Comments on: Do We Expect Too Much to Have Babies Self-Soothe to Sleep?

By: Amber Gilbert

Amber Gilbert — Thu, 23 May 2019 00:22:10 +0000

In reply to Laurie. Thank you for sharing! This made me tear up because I can completely relate!

By: Debbye

Debbye — Wed, 17 Aug 2011 14:57:11 +0000

@ Laura- Thank you for sharing the link! Samuel Jackson does do a perfect narration of this story! You are right, in that this book (and audio version) is NOT for everyone, as many are offended by the language. For those who are not offended by language, you must hear the audio version!
😉

@ Luciana- Thank you for writing! And I think everyone in today’s world could probably benefit by taking just a little time to relax! Thanks for sharing what works for you!
🙂

By: Luciana

Luciana — Sun, 14 Aug 2011 10:35:12 +0000

With my first son I searched all over web for solutions with his sleep problems at the end I read this article about an “anthropological” approach and decided that I wanted him to take his own time and relaxed about it. Before I knew he was sleeping on his own and all night. Off course we had some set backs like when my second child was born and he wanted the same attention the baby was getting for himself but,again, with time he overcame it. Our society does press for imediate solutions and circumstances are different now then they were before, with so many moms working full-time. But each child has it´s own time that must be respected as well. The reason I like this site so much and keep reading it is because I believe the author understands the uniqueness of each baby and family.

By: Laura

Laura — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 16:16:41 +0000

http://www.nerve.com/news/books/listen-samuel-l-jackson-narrates-go-the-f*ck-to-sleep

(Except replace the * with a u)

By: Nicole

Nicole — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 19:44:36 +0000

In reply to Laura.

@Laura I haven’t heard Jackson’s narration. Do you have a link? I’d like to hear that. 😀

@Melanie Sounds like you have a very adaptable and calm baby. 🙂 Thanks for sharing!

@Natalie You are not alone that sometimes it’s us who hesitate. I think both parent and child need to be ready. It’s not always a quick process, so you need to be prepared to take that first step and follow through. Thanks for sharing your experience and that’s great she’s sleeping so well, now!

@Laurie Your story brought tears to my eyes. Thank you so much for sharing with us. It definitely sounds like you both needed each other and I know it must have been so difficult when your husband was gone. You are a great mom!

@Cat I have heard that sometimes that a baby will sleep better being in their own space. Of course, not all are that way, but sometimes we all need some room to move! 😀 Thank you for sharing!

@Ems Oh my!! Your poor husband not being able to talk about his nightmares! 🙁 That sounds scary to think your nightmares would come true. Yikes! Thank you for sharing!

@Heather Very good point that I think how we, as parents, feel about our child’s sleep, good or bad, will largely dictate the entire experience. You’re right and of course I agree it’s a personal choice for each family. 🙂

@Carrie Juggling two definitely has more challenges in terms of how long you can “work” on putting the baby to sleep when you have a toddler to run around after and make sure they are not getting into trouble!! ;D That’s great that your baby was asleep in 5 minutes! Something similar happened with my younger son…almost exactly except I was making lunch and had a hungry boy to feed! 🙂

@Phillipa That’s so great your daughter was so easy-going and good at self-soothing! 🙂

@Jen Oh wow, so it is something that others tell their kids. “Funny” but not. LOL At least it wasn’t just @Ems husband, though. 😉

Thanks everyone for great conversation, as usual! Love this!

By: Jen

Jen — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 16:03:56 +0000

hahaha!
No, Ems- that’s definitely an old saying around where I grew up, too…

Either that or EVERYONE’S moms wanted them to go the f* to bed there. 🙂

By: Philippa

Philippa — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 08:53:13 +0000

my DD, now 16.5m has always been great at self soothing. from birth I nursed her, let her fall asleep in my arms then popped her down in her cot sometimes asleep and sometimes drowsy. We never coslept as she seemed to like her own space. Whenever I tried to bring her into the bed she never seemed to want to lay and cuddle. So she always slept next to me in the bedroom in her own cot/crib and knew I was always there to comfort her if she needed anything.

I do believe I was very fortunate that she was an easygoing baby and as a result she has rarely needed assistance going off to sleep. There were of course times that I had to stay in the room sitting in the chair next to her whilst she drifted off as she had been grizzly and crying and I personally was jot able to let her cry it out for long (even though I realised that crying is just tiredness). I never picked her up or rocked her just cuddled and laid her back down and patted her back.

she rarely wakes in the night and calls out for me, only when she’s ill. if she does wake I go to her straight away to comfort her so she feels her needs are met. She does use a dummy / pacifier though as a baby she had a strong suck and reflux so this was supposed to help and she loves it (only at bedtime). I did have a period of her waking and me replugging the dummy throughout the night!!

I read a lot about baby sleep before she was born and how the sleep cycles work. I realised that not letting her get overtired was key and that a bedtime routine with a sleep trigger and wind down was needed, so I started implementing a routine when she was around 3 months old. I think this quiet wind down time is crucial.

So I believe self soothing is learnt through the feeling of security and ensuring baby is put down to sleep before becoming overtired, after which point their little brains are wired and they simply can drop off and when they do, sleep is fragmented, bringing on night wakings.

By: Carrie Dodd

Carrie Dodd — Wed, 10 Aug 2011 05:03:44 +0000

My son learned how to self soothe really early (before 2 months old) when rocking/nursing to sleep didn’t really work and co-sleeping is not an option in our house. Hubby does strange things in his sleep. My daughter is 7 weeks old and I’m slowly teaching her and a lot of it is because I don’t have the time with my 21 month old to spend oodles of time rocking her to sleep (she’s bottlefed breastmilk and that doesn’t put her to sleep!) I’ll put her down drowsy and half the time she’ll sleep on her own. Sometimes I need to pop the soother in her mouth to help her along. Tonight out of necessity (21 month old being naughty) she was crying after I put her down drowsy and 5 min later she was sleeping 🙂

By: Heather

Heather — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 18:34:12 +0000

I co-sleep with my babies because I am too plain lazy to get out of bed at night!!! Whether or not to co-sleep, sleep train, etc is largely a personal and cultural question, IMO. In some cultures, kids co-sleep with their parents till they are teenagers or beyond. Does this mean that some cultures are more “fearful” than others? I doubt the 2 are strongly related. To my mind what is important, is the parents deciding on what they feel is right and following their minds with their actions. If I co-sleep with my child but resent it, my child may pick up on those negative feelings. (or if I sleep train but don’t feel that it is right.) For me, the best time to sleep train my baby or toddler is when I am starting to resent it, and when I am prepared to make a commitment to be consistent with another method. I night weaned my daughter at 19 months with very little crying in just a few days and I believe that was because I was confident that what I was doing was right, that, as Nicole says, I knew she could learn a new way. In short, babies are adaptable. (probaby much more so than their parents!) We need to have the courage to do what we feel our family needs, whether that is co-sleeping (in a culture where that isn’t the norm) or sleep training.

By: Ems

Ems — Tue, 09 Aug 2011 15:58:58 +0000

My baby’s sleep is another story but my husband was told as a young child that it was bad luck to talk about your nightmares before breakfast. If you did IT WOULD COME TRUE. Now, I’ve asked a lot of people if they ever heard of this and no-one has, so I reckon it was my mother-in-law’s way of getting him to go the f*ck to sleep.

All I can say is my husband as an adult is a pretty good sleeper but his relationship with his mother is beyond therapy…