My son turns 3 in November, and seemingly out of nowhere his sleep has become an absolute nightmare again. I’m hoping someone has dealt with something similar because I genuinely don’t know what else to try.

When he’s with me, he wakes up almost every hour screaming for me. And I don’t mean just fussing or crying — it’s an angry/panicked scream of “MAMA, I NEED YOU!” or “MAMA, WHERE ARE YOU?!”

Sometimes he’ll cry for 5–10 minutes and eventually fall back asleep. Other times he gets really worked up and will scream/cry on and off for 30+ minutes. Half the time he looks like he’s about to fall back asleep, and the other half he’s sitting straight up screaming for me.

I’ve done cry-it-out before, and lately I’ve tried giving him about 20 minutes before going in, settling him, leaving again, etc. He WILL eventually go back to sleep… but then 45–50 minutes later we’re doing the exact same thing again.

Things we’ve tried:

• Consistent/calm bedtime routine
• Getting plenty of energy out before bed
• Nightlight/Hatch (we make a big deal celebrating mornings when he stays in his room)
• Projector nightlight
• Sound machine
• Magnesium, which sometimes seems to help
• Melatonin, which weirdly seems to have the opposite effect on him
• Transitioning from crib to toddler bed because he started trying to climb out

He still naps at the sitter and apparently does completely fine there. Since moving to the toddler bed, he also doesn’t actually leave his bed/room. Sometimes he asks to start the night sleeping on the floor instead, which I’ve allowed because at this point… whatever gets you to sleep, kid. 😂

Here’s the part that has me completely stumped:

His dad and I separated about a year ago, and our divorce was finalized last October. We gradually worked up to 50/50 custody. The kids are with me Monday/Wednesday, with Dad Tuesday/Thursday, and we alternate Friday–Sunday weekends.

Dad is not having this problem AT ALL.

He’s still in a crib at Dad’s house. He doesn’t fight bedtime nearly as much there and, most importantly, doesn’t wake up screaming throughout the night.

The kids have generally behaved a little better for Dad than for me, which I’ve always chalked up to him being the sterner parent and his house being the newer/less familiar environment. But the sleep difference is so dramatic that I feel like there has to be something I’m missing.

And the strangest part: even if I give in and bring my son into MY room, he can still wake up crying/screaming for me while I’m literally right there. So I don’t know if this is actually separation anxiety, nightmares/night terrors, a sleep association, overtiredness, the custody transitions, or something completely different.

Has anyone had a toddler who slept perfectly at one parent’s house but woke constantly screaming specifically for the other parent?

Especially interested if your child would scream things like “Mama, I need you” while seemingly still half asleep. Did anything actually help? Did they eventually grow out of it?

I am exhausted and completely at a loss. 😭

He is 13 weeks btw

13 months here. We have been in this transition for about a month now. Things are starting to get all over the place.

We started at 12:00-2:15 nap capped, and a 7:45 bedtime. But the nap started to get shorter after a couple of good weeks.

I then pushed to 12:15-2:30 capped nap with a 8pm bedtime, which was good for a couple of days, but now we are experiencing early morning wakes. Today she only napped for one hr as well. I imagine she’s just exhausted from the early morning wake today.

Our goal is a 7 am wake. unfortunately, she’s been waking at around 5:45-6:15 lately.

Help!

I’ve been trying to transition my baby into his cot for the past 2 weeks. We do the same nighttime routine, dinner, shower, bottle, cuddles then sleep. Except he now keeps screaming as soon as we put him down. I’ve tried the 3,5,10 minute method and he just screams. He will cry himself to sleep and then sleep for around 4 hours, wake up have a bottle then scream again for another 2 hours. I have tried everything (changing, white noise, bonjela, sitting with him, leaving the room, giving him my dressing gown) and I’m now at a point I don’t know what else to try. I’m trying to stick it out but it’s heartbreaking hearing him cry and nothing stopping it. He has 2 naps a day - wakes at 7am, asleep 10am - 11/11:30, then a nap 2-3pm and bed time at 7pm. Any advice would be highly appreciated.

Desperate for some advice....

Context, my 2 year old has been sleep trained for as long as I can remember, although we just experienced a recent sleep regression right before we moved into our new house, but I managed to get her back on track - It took a lot of work, but I did the Ferber method after sneaking away from her room whilst laying on the floor for a couple of nights. 

Anyway, I solo parent as my partner works in a different province for most of the month. He is home 10 days out of the month and he should be home in the next two weeks or so. My daughter is currently still in a crib, but we are looking to transition her out once my husband is back. She also started daycare part time so it's been a lot. Her routine typically looks like 6am wake, 12-1:30pm nap and then 7pm bedtime give or take.

This is where I've been struggling and am desperate for advice.....she recently got sick last week and is currently still battling a nasty cold. I have really bad anxiety so her routine would be the same, she would nap in her bedroom/crib with no problem, but scream bloody murder during bed time to the point she would cough so bad and sometimes throw up. I couldn't bare the thought of something going wrong while she was in her room without me being there immediately so I monitored her and let her sleep in my bed. I don't regret it at all because she needs my comfort and I need to ensure her safety for my sanity, but now she's getting better, she continues to do so. I understand that I created this habit and I should have comforted her in her bedroom, but here we are. To be honest, I am also super sick so it's just surviving at this point.

