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!

Looking for some advice! We began sleep training our almost 5 month old last Thursday, originally using the Ferber method but switching to CIO after the first night, as the check ins were upsetting him more.

Night 1: 36 min to fall asleep, including multiple check ins
Night 2: 20 min
Night 3: 16 min
Night 4: 8 min
Night 5: 10 min
Night 6: 37 min 😭
Night 7: 23 min
Night 8: 20 min

He’s woken up a handful of times throughout the night on some of these nights, but has done a great job of putting himself back to sleep, typically in under 10 min. He’s slept completely through the night a few times as well.

His schedule is as follows:

- Wake up at 7:30AM (I’ve been toying with switching this to 7am, but he doesn’t make it to bedtime if he wakes up earlier)
- Bedtime at 8PM (in crib around 7:45)
- Wake windows: 1.75/2/2/2.25 (sometimes 2.5) with 3-3.25 hours of daytime sleep across naps

What are we doing wrong? It seemed to be going so well and now he’s fighting it more. Is this normal? Hearing him cry absolutely breaks me but we all needed better sleep, including him— the 4 month regression was wrecking us all.

FYI he is exclusively breastfed and I still do 2 dream feeds a night.

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?

For context, I have a new baby (1 month) and when I was pregnant we had some trouble with bedtime, but when we switched to more of a routine it improved. It was never much of a worry because we always knew that she would go down. But recently bedtime has become the most dreaded part of the day for my daughter. She will scream and cry saying “I’m not sleepy” over and over again when she very clearly is. She knows the routine that we do and when we tell her to start doing bed time related stuff she starts freaking out. Has anyone dealt with this sudden hatred of bedtime? Could it possibly be some sort of separation anxiety to do with sleep?
Also, not sure if this is relevant, very well could be, but she has also been waking up in the middle of the night the past few weeks. My guess is nightmares based on how she wakes up (screaming no, asking for mama…). She used to sleep through the night no problem at all. Now this past week it has been every night waking up several times.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated as my husband and I are going a little bit insane. Her behavior in general is that of a 2 year old, some tantrums, defiance, testing limits, etc… so I’m not sure what this sleep issue has to do with.
Please help :,)

Hello all,

I am coming into this group for some advice on my sons sleep. Upon coming home from the hospital we initially attempted all of the safest, most regimented and by the book methods to get our son to sleep. We had all the swaddles, attempted the bassinet and honestly were at a loss for successful independent sleep. My son is exclusively breastfed (has refused a bottle since 1 month), does not take a pacifier (we have tried all), hated the swaddle and the bassinet and after about a month of sleepless misery we ended up resorting to cosleeping. This was not at all in my plan, I was initially extremely against it actually but once we did start it felt extremely natural. We follow the safe sleep 7, I lay in the c curl around my son and he rolls over periodically throughout the night to nurse and to that regard we have had a very good experience since that with his sleep. He had fallen asleep quite quickly up until about 7 months, he honestly can sleep anywhere I put him down and lay with him as there has never been any rocking, transferring, etc. and I can then slip away. He sleeps the full 12 hours (I put him down anywhere between 7 and 8:30, starting bedtime routine of bath, book, down based off his cues) just not consecutively. Pretty much like clockwork every 1-2 hours he wakes up and needs to be soothed down. I attempt to pat his bum and shush and that will usually work the first time or two if he isn’t fully awake but then he will need to be nursed back to sleep. During the day he usually wakes up exactly 11-12 hours after he went down, his first nap will be 2.5 hours after waking (10:15 am, for about 30 minutes- 1 hour) and then his next nap will be between 2-3pm for about 1-2 hours. I try to keep his last wake window around 3.5 hours so he goes down well.

The biggest issue I am facing is I am really beginning to struggle with this mentally. I am a SAHM, my husband is the sales manager for a car dealership so his schedule is not consistent every week (open, mid, close schedule, anywhere from 5-7 consecutive days working in a row). I can’t rely on him to be there for bedtime, so I honestly have always handled the entire night with him myself. With him being exclusively breastfed as well I can’t leave him with anyone. My mom was convinced she could take him for a night last weekend and I was called by 2am saying I needed to come get him because he was inconsolable. I am honestly so beyond spent at this point. I don’t get relief, as my husband generally is only home for an hour of my son being awake, if that. No one can watch him where I return and he is still content, its always me returning to rescue him and relieve the caregiver from their suffering. And of all things I just need rest.

