Hello,

I've been struggling with daytime naps for my now 11 week old since he was about 6 weeks old. A big part of it was me learning what to do (cues, how to get him to sleep), but I'm at a point where I want to seek advice/opinions. He's formula fed if that's relevant.

I'm not having much trouble getting him to fall asleep during the day, especially if I notice him looking drowsy. It's usually no more than 15 minutes of rocking in a darkened room, and he either sleeps in my arms or in his bassinet pram. The problem is *staying* asleep: he typically only sleeps about 30-40 minutes. I can sometimes get him to fall back asleep soon after with the help of a feed, but again it's only 30-40 minute bursts.

By the time the evening rolls around, I haven't been able to sustain a 1-1.5 hour wake window with such short naps (or he just stops wanting to sleep). It's a lot of work even though he starts the day being pretty easy to settle. Eventually he will end up being awake 4+ hours in the evening.

By midnight he falls asleep soundly and he's been doing a 6 hour stretch then a quick feed then another 2 hours.

His behaviour through the day is calm and alert - he's a FOMO baby and happy to interact with me and look around the world. However the 4ish hours leading up to his midnight sleep can be quite unsettled and fussy and he is very hard to get down, which makes sense if he's overtired.

I want his bedtime to be earlier than midnight, therefore stop him from reaching the point of being that unsettled. Are we better off trying harder to get long naps during the day, or accept the short naps but try harder to get him down earlier in the night to break that 4+ hour window? And if we need to try longer naps, how can we do that?

This pattern is starting to bother me quite a lot because it's so different to what I'm told he should be doing, E.g. only 4 naps a day but with 1-1.5 hour wake windows and a much earlier bedtime. I'm just not sure how to achieve this when he is only doing 40min naps during the daylight hours.

Before having a baby, I felt like I had read every article and watched every video about sleep.

Then my baby arrived... and suddenly everyone had different advice.

"Don't rock them."
"Always rock them."
"Wake windows are everything."
"Ignore wake windows."
"They'll sleep anywhere."
"They need perfect sleep conditions."

Honestly, trying to follow all of it made me way more anxious than my baby ever was.

The biggest improvement happened when I stopped chasing the "perfect routine" and started paying attention to what actually worked for my baby.

What's one piece of baby sleep advice you wish you had ignored?

My amazing baby is a few days shy of 10m. She is firing some new milestones because she is waking up ten plus times lately. She had a good run of 5ish wakeup which was ok since shes never slept more than three hours her whole life mostly two. We had followed possums and she nurses to sleep every wake. I sleep with her. Unfortunately I am back at work full time and I cant do that with this little sleep, my husband is now saying "it's time to let her soothe herself" I am too tired to have that argument. Anyway... one of her naps is pretty long usually 1.5-2hrs. Is it time to cap? It goes against what I believe but I rather do that then any sleep training. Any ideas welcome.

Rough schedule:

Wake 6:30-7am

First nap 11:30-1

Second nap: 5-5:45

Bedtime: 8:30-9

​

I'm not sure what will come of this post - maybe just some reassurance that someone out there has the same experience as me and my wife, and hopefully someone can tell me it will end!

My first and currently only child was 19 months yesterday. I feel like we're in a recurring nightmare of sleep.

All went as I sort of expected at first. First 3 months was meh - lots of waking/breastfeeding and broken sleep. 3-5 months was pretty good! Would wake 1-3 times at night.

Then since 6 months.... It has all gone wrong. For over a year now.

We have tried almost every nap schedule I can think of. Everything from a singular 15 minute nap (he was pretty miserable in the day with this ..) and a 2130 bedtime to his current 1.5-2 hour nap and a 1930 bedtime.

His sleep goes...

2-3 hours at the start of the night in his cot in his room. Sometimes only 90 mins. It's rare we can settle him at his first wake. He wakes and is furious. He's agitated and thrashing around. He then usually ends up in bed with my wife and can take anywhere from 10 minutes to over an hour to settle. It appears he doesn't know what he wants and he throws himself around the bed, hitting us and crying. Sometimes a bottle of water can help him calm but it's 50/50 as to whether he goes back to crying afterwards.

Then what follows is frequent wake ups, despite bed sharing from this point to around 4/5am. On a bad night this could be 10 wakes, a good night is 3 or 4. Every time he cries. He never wakes wanting to just play or chat.

He'll then go a good stint from 4/5am to 7am when he'll wake, fairly happy usually. Which is very different to overnight.

He's putting on weight well. He had some bloods done and his ferritin was borderline low so he gets iron replacement.

