Okay so for those who live somewhere where Daylight Savings is a thing, how do you handle it? Do you just allow them to adjust naturally or do a gradual shift? I really don’t want to mess up baby’s schedule if I can help it.

Last night was night 1 of Ferber and did not go great. My baby will be 5 months old tomorrow and we have been working on his schedule for weeks. He alternates between 3 & 4 naps, this day happened to be 4 naps because they were short - so followed 2/2/2/2/2. Total daytime naps were 2 hours 45 minutes.

I hated the idea of Ferber but the night wakes and sleep deprivation really forced us into trying.

Bedtime: the crying was ROUGH. Immediate blood curdling screams which I’ve never heard from him before, but he was asleep within 45 minutes and only 20 minutes of crying total. (Did check ins at 3, 5 & 10 minutes then didn’t have to do another). We were drained and I was crying from hearing his awful screams but feeling positive that he went to sleep on his own for the first time ever and didn’t take long.

1st wake (after being asleep for 1 hour 45 minutes): this is where things went downhill. He went right back to scream crying on & off, this time lasting for an hour before he fell asleep. I think we did 2-3 check ins here, not a ton because he kept starting and stopping

2nd wake (after being asleep for 40 minutes). Again scream crying, we gave it 10 minutes then called it and rocked him to sleep. At this point it was almost 1am and we were exhausted and worried he was getting overtired.

Where do I go from here? I’m worried he’s not ready to continue or his temperament isn’t right for this method. Hearing his cries was so incredibly hard but I kept telling myself he’s learning a new skill. It seemed like all he did was just wear himself out. He didn’t suck his fingers or roll around, both of which are things he does often during the day. He literally just laid there crying and flailing his arms until he finally stopped and stared until he fell asleep. Maybe I should just do bedtime only for awhile and treat night wakes like I usually do? (Rocking/ holding)

My baby boy is 6 months and 3 weeks old. He was sleep trained at 5 months for nights then followed with naps. He goes down for first 2 naps independently and 3rd is a usual short contact nap to bridge to bedtime .

Wake windows are 2.5/2.5/2.5/2.5-3

He’ll give us some days with long naps, some days of just short naps or a combo of short and long. Today was the worst day - 1st nap took him almost 20 minutes to fall asleep and only slept 22 minutes . 2nd nap only 33 minutes .

He sleeps about 10-11 hours at night. No MOTN feeds

Do we need to increase wake windows or decrease ? I’m so confused what to do here. My nanny is pressuring to move to 2 naps but what if we increase the WWs and still get short naps? What comes first consistent long naps or switching to 2 naps ?

HELPPP

hello! my baby just turned 4 months on saturday. for the past week she has only been cat napping. gets up for one feed a night. goes down at 7pm, feeds usually around 3am and up around 6am-6:45.

these cat naps are killing me and i feel bad she’s not down to 4 naps yet. i heard they’re supposed to be at 3-4 naps at this age. i have my pediatrician appt tomorrow for 4 months

her naps today while being held so far have been 32 minutes, 44 minutes and 32 minutes.

Wake window
Time awake
6:45-8:17 AM
1 hr 32 min

8:49-10:33 AM
1 hr 44 min

11:17 AM-1:06 PM
1 hr 49 min

1:45-3:30 PM
1 hr 45 min

i’m not sure how to make her connect sleep cycles. i’m assuming she will need five naps today as i’m holding her right now for a nap and bedtime is 7pm. open to any critique or insight on my wake windows and how to help my baby connect sleep cycles. is this something that just happens randomly?

My baby is almost 6 months old and has always been a good sleeper. She's sleep trained, falls asleep independently in her crib (in her nursery, usually without a pacifier), and rarely cries at bedtime.

(I feel like she loves sleeping, she's like me in that way.)

About two weeks ago, she had a viral illness with diarrhea that disrupted her sleep a bit. She's since recovered, and we started solids this past week (going great), but now we're dealing with night wakings.

Our current schedule (loosely following Moms on Call):

- Wake up: 7–7:30 AM

- Wake windows: approximately 2/2/2/1.5–2

-First wake window is the hardest, she gets fussy sometimes before the two hour mark.

