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 😫😫😫

@Exitstrategist I don't agree with it but what can I do? Hes had a lot of social services involvement on his mums side already (different issues) and they have no concerns about her parenting - shes done courses etc and they insist she is fine, no neglect or abuse whatsoever. Dh has mentioned this to her years ago and she was dismissive basically said hes not allowed to wake her up early so just plays in his room of a morning and doesn't see the problem. Was a while ago now but twice when he was younger we've heard him crying in the night and gone in and both times got him in with us comforted him etc told him he can always come get us. Still doesn't. We tell him when we put him to bed to shout if he needs us - never has. We've even talked about getting him a baby monitor but hes 5! Hes a happy confident little boy in every other way - very demanding at times tbh but once that bedroom door is closed of a night he will not move out the room or shout us. Worries me so much but don't know what else I can do. Any suggestions welcome though

My two were 2.5/3 years old I think before I could say that they would reliably go to bed at bedtime and sleep through till morning time.

Though it gradually got better and better in the years leading up to that, with some discreet bad patches.

They're brilliant sleepers now.

They're all different and it depends on what works for you and your child, you know them better than any stranger on the internet.
IME, my eldest was cuddled and patted to sleep, terrible sleeper, very clingy, loved being swaddled, could never self settle but we got lots of cuddles with him.
2nd child, hated cuddles, hated being swaddled, wriggler, liked his own company from day dot.
We used to put him to bed awake around 7p.m. We had baby monitors, he would chatter and giggle away to himself happily until he fell asleep, always a great sleeper.

Hi all. We've removed a few posts which break talk guidelines from this thread. Please do report if you see any more. And hopefully things will get back on track with help and advice for the OP.

Our sleep consultant (30 years’ experience with babies and children) said that our son would not learn to settle himself to sleep and join together his sleep cycles unless we trained. We needed to intervene at 4.5 months as the rocking to sleep and putting down asleep (rather than drowsy, then allow him to fall asleep independently) was no longer sustainable and we made a decision to deal with it sooner rather than later.

5 nights of hellish CIO later, combined with a fairly rigid daily routine, he is now an excellent sleeper. He’s 11 months.

Wow everyone, what a lot of responses. Sleep training is certainly a very personal choice. I perhaps should have made clear that it is the cry it out/Ferber style of sleep training I don’t feel comfortable doing.
I would like to have a go at a more gentle approach if this is what is required to help him.
Currently the situation is that if I put him down drowsy but awake, as soon as he knows he’s in his cot he starts doing press ups and finds it all to be a game and ends up more awake than he was to start with 🙈 He’s quite a strong willed little boy which will stand him in good stead when he’s older that’s for sure, but means his determination to be cuddled and patted and settled to sleep how he wants to be is quite impressive 😂
He’s not a tired baby in the day. He’s extremely happy, calm and content. He has two daytime - his morning one often for 30 mins and sometimes for an hour, and his afternoon one for 1 - 1.5 hours.
He’s been a frequent waker since birth. It’s never really improved. Occasionally we get a 3-4 hour stint from when he goes down at 7pm but then it’s every 2 hours almost on the dot.
Unfortunately his dad isn’t able to help. Our little boy won’t settle for him at all, and so it all falls on me. Which I don’t mind, he’s only small once and I know this is temporary, but I start back at work in September and am worried I’ll be a walking zombie and burn out if his night wakings continue how they currently are. I guess it’s been manageable whilst on maternity if that makes sense!?

@Stargirl2707 is he breast or FF?

@Stargirl2707 - it totally makes sense and it’s entirely your choice. Every baby and family is different.
Someone mentioned Lucy Wolfe earlier, I’d you’re looking for a more gentle solution.

@bitchinkitchen he’s BF x

@Stargirl2707 we had this issue with DD - she wouldn't settle for my husband at all which meant i was absolutely on my knees. I expressed enough breast milk for 24 hours and booked myself into a hotel. DH just had to get on with it - she settles perfectly for him now, we share the night wakes and i no longer fantasise about murdering him at 3am.

That does sound really hard, my little girl is the same in terms of only feeding to sleep and refusing to settle for my husband, although she doesn't wake that frequently other than a few bad patches. I'm very lucky that I haven't had to go back to work yet so I'm able to give her more time to try and get there herself like my older daughter did, but there are lots of gentle sleep training methods I've looked at which don't involve leaving babies to cry - if you can afford a sleep consultant theres some brilliant ones around who can help with no-cry sleep training. I think night weaning would probably help - I'm going to try that once she turns 2 and her understanding is better so I'm not trying to feed a newborn and a toddler at the same time at 3am. Good luck I hope things get better for you soon xxx

The problem I had was my son was absolutely hysterical every night because he couldn't get to sleep. For months and months I lay in the dark next to him stroking him, pretended to be asleep, sat by his cot in the dark for hours.. So many things I tried for a long time. It was very lonely and demoralising. He would cry because he was exhausted and couldn't sleep.

We sleep trained and he has literally never cried at bedtime or in the night since. It's been remarkable.

I don't know if there is one size fits all. If we have another baby I fully expect to have a different experience.

@doadeer

The problem I had was my son was absolutely hysterical every night because he couldn't get to sleep. For months and months I lay in the dark next to him stroking him, pretended to be asleep, sat by his cot in the dark for hours.. So many things I tried for a long time. It was very lonely and demoralising. He would cry because he was exhausted and couldn't sleep.

We sleep trained and he has literally never cried at bedtime or in the night since. It's been remarkable.

I don't know if there is one size fits all. If we have another baby I fully expect to have a different experience.

And just to say he does sometimes call you to us if he isn't happy - it's not that he just doesn't think anyone will come. I often go in and give him a cuddle or stroke but there's no tears