r/sleeptraining

For context, my (26F) LO is 6.5 months old, and we have spent the last few months back and forth with sleep chaos due to regressions, teething and skill development. Baby now rolls front to back, back to front and sits up independently, has 2 front teeth fully through and 2 back teeth coming through.
Lastnight, he was awake every hour again after a couple of nights of only one wake. Prior to that couple of nights, he was awake every 2 hours for about 3 weeks! He sleeps in a next to me crib right beside me, and is now exclusively formula fed due to Cows milk protein allergy, and cluster feeding causing PPD/hallucinations from sleep deprivation for myself.

Before all of this, he’s always had a minimum of at least one wake his entire life besides maybe 5 nights total of sleeping through from 7:30/8pm - 5/6am. One night wake is fine with us both, we can handle it perfectly and we know he may well need a night feed until he is 1, that’s totally okay. However, every hour?!?! He definitely wasn’t hungry lastnight at each wake.

My question is, what age did you move baby to a bigger sleep space. My LO is on the 91st centile, size 4 nappies, and 9-12month baby grows (he is a big boy!) since a few days ago when he learnt to roll back to front, he has been trying to sleep on his front but can’t quite get enough space to do so, so he tries to hold himself on his side all night, then when he falls to his back it usually wakes him. If we move him to our bed when he wakes, he falls right back asleep, without needing cuddles etc. once he’s asleep again we move him back and the same thing happens all night!

I’m wondering if now is the time to move him out of this crib, it’s been amazing for us and keeps me reassured that he’s right next to me in the night if anything happens, so I’m super anxious about the move but if it helps us all sleep, I will do it. Has anyone had experiences where they’ve moved baby and they’ve slept much more peacefully than in a next to me crib?

He is great with independent sleep too, during nap time, we place him in his crib and he will settle himself to sleep for around 1 to 1.5hrs, that’s twice a day then he has an evening nap of 30 minutes to help with his tiredness before bed, then off to bed at 7:30/8pm. It’s just the night we are having issues where he can’t sleep in there so I don’t even know if it is definitely the crib or if he’s just still learning so much at once that this cycle needs to continue for the time being! I’m just a tired mama who is also chronically ill and lack of sleep really makes my outlook on life/energy shift, same I imagine for every human being, but yeah I’m really struggling to be honest, any help would be appreciated!

Our 16 week old will not sleep. I have no idea how he is still running and what fuel it is on because he will not nap for longer than 10-15 minutes, unless I’m laying with him then I can squeak 30 minutes out of him.

He is rolling so we can’t swaddle him, but we’ve tried everything else- aside from spending money we don’t have on random “must-have’s” that may or may not work. It takes forever to get him to fall asleep but when we finally get him to sleep, he wakes up immediately upon transfer. We’ve held him until he’s in deep sleep before transferring; he jolts awake immediately smiling and giggling. We’ve tried transferring him drowsy; smiles and giggles. We’ve tried bed sharing (something we swore we wouldn’t do, but we cannot sleep!!), and he wakes up every 30 minutes needing to be soothed back to sleep but if you don’t catch him in time- you guessed it; smiles and giggles. It would be super cute if we weren’t absolutely exhausted. It’s so frustrating.

It’s even more frustrating when he fought naps and bedtime so hard all day, that by the time we are completely gassed and worn out from trying to get him to sleep, he’s now overtired and screaming his head off like someone’s trying to murder him. It’s so overwhelming and we feel like we’re trying everything.

I am a stay-at-home mom and solo parent for 13 hours a day. Our son is nearly 20 pounds and I cannot hold him for his entire nap. My back, neck, and shoulders are constantly throbbing and tight from trying to contact nap with him. He will not nap on my chest because I think my breasts are too big and it’s an uncomfortable position for him. I need to sleep and so does his dad. We can’t hold him all night. What can we do?

