Self-settling
Also called self settling, self-settle, self settle, self-settled
Self-settling is when a baby goes from awake to asleep without someone feeding, rocking or holding them to sleep. Parents also use it for a baby who drifts back to sleep alone after waking between sleep cycles.
How it's said
How the heck can she self-settle?
...DS self-settled from the day we got home from hospital...
Self-settling is developmental, not taught.
Who says it
Not to be confused with
- Many people use self-soothing and self-settling for the same thing. Sleep consultants who split them say self-settling is about going from awake to asleep alone, and self-soothing is calming big feelings, a skill that grows through childhood.
Where it came from
Self-settling sits close to self-soothing, a word from infant sleep research. Thomas Anders and colleagues at the University of California, Davis filmed babies at night and sorted them into self-soothers, who went back to sleep on their own, and signalers, who called out and needed a parent to get back to sleep.
Tresillian, an Australian family service, uses it in the names of its settling methods: a hands on self settling technique from birth to six months and a parental presence self-settling technique for babies over six months. Sleep consultants now use it for the step from awake to asleep without someone doing it for the baby.