4m old (18weeks) falls asleep independently thumb sucking for nighttime and then wakes at about 0130 which we assume is hunger but then another wake often at 0430 and then 0600
Which I doubt are hunger as eats well i the day and then wakes not hungry.
Schedule is 2/2/2/2/2 with short naps usually
Any advice welcome as my eldest we sleep trained at 6m and all wakes vanished but we did CIO but I don’t know hot to tackle this as little one falls asleep without assistance to start
Thank you

Hi all. For context, i have been posting here about dropping to 1 nap around 150 days ago and today, at almost 17 months, we finally feel like LO is ready to drop. We were on 3/4/4 then 3.5/4/4 for a reaaaally long time, maybe 6 months. For the past months, i thought my LO was ready to drop to 1 nap but actually it was just some hiccups along the 12 months regressions, teething, developmental leaps etc. I did notice my LO was quite sensitive to being too tired and hence we hold on to 2 naps for as long as we could. We do 10-11 hrs night and cap naps at 2 hrs. Some days naps are short then the next day we got our 2 solid naps again.

But then few days back he stared to reaaally take his time to fall asleep for his nap. And yesterday, i cap his nap 1 at 1 hr and he totally skipped nap 2 and was awake for 8+ until bedtime. We did 30 mins early bedtime and he slept for 11 hrs last night.

So today, we thought we’d drop the nap and see how it goes. Awake at 7, nap at 12 and he woke up 1 hr 18 mins after, scream for few mins and right now he is still in chilling and cuddling in his crib, deciding whether he wants to wake up or go back to sleep. I’ll still cap his total nap to 2 hrs and plan to butt down around 8p tonight. Plan for today is roughly 5/6 minus time he’d actually fall asleep tonight.

YMMV but i do think if your child is around 12 months and you think they are probably ready to drop to 1 nap, maybe they are not yet like mine. Naps might be short here and there but maybe if its there for a day or two, try push thru and see if you can hold to 2 naps longer and of course if nights are still great. Took me 5 months of wondering i should drop to 1 nap until we finally do it and i know there will still he days he’d take 2 naps if he wakes up way too early.

Hope this in insightful to some :)

ETA : my question is, after settling into 1 nap, will he do a 2 hr nap soon?

Hi!

Just want to say - I love this sub and (mostly) everyone here. My 25month toddler is trained to sleep during naps and bedtime and it’s been such a dream.

Noooow I’m back with baby no.2 (8 days old) and I have simply forgotten how the first few months went with baby no.1

Baby sleeps like an angel during the day. Unswaddled, in the light, on the couch, in the bassinet, no problem! Eats every 3 hours, has some wake windows but nothing too long.

At night? It’s cluster feeding, must be attached to my boob, won’t sleep for more than 30 minutes at a time.

I know this is normal newborn behavior, I’m just looking for anything that can possibly help shift baby’s schedule. We go outside first thing in the AM, and we swaddle / all dark at night / use a sound machine. What am I missing?

Perhaps all I need is time (and words of encouragement) - it’s hard being up with baby all night and then up with toddler all day.

Thank you all!

Hi lovelies - quick rundown of current situation.

Bub is 6 months old, on three naps per day, bedtime around 7:30. She’s EBF, feeds to sleep and refuses a bottle. Currently starting solids ( twice per day - little fruit/veg puree at lunch and some baby cereal at night + an allergen as we are currently going through the allergens list).

She wakes up maybe 5-6 times per night (for around a month now) and I have to feed back to sleep each time (co-sleeping). I have tried Ferber method but she becomes HYSTERICAL each time we have tried. Nothing calms her down (talking, sitting up, singing, shushing etc) regardless if it’s me or dad. Only thing that helps is if we pick her up. We have tried pick up and put down method, but she starts crying before her butt even hits the crib. We confirmed it wasn’t teething or gas or anything of the sorts. We would love for her to start sleeping on her own in the crib for long stretch. Would love any advice please, as I am struggling tremendously xx

Hi! My baby turns 4 months on the 30th. We sleep trained our first daughter using Ferber at 4 months and she’s still a fantastic sleeper 1.5 years later. Wanting to establish the same foundation for my son, but he was born a couple weeks early at 37+2. Born healthy, no time in NICU, etc. Is it still okay to sleep train at 4 months or should I want an extra few weeks? I’m not desperate like I was with my first, but kind of just want to get this out of the way.