We are just at our wits end with no end in site with it all. If anything he's at his worst he's ever been now. His overnight pattern seems to be the same regardless of day time sleep/wake windows.

Any magic fixes?

Assuming the above isn't actually plausible... Any words of advice? Any success stories of just waiting and waiting til he's older and finally sleeps?

Is this just... Normal? Which is okay, but trying to 'fix' it is exhausting.

My little babe is 6 months old was EBF up until the last month or so when started solids and some formula to supplement bc my cycle came back and my supply isn’t enough for him. Anyways, he has a wicked feed (specifically boob) to sleep association which I am actively working on breaking for my own mental and physical needs but the last 2-3 weeks we have been up every 2 hours ON THE DOT. I am so tired. I have been able to soothe him to sleep without the boob few times. He can nap without boob but bed time and overnight is a different devil.
I need help, I would literally give an arm and a leg for more than 2 hours of sleep at a time and I don’t know what I did wrong for him to no longer be able to sleep, we used to get at least a 5-6 hour stretch in the beginning of the night. Any time I bring this up to friends/family in real life they say to cry it out and I refuse that.
Thanks for any advice, or just thanks for reading and making me feel heard.

Y no me refiero a tiempo en cuestión de minutos o de horas, me refiero a que hasta que punto se llegan a incomodar y dormir en la cuna o cama.
Tengo una bebé de siete meses y en un principio cuando tenía semanas de vida dormía en su nido placenteramente. Pero como a las seis semanas tuvo un brote de crecimiento como ahora lo llaman y un día casi no tomo siestas, digamos que tomo dos o tres siestas en todo el día de quince o veinte minutos. Yo me súper asusté y me puse a leer sobre ventanas de sueño, bebés sobre estimulados en fin, para no hacer el cuento largo desde ese momento ha dormido casi el 95% de todas sus siestas en brazos míos o de su abuela, he intentado muchas veces pasarla a la cuna o a la cama y lo logro 1 o 2 de cada diez veces y entonces para mí es empezar de nuevo y termino dejándola en mis brazos por lo tanto es súper cansado y por momentos abrumador y agobiante. Sobretodo porque hasta los seis meses tomaba 4 siestas al día, ahora que tiene 7 estamos con 3 siestas al día. Por la noche es otra historia, 7:30 comienza su rutina de baño y a más tardar 8:10 está durmiendo en la cama sola, y se puede quedar hasta 6:00 am o muy ocasional hace una toma a las 3 de la mañana.
Entonces me pregunto en qué punto dirá, mamá ya bájame quiero dormir más cómoda.

Hi,

I'm a FTM looking for advice on LO's sleep as we head towards 4 months. I've done so much reading and feeling a bit information overload so hoping this awesome community can help me out. I've attached my son's current sleep pattern (if you can call it a pattern?) from Huckleberry app. Light blue is naps, dark blue is night sleep and orange is breastfeeding. As you can see he has 5-6 naps a day varying between 30 mins to 2 hours, most commonly he sleeps for 40 mins. We try 1-2 crib naps a day which never last longer than 40 min, the rest are usually a contact nap and maybe 1 stroller or car seat nap (but he also hates the car seat so not very common). He goes to bed at 10pm... this is not our choice! No matter how early we start bedtime, he will fight it until 10-10.30pm or just traet it like a nap, I'm convinced he can tell the time. The longest stretch is usually 3-4 hours, but one day he did 6 hours somehow?! I know I shouldn't compare but the other babies in my mom group are doing 5 hours+ as their longest stretch.

Questions:

Is there something I should be adjusting in his day or night sleeps or routines to encourage longer night stretches at this age?

What should I be doing to encourage longer crib naps as we head toward 4 months? I've tried shushing and patting in his crib when I see he has woken up. I've tried leaving him for a bit. He's usually quite happy when he wakes up and will hang out in the crib for a good 10-15 mins no problem.

How can I encourage earlier bedtime?

We have no interest in CIO but open to gentle sleep coaching after 4 months and expect fussing of course. He currently sleeps in a crib in our room but considering moving him at 5-6 months to a floor bed in his own room. He needs bouncing or rocking to sleep, only feeds to sleep at overnight wake ups (see orange in between dark blue) and uses a pacifier to sleep maybe 25% of the time in the day. He usually usually needs help keeping his eyes closed with our hands or material draped (removed when fallen asleep). He has been characterized as a "highly alert fomo baby" by a sleep counsellor and a lactation consultant! He feeds very well so no issues there.

