Self soothing

[lovelight]

How do I get baby to do this?!

Everything I've read says he *should* but nobody tells you how to succeed...not that I have time to read books anyhow. He has never fallen asleep without being held, but we are transitioning him to crib and he's almost 4 months so I think it's getting to be high time. I'm not a fan of CIO at this age (or possibly any age, not really sure lol), but if we just put him down he only cries. I've tried the whole put him down drowsy but awake thing and that so far hasn't worked either.

Help!!!


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[GreyhoundsRUs]

We didn't do anything except "get the baby to sleep at all costs" until 6 months, then we did CIO. Aubrey never really "self soothed" in the sense that she did something - she would just eventually calm down. Hannah snuggles with a stuffie to calm down.

[SoonerTexan]

4 months is a rough age to do anything at with that sleep regression

[TulipsAndSunscreen]

We are bad at this. My daughter took 21 months to go to sleep on her own - we used a system of going in and checking on her at that age but that clearly won't work with a 4 month old.

My DD2 (11.5 months) is still not able to do this although we have figured out that if she screams a little bit, she actually conks out much easier. Almost like she needs to get her energy out...seems weird but she does it while we hold her so I guess that's fine. We haven't figured it out with leaving her alone though...she still needs us to fall asleep.

[OrionGrad]

We tried and tried to "teach" DS1 to self soothe when he was younger. Honestly, I call BS on the whole thing. He finally started being able to self soothe somewhere between 9 and 12 months just because he was ready, not because of anything special we were doing around that time. Don't drive yourself crazy trying to teach self soothing, like I did. That's my advice.

[Thirteen]

We tried and tried to "teach" DS1 to self soothe when he was younger. Honestly, I call BS on the whole thing. He finally started being able to self soothe somewhere between 9 and 12 months just because he was ready, not because of anything special we were doing around that time. Don't drive yourself crazy trying to teach self soothing, like I did. That's my advice.

Yes.


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[SoonerTexan]

Honestly, I believe "self soothing" at that age is learning that Mom isn't going to come get me. I don't feel comfortable with that but YMMV

[lovelight]

So basically this isn't a problem and I don't have to "fix" it. Thanks for making me feel ok about rocking him to sleep. Literally everything I read was telling me he should be able to do this...glad to hear I'm not ruining his acquisition of life skills.


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[lovelight]

Honestly, I believe "self soothing" at that age is learning that Mom isn't going to come get me. I don't feel comfortable with that but YMMV

I agree. That's why I wouldn't even consider CIO. As soon as he gets upset I HAVE to pick him up. Love that little nugget!


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[MrsK]

Honestly, I believe "self soothing" at that age is learning that Mom isn't going to come get me. I don't feel comfortable with that but YMMV

Generally, I agree. I have a few thoughts on this.

First, during residency, DrK worked with a psychiatrist who specialized in sleep. I asked him when to establish a bedtime routine when K1 arrived. He said not to worry about it until he was at least 6 months.

Right now, Lambie (9 months) nurses to sleep and rarely naps in her crib. My parents as teachers advisor is giving me grief about this. If Lambie were my first child, I would probably be anxious. The advisor keeps telling me that Lambie "develops memory" around this age and she'll learn that I come when she cries. Frankly, I don't have a problem with her learning that I'm reliable or that I'll comfort her when she's distressed. While I agree that self-soothing is important for emotional self regulation, I don't think it's a problem for me to ease her into it rather than leaving her alone in her crib to cry and call out "ma ma ma" endlessly.

[alotofyarn]

E has been capable of self-soothing since she was really young. She still has nights that she prefers to be rocked to sleep, and we generally don't fight it. The only times we let her cry are when we go in there and she fights us when we try to rock her, or she keeps crying when we pick her up, because at that point she's going to be crying either way, and she's more likely to go back to sleep if she does it along in her crib. I still nurse her back down in the middle of the night way more than I should, but sometimes you just have to do whatever necessary so that you all get some sleep.

[MrsK]

Another thing that I'm sure someone will mention is that I'm enjoying the time I have with Lambie at bedtime. This time passes so quickly and it won't always be so easy to comfort her. Really, don't worry about it. Your little one will learn.

[Pollyanna]

This time passes so quickly and it won't always be so easy to comfort her. Really, don't worry about it. Your little one will learn.

This!

Look some kids are awesome sleepers and some are not. Our sixth baby is not, she simply will not be Ferberized. Knowing what I know now I realize that this is perfectly okay.

Rock away mama, you're doing just fine.

[spotty_dog]

Count my voice as another to say that "shoulds" are complete BS. You do what works for you and your family. If you feel strongly about training your child to fall asleep with cues that don't involve warm happy bellies and cozy momma arms, then you very likely will be able to accomplish that training (some babies will fall into new routines without complaint, others will be more persistent about voicing their needs.) Some parents need their sleep, and that's totally fine, that need, or the external schedule of needing to be up for work or whatever, will drive your motivation to complete the training.

If you don't feel so strongly about this...then just don't do it. There is no such thing as an unbreakable habit; even addicted smokers can quit. There is no such thing as a child who gets so spoiled by love and comfort that they rely on it unreasonably; the vast majority will transition to independence as part of natural development and I've never yet heard of a teenager taking his mommy to college because he literally can't sleep without being rocked in arms.

I never truly sleep trained either of my kids. I spent a *lot* of time and energy fretting about whether I *should* sleep train my first. I let my second be and rolled with the punches. They were both very different kids, but they were falling asleep independently by about age 2 and sleeping soundly through the night in their own beds by 3-4. At 5 and 8 their bedtime routine is simple and effective and they sleep a healthy, appropriate long stretch and wake cheerful. So my n of 2 are my evidence that "all babies must be sleep trained" is false.

[TulipsAndSunscreen]

This is not meant to be glib but I've always thought that people who insist that sleeping training/self soothing is important are people whose babies did it.

Neither of mine will do anything of the sort without getting inordinately upset. Especially as a working mama, I'm away from them all day long so I simply cannot spend the brief time we have together with them crying alone in their rooms.

And my oldest wouldn't have self soothed anyway. She's so stubborn she would cry til she vomited. She takes a long time to fall asleep but she now (at almost 3) knows to stay in her room and lie there until she falls asleep.