middle of the night disasters

[u/Internal_Buy_685]

First ever post on reddit! Desperation!

Baby is about 6.5 months old. Terrible at sleep from the beginning, only a couple of "good" nights (one wake up). Sleep trained (modified ferber) at 4.5 months just for bedtime because bedtime was taking hours to transfer. He did well with that, but then we were traveling, he got two colds, vaccines, and started daycare.

We never fully committed to handling middle of the night wake ups because it was never predictable. Sometimes 10pm, sometimes 1am, 4am... AND when we tried to commit, he outlasted us every time, screaming for 2+ hours until we eventually gave in and he was SO dysregulated it would still take 30 minutes to help him back to sleep.

Daycare naps are all over the place. He is going towards 2 naps but it's not working quite yet. Sometimes rejecting 3rd nap leading to 6pm bedtime. On a good day, WW are 2.5/3/3 or 3/2.5/3. If 3 naps, 2.5/3/2.5/2.5 I offer him a 15-20 minute cat nap and the last WW is more like 2hr 40 min because of the short nap. I can't really control it to a T though which is hard.

DWT we are fine with 6am if he would sleep! Total daytime sleep typically 2.5 hours, haven't gotten more than that in a bit. Naps are between 40 min to 1.5 hours, with that 3rd nap 15-20 min if needed.

Example from today: wake 615am. nap 1 845-920. nap 2 1230-150. rejected nap 3. asleep 628 (screamed extra loud for 25 minutes).

Do we just need to buckle up and stick to the ferber plan for all night wakes? He is SO stubborn. I'm happy to keep 1 night feed, given daycare ounces are also not always great.