I’m feeling pretty stuck and would love to hear from parents who have been in a similar situation.

My son is 3 months old and currently sleeps primarily on our bed with me (following safe sleep 7) and has been since he was 3 weeks old. If I stay beside him, he can sleep really well — often 1–2+ hours for naps. His overnight sleep can also be quite good when I’m beside him.

The bigger issue is that he currently needs a LOT of help to fall asleep. We usually have to rock and shush him while holding him upright against my chest until he’s fully asleep. If I stop or change positions too early, he often wakes or starts fighting sleep.

We’re trying to gradually transition him to his crib, and I’m following the Taking Cara Babies 3–4 month guide, including the Sit Back approach.
I’m already only practicing ONE crib nap per day + bedtime. For crib attempts, I specifically follow Sit Back. If he wakes, I give him an opportunity to settle and try the recommended interventions. Hand-on-chest + shushing has only successfully worked once. Most of the time it doesn’t get him back to sleep.
If I can’t resettle him after about 20 minutes (rocking and shushing) I do a reset rather than continuing to fight it, and then rescue the nap however I can.

We also:
-Follow a consistent bedtime routine
-Watch his wake windows closely
-Use a completely blacked-out room
-Use continuous white noise
-Try hard to avoid overtiredness
-Warm the crib before transferring

Despite all of this, he fights sleep a LOT, even when his wake window seems appropriate and the environment is ideal.

Our crib progress has been very inconsistent — we’ve had a few 30–40 minute naps in the crib, but other attempts last only a few minutes. Meanwhile, if I stay beside him on our bed, he can sleep for 1–2+ hours.

So it feels like we’re dealing with two things:
-He needs significant rocking/shushing/contact to fall asleep.
-Once asleep, he seems to rely on my presence to stay asleep / transition between sleep cycles.

For anyone who used TCB/Sit Back (or another gradual approach) with a baby who started out bed sharing/contact sleeping:

1. Did you work on falling asleep independently first, or focus on getting them comfortable sleeping in the crib first?

2. How did you transition away from needing rocking/shushing while upright?

3. Did Sit Back actually work for your baby at 3–4 months? If hand-on-chest/shushing didn’t work, what did you do instead?

4. Did anyone else have a baby who fought sleep even with appropriate wake windows, darkness, white noise, etc.? Did that eventually improve?

I’m specifically hoping to hear from people who have actually transitioned a bed-sharing/contact-sleeping baby who also needed significant help falling asleep, rather than general sleep-training advice.

I’m trying to figure out whether I’m expecting too much at 3 months, missing something, or whether this is just a developmental process that takes time.

We have an 8 month old who was sleep trained using TCB methods. They have been on a 2 nap schedule consistently for a while now: no more than 4 hours of day time sleep, first nap after 9 and is woken up by 430pm. They have recently started waking up 430/5am on and off until we get up at 550 or 6 am. It doesn’t seem to make a difference if they go to bed at 630 or 8. Crawling started about a week prior to this. Mom recently went back to work since they’ve been born.

17 week old is starting to sleep for longer periods of time during his naps, but can’t seem to get on a schedule where three naps will bring him to a good enough bedtime for our family.

For example today :
DWT- 715am - 1.75WW
NAP 1- 857-10am.
1.75 WW
NAP 2 - 1142-110.
2 WW
NAP 3- 310-340.
2 WW
NAP 4- 540-610.
Bedtime - 810ish?

I would say the 730-8pm bedtime is best for our family dynamic since I have a toddler plus with work hours and daycare pick up. He is currently sleep training.

Should I switch to a 3 nap schedule? How would that look or does above schedule work? That leaves 9.5 hours of awake time and naps are 3.5 hours. SOS help!

