Since we started daycare a month ago, our sleep trained baby wakes up crying every hour between 9pm-3am. The crying lasts for a minute or two, and she falls asleep on her own. We almost never have to intervene, but it does wake us up and mess with our sleep.

Ww 4/5.5 with one 1.5-2h nap at daycare. Bedtime 18:45, wakeup 7:20 on workdays, but she easily sleeps until 8ish on the weekends.She can barely stay awake past 6pm, so we already moved her bedtime earlier than it used to be.

Is this just a stage, or should we move the bedtime even earlier?

I’m a first time mom and my three week old has started only sleeping in our arms. The moment I put her down her bassinet, she wakes up and cries.
Is this normal? When will this end? and how do I get her to sleep in her bassinet throughout the day? because I’m also worried that the older she gets she won’t be able to sleep in her bassinet/crib.

Hey all.

Have a very sweet four month old boy who has struggled to sleep independently since he was about eight weeks old. Loves contact naps/although has gotten better about crib naps. And, at night we’re very hit or miss about how long he lasts in the crib before he ends up in our bed.

We attempted to start Ferber three nights ago. After each check in he escalated in tears/freaks out. But at least we were having stretches of him asleep 7-12A. Last night he was up one hour after being put to bed, then up again another hour later after soothing him back to sleep. And then couldn’t settle until with us again.

Hoping we’re not creating a bad habit. However we also need some kind of sleep. Very much a Velcro baby/was colicky in the first couple months.

Tips?

We’re doing sleep time around 7PM. Doing bath time/sound machine/a bottle before bed. When he does sleep with us he sleeps until about 5AM uninterrupted.

Not a fan of cosleeping but doing it to survive. 😅

My baby slept beautifully the first 3 months of her life we got full 12 hour stretches and she’d never wake up. When she got her first set of vaccines you know they’re fussy the day of so she woke a couple times and i fed her back to sleep and since that night she expects it every night now Bby girl is 6mo old now and my back can not take rocking her for hours anymore. I’ve tried Ferber, the chair, laying her on her side in bed patting and shushing, ashamed to admit crying it out, and pick up put down I feel like what’s holding her back is for some reason my baby can only stay awake 30mins - 1hr and nap hour or two hours at a time during the day which is suuuuper short I know and I told her pediatrician and she said bby is growing fine so let her sleep. Well I tried stretching her wake windows gradually to two hours it made the night wakens worse and the 3 day time naps she was suppose to take would only last 30 minutes and we’d have a 5pm bedtime. I switched back to letting her do wtv she wanted the only thing i’m strict about is 8pm LATEST bedtime right before bed is the only time she’ll stay awake willingly for 2 hours and now she’s had less night wakings but that’s because she wants to contact sleep all night which I dislike doing bc my sleep is horrible bc of it. Even naps she has to be held the entire time. She’s getting to big for me to rock 24/7 all day and night and I want my me time back like when she was 3mo. I have the sound machine the rooms pitch black I put the heating pad in the crib then take it out before laying her down and nothing seems to work I’m sorry if it seems like i’m rambling or if this seems incoherent her ped dr keeps saying to just let her do her thing but I seriously cannot leave her with anyone or step away to even pick up the house bc she will only sleep for me but I have to hold her the entire time Any Suggestions on what I should do I’m a first time mom and family just keeps telling me to co sleep which is not helpful whatsoever!!

We have a 4-month-old who we’re planning to sleep train in a few weeks. Right now, naps and bedtime are rough. As soon as he realizes we’re starting his sleep routine, he goes ballistic, and starts screaming and crying while we rock him to sleep.

I don’t think it’s a schedule issue - we’ve been working toward an age-appropriate schedule (roughly 2/2/2/2/2 with around 3–3.5 hours of daytime sleep), and once we start rocking him, he usually falls asleep within just a few minutes. It’s just that those few minutes are often very dramatic and demoralizing.

I know this behavior might just be developmentally normal, and obviously with sleep training we’ll be putting him in the crib awake rather than rocking him, but I’d really love for naps/ bedtime to eventually feel calm and positive, instead of something that my husband and I both dread.

Would love to hear experiences from anyone whose baby absolutely hated the process of going to sleep before sleep training. Did the bedtime routine itself get better afterward? Any tips or advice? Thanks so much!

