r/sleeptrain

My almost 6 month old started daycare 3 weeks ago. She’s a pretty good sleeper at home. When we watch wake windows, she will go to sleep easily now when drowsy and awake! however at daycare, they told me they have a rule to put them in the crib fully asleep! I’ve noticed even at home my daughter tends to freak out when she has been transferred from fully asleep to her crib… and I think it is part of why she doesn’t nap at all at daycare! Of course, daycare is also a different environment. They don’t turn off the lights, and the cribs are actually under the window so super bright…. They don’t use white noise and in the infant room they’re all napping at different times so I’m sure it’s loud too. The only other sleep prop that they use that similar to us is that they will use their approved sleep sack ( but they they won’t allow me to provide my own- some liability issue..)

The first week she took some naps but last week and this weekshe is exhausted and miserable by the time she gets home! but it’s only 430pm - I can’t put her down for bed yet? I try to spend a little time with her, feed, bathe, and get to bed around 6/630 so she can get a good stretch of sleep before we start the day at 630am (usually I wake her, with just one overnight feed).

my questions:

1. has this happened to you? did your kid eventually sleep at daycare?! should I be less stressed about this?

2. are they ruining my good sleeper? she had some problems napping this weekend but I’m not sure if it was just because of busy days… Will she be able to distinguish those environments enough to still sleep at home?

Hello - I’ve tried it all and this is a last resort advised by my pediatrician. For those that did full extinction, I see a lot who reference the initial put down part but not a lot who reference the wake ups. My son will go down pretty easily but has a ton of night wake ups. How do you approach those? I’m at a loss but it seems Ferber or similar just get him more upset. Thank you.

Hi everyone. My son is 17 months old and he still breastfeeds but only before bed and if he really needs it during night wakes. My son had a very intense feed to sleep association the first whole year of his life. My husband and I had tried to sleep train him but it was too much for us. But when our son was 13 months old we were exhausted and gave in. We did the Ferber method and within 3 to 4 days we were seeing great results. He started sleeping 11-12 hr stretches without any help throughout the night or even at bedtime. But then around the time he was 15 months old his sleep started getting really bad again. His molars started coming in. We tried to stick to the Ferber method but it wasn’t working and he sounded like he was in so much pain so we gave in and either rocked him or fed him to sleep. Now, at 17 months we are trying to sleep train him again and it is not going so well. We tried a few weeks ago and gave up after 3 days because he ended up cutting his upper frenulum during sleep training due to crying and jumping. Then we decided to give it another shot a few nights ago. Tonight is night 5. The past 4 nights he was able to fall asleep on his own at bedtime even though it took a long time sometimes 30 min to almost 2 hours. But then he would fall asleep but the have a night wake and he would be up for hours and if he did fall back asleep it would be only for a couple minutes and then he would start crying again to the point he wasn’t getting any sleep so we would go in and help him after a certain point. It feels like we went 2 steps forward, 5 steps back. Why is it not sticking this time around? Any advice? Anyone know why he is having so much trouble?

Sincerely,

A worried mom who just wants sleep for everyone….

do you all count dream feeds over night as sleeping through the night, if LO doesn’t actually wake up? or do you could those as wakes. just curious to see how other people think of night sleep. my LO dream feeds 3 times over night and is wide awake at 7am, i still count the feeds as wakes. lmk!

I don't know what to do anymore. I have tried so many methods to see if one works (extinction, ferber, chair). They all end with my 12mo crying max 30-40min and then puking from being so upset (so then i end it all and change her sleep sack and hold her, where she passes out almost immediately from exhaustion). Doesn't matter how tired she is before putting her to bed, she needs to be held to fall asleep. Car and stroller naps excluded.

She is the type of baby who is very sensitive, and it doesn't help that her separation anxiety is strong.But she has had it in varying degrees for months now.

She never felt comfort from my presence. In the sense that i can be next to her, but if she is upset i need to HOLD HER. Nothing else works for her.

She was never able to fall asleep next to us. Since she was a baby we had to hold her, and then we would transfer her. I have tried so many times to have her fall asleep next to us. Even when i used to nurse her to sleep i rarely managed to get her to fall asleep next to me (and not on me).