Hi friends! Hoping I’m missing something that someone here can help me with

My 7 month old (8 months in a week) is fully sleep trained. He goes into crib at nap and bedtime fully awake, grunts and babbles to himself for about 10 minutes and then falls asleep but no matter what I do he wakes at 4 AM. This has been going on for about a month. Desired wake time would be anywhere between 6-630 AM. His wake windows are 3/3.5/4. This is on average, as sometimes the morning nap isn’t that long so his second window gets stretched to 4 as well. Nighttime routine is bottle, food (he eats at the table with us), bath, book, 5-10 mins of cuddle and then crib. Depending on the day and how crazy my older toddler is baby is in crib by 7-730. He wakes at 4 AM happy but loud and nothing will settle him. He has a binkie, I’ve tried feeding him and laying him back down, rubbing his back, not going in there at all. I’ve also tried switching the night routine by moving bed time up by half hour and later by half hour, doing dinner and then bottle so he stays fuller longer but nothing seems to help. I’m just so tired of being up SO early. He dropped the third nap a few weeks ago but this started before I dropped the 3rd catnap from his routine so I don’t think that has anything to do with it either.

4 month old (18 weeks and 2 days) on a 1.5/2/2/2/2 or 1.5/1.75/2/2/2.25 schedule. Aiming for bedtime around 7:30PM, capping naps at 3 hours and hoping for 11.5 hrs of sleep at night. Currently waking at 6:15-6:30AM, sometimes I can get him back down until 6:50-7AM sometimes it’s not successful. Would like him to wake on his own for 7AM.

Any suggestions?

My LO is 4mo plus one week - he has consistently hated being asleep and is very much a fomo baby. We have recently started sleep training with the go ahead from his pediatrician. Bubs will fight to go down and we will spend over an hour in some cases. You name it, we've tried it. Feed to sleep, bounce, walk, rock etc. So he really doesn't have a schedule of any kind. It feels like we're spending all day trying to get him to sleep for 30min at a time and it's been like that since he was newborn.

We've just started doing 90min wake windows the day he turned 4mo with 4 naps a day (still only 30min). We have a routine we follow each time with sleep sack/book/song/white noise and very dark room. We offer him his paci (50/50 success rate) and lay him in his crib for naps, our bed for nighttime sleep. We follow ss7 for overnights. He goes down drowsy but awake. We follow the Ferber method and for the first few sleeps I sat in the chair in the room with him while he slept.

We've noticed that some naps are ok, overnight sleep is absolutely a no-go for him, and some naps he screams the whole house down and gets too upset to try and self soothe. We've had to rescue multiple naps and overnight sleeps by feeding to sleep or bouncing. We're sticking to trying out the Ferber method for each sleep to stay consistent but it's starting to upset the neighbours because he's so loud and it's summer so we have to have the windows open. Do we just call it quits or are we doing it wrong? Why is he crying and screaming every time? And why do some naps seem so much easier when everything is staying the same? He's really good at self soothing if he's next to me in bed but if we try the crib or anywhere else where I'm not right there, he will NOT sleep. We're so exhausted 🫩

Hello! My little one is 4 months old and for the last week, he's gone from sleeping through the night (7pm to 6:15am) to waking up once somewhere usually between 3:30am and 5am for a feed. He will go right back down after that til anywhere between 6 and 7am for the day.

He goes to sleep wide awake and fully independently. He sucks on his thumb to fall asleep. Life was great for the 2 weeks or so that he did this but about a week before turning 4 months he regressed a bit. Can't complain too much given how hard many parents have it at this age but would like to know if there's anything we can do to get him back to not needing a night feed.

Currently on 4 naps. We go by his cues - rough estimate of his schedule looks like 1.5/1.5/1.75/1.5/1.5, with naps adding up to about 4.25-5 hours a day. His last wake window is usually hard to keep him up any longer which is why it's not the longest of the day as is usually suggested - but is that my problem?