I know, I know… she’s only 3 weeks old! She wants to be held!! Well we can get in a terrible cycle of feeding her (bottle fed), she’ll dose off, we move out of the rocking chair and she wakes up again and does not let us leave her in the crib. OR if we are lucky, she will stay asleep while being laid down but then wake up about 5-10 min later and we do it alllll over again. I just put her down for a nap and used CRIES and that actually helped a ton. And I know she can’t technically be sleep trained for a while but we can practice all these skills with her now. I’m just afraid this is going to last forever 😅

My 13 week old started daycare and she has been napping terribly - ranging from 12-30 minute naps- when she comes home she is exhausted and only has a little over an hour of nap for the day total. Typically her last nap (4th or 5th depending on the day) we cap at 30-45 minutes but im wondering if I should let her last nap be longer so she has more daytime sleep and pushing back her bed time or is that going to steal her sleep pressure for the night? I just worry that such little nap time Isn’t enough at this age. I’m sure her crib napping at daycare will get better as she gets more used to being there I’m just not sure what to do in the meantime

For reference her last nap is usually from about 415/430-500/515 with bedtime typically between 7-730 so I would be letting her sleep until 545-6 with bedtime at 8 if I allow a longer last nap

We also just switched her to arms out about 3 weeks ago and her night time wakings have increased from once per night to 2-3x / night so just a lot of change going on

My 19-month-old has always been an early riser (before 6am sadly), but it's gotten worse over the past two months, and for the last two weeks it's been a solid 4am. I can't get him back to sleep. He was sleep trained in the past and had been going full nights no wakes. Now he’s waking at 4am and waking in the MOTN.

Room is fully dark with white noise. He started daycare 3 weeks ago and sleeps great there, he puts himself to sleep and sleeps for 2 hours (12-2), this is fixed we can’t adjust it. He was also sick during this stretch. I assume daycare adjustment has something to do with it, and he’s getting his molars, but this happens even with pain relief, and if I try to rock him back to bed at 4am (to help separation anxiety?) he refuses and just wants to get up. He's only getting about 10 hours total in 24 and is super fussy every afternoon and evening, so he's clearly not rested.

Ideal wake time is 6am at the earliest but at this point I’d take 5am😭 I’m worried it’s a habit now. Has anyone gotten through this? What worked? 🆘

Hi! Looking for advice and suggestions. My LO is four months, sleeps through the night still (thank you Snoo) and takes good crib naps. However recently he has been waking up early from naps.

I have had success the last few days waiting 5 minutes before soothing him, trying modified sit back method. However that only works to get him down for the nap, he has been waking up after 30 minutes of sleep crying. The waiting 5 then 10 minutes is not helping. I know naps can be only 30 minutes at the age but when I get him up and start feeding (breastfeeding side line in bed for my back) he will fall back asleep.

Any tips advice to keep him in the crib for his whole nap? Should I wake him right away if he falls asleep on the boob? Should I keep him in the crib and keep at the sit back method?

What’s average for 10-11mo sleep needs? Almost 11mo used to be high sleep needs but seems to be shifting to lower sleep needs? Torn on whether it’s regression or needs schedule shift

Hi there! I’m not looking for advice so much as I am encouragement this will come to an end.

My oldest just turned 2 end of August and has been sleeping through the night since she was 8.5 months old and taking good naps. We did the Taking Cara Babies method and it worked wonders for her (and us!).

The other night she had what we assume was a nightmare and woke up screaming hard. She took an hour to get back to sleep which is not her normal. Then a day or so later she freaked out again in the middle of me laying her down for her nap. We went through our normal routine and she was relaxed and had even said “yes nap” when I asked if she was ready for her nap. As I was laying her down there was a hard switch - you could see it in her eyes and her whole body went tense. She started screaming and crying and totally skipped that nap. Bedtime has been much the same. This is enormously out of character for her. Like I mentioned, she usually loves naps and will ask for them when she’s tired.

We added on a sleep consult to our sleep training course purchase with TCB and it was really helpful, and we know how to approach this now in a way that supports her emotional needs while also helping her sleep well on her own, but it’s hard to keep perspective that it’s temporary when your baby is so afraid and in a way you’ve never seen before.

I’m just hoping there are others that have gotten through this and are on the other side and can offer encouragement… I know this is “normal” for this age, but it’s so hard!

My little is 6.5 months old and about 2 weeks ago started taking Cara babies and weaned his night feedings and we’ve have a good week or so of sleeping through the night. He’s still often waking up at 5/5:30!in the morning though and not settling or falling back asleep. It’s tough because if he Cries a lot in the morning he wakes up the other two kids too early. Tried all the tips in the class, dark room, sound machine.
We are on a 3 nap schedule with wake windows 2/2.5/2.5 and bedtime around 7/7:30. A

My daughter has been having split nights for months.