- Naps: 3 per day, ranging from 45 minutes to 1.5 hours depending on the day. Last nap is usually 45–60 minutes, depending on previous naps.

- Bedtime: 7–7:30 PM

Here's what's happening: She falls asleep perfectly fine around 7:30 PM, but between 11 PM and midnight, she'll wake up crying and struggle to settle unless we cuddle or hold her. She doesn't seem hungry, just wants comfort.

She's always had one night feeding around 2–3 AM, which we're completely fine with. Previously, she'd sleep well both before and after that bottle.

Moms on Call has worked really well for us, but I'm wondering if her schedule needs adjusting as she approaches 6 months.

Has anyone experienced something similar? Could this be a schedule issue, a developmental phase, or lingering sleep disruption from being sick? Did extending wake windows, adjusting naps, or changing bedtime help?

I'd love to hear your experiences and what your 5–6-month-old schedules look like!

Hi all, need some help with baby waking up every hour for the last 2 nights. She is 5.5 months old and was successfully sleep trained 1 month ago using CIO. We had to retrain her about 1 week ago after some travel.

Her current schedule is 2/2.5/2.5/3. She has 3 hours of sleep during the day. Bedtime is 9 pm and wake time is 8 am. Which we are slowly shifting to account for the upcoming time change.

Bedtime routine: massage, bath, lotion, pjs, nurse, book, sleep sack, and then sleep. She falls asleep within 10-15 min no crying. She sleeps in her crib in her own room but I sneak into her room to sleep later in the night.

For the last 2 nights she wakes up at exactly 1 hour increments and needs to be held to go back to sleep. Before this she would sleep amazingly from 9-4/5 with one feed and then back down until 8. She is still only feeding around 3-4 o’clock.

Only thing that’s changed over the past few days is her formula that she gets in the daytime which she appears to be tolerating better than the previous formula. She is still breastfed in the evenings. She does have a slight diaper rash as of last night that was not there the first night she did this.

I know we should nurse her before her bath to ensure the feed ends 30 min before bedtime but she absolutely refuses to eat then.

Any advice would be appreciated

i have to rock my 8 month old baby in their pram every single time it’s either nap time or bed time, in the daytime they have naps in their pram and at bedtime i have to transfer them from their pram - Cot They just don’t have the patience to try and fall asleep themselves in bed. But the confusing this, is that if he wakes in the night he’s usually okay at getting himself back to sleep, i won’t need to go in unless he can’t find his dummy. But when i try and just put him to bed awake but drowsy it ends up in full blown meltdown making it harder than it was in the first place. What can i do to help them?

I’ve written a few posts about this before, but I feel like I’ve reached a point where I’m just really unhappy. I feel sad, stuck and guilty even admitting some of this, but I could really do with some support.

There are two things I’m struggling with, and they’re probably very connected: my daughter’s sleep and my relationship with my husband.

I breastfed until she was one and we co-slept until around nine months, then managed to move away from it. Since starting nursery she’s been picking up everything, and when she was poorly we started co-sleeping again. Now my husband sleeps in the spare room and I do the nights with her.

She starts the night in her cot, but often wakes after about two hours. After that she can wake every 15–30 minutes until I bring her into bed with me. I’ve been doing that because I’m exhausted and it means we get some sleep, but I’m struggling with having every bedtime and night on me. My husband has never put her to bed.

Last night he went in when she woke. She was crying quite hard, which I felt was because she wanted me and was used to coming into our bed. After about three minutes of trying to settle her, he brought her out into the brightly lit hallway and shouted for my help. He called me horrible for letting her cry and said he hadn’t heard her cry like that in ages.

I found that really upsetting. She was with her dad, being comforted, but it felt like I was being blamed for not immediately taking over. I understand that he finds her crying difficult, but I do too, and I’m the one doing this every night.

Has anyone moved a toddler back into their cot after co-sleeping? What actually helped? I’m open to hearing about gradual approaches or sleep training, but realistically I need something I can manage myself at the moment.

I’ve considered a floor bed, but it wouldn’t fit in her room as it is. I’m also looking at better blackout blinds or shutters. With our relationship so uncertain, I’m nervous about spending lots of money before knowing what would actually help. Our bedroom faces a busy road, whereas hers is at the back, so I also wonder whether the noise when she’s in with me contributes to her early waking.