I don't mind helping her fall alseep at night, but naps are becoming heavy and exhausting. She also starts daycare soon which worries me. After a cycle of 30-45min she wakes up crying and the only way to get her to keep napping is to go back in and hold her another 45-90min. At night she does stretches of 2 to 7 hours, depending on if she is teething etc. The middle of the night is the only time i will nurse her to sleep now (she doesnt fall asleep fully i still need to rock her), but i am working on cutting those feeds.

What does one do with these type of babies? Do they ever grow out of it and eventually accept to fall asleep with less assistance? She isn't walking yet and is still in a crib. If she still needs me to help her sleep then i will be there for her, but then every once in a while i am at my wits end and feel i can't keep doing this. And i feel if she learned to be comfortable falling asleep on her own she would get such better rest and be less cranky overall (she is a fairly fussy baby) . So then i try to sleep train, but it always ends up with her extremely upset and full of puke.

13-month-old waking after 4–5 hours of solid night sleep, then unsettled waking every 2hours for the rest of the night 😩

He falls asleep independently for both naps and bedtime. Current wake windows are roughly 3.5 / 4 / 4. I’ve tried stretching that last window before bed, but he really fights it.

Total daytime sleep is max 1.5 hours nap1 1hour and nap2 30min, and I’ve noticed that if he sleeps more than that, nights actually seem worse.

Any ideas what might be going on or what I could tweak?

Baby 1 year 3 weeks old. Schedule 3/3/4 usually 6am awake bedtime around 6.30/7. Since her vaccinations last week it’s gone haywire! Started having false starts the next night 1-2 hours after bedtime. Because it was waking my others i would go in cuddle her until she was calm and place back down. Chat GPT said overtired so after a couple days of these false starts we did a 3/3/3 yesterday and she slept all night 6pm-6am today we did a 3/3/3.25 and she’s no had 2 hours of protesting at 8pm-10pm and still going.

I don’t know what to do anymore. I can’t work out if She’s overtired (I can’t see how she would be now) or undertired and just missing us (she’s really upset)??

Please help me!!!

my baby is 3.5mo old and we need to transition her out of the arms down swaddle as she’s trying to roll and pretty close to it. But the girl looooves her swaddle, she’s asleep in 2 minutes or less since she was a few weeks old. blessed with a good sleeper.

The transition has been hard. I’m not looking to traditionally sleep train yet, she still seems a little young, but looking for help on how to navigate switching to sleep sack.

I don’t want to contact nap everytime, and when I put her down she rubs her eyes and sucks her fingers for a few minutes with her eyes closed, and then eventually she fully awake and we start all over. this is throwing off her wake windows blah blah blah, i’m dealing with it. But like if she’s not crying can I just leave her in her crib? she’s not really able to put herself to sleep yet so I don’t think she’ll fall back asleep, but should I leave her or should I go back in and rock her to sleep again? And is this just sleep training, i’m not reallly sure?

We cannot for the life of us make this work! It has been 3 weeks since we started and baby still cries every single night.

Baby is 9 months old. I think she is going through sleep regression - waking up every 2-3 hours. Before she used to give us solid 8-9 hr stretches.

Her current schedule is 2.5/3/4. No designated wake up time. Bedtime routine is bath, pjs, bottle, crib. Daytime sleep around 2.5 hrs most days and sometimes very rarely 3.

We are trying a gentle version of ferber method. It immediately clicked in 3 nights and by 3rd night she slept in 2 mins but don’t know what changed - training has slowly regressed and now cries on and on and on 30 mins + until we give up and put her to sleep with our hand on her in crib. I cannot see my baby cry so much. Should we just give up sleep training? Or is this part of regression? Should we stick to training and go through this torture every night?

Hi everyone. This is my second girl and she's turning 4 months old today. I am so lost, I don't understand her at all and things are getting worse, I need your help.

We went through the witching hours where she would scream every-single-evening for 20 to 40 minutes for NINE consecutive weeks. She stopped week 10 for about 2 weeks. Evenings were calm, a feed (EBF) and BOOM good night.

