"WILL MY BABY EVER LEARN TO COMFORT HIMSELF BACK TO SLEEP"

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"We shared our bed with our baby until recently when he began wiggling and taking up more space in the bed than me! He is now 3-months-old and wakes up often during the night, and during daytime naps. As soon as I hear him cry, I go in to comfort him. He usually falls asleep quickly after he is picked up. After sleeping in my arms for a little while, he is easily put back to bed. Will this ever stop? Will he learn to comfort himself if we continue to do this? I just can't bear the thought of having him cry alone."

This is a common concern, and a common argument against co-sleeping. The answer to your question is: "Yes, he will learn to fall asleep by himself." BUT, it will probably be much later than you are anticipating. Many parents have an unrealistic expectation about when their infants should be able to fall asleep by themselves. I hear people say six months, or one year. In reality, it's usually between 2 and 4 years. Our four-year-old still needs to be parented to sleep. This is not a problem for us, he still needs the "snuggle time".

Our eight-year-old was the same way at this age, but she eventually learned. Sometimes it took incentives, we started by making a "star-chart". For every night she fell asleep by herself she would get a star, and after three stars she would get a prize. Some nights she would say, "I don't think I want a star for tonight", and that was okay - she was always welcome in our bed. Soon, she was easily falling asleep by herself, but most mornings I would awaken to find her snuggling between my wife and I. Again, this was not a problem for us (I love snuggling my kids). So, the next step was to make a star chart for staying in her bed ALL NIGHT. She earned a really nice prize for that accomplishment.

I like this approach for several reasons:

Children develop a positive attitude about sleep.
They are not forced into anything that they aren't ready for - they get to choose between two nice things.
Everybody stays happy - there are no nighttime struggles, which helps keep lost sleep to a minimum.

I have some friends that really wanted their two-year-old son to sleep through the night. So they cut off the night nursing and "sleep trained" him. They were so proud because now their son would sleep through the night. Recently I was at their house for a meeting and it came time for their son's bedtime. Mom announced, "time for bed", and I will never forget the sudden look of fear on that child's face. To him, bedtime was a scary time.

My four-year-old still needs help falling asleep, and often that can be draining on our energy. But we know how the story ends... he will soon learn to sleep by himself, and he talks about the batman action figure that he will earn. After he is asleep, we move him to his room, and then my wife and I get our time together. Some nights he stays asleep all night, some mornings I awaken with his foot in my face. We have an "open-bed" policy.