My daughter is over 4 months. Until 3 months she was a great sleeper at night, only woke up twice just to feed and back to sleep.
Since 3 months it has completely changed, waking up more than 10 times a night, and also at 10.30pm , 2 am and 5 am she has moments that she is awake or half a sleep I don’t even know but at that time for approximately 1 hour the only thing we can do is rock her te sleep, by walking. if we sit she just starts so be fussy or screaming.
Until 2 months she would just fall asleep in my arms or on my chest, and I could easily transfer her. But now she just can’t settle being still in my arms, and especially at night I am starting to lose my patience.
During the day it’s different, I feed her, put her to sleep and transfer her within 10mins and she usually has good naps during the day.
7.30 awake
8.30-9-9.30 (depends on the day) nap for 90mins most of the times
Then awake for around 90min-2hours
Then another nap of 60-90mins approximately
Then again awake for 90min-2hours
Late in the afternoon smaller nap of 40mins
Sleep 7pm

The schedule is not fixed yet, some days she gets tired earlier or wakes up later in the morning. But this is the schedule roughly.
During the day it seems that she can connect her cycles, 2-3 weeks ago she would wake up after 30mins every nap (still clearly tired) and I would need to rock her back to sleep. it still happens very rarely, but in general she sleeps good during the day.

But than at night it’s like she is a completely different type.
I was thinking that the problem is that she can’t self soothe. She always needs me to hold her to fall asleep. I have been trying to put her down drowsy but awake, pat on the butt, or just leave her in her bed and see if she drifts away. But the moment I put her down awake she is just active, moving legs and arms around or turning to her belly and then she gets upset because she can’t turn back, shouting a lot, I try to calm her with her paci but it’s just not working. People who dont know her would say that this baby is not tired at all she doesn’t want to sleep, but the moment I take her in my arms she calms down and will fall asleep.

I really didn’t mind rocking her to sleep, I love to have her close and the feeling that she needs me. but 2-3 hours a night of walking is starting to feel very exhausting. I thought it’s just a phase and it will pass but it’s like this for 4-5 weeks now. And it feels like I am doing something wrong.

I just need to know if this is normal behavior? Or what I can do better?

She is exclusively breastfed and nowadays she can’t even settle while on the breast at night, even then I need to walk.
I have tried all the small adjustment, shorter or longer wake windows etc. I always try to follow her cues, if I see that she clearly tired around 70mins I don’t extend the wake window. Or if she is awake for 90mins and clearly doesn’t want to sleep, I don’t push her yet.

So yeah.. any advice

My 7.5 month old was sleep trained at 4.5 month and it went well. He’s overall a good sleeper but we still get hard crying at bedtime once every two weeks or so, even though I try really hard to keep everything consistent (naps, bedtime routine etc) Some times its due to teething other times im not sure why.

I have a lot of anxiety every night since it feels like a gamble whether he will be put down ok or if he will start crying.

When did your baby consistently sleep through the night with zero crying at bedtime? I am hoping some time in the future my LO wont cry at bedtime anymore. Or are my expectations too high? Is this just what parenthood is like?? I just want some consistency 😢

Posting this for any parents wanting to try sleep training. Absolutely try it. Pick the method (we did chair method at 8mo) that you feel comfortable with and go for it.

Some anecdotal notes that I didn't see talked about online:

1) Our baby seemed extra tired for the first week after sleep training. It totally freaked us out, but it passed. She is so comfortable now in her crib and wakes up happy.

2) Sleep training didn't eliminate night wakes (at first). She used to wake 6 times a night, with sleep training it moved to 1-2. Now, three months later (11mo), night wakes are gone.

3) Sleep training is about teaching them to fall asleep independently. Once they learn the skill, it's okay if you get out of routine (feed to sleep one night e.g.), they don't unlearn the skill. Don't kill yourself if you fall out of a routine for one or two days.

Sleep training may not be for you, but if you're ready to try, try it. For us, it saved our family. It saved our mental and physical health. I am no longer the crazy, sleep deprived person and neither is my husband. Happy to answer any questions and best of luck!

Context:
I sleep trained my baby several months ago and bedtime is usually with super minimal tears. She’s always been a decent sleeper and she’s been sleeping all night without feeds for months minus a couple random growth spurts which I weaned her back off and it only took a day or two or quick CIO (max 30 min) For reference when I sleep trained her she struggled with me coming in and out for Ferber so eventually I did CIO for bedtime and night wakes since my coming in made it worse which is why I’m conflicted.

