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I'm in the camp that believes that every baby is different and that what is or isn't good for one personality might be completely different for another so I am not a huge believer in what constitutes a good sleep habit or a mistake. I'd rather do what feels right to me and my baby. For me that meant nursing to sleep, swaddling and nursing at night until 6.5 months when DS showed signs that he wasn't night waking because he was hungry, doing a modified sleep training/CIO at 6.5 months when night weaning, rocking to drowsy or sleep, and even now, holding or rocking until he is ready to get in his bed at 2 years old. Sure he rarely STTN, but I just really believe he wouldn't have been before now, even if we'd "followed all the guidance and recommendations". It just didn't/doesn't fit him and his needs. We are getting better sleep now than we've ever gotten and that is from potty training him for night and day and the ability to communicate expectations.

@travelgirl1: My LO is about 6 months, and we will soon be sleep training. Around 8 weeks she started going down for the night easily, but 2 sleep regressions later, she is waking up at night multiple times, and it needs to stop. As other posters said, each baby and family is different.

@travelgirl1: Never know, you may avoid them! She isn't horrible, just very varied anymore. She went from waking up once around 3 or 4 am to 11:30 pm cry sessions that last 2 hours or some nights just a quick wake-up and back down. We need to cut out the bad nights, because she loses a lot of sleep, and is miserable the next day.

I'm definitely more strict with sleep than most other moms that I know, but it is also what works for my baby (who is now 12 weeks old). If we are home, he naps in his crib. If he naps in the bouncer he doesn't sleep as long or as soundly. I try not to have more than one nap a day be out of the house, unless we are spending the day at my parents' house where there is a PnP for him to sleep in. We don't rock or nurse to sleep and he's fine without it. He sleeps in his crib in his room where he is put down awake and drowsy. However, it has never taken CIO to get this to happen. He does fall asleep with a pacifier in, so we sometimes have to go back and replace it if he loses it before actually falling asleep (like when he yawns). He is swaddled and we use white noise at night and for naps. I don't tiptoe around the house when he's sleeping.

There is no 'should' - only what works for you. Nursing to sleep works very well for me, as does rocking and snuggling to sleep. If it works for you, great! A bad sleep habit is one that doesn't work for your family, period.

For example - if I let my daughter take the second nap she'd like, she sleeps from 4-6 and then goes to bed at 11 and sleeps through the night. If I don't give her that nap, she goes to bed at 8, but then wakes up once and needs her daddy to come snuggle her back to sleep, where he usually just spends the rest of the night. I hate to sleep alone, but we hate not having an evening. I let him make the choice, since he's doing the work, and he chose an early bedtime over STTN. A 'bad' habit? I don't think so - it works for us. It's the best choice for our family and our overall happiness, so I'm pretty content with it. Even though many wouldn't consider it 'good sleeping habits'.