So I have successfully sleep trained one baby my daughter when she was 7 months old, she stopped sleeping well in bed with me and she just really seemed to struggle at being comfortable and she slept so much better after about the 2nd day of sleep training she’s been a rockstar ever since. Shes now 2 and still does great! I had another baby, my son is now 8 months old (I tried to sleep train him as well at 7 month and it was a disaster and everytime I try to get him to sleep anywhere but with me it’s a disaster! He screams so bad and not like fussing or just crying HE SCREAMSSSS bloody murder! And will NOT CALM DOWN or self sooth or anything he just cries and cries and cries, he’s never transferred well from my arm or from my bed to his bassinet or pack and play, but he definitely won’t actually fall asleep on his own we exclusively breast feed and he likes to nurse to sleep, but lately he wants to nurse ALL NIGHT and my sleep is so compromised from this. He’s also starting to show signs like she did of just not being able to be quit comfortably and not sleeping soundly all night in bed with like he did when he was a few months younger. I don’t wanna push him to hard the last two times I let him cry for 30 minutes and nit only did I feel completely awful but he was so clingy for the next few days after it just felt so wrong where as with my daughter she mabye cried 30 minutes the first night and then went to sleep and that was it the next night she cried a few minutes and after that she was fine! I don’t wanna traumatize him but I also feel like he’s not sleeping all that well with me either, has anyone experienced this huge difference in there kids when sleep training or have any advice?

I’d like to start by saying I think we brought this upon ourselves. We’ve been sleeping since day one and most of the time he goes straight from breast to bed now I’ve noticed he will not sleep unless a booby is in his mouth and once he is asleep if I don’t, trans exaction him quick enough from breast to bed then he will wake up and need to eat all over again. He’s been getting into phases of 2 to 3 wake periods where he’s up for five hours straight just wanting to eat on my boob the whole time. Today has been rough. We’re on our 10 of him being awake. I know he’s just overtired at this point, but he’s just wide awake and I can’t put him down. I don’t know what to do and I’m exhausted and I’m getting no sleep. Any advice helps.

Have an almost 3month old who is fighting the crib and bassinet. She has basically slept on me or my wife all night long since she has been born. She came into the world with colic and oral ties which are both alleviated now.

She gets her first nap of the day In her crib usually but she can’t make it more than 20min. She can’t connect the sleep cycle. Night time sleep she can’t make it at all. We’ve been trying to get her in bassinet/crib for 7 nights now. Usually a 2-4 hour process before we pack it in and one of us continues to hold her overnight again. We obviously don’t want her to get to worked up since she’s only 3 month old.

We feel like we have tried it all but maybe we are missing something?! We easily have 10 different swaddles/sleep sacks we’ve tried, the rooms are dark and we are using sound machine as well. She is well fed 12lb 10oz at 3 months and we follow and log all of her wake windows/feedings since the day she was born(literally haven’t missed one).

Our first daughter also had colic and screamed for a solid 16weeks but she learned to sleep in her crib at 3months and thankfully was a solid sleeper once we trained her. It only took 10 days max for her to grasp it( it wasn’t super easy but not this hard).The younger one seems like it’s going to be harder.

So in closing I have 2 questions.

1-any tips or tricks I’m missing?

2-any parents who held their babies all night how long did that last for you? How hard wa she habit to break?

Thanks!!!

Olá

Sei que já vim aqui falar do sono da minha bebe, mas isto tem-me desgastado muito. Ela sempre teve sonos muitos difíceis e acordava imensas vezes durante a noite, mas pensava que à medida que fosse crescendo, o sono dela melhorasse.

Ultimamente chega a despertar nem 1h fez entre a ultima vez que adormeceu. Depois tenho de voltar a dar-lhe peito que é a única forma de a acalmar e ela voltar a adormecer. Infelizmente, mesmo o pai estando presente nestes despertares desde que ela nasceu, ela não aceita nada que venha dele para a acalmar. As vezes até fica mais irritada quando vê que é ele que vem acalma-la ao invés de mim.

Já estamos a planear o desmame numa altura que seja mais calma para ambos, pois ja sabemos que vão haver noites sem dormir , mas até lá gostaria de saber se existem relatos de bebes assim ou se só acontece comigo.

Isto tem-me desgastado imenso. Desde que ela nasceu nunca tive uma noite de sono minimamente “tranquila”. Sou capaz de dormir umas 4-5h no máximo dos máximos.

Sei que não ha mães que durmam sempre bem, mas também nunca oiço mães que durmam tão mal quanto eu. E já lá vão muitos meses de desgaste.