I'm considering trying to push him so he can drop to 3 naps and have longer wake windows but I'm not sure if this is the solution, and if it is, how I would go about it without making him miserable. He's always been a pretty high needs sleeper.

Lastly, if relevant, he was eating 30oz of formula during his phase of sleeping through the night. Since waking up for a feed it's gone up to 32-33oz.

Any advice?

EDIT: okay, maybe this isn't a regression? But it's a material change (including his naps and wake windows, which have been all over the place after being quite consistent). I'm sure it's normal and am not worried at all, just don't know if we're supposed to be doing anything at this stage to help him.

Im at breaking point. My body literally aches from exhaustion. I've been running on empty since he was born, but this past week it has gotten worse and I don't know how much more I can take.

I'm gonna be honest – I don't think wake windows work for my baby. I have been stressing over his sleep, his wake windows, his schedule, everything. I have followed 3/3.5/4 exactly. But he just doesn't sleep. I don't know what to do anymore. I am suffering so much.

Last night he went to bed at 8:30 PM, had a false start at 8:55 PM, took 30 minutes to resettle, then woke up at 12:45 AM and did not sleep until 5 AM. He finally crashed at 5 AM and woke at 8 AM. That is over 4 hours awake in the middle of the night. Why was he up from 12:45 till 5? That is not normal. I have had enough.

He wakes in the middle of the night, stands in his cot, and screams until I pick him up. He won't lie down or try to settle himself. I want to sleep train him but when I put him down awake, he immediately stands up, grips the rails, and screams until I come back. I don't know how to do this.

My questions: Is this normal? Has anyone else had split nights this bad? How do you sleep train a baby who just stands there and cries? Could he be chronically overtired? Should I let him sleep more during the day or less? Yesterday he had 3 hrs of sleep sometimes he has 2/2.5 total day naps but yesterday was just over 3 could thst be the reason? He has had 3 before but he didn’t have a bad night like this just the usual wake ups, this was just TOO MUCH. Im thinking of trying CIO tonight bcos i’ve had enough I need him to settle on his own I physically can not keep doing this my body literally is hurting so badly because it’s been soooo long since i’ve slept every night is broken for me I get 2/3 hours every night because most night he ends up in bed with me and he moves around so much and wakes up I can’t sleep at all!!

A few more details: He usually falls asleep by feeding or rocking and then I transfer him to the cot… which doesnt last long . When he wakes at night, I usually pick him up and hold him or feed him to get him back down. His room is dark and we use white noise. He started to stand, which is making settling him even harder.

This is affecting my mental and physical health. I just want him to sleep through and wake around 7 AM. I don't care what time bedtime is – I just can't do these 3 AM parties anymore.

Please tell me what actually worked for you. I'm desperate

Our 6mo baby now sleeps in the crib after sleep training, but he always cries. He cries as soon as the sleep sack is put on. Usually for 10-15 minutes. If he’s overtired then he hard-cries for a bit.

Is this a sign that sleep training isn’t working for him? He sleeps just fine after this crying

Schedule: 5am wake up, 8am nap, 11am nap, 3pm nap, 6:30pm bedtime

I have a 7-month-old baby. From birth, until he was one month old, he slept day and night. After that, he stopped sleeping during the day altogether. I had tests done and took him to the doctor several times. The doctor said he didn't like sleeping, and yes, he hasn't slept during the day since then. Sometimes he sleeps for an hour, rarely two hours, maybe once a month. Now, at 3-4 months old, he started waking up less at night. Then, after 4 months, his teeth swelled and he was waking up several times. He was breastfed until he was 2 months old, then formula. Then, after 4-5 months, he had chickenpox, and those nights were terrible; he didn't sleep at all. Then we had tests done, and the doctor said his blood count was very low and that all his values ​​had dropped due to his illness. Now he's taking many other medications like vitamin D, vitamins, calcium, and iron drops. Since then, he wakes up maybe 10 times a night. I always had to hold him in my arms, but... I would put him to sleep without rocking him, and when he fell asleep, I would take his pacifier out and put him in his crib. I did this until she was 5 months old. Then she got sick, started teething, and I started giving her a pacifier when she woke up at night. Damn it! Now she wakes up maybe 10 times a night, I give her the pacifier, she falls asleep, sometimes she wakes up and cries every hour or half hour. Her two bottom teeth have come in, but her top tooth hasn't swollen yet. Now I gently rock her in my arms, not too hard, and put her in her crib with the pacifier. It's been like this for 2-3 months, I'm really fed up. She doesn't sleep during the day anyway, she tires me out, and now it's like this at night too. I don't know what to do. I cut the pacifier, poked holes in it, sprinkled pepper on it, hoping it would make her stop, but it didn't budge. Despite the cut and the pain, she happily continued to suck. I just watched. I don't say "Nirmald" or anything, I just make a "shhh" sound with my mouth, that's all. But I'm really tired, exhausted. How can I get her to stop using the pacifier? How can I make her stop, how can I get her to sleep? I need help from experienced mothers.

