10 weeks, it is entirely possible they are hungry frequently throughout the day and night.

I think some babies do it naturally (mine definitely didn't!) but you can teach them how to self soothe/self settle - but ten weeks is a little young for most methods. I started trying to teach my little boy around then very gently, and now at 14 weeks he is better than he was. I just started by rocking him until he was justtttt about to nod off and then I'd slow the rock to a stop. He would wake up and then usually start fussing, and I would start the rocking again, then after 2 or 3 tries he would often nod off himself. He can now sometimes do it by himself and other times after less intervention! It might not work quite yet if your baby isn't ready but it's definitely worth starting to try teaching babies how to sleep early on! Avoids creating too many sleep associations (I was on the dummy, rocking, white noise, shushing, sling, pram etc etc - literally everything!) which in turn will help in the long run. Good luck!

My 9 week old can go in her moses basket wide awake smiling and within ten minutes be out like a light. She has a dummy to calm her sometimes and then pops it out and doses off. She never used to do this I just started practising it at week 7 and now I think she's linked the basket and sleep together

@Hannahelhan amazing! How did you practise that? When do you decide to put them down?

I did it with mine, just used pick up put down until they were happy being in the cot awake but tired then they just went to sleep 🤷🏽‍♀️

Mine wouldn't go down drowsy but awake and settle off to sleep til she was about 1. And that was with a dummy. We gradually transitioned her from falling asleep on us to being put down awake in her cot bed from around 9 months old, we did a gradual retreat type thing step by step slowly over a few months. Minimised tears. She wasn't a baby who could be plonked down to go to sleep but she also didn't feed to sleep much after about 12 weeks old (nothing I did - she just stopped doing it).

I just started to go off her cues in the end and stopped panicking about getting her to sleep. I used to think I had to hold her and rock her and if she woke up when going into her basket I used to think arghh no shes awake now forget it! So after her bottle, play, bum change id wait for her first yawn or first shout of crankiness and say right you're tired come on, put her straight down, tuck her in tight and speak to her gently. She doesn't like me to leave the room immediately so I potter around or get dressed so she can hear me, then I walk out, come back and she's dosed off. The first few times she did cry but I'd go back in, stroke her face and shh her so she knew I hadn't left. Each baby is different tho, mine just likes to know you're around before fully relaxing. I didn't think this was possible until I stopped over thinking so much. I'd rather go back in ten times to settle than hold her to sleep like I did for the first 7 weeks, I used to be scared to move in case she'd wake before I put her in her cot

See I would rather have held and than being go in and out all the time, would haven't been able to concentrate to get anything done properly in that case anyway and holding her at least she would have an uninterrupted sleep and I could rest and watch telly. But it's academic anyway because all babies are different, DD just went instantly hysterical if you put her down awake and no amount of shushing or whatever would change that. So my options were just do what she needs me to do to get her to sleep, or just leave her hysterical to cry herself to sleep from exhaustion (and she frequently cried for a few hours at a time) which obviously not many people are prepared to do and I certainly wasn't. That's why I think sleep advice is of limited utility on these threads. I mean people can share what's worked for them and maybe you can learn a suggestion that does work for your baby, but because they're all so different it's just not something you can just copy what someone else does and get the same result. If you think about it, we as adults all sleep differently. Some of us prefer to sleep with others, some alone, some wake a lot, others sleep easily with no issue, some people need a lot more sleep than others, some like background noise to fall asleep and others silence...and we were all babies with our own individual sleep habits once too.

Your baby is still in the 4th trimester. Still a newborn.

My baby napped on me at 9 months old. I fully embraced him just needing me and wanting to be close. He now sleeps through and naps well in his own cot.

In western culture there's a big emphasis on getting the baby to be 'independent' / at arm's length. Do as you wish but just trying to offer a fresh perspective.

Our 11 week old DD can be put into her crib awake. She will chatter away to herself then falls sleep. Sometimes she needs to feel me so i rest my hand on the mattress near her face. Sometimes she cries so we pick her back up. She rarely feeds to sleep now. Is usually awake for a little bit after a feed

Thanks everyone! I don't have an issue with my DD napping on me, and understand the 4th trimester etc. it's just she wakes up throughout the night pretty much hourly from 2am (after going down at around 10.30) as she needs me to help soothe her to sleep by either rocking or feeding. I was told teaching to self settle during the day would help her learn to do this at night so we both get a less disturbed night sleep.