As vezes sinto-me bastante sozinha neste caminho, pois por muito que à minha volta digam que compreendem, ninguém imagina o que é privar-se de sono durante tanto tempo.

Obrigada

——————-

Obrigada a todos pelas respostas!! Li com muito carinho e deram-me alguma esperança e conforto que precisava 🙏🏻 Irei tentar algumas das dicas que foram partilhadas e espero voltar com boas novidades! 🧡

Looking for advice, my 2 week old baby won't sleep in her crib. She wakes for a feed during the night and after she is fed I rock her back asleep before transferring her back in her crib but she wakes back up and Ive tried rocking her but nothing seems to work. She only sleeps if she is in my arms.

If you are reading this at 3:00 AM in the dark, exhausted, thinking your toddler’s sleep habits are completely unfixable, this post is for you.

The Background (Our Nightmare):
We live in Scotland and are from Pakistan(Culturally anything but cosleeping till 4-5 years old is a no no). My daughter is 30 months old. She sleeps on a Euro Queen(Huge) floor mattress. Since birth, she has had severe sleep associations: nursing, co-sleeping, and requiring a literal full-body hug from a parent to fall asleep.
She dropped her nap at 16 months, meaning she went to bed running on pure adrenaline. We had hourly wake-ups, 2-3 hour "split night" parties in the middle of the night, and she had maybe slept through the night 4 or 5 times in her entire life.

To make things harder, we have 6-month-old twins. My wife had to tap out of toddler bedtimes completely 7 months ago. With my wife tried, my daughter would grab my wife’s leg and writhe for 1.5 to 2 hours until she passed out from exhaustion. (She started this leg-hugging behaviour around 12 months, so it wasn't even twin-pregnancy related—it was just an ingrained, stressful habit). Because of this, I had been doing 100% of the toddler bedtimes, even before going to work night shifts. The one thing I did immediately was to set boundary of not going any where near the leg. We could just snuggle up with a hug.

The shift from mum to dad for sleep was horrible in itself that spanned over atleast 2 months with hour long crying spells. Mum would feel bad and come to soothe her and this continued until we figured out that mum coming in wasn't probably the best thing that helped. We started giving her iron drops which we think helped but objectively looking back might not have as much as we thought. We still give it to her daily. Pacifier was a thing we got rid of a month ago that was easy told her it was a baby thing and she was a big girl she took the pacifier out of her mouth and literally threw it off the bed and didn't want it again(except maybe once).

Prior to starting sleep training our night routine was to go to her room around 7.30pm-8.00pm. Sit on the loo before going to the room(She is somewhere in the middle in terms of potty training and we haven't started to potty train her officially). She drinks milk in her bed I change her clothes put her night diapers on. Then we read two story books(2 is the rule) then we lay in bed and I sing her songs while she is snuggled up with me and she goes to sleep in 5-10 mins around 8pm to 8.30pm (I thought this was the best result possible given the horrible prolonged transition from mum to me). She would then usually wake up at 11pm I would give her water from bottle she would drink and plop back to sleep. Then she would wake up at 1am and this could last anywhere between 2mins to 2 hours and there was no predicting which one it was going to be(this is why we started the iron). Then she would wake up at after 5am and this would be a few minutes to half an hour. She would then wake up anytime between 6am and 8am and I would usually hold her off till 7.30am and then she would rush to mum and the twins(who she adores) and everyone would wakeup.

The Hesitation:
I had researched sleep training endlessly. I read all the online articles, videos and all the blogs. But I was totally put off because I convinced myself she was "too far gone" and "too old" for it to work. I thought her habits were permanent.

The turning point for us was an NHS Sleep Consultant. To be honest, she didn't give me any magical new information that I hadn't already Googled. But what she did do was look at our situation and make me believe it was totally doable. She gave me the confidence to actually execute the plan.

The Method: Gradual Withdrawal (Camping Out)
Because she was on a floor bed and older we did Gradual Withdrawal.

• Days 1-3: I sat on the floor right beside her mattress.
• Days 4-6: I sat 2 feet away against the wardrobe.
• Day 7: I sat in the room with my back against the door.
• Day 8: I sat in the hallway outside the door.

