At what age should I try letting my 5 month old son fall asleep on his own? Any suggestion on how to accomplish this? He sleeps through the night but I have to rock him to sleep every night and he'll usually wake up 1 or 2 times before he's asleep for the night. I usually start at 10pm and he usually is asleep for the night around 12am.

It's up to you..my daughter was 2 1/2 before i let her go to sleep completly on her own, my son was about 3. It depends on you and your child. At 5months there is absolutly nothing wrong with helping your baby fall asleep. If he is comfortable going to sleep on his own, and your comfortable letting him then there is nothing wrong with that. If you want him to fall asleep on his own some tips i've heard are...gradually reduce the time your rocking him untill it'sjust a hug and kiss, once he's in bed leave him in bed, if he wakes up go in and rub his back and talk to him but don't pick him up, try to avoid getting fustrated, it'll only make him more upset. But at 5 months it may take a while, he's not old enough to understand so chances are it's going to take a week or two atleast to get him falling asleep on their own, and you should do it with the least amount of stress to him as possible..you want to keep bedtime a happy time, not a stressful time. but like i said unless you have a problem with it there is nothing wrong with you rocking him to sleep, bedtime can be great bonding time.

You may be ready to fall asleep around 10pm, but sounds as though your baby isn't. Same happened with one of ours - just couldn't get them onto the same time zone.

If this is the case - that your baby only really falls asleep around midnight - then why not just shorten the going-to-bed routine. If you try this and find that all he needs is about 15 minutes, do this for about a week. Then for the following week, see if you can get him to fall asleep 10-15 minutes earlier. If this works, move up the bedtime another 10-15 minutes the next week.

Another consideration - light and noise: some babies need absolute quiet and pitch darkness [no night lights]. Then again, some babies fall asleep the moment the car moves regardless of noise and light levels.

Each baby is different; hope you find what works best for yours soon.

Good luck,
Jay

i used to rock my daughter to sleep while she took a pacifier-well when she was about 6mnths old she started fighting me-this would go on for what seemed like forever-one day i just layed her in her crib and she instantly stopped crying and went to sleep-from then on the only way to put her to bed was to lay her down and leave the room-what a relief-i do miss the cuddling but it's so much easier-hope this helps

That is totally up to you and your child. My son is 16 months old, we rock every night and every afternoon before naps. I love our 'rocking time' together. What a cuddly moment. He will surely want to give it up before I ever do!!
Dawn

It's defenitely up to you. I will say this, however, a friend of mine never let her babies cry, and her 6 year old son still can't fall asleep on his own. At some point, kids need to learn how to get themselves to sleep. I did this with my older daughter-2. We rocked her for a certain amount of time (30-45min), and then put her down. After that, there was no picking her up unless she needed to be changed, of course. We would come in every 10 min and rub her back. The first night she cried off and on for 45 min. The next night, 30 mins. After about4 nights, she would roll over and go right to sleep. We weren't that resolved with the baby-1, since they were only 11 mths apart it was harder. We picked her back up every time she cried. When we finally decided enough was enough, it took 3 months to get her to sleep on her own (with some rocking first of course) But, if you want to continue, go ahead. Just remember, you might want to quit before another baby comes along.

I rocked my daughter to sleep for the first 3 months, and she also used a pacifier. At about 3 months, however, I would find myself in her room for up to an hour at a time, several times a night, hanging over the crib holding the pacifier in her mouth so she could go to sleep because it kept popping out. So I took the pacifier away and kept rocking her all the way to sleep for a week or two. When she got used to no pacifier, I kept rocking her, but not all the way to sleep. I gradually began to put her to bed a little bit more awake every night for the next few weeks. She would cry a lot sometimes, but within about 6 weeks, she was to the point where I put her in the crib and left, and she went to sleep totally on her own. She would also put herself back to sleep if she woke in the night. At 2 years, she is sleeping GREAT! She goes to bed at 7 p.m. and we don't hear a peep until at least 5:30 a.m. (and it has been this way since she was 6 months old.) I was somewhat traumatized by all of her crying at first, but it was all worth it!