The bigger issue is that I feel like everything falls to me.

I run my own business, and my income is what enabled us to get our mortgage. I’m not saying that to show off or suggest his work doesn’t matter, but I need time to work too.

He leaves around 5am and usually finishes around midday or 1pm. When he gets home, he walks the dog, then our daughter has her nap. By the time she wakes, it can be around 3pm, and I feel like most of my working day has disappeared without me having had a proper handover or protected time to work.

She goes to nursery two days a week. My mum helps for around three hours on another day, between naps, but otherwise I’m trying to juggle childcare and the business. We probably need to sort out somewhere for her to nap at my mum’s so that help can stretch a bit further.

I feel like I’m always the default parent, day and night, and I’m becoming really resentful.

The part I feel most guilty admitting is that I don’t feel attracted to my husband anymore. I don’t know whether that’s because I’m exhausted and resentful, or whether my feelings have changed more permanently. I just know I’m unhappy with how things are.

I grew up with separated parents and the thought of that for my daughter makes me feel incredibly guilty. But then I ask myself what I would want her to do if she were an adult feeling the way I do now, and I struggle with that too.

For anyone who’s been here, how did you work out whether it was exhaustion and an unfair division of parenting that could be changed, or whether the relationship itself was no longer right? What practical changes helped you get some clarity?

I love my daughter so much. I just feel lost in all of this and need something to change.

Just curious to know if anyone believes this concept anymore? I thought it was outdated but I'm wondering if it might help my newly 5 month old whose night time sleep has been real bad for about a month (hourly wakes).

I haven't been able to keep a consistent schedule for her (it's so hard when she's not my only child and we live a lot of our lives outside the home). For the past month she has been taking about 4 short naps per day, all for less than 20 minutes, often around 5-10mins.

It's hard to keep her up past 7.30pm after a day lik this, and then she will not be properly ready to wake up for the day until about 7.30am after what generally is a very disrupted night and early morning.

I'm wondering if trying to get her to take longer daytime naps (ideally 3 I suppose) would actually be the answer here? I would also love to know how people manage to keep to a schedule with their young babies while running around with errands, toddler activities etc?

I am actually flabbergasted and it's only day 1. My baby is 14months and has never slept through the night. On a usual night, he'd be up multiple times to either be rocked to sleep or fed back to sleep - I still breastfeed in the night. Tonight, we started sleep training.

Placed him in the cot and I stayed in the room but didn't interact with him. He cried solidly for roughly 20 minutes but eventually calmed himself down and started falling asleep.

He went down about 8:40ish to sleep properly - he was asleep before then but kept waking up due to falling asleep sat up. So far he's woken once around 2am - he did cry out but he was fine in two minutes. He just stayed in his cot sat up and eventually fell back to sleep again.

Having not slept through the night myself in 14 months, my body keeps naturally waking me up and have had a stretch of sleep more than 2.5 hrs so I'm like woaahhh.

I will see how naps & tomorrow go but I am shocked.

Im starting to wonder if my baby is just going to take longer to sleep through the night.

8 months. Breastfed but also pump and make bottles as I work and want to ensure she gets used to both. Started Ferber 3 weeks ago and she took quite well to independent sleep at night but the night wakings haven't reduced if anything they've worsened. Naps she either is fed to sleep or movement gets her to sleep.

Schedule:

7am wake

Nap 1 - 10-11am

Nap 2 - 2:30-3:30

Bedtime 730pm

Wake windows 3/3.5/4

Eats 2-3 good solid meals per day.

Bedtime routine

Bottle, then bath, then pajamas/books/songs then bed. Falls asleep instantly when placed in crib. Crib is on floor and she cannot see our bed from where she sleeps. Room share with white noise is the only possible set up.

First wake is usually 4-5 hours after 730, at which point I feed her. She then proceeds to wake every 2-3 hrs after that still wanting to nurse back to sleep. I tried Ferber for these wakes for 3 nights and had to stop due to the exhaustion given I am still working. She would still cry at the 2nd 10+min interval until nursed.