The Playbook (What actually worked):
Toddlers are incredibly smart and will test every boundary. Here are the rules I had to live by to make this work:

• The "Silent Robot" Return: Because she is on a floor bed, she can get up. When she did, I would intercept her, take her hand, walk her to the mattress, and drop her off. Zero words. Zero eye contact. Zero hugs. I stripped all the dopamine and attention out of the night wakings. It made getting up incredibly boring for her. But trust me there was crying and screaming involved.
• Becoming a Statue: When I sat in my spot, would put my phone on minimum brightness, hide the phone out of her sight(behind a stuffie or pillow) put earbuds in and start watching big bang theory( watched almost a season during sleep training) to her my eyes appeared closed and looked as if I was a statue. I would also d0 slow, heavy breathing which she could hear. She tried everything to get me to engage—she poked my elbow with her toes, threw her teddy at me, asked for "help with a mouse," and even got out of bed just to kiss me. I stayed a stone-cold statue. If you react, it becomes a game.
• "The Pause": I have moved back to our(wife and myself with twins in a bedside cot) room since sleep training started. As soon as she would go to sleep(wait 10-15mins for deep sleep) I would get up and go to our room. If she woke up crying in the middle of the night, I watched the baby monitor for 3-5 minutes before going in. 90% of the time, she was just between sleep cycles, and if I had rushed in, I would have woken her up fully. Give them a few minutes to figure it out.
• Closing the Loopholes: She tried every stalling tactic. She demanded I pour water into her mouth (I put a non-spill bottle directly on her bed and told her she’s the boss of her water). She started scratching her nappy to cause leaks so I'd have to change her (I put scratch sleeves on her so she couldn't reach it). Anticipate their tricks and block them.
• AI: Yes AI, I would be on the phone with AI(I used Gemini) telling it of each and every thing that was happening during the sleep, every wakeup detail and every timestamp of the details. The main thing that did was keep me hopeful and not let my weak dad heart takeover and become soft. One night I even recorded my daughters voice while crying because Gemini was telling me to be a robot and even then it told me look her breathing has pauses you aren't a monster and this is a normal reaction and she is expressing her frustration and anger to the change. (This post is mainly AI giving me a summary to post and me adding stuff in 😂)

The Timeline:

• Night 1: I stopped telling her to "go to sleep" and just told her to "rest her body/make your body soft." With the pressure off, she crashed in 5 minutes.
• Night 2: Something similar maybe a little longer dropped her 11am wakeup and woke up at 1am came crying to our room silent return, gave her water to drink and on the bed, me back at my big bang theory watching position. She cried and thrashed around for a bit and I enjoyed my episode. She went back to sleep and then woke up in the morning at 7.30am and I was like wow this is working.
• Night 3 (The Extinction Burst): She went to bed relatively easily but then woke up around 2am this was a longer more intense protest crying, trying to talk to me, throwing her teddy at me and laughing, trying to make getting off the mattress a game where I would react to get her back on it. It was always met with a silent robotic zero voice response of putting her in bed and going back. This lasted for a good hour to hour and a half but eventually she went to sleep and then woke up at 8am I think.
• Night 4: I moved from my beside mattress spot to the wardrobe on the wall beside the mattress. I told her during the sleep routine that I'd be moving tonight. Night went well one waking lasting 20-30 mins then sleep.
• Night 5: I made a mistake. Normally she sits up in bed for a few minutes then cries which wakes me up through the babycam and as soon as her feet touch the ground I go and do the silent intercept back to my big bang theory position. But this night she just suddenly woke up and bolted crying to our room. Seeing her this way I hugged and kissed her and boy did I pay for it. She was up for about 3 hours 1/3 of which was crying(ranging from hysterical to soft cries), (1/3 was trying to talk to me and be funny- I had to hold my laughs a few times she was using cuteness as a weapon and the rest was tossing and turning in bed). She even said I am not a big girl dad(we tell her she is a big girl when teaching her things like sleep training, pacifier abandoning etc) a few time and that just made my heart melt but still didn't engage(Talk about emotional manipulation). I thought I had broken what was being built but AI helped with the support here and making me see that failure is a part of the game. She even refused to drink water herself making her arms go limp when I bought her near the bottle and opening her mouth if I went near the bottle asking me to give her water. I just put her back on the bed without water telling her that its there if she wants to drink it.
• Night 6: Was better a simple wakeup at 5am (yeah she slept from 8pm till 5am 9hours I was like how is this even possible).
• Night 7: I moved from the wardrobe to the door(inside of the room)and sat against it. Told her during the sleep routine that I was going to change position. She handled it really well only one wakeup at 5.30am went back to sleep in 5 mins after I did the silent return when she got off the mattress. She woke up at 9am. The door in her room is recessed so she couldn't see me even though I was in the room and since it went so well Gemini told me to go to the outside of the door tomorrow instead of waiting the full 3 days. I was sceptical but did it anyway.
• Night 8 (The Breakthrough): I moved to the hallway. Again told her during her dinner and sleep routine that I would be moving outside. Going to sleep she cried for 5 mins asking for mum then the cries became shorter and silence was longer. 4 mins later she was a sleep. She woke up at 10pm(unusual) came crying I did the silent return. Cried for 3 more minutes then was asleep at the 5 min mark. Then the biggest thing I couldnt have even imagined a week ago, I watched her on the monitor wake up at 11:30 PM. She sat up for a minute then crawled down the mattress, drank her own water, laid on the floor for 20 seconds, realized it was uncomfortable, climbed back into bed, pulled her own blanket up, and went back to sleep all in 5 minutes with no one else in the room. I am literally crying watching the monitor. I underestimated my toddler so much and thought I was going to be sleeping with her for the next 2-3 years and the twins would be the same. Me and my wife would be sleep deprived for the next 3-4 years. But she proved me wrong in the most beautiful was she could. That's why I am sat up at 1am filled with pure joy writing this post as its prime time for parents of poor sleeping toddlers to be up at.
• This is as far as I have gotten, It might be a week or two before it becomes routine and there might be hiccups on the way but I feel me, my wife and daughter have all won. She has learnt to sleep independently, who would have thought with the 2.5 years of sleep related trauma we went through-definitely not me a week ago.
• We did give her loads of encouragement about her doing so well at sleep during the day. I would talk to my wife about how good our daughter was sleeping when the toddler was within hearing distance.
• Wish me luck as the twins are next and then hopefully in a few months most of our night are just going to be my wife and me in bed not worrying about kids waking up after 2 and a half longgggggggggg years.

The Takeaway:
If you think your toddler is too old, or your co-sleeping association is too deep, there is hope. I thought the exact same thing.

The first few days are brutal. You have to fight your dad/mom instincts to cuddle them when they cry. But you aren't abandoning them; you are sitting right there, teaching them a life skill. Our daughter went from hourly wakeups to sleeping 5-6 hour solid chunks, self-soothing, and letting us actually sleep. Yours might surprise you too. Its about having more will power than your toddler which can seem impossible at times.

It is not too late. Make a plan, be a boring brick wall, and hold the line. You can do this.

TL;DR: 30-month-old floor-bed toddler with severe co-sleeping/hug associations and 6mo twins in the house. Used Gradual Withdrawal (Camping Out), Silent Returns, and AI support to keep my sanity. In 8 days, went from hourly night wakings to her independently getting her own water and tucking herself back into bed. It's never too late!

I feel like I am at a breaking point.

My LO (4mo) and I have been bedsharing since pretty much birth. We both got so much more sleep and with BF it just made sense.

Now, she has a nurse to sleep association, but more importantly, a “contact” to sleep association (needing me or her dad to fall asleep & stay asleep).

After about a month of struggle I finally got her doing independent naps during the day in her bassinet (she refuses her crib). Now, I don’t know if it’s the sleep regression hitting or what, but she absolutely refuses independent naps. I’m feeling such frustration because I worked so hard to get her to nap independently.

Along with the feelings of “I’m doing everything wrong”. I’m a FTM (obviously LOL) and I just can’t shake the feeling of it. I feel like everybody has it figured out, but me. And my instincts tell me one thing - bedsharing/contact napping/feed to sleep etc, while everyone else says routines/ independent sleeping/etc. I feel like I’m at such a loss.

And on the other hand, I DO want my bed back with my partner. I want to transition from bed sharing but am having zero luck, because she wakes literally every thirty minutes or less when I try to put her in her bassinet at night.

