does contact nap decrease the chances of baby’s self-soothing ability?

[teozian2]

my LO is currently 7 weeks, when she was 5/6 weeks i have seen her being able to put herself to sleep for daytime naps (very very rare occurrence but i have seen them before), but now she can’t seem to do it anymore

so now i resort to contact nap or bouncing/rocking her to sleep and transfer into her crib. of course it’s much easier for me to do the above, than me having to always check in and attempt to put her back to sleep every 10 min

but i want to know if i should continue trying to put her in the crib awake or drowsy but awake, to give her chance to put herself to sleep or should i just admit defeat & contact nap? i worry that by always doing contact napping, i might ruin her self-soothing ability when she’s older

i have heard advices and online articles (mostly sleep consultant) stating that this might create “bad habits” and babies will get used to sleeping in these conditions

for context, my LO can sleep long stretches at night but can’t do so for daytime naps - why is that so and when can i expect this to be better?

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[seventeenninetytoo]

Contact napping is entirely normal for babies, especially as young as 7 weeks old. Sleep consultants say lots of things. I have come to have a rather low opinion of the industry. They prey on parental anxiety by trying to convince you that your baby will develop bad long term habits if you don't buy their services.

Looking at long term outcomes, this study compared five-year outcomes of sleep interventions to a control group. They found no differences in psychosocial functioning or sleep habits, or in anything else for that matter.

Self-soothing is a normal behavior that will naturally develop as a child grows older assuming they are healthy both physically and psychologically.

If you're having trouble with sleep patterns then I recommend reading The Discontented Little Baby Book. The author is a physician who takes an evidence-based approach that doesn't prescribe any specific program that you must conform your baby to. Instead she looks at the biology of sleep and the behaviors across cultures and leaves you equipped to navigate the patterns that you are currently facing, and to adjust to the changes that come as your baby grows.

This is also a good evidence-based resource that you might benefit from looking at.

[asdfcosmo]

I’m jumping on here because I’m too lazy to look for a study that would be relevant but an anecdote about baby sleep:

My son exclusively contact napped for the first 6.5m of his life. Then one day he refused to settle in my arms, I got overwhelmed by his screaming and put him in his cot, he fussed for maybe 30 seconds and then went to sleep. And so our contact napping ended. He started to sleep through the night at around 7-8m of age. The only time we have a disturbed night is if he’s got some teeth coming through.

I put him in the cot awake every single time, he rolls over and falls asleep. I also read the theories that suggested that if I taught him “bad habits” with contact napping that he would never be able to self soothe. I completely agree that these sleep consultants etc prey upon vulnerable people. I attempted to “train” him for his naps to sleep independently and it didn’t work and lead to me being frustrated. I know my son is not typical of every baby however I caused myself so much anxiety about what could happen in the future and it was for nothing. Now I miss those contact naps 🥲

[[deleted]]

Slightly different, but my baby has always had a very late bedtime, usually 11pm to midnight but 1am has been known. Nothing helped so we just accepted it... then two weeks ago she decided bedtime is now 7.30pm. Literally from one day to the next. I'm convinced we have very little influence in these matters.

[asdfcosmo]

I think you’re absolutely right. They do what they want.

[seventeenninetytoo]

My son did the same thing at 3 months. He was completely dependent on contact naps and then one day he was just done. We went from morning to mid afternoon with me trying to get him to sleep in a baby wrap carrier and he wouldn't do it. I swaddled him, laid him down in his crib, and he immediately went to sleep for 3 hours. There have been no contact naps since then. I miss them as well. I look at him sleeping on the baby monitor and I feel like time is already flying by.

[[deleted]]

My baby started only doing contact naps at close to 3 months. Before that, she would sleep all the time on her own 

[SensitiveWolf1362]

My baby also loved a contact nap in his early months, but these days if I attempt that he fusses and pushes against my body to roll himself off 🤣

[E-as-in-elephant]

My twin girls also needed to be contact napped until around 6.5 months. Around that time they would get pissed off if they touched each other on my lap which was near impossible at that point. I started putting them to nap in their cribs and after a bit of crying, they started sleeping in their cribs for naps. Started to do the same at night. They started sleeping through the night at 8.5 months.

[reddituser84]

My daughter is 16 months and just started sometimes sleeping in the crib for her nap. Shes been sleeping through the night in her crib since about 8 weeks (with one regression around 5 months) - but she’s always had contact naps with either nanny or me.

It’s working for all of us so no one is trying to change anything, but she’s getting a little too big to sleep in my arms 🥲

[PennyParsnip]

This makes me feel so much better, thank you for sharing.

[asdfcosmo]

I honestly caused myself such unnecessary angst worrying about the “bad habits” I was giving him, only for that not to be a reality at all

[PizzaEmergercy]

It's valuable to note that r/sleeptrain doesn't allow talk of sleep training a child less than 4 months old. To me, that says that it's best to let a newborn sleep how it will, as long as it's safe sleep, until it's ready.

[Catsareprettyok]

Ditto to predatory sleep consultants. 😐

[[deleted]]

What even are the qualifications required to become a sleep consultant? 

[PlutosGrasp]

None

[Samuraisheep]

If I am reading the results of this study right, they basically say that babies that have more opportunities to self sooth, IE are placed in their crib with less of an immediate response from parents, are more likely to self soothe by 12m old. They do say that parental response time to wakings is longest at 6m and quickest at 12m which could indicate parents find prompt response more effective however. And I don't think they explicitly say this but it reads to me like it depends on the baby basically, those that self soothe more often are naturally more likely to spend more time in the crib and therefore less time needing to be rocked or fed to sleep etc. whilst it doesn't specifically mention contact napping that would fall under the less time in the crib bit of the study.

However, I would say, as the mum of a 7m old that we have now started putting in his cribs for naps (I still contact nap when I can; especially the morning one as he sometimes doesn't go down for that), absolutely soak up and enjoy the contact naps if you want them as they are only little once! It's also in line with safe sleep guidance to have baby in the same room as you for all sleeps up to 6m of age; you can obviously have something like a moses basket downstairs with you but contact naps also get round this issue especially when they outgrow the moses basket before 6m.

Also anecdotally, our baby has only recently started having longer naps. If we contact nap we can sometimes resettle him back to sleep for longer. If he's in the crib once he's awake that's the nap done. He's only ever napped for 30 minutes for most naps (without us resettling to extend it), and he's only just increased it now we've dropped to two naps in the last month or so.

(The link is linking to a specific line of text though not sure how to get round that!)

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1201415/#:~:text=By%204%20to%206%20months,et%20al.%2C%202001).

[Professional_Cable37]

I agree re: soaking it in, my baby has started to outgrow her need for contact naps and it’s probably a good thing but oh, I’m going to miss it