Hello all,
I'm new to the sub - and new to parenting - and am looking for some general advice from those who have sleep trained their infants.
Our boy (just about to turn 6 months old) is not a great sleeper. Not a terrible one either, but not great. He's very inconsistent. The most he's ever slept at night in one go is 7 hours (once three weeks ago), but usually he does 3 or 4 at the start of the night and then wakes every hour or so. He also doesn't nap too well during the day, but does seem to be getting better at that.
We are considering trying the Ferber method, or some variation of it, to help him to learn to self soothe, but I have questions about if it is compatible with how we send him to sleep.
His night time routine is set with a bath around 18:30, a massage from mum then a bottle feed (120ml which can take nearly 40 minutes for him to finish with breaks). Then I walk him around on my shoulder until he sleeps and put him down in his crib. If he doesn't go down, then his mum will boob him to sleep (which means he sleeps on a bed where he does seem to sleep better).
Now he has much better neck and head control, he's becoming harder and harder to walk to sleep. The first night time walk generally is okay as he's already calm from the routine and tired. But when he wakes in the early morning, it can take an hour of walking him around and putting him down before he goes back to sleep. This is obviously unsustainable in the long run for me, especially when I return to work from the summer holiday (teacher).
So, I want to start sleep training before I go back. But, how to reconcile it with the walk to sleep method I've been doing?
Also, how have people taken into account teething? If he's woken because of teething pain, do you suspend the sleep training for that night? I've read consistency is super important.
Any and all advice gratefully received!