If you’ve somehow made it through this lol, I would love to hear any advice/suggestions/encouragement because I really feel I’m hitting my breaking point. I just want independent naps and independent night sleep. Ugh.

help!

My baby is about to turn 11 months & the sleep regression for the past month has been harddd.

Since 7.5 months, she has been sleeping through the night. Usually around 12 hours. She started doing this completely on her own. She will fall asleep independently, but sometimes she would fall asleep nursing. However, naps are independent and bedtime is 50/50.

Around 10 months, she started having 1 waking a night and early rising, which progressed to ~2 wakes a night. Recently she will wake up between 4-5a, but goes back to sleep until wake up time. It started when teething & walking, but it’s been about 4 weeks now with no end in sight. The *problem* is that she absolutely will not fall back asleep in the night without nursing. Both myself and my husband have tried just soothing her but she screams & screams until we give in (we’ve made it 45 min at most). Dad tried sips of water & a bottle during two separate wake ups last night and she refused both. Allll she seems to want is the boob. And she does eat as much as she can each time, but clearly wasn’t hungry enough to take a bottle.

So how do I break this nursing sleep association?? I have transitioned the last few days to not let her fall asleep nursing at bedtime, but she‘s never had much issue with that. I just don’t understand why the sleep association is therec in the middle of the night, but not at bedtimes.

Since 5.5 months my baby’s night sleep has declined in the worst way. We used to have a full sleep through the night since 8 weeks. 7:30pm-7:30am. A few weeks ago it started with a random night wake and I would go in and rock her and she would sleep till the morning. Then it increased to 2 and now we are anywhere from 2-5. I haven’t fed her in the night since being a newborn and I’m not starting now. I also doubt it’s hunger, she eats 4, 6 oz bottles a day with 3 solid meals. I’ve tried increasing formula and she won’t finish the bottle. So no go there. She has learned to roll back to tummy but can’t get back. Thinking the pacifier might be adding to it also, she stops as soon as I put it back in for her in the middle of night. She can’t do it on her own yet. I’m just so lost. Thought maybe it was her sleep sack or room being too warm but we’ve definitely slept different places at different temperatures and that never seemed to be an issue. Our house is older so it does tend to run colder but she is always warm so I can’t bundle her up either.

Current schedule:
2/2.5/2.5/3
With naps capped at 2.5 (wondering if she needs 3 hours instead? Or will this make nights worse?) mostly have the naps capped because I can’t seem to work 3 hours into that schedule with trying to keep bedtime at 7:30pm. Want to add her naps are currently 1, 1, 30 min. I feel like she could keep sleeping if I let her. So this is why I’m wondering if she needs more. Or if I need to try to drop to 2 longer naps. But then I can’t make it to bedtime.

Bedtime is:
Bath-7
715-pjs
7:20-bottle & book
I rock for a little bit she isn’t fully asleep and I set her down in her crib. I do this for all naps and night sleep. We sing a song and then I lay her down.

I’m hoping someone can just help me and show me the way lol. I’m desperate at this point.

My baby girl is 8 months old, exclusively BF (won’t take a bottle), doesn’t eat much food at all yet and we sleep trained and moved her into her own room at 6 months old.

We used Ferber technique which turned into CIO because going in after the time intervals just made her cry harder. By the 3rd night she had self settled within 10mins.

The massive pros of sleep training is that I BF before bath time and then she settles herself to sleep without the boob within 5-10 mins almost every night.

However, she wakes up normally at 1am ish and 4am ish. We’ve left her to cry but there’s no end, she seems hungry.

Does anyone have any insight into how I can stop at least one night feed? My bedtime is 2200 ish which means I’m only (I say “only” lightly to a bunch of sleep deprived parents!) getting 3 hours sleep in a row and not feeling the benefit of sleep training. I found it so hard to do, and makes me wonder whether it was actually worth the heart ache. Any tips or insight would be amazing! I’m wondering whether a dream feed might be a good idea at 10pm to stretch to maybe one wake? But that might create bad habits. Or I’m telling myself that when she eats more she’ll sleep better - whenever that might be?!

