Will a baby naturally learn to settle themselves to sleep?

[Stargirl2707]

Will a baby naturally learn to settle themselves to sleep, or do they have to be ‘taught’.
My little one is 9 months now. Still wakes every 2 hours. Never been a great sleeper.
I don’t want to sleep train as it’s not something I’m comfortable with. But just wondering, one day will he learn to link his sleep cycles and fall back to sleep himself, or will I have to ‘teach’ him?
Currently he is fed and/or cuddled and patted to sleep before placing in his cot in his own room.
After 9 months of constant wake ups through the night and 6am starts I am beyond exhausted. Just want to know there’s light at the end of the tunnel. Literally all my friends babies sleep well 😫😫😫

@Shinygreenelephant

I think it depends on your method and probably a host of other factors, but my stepson was sleep trained (not by us) and definitely believes theres no point calling as noone will come. He wont call us for anything in the night - we've heard him sobbing quietly in bed and gone in to find him upset having had a nightmare more than once, and we have to set an alarm in the morning as hes awake at 6 and will just lie there on his own (our other kids all sleep in and will happily drag us out of bed at 3am if they need us, including the 11yo). We obviously tell him to call us if he needs us but the message from his mums where he spends most of his time is too ingrained and he never does, I find it desperately sad. Couldn't think of anything worse than my kids being upset in the middle of the night, wanting me but feeling like they shouldn't shout for me or I wouldn't come if they did.

I'm not completely anti sleep training - if my youngest is still feeding all night when her baby sister is born it will be a nightmare so I will look at some gentle methods once she turns 2 and see how we go. But to me personally, training my child to think I wont come if they cry for me is the opposite of what I would ever want

Your stepson hasn't been sleep trained, he's been abused. That is not at all a normal reaction to sleep training and you need to be really looking into what's happening to him when he's not with you, he needs help.

@PrincessBuggerPants

Because the collective wisdom is that sleep training doesn't make any difference to a child's attachment at all.

Is this the same collective wisdom that demands women 'speak to their GP' when they fail to perform femininity and motherhood compliantly enough, but apparently not their (male) partners?

Is this the same collective wisdom that exists for baby sleep, while the rest of the medical and scientific establishment admit adult sleep, and its various 'disorders' are a bit of a mystery?

What? I think either you need another cup of coffee or I do, i have no idea what you're on about.

We did the cry it out method at around 7 months - the wakenings were getting worse, near every hour. I found it horrible, but my partner made a good point. They're ok and how will they learn that or know that if you keep going in all the time..They need to learn that they're fine by themselves. We weren't brutal about it, I'd go in briefly just to let her know that I was still there.

She's been sleeping through ever since. Goes to bed no bother, we have a light projector thing and she'll just look at that for a bit if she's not tired.

I think sleep training is important and essential to their development of being independent. I know someone who continually gave in to her DD and now even as a 6yr old still has to stay with them until they go to sleep and even then she wakes up ands up sleeping in her mums bed. F that.

Crying is horrible but babies don't really have much else in the way of expression. Crying is for anything they don't like. Not easy to listen to, but think how great you'll all feel with a decent night's sleep?

My friend has a DD and DS the same - 7 and 5 and she still has to stay with them until they fall asleep, which takes hours.

my friend has a DD and DS the same - 7 and 5 and she still has to stay with them until they fall asleep, which takes hours

Fair play to her, but that sounds like my idea of hell. Between working FT and everything else that comes with motherhood, I don't care whether it's selfish or not but those hours in the evening are important to me. That would break me. Aside from if they were poorly or upset for some reason beyond just wanting me sat in their room. What about when they go on school trips etc in the future? Where does it end?

OP, to answer your questions. Yes, they will start to sleep better when they are developmentally ready, though you might need to be realistic about what that means as they aren't all going to sleep 7-7 with a 2-3 hour nap in the middle of the day.

Don't be manipulated by the anecdotes about women who chose to follow their instincts with their babies, who now have children with poor behaviour and boundaries. If anything, responsive parenting should help you navigate behaviour and boundaries better than trying to follow anybody else's rule book.