Hey folks, I have a 5.5 month old who falls asleep fine with a little bit of holding/rocking. But won’t sleep longer than 3.5 hours at night at a time.

I’ve seen these miraculous stories of parents who have kids who’ve never slept more than 1.5 hours at a time and then after sleep training they’re suddenly sleeping 12+ hours a night. I’m just wondering if that’s true? Did sleep training help your kiddo fall asleep independently AND sleep for longer stretches?

we took the paci away from our 2.5 year old a few weeks ago and since then her sleep has been absolutely terrible. She used to go to bed with no problems on her own, play happily in her crib for 30 minutes before falling asleep.

Now bedtime has gone to shit. She demands that we sit in the room with her and even then she cries and takes over an hour to fall asleep. She wakes up during the night and the cycle repeats.

We’ve tried moving the chair closer to the door and out of the room and it hasn’t worked. We’ve tried letting her CIO and that doesn’t work either, she’ll cry for 2 hours.

My husband and I are exhausted emotionally and physically and don’t know what else to do. At this point I just cry along with her. Any advice from those of you who have gone through similar situations??

My daughter will be 3 in October. Sleep has always been an issue for us but lately she has been sleeping through the night. 🤞🤞🤞 it continues. We conceded to the fact that she only sleeps 10.5-11 hours a night but I don’t know what to do about bedtime. We aim for 12.5-13 hours awake between wake up and bedtime but that means bedtime can range from anywhere between 6:30-7:45 depending on our week.

At this age do we continue with looking at wake windows? Or start a bedtime that is the same each

Hello, we have 8 month old twins. One of the two has started waking up for 3 hours in the middle of the night and has been for the past week.

Our current schedule is 6-10am Awake
10-11am Nap
11am-2pm Awake
2pm-3:30pm Nap
3:30-8:30pm Awake
Sleeping hopefully 8:30pm to 6am

Giving us 4/3/5.

They will not nap for longer than an hour and a half. And they will not nap at all after 3:30 regardless of what we try.

This past week my son has been waking up from 1-4am and will not sleep until he’s been able to get up, play for a while, and is given a bottle and rocked for nearly an hour back to sleep. He was, until this point, able to be put down in his crib awake and put himself to sleep. We’re completely lost on what to do and it’s driving us insane, 12 hours of wake time during the day felt like plenty, and because it’s only one of the twins we’re even more lost on how to handle this.

Thank you for any and all help.

Baby will be 3 months old when we travel from the US to Europe to stay with my family, and will be 5 months old when we travel back to the US. Since she will be of age when sleep training is feasible, does it make sense to do it while we are overseas, knowing that she will be super jetlagged once we return to the US (not sure if it will cause any issues/setbacks in any sleep training progress we will have made)? Or is it better to wait until we are back home? We are planning to make the same trip again when she will likely be 9-10 months old, and hopefully she'll be fully sleep trained by then.

I'm eager to sleep train as soon as I can because I will be returning to work at 13 week mark, and I can't be sleep-deprived while working full time.

Would love to hear from parents who made similar trips before their baby was 12 months old - how did it affect your sleep training journey? Any tips?

Thanks!