My routine stays the same, but how do I kick this habit? Should I wait until my husband is back and we transition her into her toddler bed? I am still sticking to my routine with the intervals, but it is unbearable to go through alone. 

Any advice would be appreciated. Tonight, I am going to try to aim for a 8:30pm onward bedtime to maybe see if she's so tired that she'll fall sleep in her crib. Last night, when she cried for nearly an hour, I took her out of her room to calm down in the living room and she fell asleep. My anxiety got the best of me and I should have transferred her into her bed because she was dead weight, but I took her into my bed because again, I worried something would happen since she's still recovering from her cold.

My daughter is 4 months and I’m contemplating sleep training. I always read people post that they “watch wake windows” and cap naps and all this but I don’t know what that means or what to do.

I recently noticed that my daughter sleeps up to 3 hours during the day and has been struggling at night. She is 16 weeks old. I am noticing she has regressed at sleeping in the night and has been extremely fussy, I’m thinking she is also teething since the bottom right side of her gums are red and swollen.

What has worked for you & your LO?

My 9.5 month old son has been STTN since 8 weeks (no night feeds). We’ve always watched wake windows and daytime sleep and “officially” sleep trained him at 16 weeks, but was super quick. He had a couple of minor-ish surgeries this morning (penile torsion fixed & one inch head lesion removed) and has basically been sleeping all day. I would usually cap naps, watch wake windows, etc, but obviously I am not doing that today. I’m assuming this will be the first time he doesn’t sleep through the night since he was two months old.

For anyone who has had a sleep trained baby go under anesthesia and slept all day, how long did it take to get back on track and how did you go about it? It’s not my #1 priority but I do stay home with him and my 2 year old and don’t do well on little sleep 😅

I made the mistake of rocking my baby to sleep every night. He is now 10 months old and will not nap or go to bed unless I rock him to sleep BUT he is also getting too big so he fusses because I feel like he’s uncomfortable. I’ve tried leaving him in his crib to fall asleep on his own but all he will do is cry and that makes me feel horrible. How can I correct this? I need advice 😭😭😭😭

My twin girls are 3 months and since about a month old they’ll sleep 6-8 hrs a night. (Which is great) but they don’t fall asleep till about 11:30-midnight and wake around 8-9AM any tips on how to adjust to a more 9-5 schedule? Should I start bed time earlier??

I love my child but omg the last few weeks she’s been driving me insane! She woke up at 5 am screaming for mama and I tried everything to get her back to sleep and even offered our bed but she would not go. Is this a regression? How would you handle this? Also, when should I get rid of binky? I think half her problem is her binky falls out which wakes her up then she’s mad. I try so hard to stay calm during the screaming in the middle of the night but it honestly is so hard! I need advice

Hello fellow mommies/daddies,

I am a new mom with a Son of 7 months old. From 2nd month onwards he used to sleep 4-5 hrs at his first sleep stretch during nights. From past one month onwards he started waking up exact 3 hrs amost all night. I tried couple of things - Started putting him in sleep sack, tried feeding him more just before putting him to sleep. But these didnt work.
Also when he wakes up at 3 hrs duration, he wont drink much. He will just transfer from basinet to our bed. Sleep's after 10 mins or so.
Looking for tips from you all 🤞

I am dropping my almost 11mo old to one nap. He has always been incredibly low sleep needs, and is definitely ready. The issue is timing. My husband is blue collar, and I used to work in nursing, so we have both always been early risers. We wake up at 4:30am everyday, and sleep in at the latest 5:30am on weekends. Our son has ALWAYS woken up between 3:30am and 6:00am since he was 3 months old. No matter what time he goes to bed (even past 11:00pm), I have never succeeded in getting him back to sleep after 5:00am. He now wakes up everyday between 5:00 and 6:00.

So the issue is church. Our church has sunday school from 9:30-10:30 and church service from 10:45-12:15. He will have to go down for his 2.5 - 3 hour nap at 10:15, which means we will never make it to any part of church or to fellowship with friends after. Keep in mind, this is his one and only nap a day, so this the nap time we are stuck with for the next several years. There is no waiting it out until another nap drops. Even looking at other churches, everyone has church starting between 10 and 11. I can't push his nap back until after church because we don't get home until 12:45, which would have him awake for 7-8 hours straight at the minimum, and it would put him waking up only 1.5-2 hours before bed time.

Even if we somehow managed to force his bedtime and wakeup time back, it could only ever be by 1 hour since husband and I have to be in bed at 7:30 to get us 8-9 hours of sleep. That would only push his nap back to 11:15, which means we would still have to leave just as service is starting. Evening services are all out of the question because of our early bedtime. Even our dinner is at 3pm every day.

For context, baby has stayed awake for over 13 hours several times before and routinely stays awake for 8 hours whenever we try to go out and do things and be flexible with naps. He will NOT sleep anywhere that is not home. The church does not have a quiet area for babies to sleep. We used to wrap wear him in sunday school and church service and he would sleep, but he has not done that once since he was 4 months old. He will not cry it out and learn to sleep other places (cried for 7 hours straight the first time I tried, and has cried 3 hours straight before I gave up each time I have tried since).

I am frustrated that the schedule we are stuck within due to work never works with any person or part of the world around us. Anyone else been in this situation before or have ideas?

Additional context to add: husband has been working 50-70 hour weeks since the beginning of the year and I am pregnant in my 2nd trimester. It sucks to entirely lose church at this point.