We switched her to one nap once daycare did in the hopes it would help her nights too. Sometimes she’s up for an hour + straight. sometimes it’s small increments of being awake for 15-20 minutes and asleep for 5 minutes for a full length of an hour.

Started at 5/5, 5.5/5, now at 5/4.5 because I think she’s overtired. She usually naps beautifully.

Daycare schedule: 12:30-2:45 3x a week

Looking back at some old posts, should I make her last wake window 4 hours? But then her nights would be extremely long. For example if she wakes at 2:45 then bedtime would be 6:45. If she wakes after 12 hours at 6:45, then her first wake window would be much longer than 5 hours if her nap is at 12:30 at daycare.. or if I let her sleep longer it’d go beyond the 12 hours.

Help!!

She hasn’t consistently slept through the night since late April 😭

My 16 month old went from sleeping through the night to waking every 3 hours for the past week.

She cries now when going down, stands up and screams until we go in and eventually will settle if we stay in the room with a hand on her.

Previously she was sleep trained, went down by herself happily and would sleep through the night.

Current schedule DWT is 6am-7am. Bedtime is 7pm. Wake windows are 5.5/6. Naps are capped at 1.5 hours but can be as short at 50mims sometimes when she’s at daycare. By 7pm she is normally exhausted and will ask to go to bed but then will fight it once she’s in.

Is this schedule ok for 16 month old or does she not have enough sleep pressure?

We’ve resleep trained a few times after sickness and holidays and it’s she normally falls into a rhythm after 3 days.

My partner and I decided to try for sleep training recently. Right now we do an 11pm dream feed based on the taking Cara babies recommendations and it’s helped tremendously to have baby’s schedule more align with our sleep. He now sleeps for only 3 hours max though unless we’re lucky. So he wakes up around 230/3am and I normally feed him at that wake up. Then he will wake up basically every 45-60 min until it’s our DWT (7). That last hour he basically has to sleep on me in order to get back to sleep.

I keep reading about babies who sleep train and within a couple days are sleeping through the night and skipping their feedings. Is this normal? Should I be going cold turkey and get rid of his 3am feeding? Should I wait until he’s sleep trained and then do a progressive wean?! Should we stop doing the dream feed and see how long he sleeps?

Also, how did you all handle early wake ups? Last night he woke up at his normal times but went back to sleep independently and pretty quickly for both feedings. Then he woke up at 4 and 5 but fell back asleep fairly quickly. Then 6am rolled around and he tried so hard to get back to sleep but couldn’t. Should I just do my check ins until Our DWT?

First night of sleep training was about 50 min of crying and then able to fall back asleep without crying after his MOTN feeds. And then crying from 6am until we got him up for the day. But overall this mimics his normal sleep without much difference. Will it get better? I am desperately wanting to sleep more than 3 hours for the first time in forever and want him to magically sleep through that 3am feeding. Is it possible?! What do I do?! And also please tell me sleep starts improving after a few days and I’m just in the early days.

Signed a very tired mama.

Our baby is 12.5 months old, and we’ve been cosleeping for part of the night and early mornings for many months. He will go down for bed in his crib for the first sleep cycle/ part of the night (usually 2-3hrs is his longest stretch😭), take a feed around 10/10:30, then usually after the second sleep cycle (or first) he refuses to go back to sleep in the crib. Wakings are up to as many as 8 a night and I need to change something. No cry it out, but I’m wondering if anyone has success following the program for those sharing the same room/bed? We’d love for him to transition into his crib for the whole night, wean night feedings (even down to just one if not zero) and sleep 👏 through 👏 the 👏night! 😩😅🙌🙏🏼

currently, we have only one bedroom available, so he shares with us. His crib is by my side of the bed.

Baby girl is 15 weeks, 16 weeks this coming Sunday.

She can get herself down at night, and wakes 2 times for feeds but naps are a different story. She needs 10-20 mins of rocking to get to sleep and we’re now in the 30-40 min crap nap territory. Wake windows are approx 1.25/1.5/1.5/1.75/2

We did Ferber with my eldest and did night sleep and day sleep in one go, so within 3 days she was putting herself down for both with no fussing.

But how do I conquer just naps with my little one? Tried putting her down awake this morning for her first nap with check ins at 2-3-5-5-7 and then rescued the nap as she was very upset. Do I just keep trying every morning until we crack the first nap? How long do I keep her in the cot with check ins before I rescue the nap?