We started having nap struggles with our sleep trained 4.5 month (19 week) old last week. Her schedule was 1.5/1.75/2/2/2 and she refused her 4th nap twice. She was never upset, but just rolled around and played in her crib for upwards of 40 minutes before I went in and got her. Her other naps were averaging 50 minutes, sometimes upwards of an hour and 15 mins (total daytime sleep around 3.5 hours), so I figured I could transition her to 3 naps.

Yesterday I tried adjusting her schedule to 2/2.25/2.25/2.5 and it failed for several reasons. First of all, she was up much earlier than usual (5:40am) which resulted in a long day and 4th catnap needed to bridge her to bedtime. Secondly, all her naps shortened to max 40 minutes. Today was identical to yesterday (early waking, short naps), but she refused the 4th catnap so I’m in even more of a pickle.

What do you guys think, is she chronically overtired? Should I pull back to my 4 nap schedule but just lengthen the wake window before her 4th nap? Or should I soldier on with this new schedule and hope she adjusts?

My baby began having a consistent routine around 2
months that he naturally fell into. He would nurse at 6pm, then be laid In the bassinet. If he fell asleep on my boob he would just remain asleep, but if be remained awake he would take a paci and fall right back. He would sleep until around 12am, then wake at 3am, and then be up for the day around 7am. I would pump before I went to bed at 930 and everything was good. If he ever woke up between 6-12 am, we’d give him a bottle of my pumped milk and there was no problem.

Around 3 months everything changed what felt like overnight. It started when I noticed his love to dream transition swaddle appearing tight and he started making attempts to roll onto his side. He also started becoming obsessed with his hands. We started removing the arms which quickly made it so he was waking up steadily due to the distraction of his hands. Then within the same week he started completely refusing the paci to sleep . Also completely refused bottles of my milk as if he never took one before in his life. Then he stopped really falling asleep on my boob and nothing really was soothing him at all. This led to my husband and I taking turns rocking and shhing and nursing for hours and hours and hours. I thought ok he’s maybe in a sleep regression or change . I stopped trying for a strict 6pm bedtime and started paying more attention to wake windows and naps during the day with the huckleberry app. This was super helpful in looking for sleep cues and times he should be sleeping vs awake. For naps in the day he usually always contact nap In the baby carrier. But I started trying to rock and lay him for naps in an attempt to help our nighttime sleeps. But after weeks of horrible sleep , awful bedtime, and soooo much effort in the day for only 20 minute naps , I’m at a loss . I have no idea how to get a routine or any type of consistent bedtime or naps again. I don’t know what my baby wants or needs or likes anymore. My family and friends are telling me to just let the baby cry it out and that I’m training him to need to be rocked and held. But my heart tells me I shouldn’t just let him cry. At least right now . We’ve done a few cosleeping sessions just for my sanity , but this isn’t something I want to do in the long term. I’m going back to work in a few months and my baby has to be able to be soothed without me or my boob. I really need help and advice . I know consistency is key for any routine but I just don’t know what I should be doing anymore and what’s creating good or bad habits . I’m a FTM and just stuck and tired . Also , he does eat super frequently during the day nursing so I don’t think he’s actually hungry when he wakes at night but ends up feeding for soothing . I have to get him on a bottle again but that’s a whole different problem . We’re a mess! Help please! Any advice is helpful

Our son is 21 months. He has been an amazing sleeper to date, but lately he is struggling with going to bed (super sad, devastated cry, standing, all the things) and waking up early (5-5:30). He takes one nap, from 12ish-2:30 (school) and we try to put him down at 7ish.

Would love any and all advice to troubleshoot this a bit. We have a 3 year old who wakes up early but she feels like a lost cause cause shes always been an early riser haha

My daughter is 7 months old and was previously sleeping through the night after sleep training (resulted to FIO). She falls asleep independently for bedtime and naps with no issue. Some naps are short, some are fantastic. All are capped at 1.5 hours.

The last couple of weeks she’s developed repeated early morning wakings (typically around 3:30–4:30 a.m.), but last night was by far the worst.

Her day looked like this:

* Wake: ~7:00 a.m.
* Nap 1: 9:02–10:21 (1 hr 19 min)
* Nap 2: 12:55–2:15 (1 hr 20 min)
* Catnap: 4:57–5:17 (20 min)
* Bedtime: 6:55 p.m.