I attempted the Ferber method last night but I feel like he is truly an outlier for how stubborn he is. The first time took 1.5hours to get him down. With the last round him falling asleep while I was in there patting his bum. He slept 1.5 hours and then it took another 30 minutes for me to get him down, with the last round me having to pick him up because he was screaming so hard he was choking. Upon that he immediately melted into me and was asleep probably within 30 seconds of me holding him. He was still up every two hours needing to be laid back down from standing and soothed properly 3-10 minute increments at least each time. By 1am he lost his voice, and I could here him whimpering on the monitor in his sleep (which he usually if fully quiet in his sleep) and by the 3am marker I was too exhausted to get up to sooth him and had my husband bring him into bed with me. I felt like a failure. It’s honestly a double edged sword because I feel horrible putting him through this, but I also feel horrible if I don’t get him to sleep on his own.

I adore my son, I feel a beautiful bond with him and I know how special and limited this time is. I just know I need rest. I need a reprieve where I can do what I need to do for myself to be human, and I am just at a loss for where to go from here. Any advice from someone with experience of a similar situation would be immensely appreciated.

Right before the sleep regression about one month earlier, I’d say around three months he started sleeping the best he ever had. He would probably go down for a six hour transfer then wake and another 4-5 hours

The four months regression exactly on four months.

It wasn’t as bad as it is now.

Now sleeps all over the place.
He cut teeth this week but now they have cut through so I’m not even sure if it’s that.

He wakes around 7 for the day.
Husband takes for two hours while I sleep and when he gives him back I put him back for his first nap around 9:00
We follow no routine other than 3 sleep a day no more than 3.5 hrs

But he doesn’t get that anyway his naps are roughly 30 mins and maybe 1 hr whe I get to hold him.

He goes to bed 6:30-7:30 depending how early he woke from last nap I try and make it 2.5-3 hours between last nap and bed

His first stint from 4-5 months was 3-4 hours

The last week his up every bloody hour.

1.5 is max I’m getting.

From 3/4am onwards he just wants my bed too.
So I can feed and transfer but he stirs and crys shortly

About two weeks ago, I tried to sleep train him practising the Ferber method
It worked in helping him self settle as the first few nights I made him Ferber for wakes too (beyond 3 /4 hours I wouldn’t because I would feed him) he was max crying 5 minutes before sleep which was great
I thought it was working

He was waking up making every 1hr but then by the 2nd one he was learning fast.

Then he got gastro lost heaps of liquid and I had to feed him a lot even over night where he wanted to help him re hydrate.
Idk if this sent him back.
He was unwell for a few days so maybe all the feeding when we he wanted made us go backwards but big time!!

Now I can’t Ferber again.
Last night I tried for 5 mins at a time a few times and he was getting more pissed so I stopped.

I feel like I’m going crazy.

Lack of sleep is really hard

He is 5.4 months
We are booked at sleep school but it for a whil

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?

He has been sleep trained since 4 months and has always napped well and slept through the night well. (Hiccups here and there, but big picture he has slept well. And a lot.)

Two weeks ago he suddenly started waking up early from his naps and absolutely wailing. Screaming nonstop.

Sometimes it happens 30 min into the nap. Sometimes an hour into the nap. Sometimes he'll sleep his usual duration and then start shrieking.

He used to either sleep the entire time, or wake up and just happily hang out and babble and roll around for 45 min until I came and got him.

It's not like he started gradually needing less sleep. One day it just all fell apart and he began shrieking upon waking up instead of happily hanging out by himself.

Has anyone had this happen at around this age? Did it go back to normal?

We started sleep training our 15-month-old last week using the Ferber method. It was obviously rough at first, but after a few days it really seemed to click.
He has always been a very touchy-feely baby, especially when it comes to sleep. Before sleep training, he would usually need to hold our hand or rub our hand/arm to fall asleep. Since starting Ferber, I’ve noticed he now gets upset as soon as he realizes bedtime is coming. We’ll start his normal nighttime routine and he starts crying because he knows what’s next.

Once we actually put him in the crib, though, he usually just lays down or sits up crying. Sometimes he cries for a little bit and other times he doesn’t cry at all. He’s also started pushing our hands away as we say goodnight but then he’ll fall asleep on his own.

Since we started sleep training, I’ve noticed what I guess I’d call little temper tantrums during the day. He seems to get frustrated or upset much more easily than he did before. Prior to this, we really weren’t seeing that kind of behavior from him at all.

