11 week old - self soothing?

[chloejoy]

My little boy is having somewhat of a regression with his sleep in the last week or so. He’s 11 weeks old now and he used to go to sleep anytime between 8-9 and would then stay asleep for anywhere between 6-8 hours without waking then would wake for a feed between 3-4am ish depending on when he went to bed and then go back down until about 6.30 ish and this was fine and had been like this from around 6 weeks old which i’m aware is very lucky! However he’s recently started waking every 1-2 hours in the night just to be resettled. He’s really trying with self soothing he’s sucking his hands and humming with his eyes shut which i’ve read is all attempts to self soothe as well as lifting his legs up etc so all good signs but he just can’t quite seem to get it so after about 10/15 mins he will start actually crying and need resettling from me or i will simply pick him up before that (which i know i should wait to see but sometimes i’m just so tired i need the humming and stuff to stop and i fear he will wake himself up to the point of not being able to resettle him)
Im just curious if around this time is normal to regress and also what i can do to promote self settling? I rock him to sleep because ‘drowsy but awake’ just does not work for him he gets very worked up as he can’t settle himself the rest of the way. However he did used to be able to resettle inbetween sleep cycles as he would sleep 6-8 hours and sometimes around 6 hours he would be stirring so id go grab a bottle for him anticipating a wake for a feed but then id come back upstairs and he would be soundo again for another few hours so he obviously was soothing himself then but i assume as he’s rocked to sleep this is why he is now struggling to self soothe between cycles? I’m not 100% sure just looking for if there’s anything I can do to help promote the self settling to hopefully reduce the wakings at the moment as i’m only having to resettle he’s not waking for feeds he’s still only having the one feed in the night then one around 6.30/7am and doesn’t appear to want anymore in the night as he will go straight back to sleep after i pick him up. Also we’ve tried a dummy and he hates it but I do feel like he will find his thumb soon as he is a massive hand sucker for comfort so maybe this will help with the self settling? not sure but just curious if anyone else had anything similar or if there’s anything i could be doing to promote it!

Babies learn how to self soothe by being soothed. So respond to his needs, pick him up and give him a cuddle. I think 3 months is a big regression/period. Its hard I know, but don't believe all the crap about babies needing to learn to self settle or sleep on their own, he's so tiny. If it continues look into cosleeping, as it might be helpful for you both. 💐

thankyou! yeah i’m always very responsive just wanted to make sure i wasn’t stopping him from learning it by picking him up too soon! i’m not phased about him not being able to put himself to sleep because i do quite enjoy rocking him it’s nice for us both but it’s just the multiple night wakings all of a sudden needing to be rocked back to sleep which is strange i wasn’t sure if there was some sort of regression at this age seems too young for the 4 month sleep regression but his day time naps have been shocking recently just fights them so hard! he’s 11 weeks but he was 2 weeks overdue so maybe it is the 4 month sleep regression as i heard it can be between 3-5 months

I would assume hand sucking at this age meant hunger, to be honest.

At 11 weeks I’d interpret hand sucking as hunger too.

FWIW our sleep consultant taught us that drowsy but awake can actually be more like “almost completely asleep but just the tiniest bit aware”. So instead of placing carefully down like dynamite when they’re fast asleep, plonk down when seconds from sleep and as long as you get a wriggle, they’re falling asleep/crossing that finish line in their cot, so then they connect their sleep cycles.

When they can’t connect sleep cycles or wake up, roll onto tummy, pat bum firmly, then when back to nearly asleep roll back onto their back for safe sleep.

However we only did this with DS from six months, post regression. So maybe he was just ready.

i read that it only means hunger up until 8 weeks and he does it all the time so definitely not hunger for him he will do it whenever he is due a nap so i gathered it was a self soothing thing

If not hungry then it’s self soothing, my baby boy did it loads, it’s a lot good sign that your baby is developing well. Don’t go down the dummy path if you can, he’ll lose it in the middle of the night and you’ll be up and down putting it back in. My son just sucked on his hands for comfort. He’s 10 months now and sleeps well.

*it is a good sign

yeah we tried him on a dummy since he loved his hands so much a few weeks ago but he just gagged and spat it out and got upset so we haven’t tried since and i’m not keen to anyway just another thing to have to worry about taking away in 1-2 years time anyway so i’m not fussed about using one especially since he does seem to find so much comfort in his hands anyway! I know he’s quite young to self settle anyway i just wasn’t sure if there was anything i needed to be doing to promote it since he’s showing signs of interest in doing it himself and seems to just use me as a last resort when he really can’t stay asleep bless him

Hi

my baby is just 6 months and I remember around 12 weeks being terrible for napping. Fighting them sooo much it was a huge battle screaming etc but eventually gets better. I also never sleep trained to self soothe, 4 month regression hit us bad but that was when we dropped to 3 naps a day which helped. He now sleeps 7-3, fed then 3-7. Our biggest battle and even now is sometimes 5am wakings. I read so much at the time and I just think alot of the time you just have to go with it and give it time. It does get better eventually but it’s just hard in the meantime!