Her night stretches were constantly about 6 hours long for the 1st and then shorter for the following ones.

She turned 3 months old and progressively things got a lot worse:

- She became very easily fussy, naps became really bad (even in carrier she would scream and fight).

- She started needing the boob to link every single cycle for naps. She refused it for bedtime, so my husband was rocking her instead.

- Bedtime became a nightmare, screaming murder for up to 70 minutes before passing out (she was undertired, we understood this later, she was getting very fussy after only 40 minutes of being awake from her last nap and we thought the fussiness was fatigue. It was overstimulation. We changed the evening for a very low stimulated one, lots of holding, soft voice, dim light etc and now she falls asleep after 2 hours wake window with little crying (about 5 minutes), while my husband rocks her).

She had a peak where for a few days she slept very badly at night (up every 1 to 3 hours) and then she became less fussy, naps became easier and night stretches back to 6h (for the first stretch). We thought "phew, the 4th month regression is behind us, it was a hard 4 weeks".

But well well well, after a few days much better, nights are back to very bad. Short stretches, long time to fall back asleep, need the boob to fall asleep.

She has 3 naps: around 2 hours in the morning in the carrier (been doing this for the last 2 months). 2 hours wake window then about 1.5 to 2 hours nap in the early afternoon: contact in my arms, where she keeps needing the boob to link cycles so impossible to put her down in her crib. Then another 2 hours wake window and a bridge nap of 20 to 30 min. So her wake windows are 2/2/2/2 I don't think I can extend the last one because she gets so fussy and crazy with nursing, it's already hard to get her till 2 hours. I know she sleeps about 4.5 hours / day and around 11 hours at night. I believe she has high sleep need, like me and my first (who was an unicorn baby and slept 13 hours straight at 3 months old so I've never known any sleep issues with her).

We are using a SWAP from the book Precious Little Sleep which is breaking the boob association so in the evening I nurse her until she is drowsy then hand her over to my husband who rocks her and then we transfer her (the goal being to progressively reduce rocking and settle in the crib).

- Is she getting too much day sleep? She gets easily overstimulated and tired. She falls asleep easily at the 2 hours mark during the day.

- why is she not back at 6 hours stretches?

- could CIO work knowing she is a big cryer?

Many thanks if you read this and can help me ♡

Hi All,

We are at a loss with what’s happening so please can you review our schedule.

Our LO is 16months and transitioned to 1 nap at 13 months. Since then she has had atleast one split night of 2h+ every week. She doesn’t cry or play, just stares in the darkness. She also started daycare at 14 months so ofcourse sometimes sickness has been at play.

Her schedule is roughly: 5h15m-30m/6h with a TWW of 11h20m-11h30m. She naps anywhere between 1h45m (mostly capped at home) to 1h20m at daycare.

Is it that she’s chronically overtired? Undertired? Can 15 minutes +/- of TWW affect the night sleep so much?

Apologies for the long post!

My son is just about to turn 10 months old, and we're roughly two months into the 8-month sleep regression--and it's hitting his naps so hard. He's always been a good night sleeper. For context, we were Snoo users until 6 months old and could count on 1-3 wakes per night once he hit 3 months. This got more regularly down to two, and we also kept a dream feed going until 8 months (combo fed but almost EBF for the milk part of his diet). For the past 6 weeks or so, he's finally been doing the legendary 11-12 hour sleep stretches at night in his crib without needing to feed at night or otherwise waking up.

However, as good of a night sleeper as he is (I chalk that up entirely to temperament and luck, and I definitely do not take it for granted), he has always struggled with his naps. We finally had a great-for-us stretch in January and February of this year when I could nurse him to sleep and transfer him into his crib for 2-3 naps a day without issue, but even then a victorious nap length was 30-40 minutes. Then the regression hit, and we're lucky to get one nap, and sometimes they're 20 minutes. The combo of pulling up to stand in the crib and separation anxiety means that he hasn't fallen asleep once in his crib during the day for close to two months. He just screams the whole time, or, if we're lucky, explores the crib instead, but he will not fall asleep, even if he's been showing all the signs of fatigue ahead of time. Initially, the regression also affected his ability to fall asleep in the crib for bedtime sleep, at which point (8.5 or so months) we tried a very gradual CIO for day and night sleep, which worked for night sleep but has not for naps--so I know he can, in theory, fall asleep independently, just apparently not in the daytime.