@Stargirl2707 - as you can see, it’s quite an emotive subject!
Our DS is still super young, so we aren’t near the consideration of training stage but we’ve been giving him the opportunity to sleep on his own, by putting him down in his Snuzpod after the bath, gently stroking his face with a comforter and he’s drifting off.
I’m not sure how long this will last for but I really hope we don’t have to do anything more as I just don’t have the stomach for sleep training...DS has a real set of lungs on him and when he cries he actually makes himself sick. I’ve obviously never left him to cry intentionally, but there are occasions where he’s not well or particularly upset, hence we’ve discovered what happened when he gets really teary.
If I were you, I’d do some research into both ends of the spectrum and try different things from different sources based on what you could tolerate.
As lots of other PPs have said, you don’t have to go full CIO but I would be surprised if a more stark change to routine didn’t involve any tears at all.
Have a look at Beyond Sleep Training as well as for example the Millpond book on sleep training (which gives loads of options and flow diagrams to explain the methods etc) and take it from there.
Every family is different and every child is different so a CIO approach may not work.
With sleep training, be prepared to have to do it a few times. I have friends who fed to sleep and sleep trained for a week, but going on holiday or an illness has reset the baby’s needs so they’ve had to retrain a few times.
Good luck!

I've told DH many times I don't think it's normal to literally never come out of your room at night, but he just says it's her rules in her house, and we continue to tell him he can call us if he needs us. 99% of the time he sleeps through no problem but I hate that if he has a nightmare, feels sick etc he wont call us. Hes 5 and its always been the same since he was a toddler.

To be honest though I thought the point of sleep training is that they don't wake you up when they wake in the night - no child or adult literally sleeps all night, and developmentally everyone will get to the point where they can settle themselves back to sleep. Any form of sleep training is just making your child do this before they do it themselves naturally - so although I think hes quite extreme in NEVER asking for help in the night, I also think the point of sleep training is to stop them asking for help when they need it. Totally agree his mums taken it far too far but to me the whole premise is just not what I would ever want for my kids.

He might just not feel that comfortable elephant. I didn’t when I had to stay at my aunts: she’d tell me to wake her if I needed her but I just didn’t. It’s not a slight on you, just children can be a bit funny.

@Shinygreenelephant

I've told DH many times I don't think it's normal to literally never come out of your room at night, but he just says it's her rules in her house, and we continue to tell him he can call us if he needs us. 99% of the time he sleeps through no problem but I hate that if he has a nightmare, feels sick etc he wont call us. Hes 5 and its always been the same since he was a toddler.

To be honest though I thought the point of sleep training is that they don't wake you up when they wake in the night - no child or adult literally sleeps all night, and developmentally everyone will get to the point where they can settle themselves back to sleep. Any form of sleep training is just making your child do this before they do it themselves naturally - so although I think hes quite extreme in NEVER asking for help in the night, I also think the point of sleep training is to stop them asking for help when they need it. Totally agree his mums taken it far too far but to me the whole premise is just not what I would ever want for my kids.

The point of sleep training isn't to stop them bothering you in the night, it's to help them learn to sleep without you. The bonus is they then don't need you in the night unless they're sick or have a nightmare.

I repeat, your stepson hasn't been sleep trained, he's been abused, and I'm concerned his father can't see that.

@bluesapphirestars yes if she needs me. It happened once when shed had a horrible nightmare and it brought on a panic attack, and another time when shed thrown up. In neither of those scenarios would I have rather she left me to sleep. She wouldn't do it for a laugh but if she needs me she needs me - I sincerely hope even at 18 she will still ask me for help when she needs it.

You said ‘happily’ which didn’t sound like a nightmare or similar.

Absolutely nothing wrong with what you describe. No one is advocating children never bothering their parents.

It isn’t for the parents it’s for the child. How can anyone, never mind a baby, function and grow with two hour blocks of sleep at a time?

@Bitchinkitchen if it's not to stop them bothering you at night I don't understand the purpose at all? Every parent I know who's done any form of sleep training has done so because they're exhausted, not because the babies are somehow missing out on a key learning point - they will do it themselves when they are developmentally ready as my DD and DSD did, it just takes longer for some families than others, and some mums have to sleep train for their own wellbeing, which is fair enough and if they're suffering from lack of sleep then it's in everyone's best interests to find a solution. I don't believe for a second that sleep training has nothing to do with parents not wanting to be woken in the night - that's nonsense

You really can’t understand why it’s conducive for a child to get a good nights sleep!?

@bluesapphirestars I meant that she wouldn't give it a second thought, she knows I'm here for her at any time of day or night, not that she runs in grinning and yanking my covers off for a laugh.

I think most children and adults do actually sleep in short blocks and just resettle - even when my youngest sleeps for long periods she will stir every couple of hours then go back to sleep, I wake throughout the night and my partner does too. The only difference is that the baby sometimes needs a cuddle or a feed to go back to sleep with the least amount of effort. She wont always. Cant see the issue.

