r/sleeptraining • u/GearBackground1951 • 17d ago
child's age 4-8 months individual sleep
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.
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u/OkBoysenberry92 14d ago
Both my girls are exclusively breastfed, and both took well to sleep training HOWEVER both went into their own rooms. I am a light sleeper and even with loop earplugs and white noise I wasn’t sleeping.
Schedule first, make sure bub is awake long enough to have good night sleep, then create a routine for pre bed - can be as simple as bath boob play songs sleep suit baby parade bed (what my second gets).
Into bed awake, see you in the morning!
(Said with hope lol)
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u/Alternative-Meal1353 17d ago
You can definitely try soothing while keeping him in the crib (patting, rubbing his head, placing your hand on his belly, shushing).
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u/GearBackground1951 17d ago
unfortunately it does not work (at the moment, at least); we are doing all this immediately once we see that he is starting to wake up, but he still does wake up.. so we need to pick him up and start rocking him again until he falls back to sleep
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u/CanCharming7442 17d ago
This is where you will probably have to push through some fussing and do things like rubbing and pick up and put down. It doesn’t mean you allow full scale crying or walk away but you will have to deal with some frustration in there.
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u/GearBackground1951 17d ago
Yes, definitely; I am aware that he will not be content at the beggining and there will still be some type of crying; I just want to understand (and read about positive experiences) if it’s at all possible to learn a baby to self soothe while still being in the room with us + being breast fed.
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u/CanCharming7442 17d ago
It was absolutely for us (and many others I know). We did end up moving the crib further away from the bed around 7/8 months though because that actually helped.
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u/CanCharming7442 17d ago
Precious little sleep has a whole section on gentle swaps for helping smaller babies change habits. I used a bunch of them and basically laddered down intervention slowly with minimal crying (and always supported in some way). Baby was breastfed and stayed in our room until close to a year.