At his 9-month checkup, our pediatrician shrugged and said that because he gets so much night sleep, naps are "just going to be a struggle" for him. She's more concerned with total sleep than if he naps. But the days he doesn't nap well, he's a mess, and I've certainly never heard of a 10-month old who only takes one nap (and definitely not zero!)

I have tried CIO, nursing to a dead sleep and transferring (he still wakes up if it's me transferring, it very rarely works with my husband or our nanny), and contact napping after a failed CIO, which sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. I am admittedly unclear on how CIO works with naps, specifically how long to leave them crying, but I try for 20-30 minutes before intervening and offering another option. Doing that twice a day is very taxing and affects his bedtime, but I'm willing to keep trying if it seems like the right option. We use the same routine for naps as bedtime (dark room, sleep sack, books), though I have been experimenting with nursing either before or after the nap as part of this regression. Sometimes I can get a contact nap right away if he passes out nursing, but it's rough losing the crib naps.

Because of how irregular his naps are, I don't really have a schedule to offer, but we offer two total naps with 3.5 hours of awake time before the first nap and try to end any nap by 3.5 hours before bed. His bedtimes have become wildly early because of the accumulated fatigue, though, so he usually ends up doing a 6p-5:30a sleep or even sometimes a 5:30p-5:30a on the days naps barely or don't happen. Those days, he's a mess, and I can tell he needs these naps, but he just won't take them.

Is he magically going to age out of this problem, or am I missing something more problematic here? Anyone else had such issues with napping while nighttime sleep is largely fine? He's meeting all his growth milestones, leaping up in weight, and we've ruled out ear infections and gotten a clean bill of health recently. He has eight teeth but certainly more are on their way.

So grateful for your thoughts!

9mo still waking 3-4 times a night. I’m at my wits end. We’ve done FIO, chair method, then Ferber. Starting at 5.5 months. Each worked for about a month and then stopped working.

Whether she puts herself to sleep or is rocked doesn’t seem to make any difference. Shes slept through the night two (GLORIOUS) times, but we did nothing different on those days.

Sometimes she fights sleep aggressively, other times she doesn’t. Sometimes she needs a dummy to fall asleep, other times she doesn’t.

Whats are your Hail Mary suggestions?

Age: 9mo

Sleep trained: we’ve tried

Dwt: 6.30am

Wws: 3/3/4

Bedtime routine: bath, bottle, quiet play + books, sometimes fighting, sleep.

Alright y'all. Where do I even begin here :")

My baby girl just turned 3 months today. She'll be 13 weeks tomorrow. She's been sleeping through the night since about 5 weeks old. She started off with about 6-hour stretches and then steadily worked her way up each week and now caps out at around 11 hours of sleep on some nights but typically 9 to 10 hours of straight sleep. She typically takes about three to four naps a day and averages about 4.5 hours of daytime sleep, her bedtime typically ranges from 9:30 to 10:30 p.m.

She has been getting very good at holding her head up during tummy time, although she isn't showing any signs of rolling onto her back like lifting up on her forearms or rocking. When she's on her back she will lift her legs straight up at the hips and tilt them over to the side and get onto her side but has not rolled onto her belly.

We have a bunch of velcro swaddles that she has loved up until 2 days ago when she started breaking out of them consistently at night. She typically never has any night wakings but woke me up three times due to breaking out of her swaddle and munching on her hands, waking herself up even more. I decided that it should be time to ditch the swaddle and I had preemptively bought a zippadeezip because I knew that she wouldn't be able to be swaddled forever and people had said pretty good things about it. I got the snuggle band as well and have been using that all of yesterday, last night, and all of today for naps.