I wake in the night too - but not every two hours.

[quote Shinygreenelephant]@Bitchinkitchen if it's not to stop them bothering you at night I don't understand the purpose at all? Every parent I know who's done any form of sleep training has done so because they're exhausted, not because the babies are somehow missing out on a key learning point - they will do it themselves when they are developmentally ready as my DD and DSD did, it just takes longer for some families than others, and some mums have to sleep train for their own wellbeing, which is fair enough and if they're suffering from lack of sleep then it's in everyone's best interests to find a solution. I don't believe for a second that sleep training has nothing to do with parents not wanting to be woken in the night - that's nonsense[/quote]
The purpose of it is to ensure that the child is getting a developmentally appropriate amount of sleep, so that they're happy and healthy! A child waking every 2 hours and needing to be fed back to sleep for 40 minutes simply isn't getting enough rest.

I'll have a search for the article but there was a story on BBC news not so long ago about a study on various methods of sleep training. It was actually very interesting, the thing I took away from it though was that the researchers found that all methods of sleep training, or lack thereof, that they looked at eventually resulted in a child who slept through. I think it's more a case of how much sleep deprivation you can personally deal with!
For my own part I did sleep train my DS at 6 months and found that it worked a treat. Its very much a personal choice though.
You could try adding in some new sleep associations for your baby. We use a white noise machine, black out blind and a cosy sleeping bag, at least then you're minimising things that could wake them up.
Good luck with it. As with all things parenting go with your instincts

@Bitchinkitchen @bluesapphirestars I agree that fully waking every 2 hours would be disruptive, and I can see why people who had that extreme of a sleep issue might turn to sleep training, which in that case would probably be for the childs benefit as well as theirs. Other than the 4 month sleep regression and other very short phases eg a couple of nights when eye teeth were coming through, that's not something I've ever experienced or known friends to complain of. If your children were consistently waking every 2 hours nightly for months on end and nothing else worked to make them sleep that must have been awful and I take my hat off to you getting through it

Elephant the scariest thing I’ve read so far here is you are not equating what’s happening to your son is a form of child abuse. This is not normal behaviour for a five year old. It is NOT sleep training. It is cruel. I cannot understand how his dad hasn’t done something about this. The poor boy/ I’m actually desperately worried and sad for him.

[quote Shinygreenelephant]**@Bitchinkitchen* @bluesapphirestars* I agree that fully waking every 2 hours would be disruptive, and I can see why people who had that extreme of a sleep issue might turn to sleep training, which in that case would probably be for the childs benefit as well as theirs. Other than the 4 month sleep regression and other very short phases eg a couple of nights when eye teeth were coming through, that's not something I've ever experienced or known friends to complain of. If your children were consistently waking every 2 hours nightly for months on end and nothing else worked to make them sleep that must have been awful and I take my hat off to you getting through it[/quote]
Oh my god, you absolutely cannot go on threads and make judgy comments about sleep training if you've always had good sleepers! That's like telling people the correct way to parallel park if you don't drive!

@2155User "
I would say 90% of sleep training methods involve some crying from the child, whether that be crying for 15 seconds or 15 minutes"

So are you saying you've never let your child cry for 15 seconds?

Listen, to all these parents out there who are so against sleep training as it means leaving your child to cry themselves to sleep. Do your research first before lambasting other parents for sleep training their kids. I used the Lucy Wolfe book and it involved NO CRYING. It was a gentle sleep training method and DS has slept through ever since. I think what all you judgmental no-sleep-training parents out there are forgetting is that your child still cries in the middle of the night when they wake up, you're exhausted, they're exhausted and everyone's miserable. My house is a happy, well rested house. I just laid my 15m old down in his cot for a nap and he was asleep within 30 seconds. Guess what...WITHOUT CRYING

@Bitchinkitchen where were the judgy comments? I said it's not what I want for my kids and I will use a gentle form of sleep training when I have no other option but I'd rather not. In my eyes a good sleeper is a baby who sleeps pretty much all night. Mine wakes 2-3x most nights, ocasionally more and very occasionally wakes at 3am and wont go back down. She has never fully slept through and co-sleeps with us from midnight onwards. That is not in my opinion a good sleeper, but neither is it anywhere near as extreme as waking every 2 hours and taking 40 mins to go back to sleep, which is what you said