When do babies self settle?

[Tomatobear]

My lovely six month old son still wakes as often as he did as a newborn, every 45 mins- 2 hours every night. It's been this way for six months and the longest he has slept for is 3 hours, which has happened twice.

I'm absolutely exhausted to the point of hearing strange noises and seeing the same imaginary car on my driveway

He's breastfed and has always fed to sleep. I suspect this is my problem as he cannot sleep without feeding now, unless in the car or pram.

He refuses a bottle and dummy despite me still trying. Won't take either from DH either. He used to take both until about 9/10 weeks old.

I will never do any kind of cry it out sleep training with him. Not keen on controlled crying either. Don't mind if others do it but I'm far too soft now, despite being sure I'd be strict and scheduled before he was born..

We cosleep as it's the only way I get some rest.

Do babies learn to self settle eventually? If so, when? Am I hoping for a miracle?

Paragraphs are lost on my mobile app- sorry

They do, hang in there! Your teenage son will not be waking every 45 mins!

Mine both went longer around 12 months. Co sleeping was the only way I survived. But now at 2 and 4 they both slept 12 hours last night with no wakes.

Be kind to yourself, don’t over analyse sleep. It gets better.

The thing is, he doesn’t really need to does he? He’s got you right there seeing to his every need immediately and has lovely warm breast milk to soothe him off to the land of nod. This isn’t a criticism by the way, but I don’t think it will be anytime soon. At the moment, he won’t know that he can sleep without you, you either have to teach that, or continue it. If continuing works for you, then don’t worry about it.

My personal experience is that I had to teach my DS, usually gradual retreat. It wasn't fun, I won't lie but it worked quickly.

He had always fed to sleep and couldn't link his sleep cycles which sounds like what your DS is doing. I kept waiting for it to get better and it never did.

Unfortunately you’ve trained him to get to sleep by feeding and that’s all he knows.
If you’re exhausted and want things to be different now rather than wait til he’s 12 months when they sleep better you’re going to have to change the way you do things. No it’s not easy but surprisingly doesn’t take long.

I don't think he will unless you try something. I'd maybe try some no cry nap training. I did this with DD who would only sleep in the sling or on me. I made the room pitch black (so you can't see your hand in front of your face) and got a white noise machine. Fed her to sleep and put her down in her cot. First couple of times she woke up straight away. I got her, didn't leave her to cry. I was consistent, trying it at every nap and a few days later she'd manage 10 minutes which felt like a major victory. Quite soon it got longer and longer until she was taking good long naps in her cot. And once she learned to sleep in her cot and link a couple of sleep cycles together her night sleep got a lot better too. Down from a million wake ups to 2 or 3.

I did co sleeping and feeding to sleep with 2 dc here and didn't sleep train at all. Hard work as babies getting gradually easier from about age 1. Very manageable sleep and a few possible minor wake ups easily settled from age 2, perfect sleep 12 hours a night every night in own bed from age 3.

Thank you. I'm going to get the cot back out and try out Discoball's method, starting this weekend. I do love the cosleeping but I'm very tired!

Oops posted early.

It's definitely a problem linking his sleep cycles. He wakes up almost exactly every 45 mins day and night unless he's very tired.

I will give the method a go. If it really doesn't work then we'll carry on cosleeping until he's older.