It has not been going well to say the very least. She woke up probably around nine times last night, absolutely screaming. Naps have been 25 minutes at the most, and while when she's in her swaddle she will wake up at the 25 to 30 minute mark during her naps, she's able to easily put herself back to sleep. That has since disappeared after ditching the swaddle. Now naps just end at around 25 minutes. Forget going back to sleep.

She got two vaccinations today I had put off so my husband could be there when she got them per his request. I've given her Tylenol preemptively to try to combat any fever or aches she may come down with (with her pediatrician's approval.)

She went down very easy when we got home but only took a 25-minute nap and hasn't been able to fall back asleep since without screaming and crying And I think it's because she has no idea what to do with her limbs, especially because she's so uncomfortable and so overtired at this point. She WILL NOT contact nap, just so you all are aware. In fact, trying to do contact napping usually makes her even more upset.

I can't imagine her nor I getting another terrible night of sleep. Especially not after these vaccinations. Should I wait a few more weeks to unswaddle just to see if she can learn to self-soothe with her hands instead of using them as a distraction and waking herself up even more? I have seen many talk about the wonders that waiting a couple weeks can do when you try to unswaddle. Or the terror that comes with unswaddling too early. Please please help me. Any advice is so welcome.

Hi all, I could really use some perspective.

My baby is 16 weeks old and naps have become a daily struggle. Every time I try to put her down in the crib, she cries and it takes anywhere from 20–40 minutes to get her to fall asleep… and sometimes I have to step in and “save” the nap.

I’ve tried adjusting wake windows and following her cues closely, but it doesn’t seem to change anything.

Our nap routine is pretty consistent:

• go into room
• sleep sack
• close curtains
• white noise

She starts getting upset almost immediately when I put the sleep sack on. It’s like she knows what’s coming and protests it hard. I’ve tried singing, shushing, patting, even letting her fuss a bit, but nothing really helps her settle calmly.

She is generally a very happy baby during the day, and most nights she can fall asleep independently without much trouble. It’s just naps that feel really hard right now.

Has anyone gone through something similar around this age?

Is this just a phase, or is there something I might be missing?

Context: My little guy is 13 weeks and a good sleeper. We’ve been following taking cara babies newborn and recently switched to 3-4 months for gentle sleep training. We’ve also have a smart crib (Cradlewise) that is magic at soothing him back to sleep. In the last week or so, i’ve been able to put him in fully awake at bedtime and he’ll fall asleep, and recently I can get a couple naps a day where he falls asleep independently (or with the crib bouncing him, i’m calling that independent enough).

Right now he wakes consistently at 7am, bedtime is between 7:30-8:30. I follow his cues and his wake windows have always been short but they’ve just gotten a bit longer and I’ve been trying to stretch them. They’re recently between 1-1.5 hours, 1.75 before bedtime.

Recently I discovered that if he sleeps 4-4.5 hours a day, then he sleeps through the night (once did a 9 hour stretch, but usually 6-7 hour stretches). Previous to this I was letting him sleep up to 2 hr naps during the day, or even extending short naps to 1-2 hours. Since his wake windows are so short, this was resulting in very little awake time during the day. I’ve tested this theory enough times to feel fairly confident that if baby sleeps >5 hours during the day he has more frequent night wakings, and if he sleeps <4.5 hours during the day he gives a solid first stretch of sleep.

Okay here’s the main question: Is it bad for me to be capping his naps and limiting daytime sleep at this age? He’s still on 5 naps a day because his wake windows are so short and I’m trying to maximize awake time. Some naps he naturally wakes up between 30min - 1hr, but in a contact nap he could easily go 2+ hours during the day if I let him. I find myself capping the last 2-3 naps of the day so that we stick to a consistent bedtime, and stay around 4.5 hours of daytime sleep. No matter what I do, I find that he consistently only sleeps 15 hours in a 24 hour period, and capping daytime sleep definitely helps improve his night sleep. I honestly just feel so guilty waking him up from the deep sleep of a contact nap, but I obviously prefer to sleep through the night.

Hi everyone — looking for advice on dropping an early morning feed and early morning wake.