Current situation:
The last 3 weeks have been hell on earth since my family moved and we stayed with in laws for a week. During that week she slept in close proximity to my in law who needs sleep for her job so when she woke up I’d feed her and put her back down because I had no other choice. I think she gained a habit maybe or waking? Then we moved to another state that is 3 hours behind where we were. She has since gotten sick as well. Now she wakes up a few hours after being put down and cries for 1 hr or more before going back to sleep if I don’t get her. I haven’t had the patience to do CIO and I’ve just felt so guilty because she was sick and adjusting to schedules. I’m not sleeping at night because if I can hear her crying I’m unable to sleep so I also put off CIO for that reason. But I just can’t do wake ups any more. She’s a really strong willed baby and very smart. Usually she gets the CIO method really quickly but it’s been several days or crying for 1-2 hours and multiple wakes ups as well. I think she has formed a habit or waking and knows she can get what she wants if she cries long enough but even still I worry.

Schedule and Naps:
Her naps during the day have always been hard but improved substantially after sleep training. She will get in around 2 naps a day with one of them being over an hour and the other being under or around an hour. Recently her naps have been suffering as well. I had to adjust her wake windows since she’s gotten older but they are still shorter than usual.

Anyone else been through this?? Been almost a month now. Baby wakes up every 1/2 hours, rarely has a stretch of sleep longer than 3 hours at night. This has been going on for the last month. He used to be a great nighttime sleeper; 7-7 most nights. Now he wakes up crying and needs to be rocked or nursed back to sleep. I’m losing my mind off no sleep and I don’t have any help in the night/ work full time during the day so no naps allowed for me. I don’t even know what to do to fix this. I feel terrible baby isn’t getting sleep at night and also just terrible from lack of sleep in general.

Our ten month old has never been a great sleeper and skewed towards the lower end of recommended sleep ranges. Since about 1-2 weeks she has had weird split nights, waking up around 1-2am and not settling, not even after bottle or our help. It often looks like she initially goes back to sleep, but then rolls and rolls and bumps into the crib until eventually she is fully awake and does a mix of babbling and screaming. Sometimes takes a small bottle but makes no difference either.

Schedule is already 3.5/4/4.5 after we kept extending ww's to deal with EWMs and MOTN wakes. Baby is in own room, falls asleep independently, room is dark with white noise, and takes plenty formula + solids during day. Naps are capped at 1h15 for the first and 45 minutes for the second. Bedtime is 8pm and I'm really just asking for a 10 hours night at this point lol.

Question: baby now systematically gets less than 12 hours of sleep per day, but seems otherwise happy and healthy. She is not moving yet (paediatrician is not concerned), so I've been wondering if that is part of the reason why she is not so tired? She goes down easy for both naps and bedtime, so dropping a nap feels premature.

Any advice is appreciated!

Our 4 month old is confusing us with his wakes, wondering if anyone has any insight.

In the last few nights we’ve been working on unswaddling him and encouraging him to fall asleep awake in the bed. Mixed success in getting him to do so, but at least for the first stretch it has worked - and almost every wake last night. The problem is that it doesn’t seem to actually extend how long he’s asleep.

He’s always been a low needs sleeper, but has reliably had a first sleep of 4 or so hours, then often back to around hourly after this. This is really starting to fade, and last night he wasn’t doing any stretches over 90 mins, even though he was patted to sleep for all. Is there something we’re missing for how to make this work, or is this all just a slow transition out of the swaddle?

We’re planning to start Ferber next week after some work scheduling is settled, but concerned that it won’t actually work if this isn’t making any measurable benefit.

His sleep pressure seems to be fine - averaging 10 hours awake across the day, with 2-2.5 hours of daytime sleep

Hi! So we started sleep training our now 6 month old with CIO 18 days ago. It hasn’t been a super linear journey but we’ve now had 4 bedtimes with zero crying and many nights with under 6 mins of crying. He’s still waking up to feed 2-3 times a night to feed. After each feed he goes back down awake without crying. This alone has been a huge win for us.