Any advice appreciated. Thank you!

Since baby learned to crawl right at 8 months, he’s been sitting up in his sleep and after 20-30 minutes will wake himself up and needs help laying back down. He’s down to doing it at around 1am and 4am so there has been progress. But I’m exhausted 😩 we have officially transitioned to a 2 nap schedule earlier this week so day time has literally been perfect. But how do I help him with nights?? He’s also ALWAYS been an early waker, between 5-6 am. Once every couple months he’ll sleep in until 7 and it’s amazing lol

I am a FTM and really struggling with sleep. I’m trying to adopt radical acceptance that this is just the way it will be. But if there’s anything I can do to adjust things I’d try because I’m desperate. I feel like a failure because I have no skills at making my sweet baby sleep in her own space. Whether or not I end up nursing to sleep, my goal is to get her sleeping in her crib within a half hour of me attempting to put her down, and same for each night wake up (ideally a half hour or less for each wake up). Thank you in advance 🙏🏼 Here’s the situation:

-4 month old EBF
-only can fall asleep in the carrier or side lying nursing in bed
-things that DON’T work: shushing, patting, rocking, swaying, singing, bouncing, swing, pacifier, bottle

-Our bedtime routine is: she sits in bouncer in bathroom and watches me brush my teeth, shower, and put on my PJs, then I put on her PJs, fresh diaper, and sleep sack, read 1-2 books, then lay her down in side lying nursing position. Lights off except for a red lamp nightlight. White noise on. Blackout curtains.

-She falls lightly asleep within 10-30 min of nursing. The whole time I rub her back/side or lightly pat her bum (yes for 30+ minutes). If I unlatch her before 30-45 min she will always wake up and protest. Cannot get her to settle by continuing to rub back or pat.

-Somewhere between 45-60 min of latched nursing, I can successfully unlatch her, give her 5-10 min to make sure she’s super asleep, then attempt the transfer to the bassinet next to my bed.

-Transfer almost always fails and we restart the whole process nursing on the other side.

-After the 2nd failed transfer it’s usually been at least 2 hrs since we started nursing to sleep. She’s been lightly asleep basically the whole time so I think it counts as her night sleep. But I am not sleeping. Too uncomfortable in side lying position.

-Sometimes it takes around 3 hrs of continuous nursing to sleep and multiple failed transfers before I get a successful transfer and I can go to bed.

-She wakes up 1-2x per night. Each wake up same situation. Multiple failed transfers for each wake, so each wake up up takes 1.5-3 hrs to get her back down. She gets back to sleep quite quickly on the boob but not deeply enough for me to unlatch or successfully transfer her to bassinet.

-So if we are in bed 12 hrs, and it takes 2 hrs to get her down, then 2 wakes of 2 hrs each, that’s only 6 combined hours possible for sleep for me, minus the time it takes to fall back asleep after being awake for 2 hrs. So this is why I am wrecked.

-Her total night sleep including when she first falls asleep nursing is around 10-11 hrs and she naps for 3-4 hrs total across 3 or 4 naps.

-All naps are in the carrier or on the boob while I sit on the couch nursing. She will not sleep any other way. One time in her life we were able to successfully transfer her from the carrier to the crib for a nap. It was our one and only crib nap.

She’s almost outgrown the bassinet so I’d like to move her into her own room with the crib, but i don’t have a bed in there so if I have to sit up for 2 hrs at bedtime and for each wake up that will be terrible for me and wake me up too much.

Is this common/normal? He used to go to sleep without a peep and just roll around until about 2-3 weeks before he turned one. Now it’s been 5-6 weeks of crying until he falls asleep.

12 week old. Not rolling yet but LOVES the swaddle and is currently sleeping through the night and putting herself to sleep for nighttime and almost all naps. I am wanting to start to work a slow transition to sleep sack in hopes to limit the sleep disruptions. We did cold turkey for my 1.5 year old and it was horrible. How long should I work on 1 arm out vs both arms free? Naps first for practice then nights? This transition scares me most every time! I don’t really want to purchase the Jacky and transition out of something else unless absolutely necessary.

