Should I be teaching baby to self soothe?

[SquigglyOne]

Hello everyone 😊
I have a four month old baby boy who the majority of the time sleeps a large chunk through the night - at least 6 hours, usually around 9 - 11 hours.
However - to be able to get him down I need to rock him and then let him fall asleep on me and leave him there for about 20 minutes - I don’t mind doing this at all - love the cuddles! He also has a dummy.
His day time naps are also starting to become more regular but again can’t put him down without a combination of rocking/dummy/cuddles.
My SIL has a baby girl of the same age and told me she has started teaching her baby to self soothe using controlled crying. All of my instincts are telling me if it’s not broken don’t fix it and I should just carry on with DS the way we are. As a FTM though I am constantly questioning myself. I’ve now got myself worried I’m making a rod for my own back. Tbh I didn’t realise babies could learn to self settle at such a young age.
Any thoughts/advice would be gratefully received!

I have a 4 year old who needed rocking to sleep till one day he didn’t.

I have a 3 month old who when tired inserts thumb in mouth, smiles, and falls asleep. Like that. She is EBF and sleeps 8-10 solid hours, day naps are literally put down in crib, in goes thumb, there is the smile and done.

Thing is - neither was “taught” anything ever. They couldn’t be more different. If DD hadn’t been a natural self soother or thumb sucker and a totally chilled baby she too would have been rocked to sleep as DS was till 18 months.

DS is the most confident, independent excellent sleeper and always has been. Despite rocking.

So in other words - just go with the flow. I wouldn’t “teach” a baby anything. I don’t say that because my DD self soothes by nature but because I was ready to repeat the rocking as was done for DS and which caused DS zero
Harm.

From my experience with 2, each baby has a different level of neediness. DD needs us to help fall asleep & DS does not. I would feed, cuddle and put DS down still awake... he cries and I'll go in and out every few minutes and usually after 5-10 minutes he's asleep. DD was way more needy and I just knew controlled crying would just cause her distress, we ended up co-sleeping.

Controlled crying is cruel . look up Attachment Theory . you are being a wonderful mum .
if soothing your baby to sleep is enjoyable for you then enjoy it , they grow up very fast

also
so many 'experts' out there , cover your ears
your instincts are spot on .
I wish someone had said that to me when my boys were babies .

I think you're definitely right. It's working, it's instinctive and it's meeting your baby's needs. Controlled crying has received quite a lot of criticism. Many parents have used it, mainly before this was known or understood. A baby replies on a consistently responsive parent to make neurological links between distress and what relieves distress. This is the basis for early self regulation (self calming). Leaving a baby to cry can sensitize their stress response system - unless they are temporarily feeling over-stimulated and hence over tired (in which case they will quieten when you leave them to be). If you are responsive to their cried they will internalize this and be more likely to learn to become secure toddlers. These posts are often contentious by this is backed up by plenty of neuroscience. Hope this helps.

I did with my own and regret it, now I foster and I do whatever I need to do to get a baby to sleep if that means rocking them to sleep then so be it. I have an almost 6 month old now and needed to rock them to sleep every night for the first 5.5 months, in the last 2 weeks baby has been happy to go down by themselves and if they cry all I need to do is pat their bum and they go out like a light. They really are babies for such a short time that I feel honoured to be their safe space for as long as it takes.

I never let my baby cry, "controlled" or otherwise!

Our babies are with us for such a short amount of time in the grand scheme of our/their lives, I always appreciated the extra cuddles (even at 3am, with gritted teeth 🤣)

I think every baby is different and as the parent you should do what you feel comfortable with. There isn't a single way to do it.

I'm not sure what controlles crying is exactly. I don't think it's evil or cruel to wait a few minutes when a baby stirs or cry to see if they'll settle, rather than rush in the moment you think they may be waking up. But if you're comfortable and happy rocking to sleep, then it's fine to keep doing it.

You can also experiment. Every now and then put your baby to bed without rocking and see how they react. You can always pick them up and rock them if they start crying.

Good Lord for a 4 month old you are doing pretty fantastic for getting them to sleep that long. I'd only be looking to change what I'm doing if the outcome of my method wasn't ideal. Some people may understandably be looking to "teach" their baby to self settle because they wake through the night constantly and it's exhausting to have to get up and rock/sing/cuddle/feed every hour of the night. But given you get such long stretches of sleep, what's the need? As you say, you enjoy the cuddles anyway.
In any case, 4 months is far too young for any form of controlled crying in my opinion, regardless of how good or bad your baby sleeps.

We always allowed ds to settle himself. We put him down and left him for up to 10 minutes. If there was nothing wrong he would settle within this time. Yes sometimes he cried for a few minutes but he was always fine. I've never seen the harm in it. He's self settled from birth and slept through from 3 months.

It makes me so angry that this myth is still being spread that people have to do this to their babies or they're failing to "teach" them something important. It's bullshit. Sleep training is for the parents benefit, they just justify it to themselves like this. "Self soothing" is developmental, it develops on its own, like learning to crawl or speak. Babies are not developmentally able to "self soothe". As PP have said they actually learn it only through being soothed by their caregivers as their brain develops.

Interesting article on this:
raisedgood.com/self-soothing-biggest-con-new-parenthood/

Babies do not learn to 'self settle'. They will cry until they realise you aren't returning. Self settling is something that is a skill they will gain naturally over time. I have always rocked my son to sleep from the day he was born, sleeps absolutely fine with no help at 18 months

Thanks for your replies everyone - very reassuring!
The thought of DS thinking I’m not there for him when he needs me horrifies me - we’ll carry on as we are 😊

Listen to your instincts op and carry on as you are.

I am extremely anti controlled crying full stop but even the majority of people who do agree with it would say that 4 months is too young.

Go with your instinct.
I used to have to rock dd to sleep then suddenly at around 5 months she decided she didn’t want rocking anymore and I started to put her down awake because she would scream in my arms. She went straight to sleep when put down. She’s now 16 months and has fallen asleep in my arms twice since being 5 months old, I miss it :(

Sounds like what your doing is working 😀..

My ds started being able to go to sleep on his own, with white noise, from about 11 weeks. Then he had his jabs at 17 weeks, followed by conjunctivitis, followed by a cold which is is just starting to clear up... It's all gone to pot! At the moment I'm back to feeding and cuddling to sleep, but we keep trying him to see if he'll go off on his own. Very occasionally he will. Hopefully once he's feeling 100% again he will 'remember' how he did it and also start sleeping longer stretches again, but until then we'll keep cuddling as required! I've been told a few times by in laws I'm 'letting him get into bad habits and getting his own way'... We just ignore them, he's only going to be this tiny for so long. You do you OP! Xxx