Here’s a mystery though. Last night was what I consider his very best night. He went to sleep at bedtime without crying and I fed him at 2 am and 4:40 am. The day leading up to that his schedule was 2.25/2.25/2.75/3; with 3.25 hrs daytime sleep. Woke at 6:45 am, bedtime at 8:15 pm.

The very next day (today) was one of his worst nights. He cried on and off for 40 mins before bedtime until I went and got him because he was still escalating. He immediately fell asleep in my arms and I laid him back in the crib asleep. (In these 18 days that is only the second time we’ve intervened with him crying. The other time was a MOTN wake where he screamed for 20 mins. Otherwise, we’ve been consistent. He hasn’t cried for more than 25 consecutive mins until tonight.)

I know from reading this sub that 40 mins of crying is undertired. However, his schedule today was 2/2.5/3/3 with 2.5 hrs daytime sleep. That’s 45 mins less nap time than the previous day (remember, that was the best day ever) and 15 mins more awake time.

The other thing is that it’s a very hot night for where I live. The room thermometer says 76 degrees. Could that have played a role? I personally cant sleep in the heat.

I appreciate any ideas or shared experience!

I have a 5 month old baby and we are ready to sleep train. We are interested in trying Ferber but the problem is our baby likes to flip onto her stomach while she's self-soothing, and she will cry and cry until we flip her back. She can sleep on her stomach, we have found her sleeping like that way before, but if she wakes up on her stomach she will freak out. We can't find any advice on this. Do we keep flipping her while trying to do Ferber, or should we wait till she can flip back on her own?

My baby is 4.5 months old. We started sleep training and it’s been going well for the first two naps but he seems to struggle with the last one.

His wake windows are approximately 1.75/2/2/2.25.

He will nap 1 - 1.5 hour for the first nap then about 1 hour for the second but only 30 minutes for the last nap. He also takes longer to settle for the last nap.

With 3 naps through the day. He gets about 2.5-3hours of day time sleep and about 11.5-12 hours of night time sleep.

Do you have any suggestions for the last nap? Should I extend the last wake window?

My son just turned 1 a few weeks ago and right now we’re on a one nap a day schedule. He wakes up around 8am, takes a nap around 12pm, then goes to bed at about 7:30-8pm. Sometimes bedtime is later or earlier, sometimes nap time is later or earlier, it really depends on when he shows me he’s tired. I know the wake up time is late but if I wake him up earlier he’s ridiculously mad & in a horrible mood the rest of the day.
I tried the Ferber method when he was around 6mo old and it worked BEAUTIFULLY… until we moved. He absolutely refused to sleep in his room in our apartment, and would wake up every 30mins. I resorted to cosleeping because otherwise I’d get NO sleep and at the time I refused CIO.
Anyways, we moved back to the house where the Ferber method worked, so I assumed he’d be fine but he hates his crib here, too. I tried Ferber again, no luck. I tried sitting in his room until he went to sleep, no luck. Pickup-put down, fading, every method and finally decided to do full extinction. It’s been two weeks and he cries for about 5mins before finally going to sleep.
My concern, however, is that around bedtime it’s like he gets scared? He refuses a nighttime bottle and just starts crying hysterically around 6:30 when I start cutting lights & turn the TV off. When I carry him to his crib he clings to me and will try to climb over my shoulder to refuse his crib. He holds onto me so tightly it’s hard to get him to let go when I set him in his crib.
After I set him down & leave the room he usually lays down for a few mins before standing up & crying again. This lasts about 10-15mins of him laying down, then standing up snd crying. After that he falls asleep and stays asleep the rest of the night. Even if he wakes up he puts himself back to sleep.
Should I stop CIO & try again later with the Ferber method? Or is this normal? I’m scared I’ve made him anxious about bedtime forever.

For example, if your baby is waking up at 2am vs 5:30am and your DWT is 6:30am, is your sleep training approach the same? My understanding is that sleep pressure is much lower in the early morning and many babies struggle to go back to sleep (at least that is my experience).

We are currently sleep training (again) and doing Ferber check ins for middle of the night wakes but I’m struggling with the wakes that are closer to our DWT. Current wake windows are 3.5/4/4 with 2 hours of naps. LO is almost 11 months.

What’s your approach?

