We have a 14 month old boy. While we are not anti sleep training, we haven't done it because he is usually a good sleeper and we are currently lazier than we are desperate. But we do need to rock him to sleep, and sometimes it takes a while. I was just curious: Without sleep training, at what age do kids start going to sleep independently? When should I start to expect that or begin to nudge him in that direction? I mean, before sleep training existed, kids learned this eventually, right? I tried to research it, but a lot of what I found was either fiercely pro- or anti-sleep training, and I am somewhere in the middle. (We do follow guidelines on safe sleep and do not believe in co-sleeping).
Adding some clarification: I am aware we are not currently sleep training. What I meant about being neutral is more being philosophically neutral on the idea. When I try to research a question like "Without sleep training, at what age will a child sleep independently?" I get a lot of mommy blogs talking about how sleep training is torture or abuse. I just wanted to be clear that I am not in that camp. I think it is an appropriate tool for some families. On the other hand, when I do look up sleep training, a lot of it is couched in "Its hard but its better than being sleep deprivated and at your wits end." And that's not where we currently are either. 90% of the time he sleeps through the night already, and I've been informed that sleep training wouldn't necessarily address that 10%.
I was just curious what a natural progression looks like and its really hard to find info out there that just describes stages without being pro or anti sleep training. And what I am hearing from anongoodnurse and others is that maybe its because those stages don't exist. But if anyone has any other insight into that, I'm all ears.
Also -- since posting this, we have tried to ease on what exactly we do to put him down. I used to rock and sing to him. Now we just hold. But we are still no where near being able to just plop him in the crib awake.