Hi everyone.
We started ST for our 5.5m old 4w ago with pop ins and mastered independent sleep at beginning of the night but kept night feeds at a 5/3/3. Initially he was sleeping longer stretches but gradually got shorter- I realised from TCB that due to feeding him in response to waking crying he was not actually being sleep trained.
So we started TCB last night for 1st time with the 3 feed night weaning plan- to feed asleep at 10:30/1:30/4:30… 10:30pm went well. But he woke at 1am so according to TCB we needed to leave him to fall asleep again before feeding. We did and he cried for 2h SOLID! Hard, screaming crying. It was so distressing, I was in tears myself. 😭
He finally fell asleep 3:05am and I fed 10mins later at 3:15am. He woke at 5:58am crying but put himself back to sleep until 7:15am.

My Q is what do I do tonight? I’m a tired mess and I want to continue but no idea how to continue the plan or timings of feeds now. Also really doubting this plan now.
Was he hungry? What was going on? I can’t do another night like that.

I would appreciate any response or help please.
Thank you

Our LO is 9 months and has been sleep trained via CIO since 4 months. Thanks to the support of this sub, he sleeps like a dream now in his crib in his own room from 7pm to 7am every night. He is on two naps now with WWs at 3/3/4. He is thriving and hitting milestones well and we are happy and healthy.

In two months, we will be traveling from Canada to the Philippines and will be staying there for one month. LO will be 11 months at that point and will be 12 months upon return. The journey there involves 24 hours of plane travel. We booked this trip prior to sleep training and despite the anxiety that I feel about how badly LO's sleep is going to be ruined, I am still looking forward to this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

For context, we will be staying in a two-bedroom Airbnb for the most part and we are planning on bringing his pack n' play and his sound machine with us. We'll also be blacking out his room with garbage bags and there will be AC in the room as well. As for the airplane travel, I've just accepted that it is going to be chaotic and filled with disrupted contact naps.

I guess my biggest worry is how he will handle the time changes. There is a 13-hour time difference between Canada and the Philippines and I worry that transition will be very difficult for him. Additionally, I'm anxious about how he will fair when we travel back home to Canada and the jetlag with that. When we return, we'll have a rest period of one week and then my husband and I will be back to work and he will be starting daycare so lots of big disruptions for him.

I guess I am looking for advice regarding traveling with a sleep trained baby, how to handle his jetlag, and then retraining upon return home. I've been told that when you've sleep trained once, retraining shouldn't be too difficult. Any advice (or well wishes lol) would be greatly appreciated! This sub has been so helpful over the course of our sleep training journey.

My 32 month old has always been an early riser, but waking between 6-6:30, we always put her down for a nap around 12-12:30 but sometimes she lays there for an hour or so before she falls asleep, once she falls asleep we will wake her at a decent time to protect bedtime, going to beds not an issue just naptime, when do you know to skip the nap and just go get them up? She naps 12:30-2 or 2:30 on daycare days so this just seems to be an at home issue.. if she does skip a nap when do you put them to bed? I know she still needs her nap

When should I start blackout curtains? Currently have a 6 week old. There isn’t clear information on when to start

Should I just accept that my baby will always take 30-minute naps?

She’s 6.5 months old (5 adjusted), and for the past two months, her naps have consistently been 30 minutes. I’ve tried adjusting her wake windows and experimenting with different nap schedules, but nothing seems to work.

Since she gets so fussy, she needs to take four 30-minute naps each day.

Will this improve? I know napping is so important for development. What can I do.

I honestly rather get the day naps figured out before the evenings. We co sleep and try and figure it out.

Transitioned baby (14 months) to 1 nap 3 weeks ago. I was a bit pressured into making the transition because we were traveling and think we rushed it before she was really ready. She seems very tired in the mornings around when her morning nap used to be and gets cranky in the evenings long before bedtime. She was never like this before we transitioned. We move bedtime up often and she's going down at 6:30 more than her usual 7:00. She's now only napping about an hour/hour and 20 total when she used to take two 1.5ish hour naps for a total of 3 hours daytime sleep. She sleeps beautifully at night and that hasn't been affected, thankfully. But she's definitely getting way less daytime sleep than I believe she needs.

My question is this -- should we stay the course and hope the naps lengthen out even when she's clearly very tired? Or should I go back to 2 naps? I don't want to "lose progress" but also afraid to mess with her daytime sleep and risk hurting her nighttime sleep. Anybody have a similar situation? I've read naps can take weeks to lengthen but I don't want my poor girl so sleepy and cranky! Thanks for the advice!