My baby is 17+ weeks and overall a pretty good sleeper. She goes down independently at bedtime and for most naps (though she often falls asleep while finishing her bottle before bed). We’ve been doing a dream feed around 9-10pm.

The issue is she consistently wakes around 4/4:30 am to eat, and I’d really like to drop that feed, but it’s been tough.

When she wakes, it usually starts as soft crying and then ramps up. We wait 5–10 minutes before going in, but she’s not the type of baby who will settle herself at that time of night — she really needs the bottle to go back down.

I’ve tried reducing the ounces at that feed, and while that’s helped her take more during the day, it hasn’t eliminated the wake/feed. She also gets angry if she doesn’t get her standard 4 oz vs the reduced 3.5, 3, 2.5, etc. She’s also waking for the day around 6:15am instead of the ideal 7:00.

I’m trying to figure out the best approach:

- Has anyone successfully dropped the early morning feed while keeping a dream feed?

- Did the dream feed actually contribute to that early wake for you?

- If you dropped or reduced the dream feed, did your baby start waking earlier (like 2–3am) and how did you deal with that?

- Is it better to gradually wean the 4:30 feed or adjust the dream feed first?

- Should we cut cold turkey and just Ferber?

I know every baby is different, but my son was sleeping 7–7 at this age after doing Ferber (he was smaller and drank less), so I’m a bit stuck on whether this is something I should approach with sleep training or if it’s still genuinely hunger. I’m also working full time and have my kids solo a lot due to my husbands career, so I need to prioritize my sleep and mental health for the kids sake.

Would love to hear what worked for others around this age.

Good evening,

Has anyone sleep trained a 5 year old? My third child has a lot of behavioral issues, been diagnosed with adhd but possibly mildly on the spectrum (per his therapist) he has been a nightmare to get to bed. He has an very hard time falling asleep and he requires us to be there with him while he falls asleep (​could be 2 hours) he has had other struggles so we put this on the back burner but it needs to change. With my other kids we sleep trained around 3 by using the slow fade method. I havent been successful with my youngest because he wont ever stop fighting and he has an insane will to stay awake. I think me sitting in the room will not work for him. I have to lay there pretending to be asleep for him to even consider sleeping. Once he is asleep he sleeps well, so we are grateful for that! Usually we aim to have him asleep by 9. So we start around 8ish for bedtime. On a good night hes asleep at 930, bad night could be 1030pm. We do shower, snack, brush teeth, cuddles and books and lights out. ​​any earlier than 8pm start isnt realistic with my older kids and their activities. He will sleep till 9 if I let him but I wake him at 7:30 usually. He does not nap. All advice welcome!!

Hello, first time posting here.

I have a 5.5 old baby who is recently sleep trained (via extinction method). During the day he seems to get tired/shows sleepy cues a lot earlier into the ww and gets significantly cranky. I thought we had transitioned from 4 to 3 naps about a month ago, but I am now feeling quite lost and question whether I even understand my baby anymore!

Bedtime is around 18:45-19:00. Wakes up between 06:30 and 07:00 (around 05:30 he starts to fuss but is able to go back to sleep). 1st wake window is usually 2 hrs but today, for example, he woke up at 06:45 and after 1h30min (roughly 08:15) he was already rubbing his eyes so clearly he was already overtired? I wasn't sure whether to follow the sleepy cues and put him down then or stretch it a bit according to the ww because if I went with the former the day just shifts to earlier and earlier and we end up with a very long last ww, or a super early bedtime. I put him down at 08:30 and it took him about 15min to fall asleep, so by 08:45. He then woke up at 09:41. I tried to play a bit with him but he was cranky and also rubbed his eyes a little - do you think I should have rescued the nap and made him sleep longer?

The last ww is usually really tricky and he starts showing sleepy cues from 18:00 :(

My daughter will be turning 3 in June. Not sleep trained. Takes a nap sometimes mid day and goes to bed around 9:30-10. Putting her to sleep takes a good hour. She requires me to lay next to her. She will also wake up so many times a night to make sure Im next to her. If not, she will keep crying until I move her to my bed or move myself to her bed (she has a huge montessori floor bed). Is it too late to sleep train? If not, where do I start?