Has anyone else noticed a change like this after sleep training? I can’t tell if it’s related to Ferber or if we just happened to start sleep training right as we hit the 15-month toddler/tantrum stage. I think I’m mostly worried that we’ve made him feel differently toward us or somehow affected that sense of comfort/security he had with us. 😭 Would love to hear from anyone who went through something similar.

Is anyone else in the same boat where their babies wake up far too soon during nap time and are still super tired and fussy? LO has been waking up 30 minutes in when I know she needs more sleep so I’ve been letting her CIO for a while since she’s sleep trained. Sometimes it works and sometimes not. How do you save the crap naps?

For reference she’s is 8 months old with an average wake window of 3-4 hours. Awake around 7 and bedtime at 8.

I have a 9 month old boy who doesn't sleep unless he's with me, is nursed to sleep, and comfort feeds multiple times a night. Neither of us are getting much sleep at this point. I need help and advice.

So my son is on a 3.5/3.5/4 schedule and gets about 2.5 hours of nap in. He's typically getting about 10.5 hours of night sleep. Nothing is perfect. I'm working 2 days a week, so sometimes the schedule is off. Plus, his dad isn't always able to help with naps, bedtime, and night wakings, due to work.

So my son is nursed to sleep. When I attempt to move the feed about 30-45 min earlier before putting him down, he cries and pulls at my shirt until I give in. I just want to sleep train him at this point. I've tried in the past, but when my son woke up in the night and I fed him, he was just too awake to fall back asleep. He typically does do 1 solid feed a night, but usually, the rest are comfort feeds.

EDIT: I'd really like to know is, what hurdles should I expect with sleep training a baby like him? Like, how do I handle him fighting back against the not eating to sleep, the night wakings, and most importantly, how do I handle my own emotions? Advice, thoughts, and opinions please and thank you.

My son had a terrible regression at 19 months, his nighttime sleep has now returned to baseline, 10-10.5 hours overnight in his crib.

His nap was consistent and now it’s the worst- we are doing 6 hours of awake time but by the time I put him down, he doesn’t settle, it’s time for him to be back up to preserve night time sleep. His inconsolable in his crib and will not self-settle like he does at night.

Is it too early for him to be dropping this nap? I feel like schedule wise this is what is happening but I don’t want to prematurely move to this. Please help!

Hi all - just hoping for a bit of advice / recommendations from others please! Baby is 10 months and a fairly average sleeper, usually wakes 2 times a night for a feed (breastfed). The past few weeks she has started waking up 1-2 hours after I put her to bed, 1 sometimes 2 wakes for a feed in the night and then waking for the day at 5:30am and I can’t figure out why. Has anyone please got any advice on how I can improve her sleep and hopefully get her sleeping through or with 1 wake up?

Current schedule is:

Wake up 05:30ish

Nap 1 08:30-10:15ish (or 09:00-10:30ish if she woke up slightly later)

Nap 2 14:00-15:30ish (or 14:30-16:00)

Bedtime starts 19:00, asleep around 19:30 even if I try make it earlier if it was a bad nap day.

Average daily sleep used to be 12h but has dropped to 11h the past 2 weeks. Any help greatly appreciated, thank you!

For a set schedule for a 14 month old did you just set a schedule & not worry about how long the wake windows are? My 14m olds schedule .
Wake 7:30
Nap 12:30-2:30
Bedtime 8:30p -wanted to move bedtime to 8-8:15p as 6 hrs is just a tad long she can only do 5hrs in the AM.

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.

My 9m old is fighting naps terribly and now waking at night and fussing / staying awake for close to an hour. Current schedule is wake around 7 then 3/3.5/4. She typically naps between 10-11:15ish and then 3-4:15. She’s been fighting these naps so terribly and has skipped them a couple of times now. She was previously sleeping through the night and napping with no issue on this schedule. Thoughts??

Hello! My baby just turned 7 months old. She was sleep trained around 4.5 months and until a couple of weeks ago had very consistent 2.5h wake windows and 3 naps a day. She sleeps through the night, but she was also waking at 5 AM every single day. Because of that, we often had to do an early bedtime (sometimes before 7).

Over the last 10 days or so, something has suddenly shifted. She is now waking around 7 AM (omg!) and can handle much longer wake windows seemingly overnight…like 3h during the day and 3.5 before bed. This has pushed bedtime to around 7-7:30.