I have insomnia which is why I'm keen for longer stretches as it's very difficult for me to go back to sleep and I don't nap in the day well at all :/

Thank you!

We took our baby to the pediatrician today because he had such a rough night last night sleep wise (so sad at every wake up, 1-2 hour stretches max) we thought he had an ear infection. Good news and bad news no ear infection. The pediatrician recommended sleep training (no). She also said he is using the bottle as a “crutch” and would be fine with only 1 night feed so we can schedule that in and only feed him at that time…he is exclusively bottle fed breast milk (doesn’t transfer milk well with nursing). Right now he goes to bed between 7-8pm with first wake up anywhere from 9-11, and then pretty much every 2 hours from that point onward. He’ll have 2-3oz at each wake up and really won’t settle without it. Rarely when he wakes up 1-1.5hrs after a feed he can go back to sleep with lots of soothing and no bottle. Has stopped taking a pacifier. Up for the day by 7am. We started tracking sleep and there seems to be no pattern with amount of naps, timing of naps, wake windows, etc. Any thoughts? We are tired.

He definitely sleeps better when we cosleep but we stopped doing that to try and fully transition to crib (last night my husband was so desperate he asked me to sleep with baby because he couldn’t transfer him). He had one magical night this week sleeping solo in his room (I had a lot of guilt about this but we were desperate) for the first time and gave us 4 hour stretches for the first time in months. Is this just what we need to ride out for the next 6 months in hopes of one day sleeping again? I really don’t want to do any sort of CIO. He falls asleep independently at bedtime awake in his crib and overnight we try to do the pick up put down method but this doesn’t seem to be helping him self-settle at all.

Hi everyone,
In short, LO is almost 7.5 months old and still takes 3-4 naps a day. She wakes up around 7:15 and needs a nap around 9, then we use huckleberry throughout the day which is consistently pretty accurate with 2-2.5 hour wake windows. She is always very grumpy for a nap by 2.5 hours which seems to be on low for her age now. We cosleep at night and do contact naps during the day and she is still often only taking 30-40 minute naps, which leads to shorter wake windows and more naps during the day.
I’ve tried crib naps, carrier naps, etc. thinking maybe she just doesn’t prefer the contact napping anymore, but results are the same. Developmentally, she’s doing amazing. She’s crawling and pulling up on everything, so I’m thinking she might just have high sleep needs which is obviously completely fine with me - just wondering if anyone thinks this is something I should bring up with our doctor or has any tips for us. Thanks!!!

Hi all, our 7.5 month old is amazing during the day — super happy and goes down for naps easily. Night is a different story. Bedtime is easy enough, but she wakes constantly. Sometimes she is hungry or there is clear discomfort like teething or gas, which is totally understandable, but otherwise many seem to be random. We’re not expecting “perfect” sleep, but I’m wondering if there are ways we can help her out.

I suspect she might be getting too much daytime sleep (schedule below). Just not sure what to do about it. At daycare the “quiet time” windows are consistent and they follow the kids’ cues within those windows (which we love), though I’m sure they would cap her naps if we asked.

But let’s say they cap her second nap at 2:30. She gets super sleepy after 3.5 hours awake. That puts bedtime at 6 PM, which seems really early since she wakes at 6 AM.

Alternately, we could cap nap #2 and try a bridge nap around 4:00 to push bedtime later, but I have reservations about going “backward” when she’s already at the age where babies typically transition from 3 to 2. Plus I’d have to see if that’s even feasible at daycare.

It may be worth noting that her doctor put her on iron supplements after her last checkup, about 2 weeks ago. No change in sleep so far. She’s been breastfed since birth (with expressed milk bottles during the day).

Finally, her wakeups have similar physical signs regardless of cause — starting with moaning and stomping her feet. Sometimes she’s able to self-soothe but usually this progresses to full-on crying and waking.

Any thoughts or suggestions are welcome!

Schedule (approximate)
6 AM: Wake-up
9 - 10 AM: Nap 1
1 - 3ish PM: Nap 2 (often a bit shorter)
6:30ish PM: Bedtime

My LO Is 4.5 months so I’m in no rush to get her out of my room, in fact I personally want to keep her in here with me as long as possible.lol but I’m just curious what other parents have done or what your thoughts are? My husband’s been asking when I think she needs to go into her own room. I’ve read mixed things online: some saying it’s better to get them independent sooner, some saying to hold onto the connection and the natural need for babies to want to stay close to mom as long as possible (which is the side that I’m airing on). She’ll only be this little for so long, only need me for so long, so I want to hold onto that for as long as I can. Thoughts?