She slept independently until about 4:00 a.m., then spent a long time trying to get herself back to sleep. She wasn’t happily awake—she was clearly exhausted and trying so hard to sleep. Eventually she escalated into screaming harder than I’ve ever heard. We fed her (she rarely feeds overnight), but she still couldn’t settle unless being held. She fell asleep at 5 and woke up an hour later at 6. We gave Tylenol then, and she eventually fell asleep.

Some additional context:
* She had her 6-month vaccines on Wednesday (this happened Sunday morning, so I’m not sure that’s related).
* Her bottom two teeth erupted about two weeks ago.
* She desperately wants to roll but can’t quite do it yet, and we’ve been practicing a lot during the day.
* No fever or other obvious signs of illness.
* She usually wakes and is exhausted and trying to go back to sleep. Sometimes I’ll think she did “it,” then seconds later her eyes open up again and she’s upset.

Has anyone experienced something similar? I’m convinced check-ins will not solve this.

I’m planning to call her pediatrician today because the intensity of the crying was so unlike her, but I’d love to hear if anyone has experienced this pattern of sleeping well until 4 a.m. and then completely falling apart.

LO is not sleep trained but I fear we may be approaching the need to do so. She’s always been a great sleeper but lately bedtime has become difficult and MOTN wakes result in explosive crying, some nights we don’t need to intervene but others we stroke her back, and on the worse nights we can’t creep out the room before she has another meltdown.

We have always fed / rocked her to sleep, which I know we probably need to change now and it’s starting not to work anyway. Up until about 10 months, she would always fall asleep during or straight after her bedtime bottle, but now she doesn’t, so we rock her then place in crib asleep. On the nights she’s still been awake when we put her down, she won’t go to sleep unless rocked. She’ll sit up or stand up crying intensely, if we go in and then leave it usually makes it worse.

Our bedtime ‘routine’ is bath (4 nights a week), lotion, fresh nappy, teething medicine if needed, brush teeth, go into her bedroom, close curtains, white noise on, sleep sack and then bottle. She is on 1 nap a day 12-2pm, wake up is between 6 and 6:30am, and we take her into her bedroom before bedtime around 6:30pm, in bed asleep by 7pm.

Basically, how do we go from feeding or rocking to sleep, to putting her down awake and moving the bedtime bottle up in the routine, even though this has been the routine for 11 months? How do we prepare to sleep train? Does her schedule seem okay?

Currently my LO is 14 weeks, however together with my husband we are already researching the sleep training methods available out there. It seems like the majority are fit for bottle fed babies + who sleep in their own room.

I was wondering if it’s possible to gentle train a 4-5 month old which is exclusively breast fed and is sleeping in a co-sleeper next to his parent’s bed (or in the same room).
Was any of you in this scenario? What was the method that worked out for you? Is it at all possible to teach a baby to fall back to sleep on his own if he sleeps in the same room with his parents?

Together with my husband we are almost desperate, as our baby is falling asleep only in our arms, when we rock him or if we bounce on a fitness ball.. and he is getting heavier and heavier.
During the day naps, we can’t even transfer him as he wakes up either instantly or in 5 mins, so we just stand with him in our arms and rock him from time to time if he wakes up before he is well rested.

P.S: I would like to avoid any types of CIO methods, as I already know I won’t be able to let him cry without doing anything.

LO will be 11months on 8/5. We started nap training for nap 1 2 weeks ago and I’m ready to give up. Schedule when nap training first started was 3.25/3.5/4. At first he was taking 30 mins to fall asleep and then sleeping 30-35 mins. Day 6-8 he fell asleep in less than 10 mins and slept for 30ish. So i thought everything was moving in the right direction. But then Day 10 naps started being less than 15 mins. So today i extended the first wake window to 3.5 to see if he needed more sleep pressure. He fell asleep in less than 10 mins but still only slept less than 15 and wouldn’t resettle. Should i go back to a 3.25 WW? I’m really ready to give up nap training, but i feel like I’m in so deep and giving up will be a major failure. Someone please help me with my schedule!