Self soothing

Jbosarge85

How do you, other bedsharers, teach your baby to soothe themselves? DD sleeps with us and when she wakes up she always keeps moving and if I don't nurse her or pick her up and rock her she will cry. Sometimes I can get her back to sleep but it still with me patting her back. What can I do to help her soothe herself?

blush64

Honestly, with my first two I did nothing to teach them. They learned as they grew and matured. When they woke I nursed them and sometimes rocked them. I wasn't on a timeline so it didn't matter if they woke at night no matter how old they were, we went by their own timeline.7

Sorry I can't tell you how to get LO to do it herself, all I can offer is that she will eventually even if you don't teach her.

blu-eyedwife

I didn't need to teach my guy either - he eventually picked it up on his own.  I believe that all children learn to self-soothe, but it's not always on the parent's timeline.  If you can wait it out, she'll get there.

Jbosarge85

I don't mind rocking her or nursing her. It doesn't bother me at all. I just always hear they need to learn it so I was afraid I was doing something wrong. Nice to hear she will do it when she's ready.

TiffanyBerry

I hate the "you need to teach them to self sooth" phrase.  It's ridiculous.  It's BS, even.  You cannot teach a baby to self-soothe.  Teaching implies imparting knowledge and understanding.  Even if you did manage to communicate a potential self-soothing method to a baby, they do not have the cognitive ability to understand direction and apply it while stressed.  The most you could do is give them lots and lots of opportunities to be stressed so they have to search out something for themselves and hope that what they pick is a productive self-soothing method (and not something like shutting down).

I started helping my daughter with this sort of thing when she was old enough to understand it.  When she was stressed out in public, she liked to put my hand on my belly (under my shirt), so if she started getting stressed, I might help her find it.  But she was at least as old as your child is, and I wasn't making her do it *alone*, I was teaching by leading, by example, and was not expecting her to do it all by herself.  We've continued as she's gotten older, but she's sensitive, and she still needs help a lot of the time.  That's ok.  She's three.  Even adults need help sometimes too.

Emerald27

"So this self-soothing that experts talk about is nothing more than a made-up research term. But here’s what sometimes happens to research terms. Somebody coins a research term in a study and then all the researchers doing similar research start to adopt it because it’s “in the literature.” But after awhile people start to forget that it’s just a research term. And since self-soothing appears to mean a certain thing – a baby actively soothing herself back to sleep – people started believing that it meant much more than it was ever intended to mean. This is the same sort of thing that happens in propaganda and advertising. Repeat something over and over and people start to assume it’s true."

https://uncommonjohn.wordpress.com/2013/01/04/self-soothing-possibly-the-biggest-lie-ever-foisted-on-parents/comment-page-1/

bullybutt

I still nurse a near 14 mo to sleep.  Sometimes he flops around and finally falls asleep on his own, but mainly it's the boob that puts him out.  Why put us both through the torture or torment of trying to force him to self soothe on his own? He'll figure it out one day and each day it does get easier and he needs me less and less. Take people advice with a grain of salt and do what your gut/heart tells you.  Actually do what your baby wants you to do I-)

st.augbride

DaisyBlinks said:

I sort of gently transitioned my son to soothe himself by slowly transitioning off of soothing techniques in which I was highly involved. Like instead of feeding him right away, I would pick him up and try rocking him to sleep instead. If it didn't work, I'd go ahead and feed him, NBD. And eventually, the cuddles were what he needed. Then I would try patting his back and singing to him first, and pick him up if that didn't work after a minute. Then I would just talk to him. Then he learned how to do it on his own. It was a slow but stress-free process. But I did it because it worked best for our family. I don't think there's anything wrong with nursing an 8 month old to sleep. 

Love this! How old was your LO when you started this?