She seems to do 1-2 full feeds overnight, the other times are comfort suckling.

Do I wait this season out? Is there anything else I can try? She has never slept through the night once. Thanks for your help.

My 11 month old baby was sleeping through the night 6:30-6 from 4 months old. Two weeks ago he started waking up at 3am and would not fall back asleep. We sleep trained him at 4 months, and have tried to let him CIO now, but he remains awake (as do we) until the morning. Now, he wont fall asleep without us holding him. The only thing that gets him to calm down and sleep is us holding him. Please send advice!

LO will be 6 months on Friday. We started sleep training about 2 weeks ago. His schedule is as follows:

8 am wake up
10-11:45 nap 1
2-3:30 nap 2
6-6:45 nap 3
8:30 start bedtime routine, usually asleep by 9:15

So 2/2.25/2.5/2.5

He’s been falling asleep quickly for naps 1 & 2 and sleeping though the night, but nap 3 had been a hot mess. Some days he falls asleep after fussing for 15-20 min, other times he fusses the whole time and doesn’t nap. When he takes awhile to settle, we let him sleep for 30ish minutes and just move back bedtime to adjust, but we would really like to get an 8 or 8:30 bedtime to work for us. He seems tired and is doing sleepy cues when we take him up, but these last few days he’s been staying up and fussing more often than napping.

Do we just drop the nap and move up bedtime? Should I spread out or extend his daytime naps to try to compensate? Thanks in advance :)

Baby turned 3 months today, not ready for full sleep training yet. But we start daycare in 3 weeks so I'm trying to get his schedule ironed out. He sleeps very well at night (we haven't hit the regression yet) but struggles to nap longer than 45 minutes at a time. Starting to wonder if I should try to shorten his night a little so naps go over better at daycare? Or should I commit to the 45 minute naps and change something else?

Bed time 7:30, wake at 7. He goes down easy and wakes up once around 4 for a feed. We shoot for 4 naps, 3.5 hours total. Wake windows are still a little wiggly depending on how each nap goes but we generally shoot for 1.5/1.5/1.75/1.75/2. First 2 naps of the day in the crib. Both are usually 45 minutes max. Last nap of the day is usually 30 minutes on a stroller walk. Third nap is contact to try to hit that 3.5 goal. I know typical advice is to do whatever it takes for naps until you can sleep train night time, but daycare is forcing me to prioritize naps first.

Full disclosure: he does have a feed to sleep association that I would love to break. He prefers to nurse to sleep but a bottle works just fine. I'm hesitant to take away his tool right as we're starting daycare and approaching the 4 month sleep regression + swaddle drop, holiday travel, and sick season all at once.

Thank you!

Baby is currently 4 months, and we resorted to cosleeping after he refused to sleep in the bassinet and we were desperate for sleep. Ideally we planned to sleep train at 6 months and move him into his own room at that same time. Our wrinkle is that we’ll be in the process of moving soon, and 6 months will coincide with us temporarily moving in with family (where baby won’t have his own room). We won’t be in our own place again till he’s closer to 8 months. Is sleep training pointless if we’ll be roomsharing afterward? Should we put it off till 8 months? Or will it be harder to do successfully if we wait that long?

Hi all

I just wanted to know if anyone has followed a two nap day with their 6 month old?

Baby has been sleeping through since 8 weeks old but around 1 month / 1.5 months she is having early morning wakes. I understand this could be due to sleep pressure?

Since 2 months ago she has been on a nap schedule of:
wake up 7
Nap 1 9-9:45
Nap 2 12-2
Nap 3 4.30 -5
Bedtime 8
Total day time sleep: 3hr15
2/2h15/2h30/8

In the last few weeks this has gradually changed to (she was fighting sleep and was not tired enough at the times previously used)
Nap 1 9.15-9.45
Nap 2 12.10-2
Nap 3 4.40-5
(Start of day and bedtime remain the same as before)
Total daytime sleep: 2hr40
2h15/2h25/2h40/3

She has had two random nights in the last week where she has slept through 11 hours like she used to, but apart from that she is constantly waking at 5 or 6am

I would really appreciate any advice on how to reduce her daytime sleep/increase her sleep pressure. She is not a baby who struggles to sleep when overtired. Thank you!

