How do babies learn to fall asleep by themself?

Question

WITHOUT using cry it out. How does a baby learn to go to sleep themself? 
I can barely get my daughter to sleep holding her and rocking her and singing to her etc. I do not ever want to use cry it out so I'm wondering what the alternative is?
My dad insists I'll "have to do it eventually" because he doesnt believe there is another way... but there must be! Right?? 
She is only 4 months now and I'm not trying to force it anytime soon... but just wondering for the future.

Answer

Well 4 months is too early to let her cry it out anyways. But they usually self soothe eventually with a pacifier or their thumbs,

Answer

We tried controlled crying at about 7 months and within two or three days she was fine and went straight down. She sleeps immediately and like a log until from 9pm until about 8am now. 🤷🏽‍♀️

Answer

Mine did not learn till a year old and even then we did cry it out. Since then, no problems falling asleep on own.

Answer

I find when they learn how to roll both ways there able to get comfy and sleep better.

Answer

Honestly, no matter how old the baby is, there's probably gonna be some tears involved. My 4 year old slept in the bed with us until he was 3 and there were a LOT of tears when we moved him to his own bed. This time, we're ripping the bandaid off with the 6 month old. I'm not excited about it though

Answer

We have an almost 9 month old that is sleeping through and we never did cio.  I used the pick up put down method around 4.5 to 5 months when he was NOT in a bad sleep cycle (meaning when he was not teething, sick, overtired, etc), took a week or two and weaned him off of all sleep associations before starting that, developed a simple but very defined sleep routine, created a sleep environment conducive to sleeping (dark, sound machine, cool but not cold, right pjs, etc), and was determined.  It took an ungodly amount of patience and endurance for a few days, but he learned (and then relearned as the 6 and 8 month regressions hit).  I can’t tell you how proud I am when I see him wake up, roll around and then go back down.  We worked SO hard for it!!!

Answer

The Happy Sleeper is a good alternative to CIO

Answer

They learn when you teach them. It's highly unlikely that they're just going to randomly teach themselves. We've been actively working on this since birth. I rarely rocked my daughter to sleep and if she ever fell asleep in my arms, I put her down in her DockATot. I didn't let her just sleep on my chest for hours on end. We also never bought swings, rockers, bouncers, etc. We promoted only good, healthy sleep habits and had her sleeping through by 5 weeks. A couple of weeks later, she could put herself to sleep no problem.

Answer

I was very lucky and my daughter always settled herself to sleep. 
Have you tried a pacifier/dummy to see if that helps?
Other than that white noise can be very helpful.

Answer

Try following a routine, and possibly try small amount of cry it out... we did a little bit at a time and now my 9 month old usually goes down perfectly at 10:30...if she’s not tired at 10:30 we just wait until she’s yawning and sleepy usually by 11 she goes down without a fuss

How do babies learn to fall asleep by themself?

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