Sleep train?

Question

My baby has never slept through the night since birth. The most he lasted was 4hrs when he was 2 months old. After that he would wake up at different intervals (can be 20 mins, 30 mins, 45 mins, 1 hr, 1.5hr, 2 hr, 3 hrs etc)He also sometimes wakes up too early (3/4am) and cant go back to sleep even though Ive tried nursing or rocking him. It took us 2-3 hrs to get him to drowsy state. Now its worsened cos he started rolling but cant roll back.Weve been helping him nap/sleep either by rocking or nursing. Hes never slept by himself before. I tried to sleep train recently using the gentle CIO method, by putting him on his cot awake. But he cries even before touching the bed, or stays alert all the way till he becomes bored or upset and cries. I tried to pat him but he just turned hysterical and became inconsolable after some time if I dont pick him up to calm him down. It will take my husband and I hours to calm him down. Hes 4.5 months old now and it seems that he has the ability to self soothe (he will suck his hand or toy when hes abit fussy). We also have this bedtime routine where the lights are dimmed, I put on music and read a book to him. But it always ends up with him crying and I rocking him to sleep. Im wondering if theres a gentler way to sleep train or if I dont sleep train will my baby learn to sleep without rocking soon?

Priscilla Goh · Accepted Answer

For my girl we just let it happen. My girl used to be like your boy previously. When we put her down to her own cot she will auto wake up no matter how deep asleep she is and cry. So we ended up co sleeping with her and she loves our bed. We are guessing is the smell. We tried music, white noise and reading books to her. Music and white noise works sometimes but sometimes doesn’t. So in the end I stop everything. So during night time no sound only fan sound. Now she’s 14mos we are slowly transiting her to sleep on her own bed. Since now she knows how to hold her milk bottle, every night I will ask her to close her eyes to off the room lights and get her go to her spot for milk (with all her pillow lying properly) and she will either walk or crawl to her bed and lie down for her milk and she will drink and fall asleep. At times she doesn’t sleep after her milk, she will get up and walk around or roll here and there and talk her baby words. At this time, we wont entertain her. We let her do what she wants while we pretend to fall asleep. After awhile she will fall asleep on her own then when she’s in deep asleep will move her to her bed.