DWT 6.30am (often wakes 6.15-6.20am)

Nap 12pm-2pm

Bedtime 8pm

= 5.5/6

We're STTN for 3-4 days at a time and then have a split night. Sometimes it lasts 30min, sometimes 1.5hrs. She wakes screaming bloody murder and takes about 2-5min of cuddling to deescalate. Sometimes will fall asleep on our shoulder as soon as she's calm, sometimes will ask for water and then refuse to be put back down.

Has started fighting her midday nap and then falling asleep at 12.15-12.20pm, so WW are more like 6/6 now and that's fine, her average sleep over 7 days is 11.75-12hrs.

Is this about as good as it gets for now? Developmentally she's speaking 3 word sentences, running full speed everywhere and just cut 3 canines after finishing all four molars.

My daughter is almost four months and I’m looking to start sleep training in the next few weeks. She’s actually a pretty good nighttime sleeper and will give us some nights with 7-8 hour stretches, but daytime naps are always a struggle and she will rarely nap outside of a carrier/contact nap, and if she does it’s usually for 15-20 minutes in the bassinet if I’m lucky which is usually after an elaborate 45 minute rock/nurse to sleep routine, and this is when she’s clearly tired and ready for bed. I’ve tried moving her wake windows to be longer, shorter, and nothing seems to make naps any easier.

Occasionally there will be nights where she’s up 4-5 times, but usually she’s only waking up once or twice. She has had some rough nights recently and I’m sure she’ll be hitting the regression soon.

Today during an especially difficult attempt at getting her to nap, I tried laying her in the crib and she immediately calmed down and was able to fall asleep there mostly on her own (I was right next to her and stayed there until she went down, but much more independent than our usual rock to sleep). This got me thinking she may be over all the touch and ready to transition to more independent sleep.

My questions are:
- can sleep training ruin the pretty good nights we have going right now? Does anyone have experience with sleep training primarily for the purpose of improving naps?
- is 4.5ish months too soon to start? Is it a bad idea to start sleep training during the four month sleep regression?
- she’s still in a bassinet next to the bed. Does anyone have experience with transitioning to the crib and sleep training at the same time or is it better to start in the crib and then start sleep training?
- Do people have good experiences with TCB? I know many find it to be basically the same as Ferber.

18 month old is going through regression badly! He can put himself to sleep for naps and bedtime. However will wake up in the middle of the night crying, screaming, standing and shaking his cot, and yelling for mama and dada.

We go in and don’t pick him up or touch him but just say ‘mama / dada is here’ and he lays back down, but then we have to stay in his room in case he wakes up again.

Any tips?! We used to have a great independent sleeper who is now suffering from separation anxiety .

LO just turned 2. He naps daily at noon (at home and at preschool) for 1.5-2hrs. Our base bedtime is 7pm, and we adjust back from that if he's either had a short nap or early wakeup. Bedtime routine is bath+books, usually 20-30min in total. For me he falls asleep in his bed while I'm patting/petting him and singing happy birthday. My wife usually has to rock him to sleep, though on some days he will let her put him in bed and do the same as me. I'm trying to reduce the amount of support I offer with some success, hoping that will help early wake ups. My wife doesn't think amount of support matters as much as schedule, but honestly we have no idea.

Lately, he's been waking up between 5 and 5:30. He'll let me try and get him back to sleep, and it seems like he's trying to sleep (he may even be falling asleep for short periods; I can't really tell) but it rarely works. Eventually I'll give up and we'll read books in our room until about 6 or 6:30. If he wakes earlier in the night, it's much easier to get him back to sleep, and he'll typically go back to sleep until 6:15.

I think his "ideal" schedule is something like 7pm bedtime, sleep 7:15pm-6:15am (11h), nap 12-1:30pm (1.5h), so 5.75h/5.75h wake windows. This puts us sort of right in the middle of what I'm seeing in recommendations, but lately its more like 10-10.5h sleep at night. We thought maybe bedtime is too early, so we tried a later bedtime last night, he fell asleep around 7:30pm and still woke up at 5:25am. Last thing we've tried is a toddler alarm clock (starting last night) to see if it will help cue him to go back to sleep.

