Self Settling

Just wondering at what age babies can start to self soothe?
My wee man is coming up 9 weeks old and we have a few issues getting him to settle to sleep sometimes. I don't know if my expectations are too high and I am expecting him to be able to self soothe before he is actually able to (age wise) or whether it is down to our technique.

We always put him down to bed awake and then leave him to go off to sleep. We leave the room, then he starts grizzling. I try to leave him but as soon as he gets worked up or the grizzling has gone on for awhile, we go in and rock his bassinet a bit until he calms down and his eyes are starting to get drowsy. And then we leave the room again.

Sometimes he will only grizzle once but recently we are having to go in and settle him more often. I am not keen to leave him to CIO though I do wonder if I sometimes go in to his room to early and should just leave him to grizzle for longer. But then again, as I said before, maybe Im expecting too much of him at this age??
I have read differing information on the net about techniques and ages of babies been able to self soothe.
Any adive/experiences from other mums out there??

HippyMama wrote: Personally your babe is still young, and still adjusting to the big wide world and IMO there is no harm done in helping him off to sleep at this age. I still feed my nearly 7mo DD off to sleep, as it is the easiest / quickest / most stress free way to get things done for us. So my suggestion is, go with what you are most comfortable doing and causes the least worry. Don't let anyone convince you that there is a problem if you don't really feel there is one.

Couldn't agree more. I feed my 11mth old before every sleep, sometimes she nods off, sometimes she settles herself and sometimes we lie together on the bed till she's asleep. Despite popular belief that doing this causes 'problems' and 'bad habits' we've continued to do so because like hippymama it's the most stressfree way to get her to sleep and I am happy to do so. There is a reason after all that Mum always suggested a nice warm cup of milk before bed if I couldn't get to sleep

In saying that, I'm sure it is great to work towards teaching babe to self settle, but IMO at 9weeks it isn't really necessary. If you put him down in bed awake and he's happy to settle himself then great! But at the times he doesn't then my advice would be to do what you need to help him get to sleep.
My way of thinking is that baby will eventually trust that you will come back when left to self-settle because he/she knows that you will attend to them when they call out for help IYGWIM. Not something you need to necessarily worry about at this early stage
And like anything baby-related, I wouldn't suggest a particular 'age' to start trying, simply because every baby is so different, some happily self-settle quite young, other's take a little longer. If you don't want to leave baby to cry you don't have to. A book often recommended is Elisabeth Pantley's ''No cry sleep solution''. haven't read it myself but know it's helped alot of people who don't want to leave baby to CIO or try CC.

HTH

I'm going to disagree with everyone else here. I don't think 9 weeks is too young at all.  My son was 7wks old when I taught him to self settle.  I found it far easier at that young age than it was teaching my DD to self settle when she was 10mths old plus it was important for him to be able to self settle because he was becoming harder to settle in my arms and I ended up with an unsupervised preschooler for a large part of the day.

I prefer gentle methods at teaching a child to self settle, firstly introduce a routine (which at this age would just be Feed, Play, Sleep) ensuring he's in a clean and dry nappy and winded and watch for tired signs, provide sleep cues (even at 7wks old I would read him a story first, swaddle him, say prayers and sing a lullaby as I put him in his cot) then as needed I would shush him/pat him/rock the cradle until he was drifting off.  Each day the shushing etc was needed less and less until I could just pop him down during his lullaby and leave the room so that by the time he was 8 wks old he was self settling.

I don't like letting children cry so on occasions when he wouldn't self settle I'd do whatever was needed to help him sleep.

Having said all of that I believe that it is important that you do whatever you feel happiest doing.  You don't get a do-over and they grow so fast so make sure you enjoy as much of the baby moments as you can.  If cuddling or feeding your baby to sleep is what you want to do then you should do it and don't let anybody tell you that it's not the right thing to do or that you're creating 'negative sleep associations' IMO there is nothing more positive or heart warming than cuddling/rocking/feeding your baby to sleep.  Make the most of these gorgeous quiet moments with your first child because it's harder to do so when you have subsequent children without neglecting the older one/s.

I completely agree with Mrs Mojo.

But yes he is still young, so don't be too tough on yourself or him. I used the sort of method you are using - leaving for a bit, going back in and resettling (rocking her with my hand on her tummy in the cot) but she still has a dummy to settle (which I'm trying to get rid of now). She probably wasn't great at self settling til 5 months tho. Jake was good by 3 months but he had a dummy til 6 months too. I started out feeding / rocking them both to sleep for the first couple of months though.

Consistency in your method is important..... but you will have days when you need to help them to sleep when they're little, no matter how well they are self settling. All the effort pays off with a good sleeping older baby though!

I rocked DS to sleep at EVERY sleep until he was 6 months old which I really enjoyed as he wasn't (and still isn't!) a very cuddly baby. After about 6 months it wasn't really working for us anymore so I used CIO for 3 nights and now he is a perfect sleeper. I can put him to bed when he is due for a sleep and he will play for a while then when he is ready he will just lie down and go to sleep

Do whatever feels right for you

I agree with MrsMojo too .

when my babies were babies i would put them to bed after they had a feed and a change... they would get wrapped and be put in their cot awake... i didnt have to teach them anything. if they werent over stimulated or dirty or hungry they would normally go to sleep. It is quite weird though seeing a child lying in her bassinette wide awake just staring.

What MrsMojo said

In fact, I think I might copy it out and refer to it when #2 is here

Yeah thats what ive always done Deb, feed change wrap and put in bed awake, then contolled crying, but I would listen to the cry, if it was just a grizzle or the odd sqwark then id leave them, but if they started really crying then id go in and settle them, if they were still not happy to slep after a while then Id get them up, and often just unwrap and then wrap again and back down, and weirdly, that worked! lol

Trex shhh-pat should stop the crying and send them off to sleep. The theory is it reminds them of the womb, the shhhh is like the sound of blood pumping and the patting on the bottom is like the heart beat which they would have felt on their bottom if they were head down.

The method didn't work for us initially either until I introduced it as a calming method while holding and rocking him too. Once he got used to it I didn't need to hold him anymore and now when he's unsettled in his cot and I enter the room he assumes the position lol with his head on the mattress and bum in the air.