0630/0700 awake
0900-1000 nap 1
1300-1430 nap 2
1845 bed time

Hi everyone,

My 9-month-old has struggled with sleep since birth. She was a very fussy/high-cry baby, and I feel like we’ve built up a lot of stress around sleep as a family. Mom, dad, baby.

We’ve tried a lot: CIO when she was too young (regret that), 3-5-7 check-ins, 10-minute check-ins, lying next to her, feeding to sleep, rocking, bouncing on a yoga ball. Nothing really sticks long-term except for crazy movement.

Now that she’s bigger, settling her is getting harder. When she’s tired she gets very overstimulated and aggressive (pulling hair, scratching, grabbing my face, etc.). I’m honestly at my limit but also feel really bad for her.

Current schedule is roughly 3/3/4, 2 naps. Bedtime routine is consistent: diaper, sleep sack, short calm moment, then into bed. In the evening + a bath & book.

We recently restarted 3-5-7, but check-ins seem to make her more angry and hysterical. At bedtime she goes from 0 to 100 almost immediately, crying so hard it sounds like hyperventilating. At daytime she is doing a bit better.

I was considering doing 10 minutes (max 3 times) for naps and 3-5-7 at bedtime. But is crying that intensely something you push through, or is it a sign to stop? Some newer methods say sleep training doesn’t work once they’re that escalated.

Has anyone dealt with a very intense/fussy baby who gets worse with check-ins? What helped?

Thank you.

So, in summary, main question: Should we keep going for a few days even if she escalates that much (almost hyperventilating), or is that a sign to stop?

Baby is almost 5 months old. She has been an amazing sleeper since about a month old, 10/10, no notes, chef’s kiss. She rolls frequently from back to belly during the day but not belly to back (at least that I’ve seen, but she’s in daycare during the day). She has great head/neck control and strength. When she first started showing signs of rolling, we stopped swaddling several months ago and she has since been in the Magic Merlin suit.

She sleeps in a pack and play next to our bed in the Magic Merlin suit. For reference, at daycare she naps decently in a crib and traditional sleep suit. Last night she woke up earlier than usual, likely because she has been stuffy and can’t breathe as well due to her cold, at around 4 am. She occasionally stirs but can usually go back to sleep if you pop her pacifier back in. Every once in a while, she’ll wake up once during the night and want to eat. So I tried her pacifier and let her stir a little but she must have been fully awake because she rolled onto her side and was close to laying on her belly, while in the suit.

Of course this freaked me out so I got her up to feed her and then put her in the Zipadee Zip sleep suit that we have. I saw online that if she rolls in the Magic Merlin, it’s time to stop.

How do you all deal with the transition to a more traditional sleepsuit? We’ve never really had to deal with her going back to sleep, because feeding her every once in a while or popping a pacifier back in was enough for her. She is always put down drowsy but awake and can put herself to sleep initially but now it’s 1 am and she woke up in her Zipadee Zip and I don’t know how to help her. I don’t want to start a habit of feeding her at 1 am when she isn’t hungry and have her come to rely on this habit feed. But putting the pacifier back in and patting her back didn’t work. I know I sound like an idiot but we haven’t had to deal with this yet and of course we thought we dodged the 4 month sleep regression 😭 does she just need a few nights to transition? How do I help her soothe back to sleep? How do I know if she’s truly hungry or just awake?

Edit to add: We stopped using a traditional swaddle when she started rolling several months ago. The MM is safe to use until they roll IN the suit. Also we are aware of the MM recall and ours does not qualify for the recall. Ours are older and were made before they were bought out by Halo, which are the recalled ones. We stopped using the MM cold turkey the second she rolled in it so I am just asking for what you used to help make the transition smoother. We went between the Zipadee Zip and the Kyte Baby sleep sack.

My five month old is having around 4 naps a day and will go anywhere between 30/60 minutes totalling 2.5/3 hours a day, is this normal and good for him im trying to put him down close to every two hours so he’s not overtired and losing it but then I read he should’ve able to stay up for three hours there’s no way I could extend him to that at the moment. How many naps a day does your five month old have? And for how long a time are the cat naps bad

Hey guys! I’m a FTM to a rainbow baby girl, who is about to be 4 months old. And I need some advice.