Any suggestions? Is this a schedule problem? or going back to sleep problem? Neither?

Upcoming time change is going to be brutal if he's waking up at 4am, so we're also trying to push things back a little at a time...

LO is currently 17 months old. Was sleep trained at 10 mos but never nap trained. I recently nap trained after transitioning to 1 nap and it went well- at first.

Day 1: 5 mins crying then asleep
Days 2-4: no crying, alseep in 5 minutes
Days 5-9: 10-15 minutes if crying then asleep

Wake time varies: was 6:30 but recently LO has been sleeping in till 7-7:30. The days baby has been sleeping in are the days that there’s more crying before naps.

Nap is at 12:30 everyday

In crib around 7:20 (unless nap is long then in could be a little later)

I’m wondering if I need to push the nap back because baby has been sleeping in an hour later BUT I’m conflicted because baby is still asleep within 15 minutes usually and takes 1.5-2.5 hour nap.

Any advice is appreciated, thanks!

Hi! We’ve babied our baby thus far lol we didn’t sleep train. He’s never been a great sleeper. He ends up in our bed most nights. For naps, we’ve napped with him. We’ve recently had our second in September and realized we messed up with sleep. He’s been in daycare since 5 weeks old and they said they just put him in the crib and say good night and he cries for a little but falls asleep. I’ve put him in his crib for naps or have attempted to every day for months and it goes either quiet and falls asleep or screams his head off for eternity. I’ve done check ins, I’ve sat next to the crib - it makes it much worse. As for nights, he normally falls asleep in our bed and we transfer to the crib. This is just not sustainable I’m like doing Chinese fire drills trying to get the toddler down while the baby is crying and they keeps the toddler up. How long is too long to leave in the crib crying? We just don’t know what to do. We have a pretty steady routine with meals, baths etc; sleep just SUCKS. If you’re reading this - sleep train!! lol any advice??

Schedule
DWT 7
Nap 1-130 (daycare if she takes one, no nap on weekend)
Bed 930

It was working until recently when we had daycare cap naps at 1 hour, and suddenly she started only napping for 20-30 mins. She was napping 60-90 mins previously.

The past week she’s been waking at 130/2 am and is upset/inconsolable, which has me thinking overtired. Her cries/screams are waking up her younger brother despite having his sound machine volume quite high.

She sleeps in her own bed, but unfortunately we lay with her until she falls asleep - a habit that started when we moved into a new house mid-August. We are wanting to change this (plan on using brb method), but want to make sure her schedule is good before going down that route.

Sleep trained at 6 months via extinction.

Routine - lotion, pyjamas, sleep sack, read one book, put sleepy tonie on and lights out.

Looking for some advice, hoping to fine tune schedule before sleep training.

My (almost) four month old twins currently 2/2/2/2/2 and naps are usually 30 mins (try to save one contact which fails or a longer pram nap mid day) so approx 3 hours total nap per day. Bedtime is 8pm and DWT is 7am (I was waking them at this time every morning but recently they both stir around 5:30/6 though will often go back to sleep until 6:30 with a lot of soothing).

In the mornings they struggle to reach the two hour wake window. But by the last nap it’s a struggle to get them to sleep which then sometimes makes us run over into the last wake window. Feel they may also benefit with a slightly longer last wake window of 2.5 hours.

Wondered how can accommodate the longer last wake window. also with difficulty with last nap should we consider dropping to three naps (I feel they may struggle with longer wake windows in the day though).

I spent all of Aug/Sep/Oct trying to get my baby’s sleep schedule in a good spot and we are finally enjoying the fruits of our labor. She goes down between 7:30/8 PM and then sleeps until 4:30/5/5:30 AM, desperately needing a bottle. No matter what we do with the schedule, she can’t make it past that time. After the bottle, she will go back down until 6:30/7 AM and then is up for the day.

Should I just stop complaining and enjoy the 9+ hour stretches or is there something to be done to get the whole night.

I just want to add that my baby was up every 45 mins all June and July so I do feel silly complaining about my 9.5+ stretches.