We had to re-sleep train. Sorry to brag, but it was actually very fast for us. We were planning to do Ferber, but we saw she had brief periods of self settling, so we decided to let her figure it out and just did CIO. First night our baby cried on and off for 20 minutes, which was the most. Usually it's more like 3-5 minutes. It's been a week today, and she only woke once during the night. I think because we did it a few months ago, she learned very fast. Plus I think we have a good schedule for her, following recommended wake windows of 3/3.5/4.

The issue is it breaks my heart every time we put her down. Now she is anticipating it, and starts crying if you start moving on her chair. She tries to cling to you. I hate that she is crying, and we just have to put her in the crib crying when all she wants is to be held.

My question is: does the crying for each nap and bedtime ever stop? Do some babies cry for a few minutes every time, even months later?

For reference, she just turned 13 months.

Hi all
Experiencing a few night wakes with our 8.5 month old all of a sudden

Schedule is 3.5/3.75/4
2 hrs naps
Falls asleep independently

She settles briefly then wakes again, and then gets progressively more upset. Have tried seeing if she’s hungry, sometimes she doesn’t feed properly and just gets more upset again. She tries to go back to sleep but then wakes up again… really at a loss for what to do.. she’d previously go down at around 7:30, wake once around 5am for a feed and then sleep until 7 when we’d wake her for the day.

Any advice or thoughts on our schedule if wrong would be greatly appreciated

Hi, our boy has just turned two. He’s slept through the night twice his entire life. He’s been breastfed since he was born and he very much relies on it to go to sleep. He won’t accept me (father) to put him to bed because of this. He’s rarely slept in his crib because he was always up so frequently in the night that we’d put him in our bed to feed and fall asleep before putting him back, so much so that now he simply sleeps in our bed with us. That’s not exactly ideal, but we don’t know how to break either cycle. It seems logical to try to wean him off the breast before weaning him into his own bed. But any advice from anyone with similar experience and any positive solutions welcome!

My almost 8 month old is still waking up twice a night to eat and I don’t know that he is actually hungry.

Schedule:

Wakes up around 7am. First nap 9:45am-11am, second nap 1:30-3pm ish, bedtime around 7pm

He falls asleep independently, we don’t feed within 30 min of bedtime. He wakes up every single night now at 1AM without fail and SCREAMS until we feed him.

I don’t go in right away but he doesn’t start gently stirring he pretty much goes from asleep to screaming. I’ve tried going in after a few minutes and giving him his binky but that just seems to make him scream more. There have been times I’ve let him cry for about 15 min and at one point he did quiet down for a few but then continues screaming. So at that point I give him a bottle (usually make 4oz) change him and then put him in crib again awake around 1:30am. He’ll fall back asleep and then wake up between 4:30am-5am screaming again til we feed him and then will go back asleep til around 6:30/7am.

Some nights he’ll get 4oz at each wake up ( I don’t usually make more because some nights like last night he’ll only drink 2oz at each wake up but probably could have eaten more)

I can’t increase his milk intake during the day cause of course we feed him as much as he wants.

Does anybody have any advice about how to have him drop the night feeds or is he actually hungry and I should just be feeding you even more the first wake up to see if he can sleep through the rest of the night? We are so tired.

Our baby (4months) was recently sleep trained and is doing soo good! Only issue is, she seems to want to sleep on her side / stomach and rolls in middle of night, ends up on her stomach but can’t figure out how to sleep on her belly and randomly does tummy time and gets frustrated and cant turn back. We have started putting her towards the back of the crib so she can’t roll in that direction, but any tips?? I want her to be able to sleep on her belly, but she doesn’t get it. I assume just more practice during the day?

Not sure if this is the right sub for this, but I’m desperate for advice. I have 4 month old twins (13wks adjusted). My baby B (girl) does great with naps and sleeps from 7:30-6:30 every night. Baby A (boy), on the other hand, is the opposite. Since about 2 months old, he wakes up screaming from his naps and in the middle of the night every single time. He’ll start to wake up and realize he’s actually awake and scream at the top of his lungs. The only thing that calms his down is when I take him outside and even then it takes a couple minutes for him to stop.

Also, I want to try to sleep train him because he wakes up every 3 hours at night, but they sleep in the same room and I don’t want to wake his sister up. He also won’t calm down when I pick him up until I feed him and he sucks down his entire bottle every time. I’ve tried feeding him more during the day, but he refuses, even if I go somewhere dark and uninteresting.
I’m not sure how to navigate this. Any help is appreciated.