How do your days actually look around naps/sleep?

We started trying to build a proper schedule for our baby, and for a while it even seemed to work (before the sleep regression hit). But lately it has turned into complete insanity.

It feels like our entire life revolves around wake windows and sleep timing. Constantly checking the clock. Panicking if we miss the “perfect” bedtime by 10 minutes. Rushing home so the baby can nap in the crib. Or rushing OUT so the baby falls asleep in the stroller. Stressing every evening that we’re late for the bedtime routine.

Instead of making life easier, it feels like sleep has taken over our whole day and our mental health.

I genuinely don’t know anymore what’s normal. Are we overthinking this? Do most parents actually live like this during this stage? How do you balance baby sleep without turning into a completely anxious control freak?

Would really appreciate hearing how your real days look.

Looking for someone who can just help me understand. My 6 month old started having 1-2 night wakings and has never done it before. We’re going on 2 weeks now of this happening.

We just changed schedules to: 2/2.5/2.5/3 and I am capping naps at 2.5 hours.

However I did the math and last night she only got 10 hours and 20 minutes with the 2 night wakings. They usually don’t last more than 5-10 minutes. She took naps equalling 2 hours and 45 minutes across 3 naps. So total sleep for the day was 13ish. I know they are between 12-14. Is the night wakings due to overtired or under? Does she need more daytime sleep? I can do 3 hours of day? But I am wanting to eliminate the night wakes & aiming for at least 11-11.5 of total night sleep.

Help!!

My son is turning 1 in a week and has never been a good sleeper. We’ve had to sleep train multiple times and finally for the past month he’s been sleeping without multiple wakings or feeds but he only sleeps from about 7:30pm until 4:45-5am. It’s impossible to get him to sleep later. He randomly does 1-2 mornings a week but it’s without any modification in schedule. He’s wide awake and will chill quietly for maybe 15 min and then it’s a wrap and he wants to start the day. It’s making us miserable. He currently naps from about 9:30-10:45 in the morning and then another 30-45 min in the afternoon from 2:30 until about 3pm. He never exceeds 2 hours of daytime sleep because if he does, the night is even worse. What should I do?

i’ve been blessed with the happiest, healthiest four month old, but i’m really struggling with sleep. since she was about a month old, she began to only tolerate contact naps as well as nursing to sleep (she’s ebf). we started with a bedside bassinet but eventually transitioned to co-sleeping simply because she wouldn’t tolerate being put down (even with warming the bassinet prior, swaddling, tortoise slow transfer, you name it). she began to have the occasional night where she’d sleep through the night, but i think we’ve hit the four month regression due to increased night wakes. she can ONLY close her eyes if she’s nursing. i decided to give sleep training a shot, using a combination and probably a million different methods with the exception of CIO. i bumped up feedings in her routine to help break the association, but ever since i started sleep training, bed time has become a nightmare because it seems like she knows i’m switching up her routine so it’s just a scream fest until she nurses. i can finally get her in the crib once she’s fallen asleep, but once she wakes again the cycle repeats. i can’t get her to settle in the crib. holding/rocking doesn’t help. just nursing. i KNOW she’s just a baby and one day ill miss the closeness this brings us, but im averaging about 1 hour of uninterrupted sleep a night, maybe 3 hours total sleep. my husband works offshore so additional hands are only available when he’s home. i’m open to suggestions, but please be kind, she and i are both learning.

Hello! So i successfully sleep trained my now 5 month old using CIO and before anyone comes at me ferber and pick up put down did not work as it made him cry/scream worse than CIO.

My baby now goes to sleep without fuss and only wakes up 1-2x per night where i feed him only once during those wakeups. Hes had a few nights where hes slept with no wakeups.

For naps i currently assist to sleep where i just lay him on my chest, no rocking or butt pats, and he goes to sleep. After 10 mins i lay him in his crib where he may sleep for 40 mins and then i go in and help him finish the nap to minimum an hour.

This obviously eats up a lot of my time as he has 2 hour naps and his last nap we cap at 30 mins. I really want him to atleast independently fall asleep so where do i start? We tried CIO for nap training once and stopped once he started having negative associations with his crib but now that he his a month older maybe itll be easier? Is there a method better suited for nap training?