When did your little one self-sooth?

No advice here, my 20 month old is still cuddled to sleep. I just wanted to say that your worries about her being too reliant on you aren’t anything to be worried about at all. You aren’t stopping her from learning anything, she won’t need you to hold her forever, self soothing will come with age, you don’t need to force it if you’re both happy with the cuddling to sleep. ❤️

@Chloe thank you. You’re absolutely right. I just worry because we are going to start trying for our 2nd baby soon. With my daughter only going to sleep on me, I am slightly worried about how or if I’ll be able to manage with a second baby. Although she will be 2 by then, so hoping she’ll be able to self-sooth or at least allow her dad to do her bedtime routine🤞🏾

My 2 yr old is still cuddled to sleep he's never self soothed as I'm always here to cuddle him they r only little for a short while so enjoy the cuddles coz one day they won't want them

@Emma I don’t mind the cuddles at all and I know time flies. However, she wakes up frequently needing to be picked up, sometimes over 8 times in the night. I’m just worried as we are going to start trying for a second and I’m not sure how I’ll be able to juggle this, which is why I’m intrigued to find out how long it’s taken peoples little ones to self-sooth ☺️

I co-sleep so no advice there but I know when my neighbour was pregnant with her second she started letting her son climb up the stairs and into bed read books and cuddled him that way to sleep so still cuddled now she does book read bottle for her 21 months old son and cuddles both to sleep then into bed with her other son hope this helps a little they don't really self soothe but it's working for her

@Emma aww thank you. That’s actually really helpful and really good idea. I might just have to copy that idea as we currently do something similar with my daughter

Well that's how she did it as she rocked him for as long as she could till she was heavily pregnant and really couldn't carry him anymore he's 4 now but he was 2 and a half when she started doing this and still works now at least I gave u some help though

@Emma I will take any advice atm. I love my quality time with my babygirl but trying to plan ahead ☺️. Thanks for the advice!x

I did gentle sleep training (not CIO) to teach my daughter to self soothe as I was rocking her but it had got to the point that everytime I tried to put her down, she'd wake up and I'd have to start all over again. Bedtime was taking several hours, something had to give.

Ur very welcome the routine she did for them works with others as well as long as they know the routine so it should help ease ur mind I love quality time with my son and my daughter but it's hard to spend it together with them both as she is 16 yrs old so massive age gap lol x

@Helen is the gentle sleeping training when you sit by their cot and then slowly get further and further away and use word association like ‘night night’? Would love to know more. We tried something similar and sometimes just try putting her down and patting her bum but she gets up and starts crying🙈. Normally I can just hold her and she falls asleep within 5-10minutes but just doesn’t stay down for the night and in the night it can take longer, even up to 2 hours. How old was your little one when you started?

Yes. She was prob around 10 months old. There was crying, don't get me wrong but I was right there next to the cot, I'd put my hand thru the bars so she could hold it and after a minute or two of crying I'd pick her up and calm her down and then put her back in her cot. The first night I was in tears as I felt so awful, even tho I was there and not just leaving her to cry but by night 3 it got so much easier with a lot less crying. Once she was happy lying down and going to sleep instead of being rocked, I gradually moved further away from the cot over several weeks until I was putting her down and leaving the room.