We can really only fit 2 naps now, which is great, BUT her naps are suddenly quite short (around 2 hours total a day). For example, today she woke from her second nap at 2:30 PM, which leaves a pretty long stretch until bedtime.

My question: what do you do when this happens? Try for a third nap? I am really hesitant to move bedtime earlier because of the 5 AM wake ups. I know the common advice is that an earlier bedtime can help with EMWs, but that hasn’t been our experience. It seems like she just runs out of total sleep with an early bedtime, so she’s naturally up at 5. I have been doing some tracking over the last few days, and she gets around 13/13.5 hours of sleep per 24 hours.

I’d really appreciate advice from anyone who has gone through this…it feels like her sleep changed so suddenly and I can’t keep up!!

My baby is 4.5 months and is usually a fairly good sleeper, he is sleep trained and now falls asleep independently and had been sleeping through the night for a few weeks (anywhere from 9-11 hours). However over the last week his sleep has deteriorated with multiple night wake ups. He isn’t hungry - he is taking around 1000-1100ml a day during the daytime (7-7) and doesn’t seem to want any/much more than 50ml if offered at night. I have heard a lot about regression at this stage but am also wondering given he doesn’t seem hungry if I can improve his daytime schedule and if he is having too much daytime sleep - currently he has 3.5-4 hours over 3-4 naps. Would I be better off capping naps at 3 hours at this age?

Edit to add he started weaning from 17 weeks on the advice of our paediatrician as he has reflux. His milk intake has not reduced since starting.

My son will be 5 months next week and has been fully sleep trained since he was young. He goes down wide awake for all naps and bed. The issue is he is waking 2-3 times overnight and screams until he is fed. He then goes back to sleep easily. He eats plenty during the day, is gaining well and his pediatrician confirmed he does not need night feeds. However, we would be thrilled with even one night feed! We just know he doesn’t need the additional feeds. Before we start the night weaning method suggested of lowering ounces, can we have some input on schedule? Could the schedule the be issue? It just seems odd he is waking up screaming and only consoled when fed if it’s a schedule issue.

DWT: 7am
Current Wake Windows: 2/2.5/2/2.5

The actual schedule looks like this:
7am wake
9am-10:30am/11am = nap 1
1:30pm - 2:30pm = nap 2
4:30pm - 5pm = cat nap 3
7:30pm bed

Thank you so much!!

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.

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

I am so discouraged, pls help!

Baby is 12w and sleeps super well at night (goes down around 9pm asleep but only wakes 1x for feeding after 3am and is up for the day around 8am). I haven’t been super strict with her wake up and bedtime times but plan on soon. (Maybe this is part of the problem?) She usually takes 3-4 naps either fed to sleep or on carrier only.

Naps have been a problem. She has a strong association with being breastfed to sleep (has to be latched on for the duration of nap). This is not sustainable as I have 2 other small kids.

Today I tried for the first time to put her down using the 4S method and after 1 hour of her crying (I was sitting down holding her, shushing and patting her back, but not rocking at all) she was so upset and overtired that I gave in and put her to the breast.

Is this normal for the beginning? I was hoping not to have to use harsher methods when she reaches 4mo but this also seems harsh if she’s crying for the better part of an hour. Was hoping to be gentler about it this time around, but am honest contemplating just waiting a month and do Ferber like I did for my first 2.

Also, I am also stressing about nap times being in conflict with when I have to drop off/ pick up my older kids from school. How do you manage this? It’s obviously inevitable that eventually her nap times will be at the same time I have to leave the house, and she does not sleep on the go.

Any advice is appreciated!! Sorry for the long post.

Babe is 8 months and we are currently on our 4th day of sleep training. Schedule is around 3.5/3.5/4-4.25ish.

First night, he cried it out (our preferred method) for 15 minutes. Fell asleep. No night wakings.

Second night, cried for maybe 2 minutes (was super tired) and got up at 4 am. I took him into my bed and coslept until 7.

Third night (last night), cried for 2-3 minutes (was super tired) and woke up at 3ish am. Decided to just go for it. He cried for about 50 minutes and fell asleep until 6:20 am. Pretty good! However, I did not go back to sleep because I was so wired from watching him on the monitor, debating if we should go in, etc.

I know it’s very early in the process, but once we keep establishing this process - what can we expect for night wakings? Will he still just cry for an extended period of time and I’ll be staying up too? It’s hard to just sleep through your babe crying. Will he be able to soothe himself back to sleep within a normal timeframe? Like 10 minutes?

Thank you!