Is It Normal for a Baby to Never Be Able to Fall Asleep on His Own?

I felt like I was reading about my first baby, I understand how frustrating and difficult this is for you. My daughter never took a nap longer than 30-40 mins at a time, I hated trying to get her to sleep because like you we had to rock her every time, she never slept through the night either, she would wake up three times a night, I wanted to rip my hair out.

When I look back (my baby is now 4) I Wish i had known about acid reflux. She spit-up like crazy and only seemed to fall asleep in the sitting up position, because she never feel asleep laying flat. Does your baby spit up a lot? Do you lay your baby on his back? I would have have the baby checked for acid reflux and would start laying the baby on his tummy, see if this helps. I wish I had layed my first on her belly, I did with my second baby at four months and he slept much better for me. I had better luck with "The Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems" than I did with her first book, I felt like there was more information. Is it also possible you are missing his tired cues? I know I did when I went back and looked at the video footage, I was overstimulating her on top of allowing her to become overtired, which I didn't realize at the time. Also, some babies just thrive on less sleep if your 100% sure he doesn't have reflux or isn't overstimulated.


I'm telling you what I'd wish I'd done, because I believe now it probably would have helped me, but I struggled with my first for awhile tt

Is it the laying down he has trouble with? Will he sleep sitting up like, in the car seat? Sometime you have to use that, or even the babyswing! My daughter was gassy often so she didnt take well to laying down at that age. It should be better when he can sit on his own! (because he will burp by himself)

Katie D could be correct. Could be he likes to be sitting up to sleep or likes the movement.. He is also old enough to be put on his tummy.. Even as a newborn our daughter would roll to her tummy to sleep.. No matter what we did..My mom said I loved to sleep on my tummy too..

Our daughter has always been very warm natured she liked to just sleep in her diaper and the minute you put a sheet or blanket on her, she would wake up..

Place a rolled towel at the top of where you are going to place his head. some infants like that soft pressure on their heads (like in your womb) makes the cradle or crib not seem so big.

Also will he take a pacifier? Some kids really like that sucking to help them self sooth.

I hope you all get some sleep. Lack of sleep is so awful..

if given enough time will he fall asleep in a swing? (30 min or so?) the term sleeping like a baby is weird because our baby only sleept for a few hours at a time. if we were lucky to get that. make sure he is full and not hungery as this will make him not fall asleep. does he have an ear infection? if its laying down he dosent like it might be the pressure on his ears. good luck.

My daughter is 3 now but oh how I remember those days. Mine never wanted to nap through the day. We were lucky to get 15 minute naps. From day one she was fighting to sit up and had incredibly strong neck muscles. Our one saving grace was the baby swing which she slept in at night for a couple of months. She hated the crib and we spent many a night walking her around the neighborhood at midnight to have her fall asleep only to wake right up when we tried to put her in the crib. With the swing we could get her to fall asleep and as long as we didn't move her out of it she would sleep through the night. It wasn't until she was around 4 months that she would sleep through the night in her crib. Now during the day ... all bets off. The kid would not nap! We tried everything and she didn't have colic or acid reflux. Even past infancy we have discovered that the child does not sleep that much. We have no problem getting her to bed and she stays in her room until the next morning but have found that she wakes up through the night and plays. I have also discovered that there are a lot of kids that just don't need as much sleep as the typical recommendations. My daughter is a happy, healthy child who happens to sleep a lot less than most other kids her age.

You just might find that your son is one of the atypical sleepers. Just keep an eye on him and see if lack of sleep hinders him in anyway.

Babies are not born knowing how to put themselves to sleep. You need to teach them. Whatever method you choose will depend on hoe much time and patience you have and your comfort level on leaving your baby in his crib (or wherever he sleeps). My first, too, learned to put herself to sleep very early on (2 1/2 mos.) but my son took nearly 9 mos...and they were both nursing.

One book I really love is "Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child" by Marc Weissbluth. It is not a "method" book per se but talks a lot about the science of sleep and why we need it and how children need to learn to sleep. It offers several suggestions from the "cry-it-out" to less drastic methods so that you can find one you are comfortable with. It even has chapters for sleep issues/needs of older children on up to teenagers!

We did end up doing a version of the cry-it-out method with both my children and they are both awesome sleepers now and we do not have near the problems that many of our friends and family do. Also, remember that even though a baby may be awake, many go into the "overtired" phase where everything is going along fine but the littlest things make them super sensitive. I can even see this in myself sometimes! :-)

I would totally suggest checking out this book. Maybe your library has a copy you can check out first...good lulck!