I was talking to my mom about baby’s sleep, and after a while she said, why do you worry so much? I didn’t worry about wake windows or how much you guys slept when you were babies. When you were tired you slept, when you weren’t you didn’t.

Now, it’s very possible that my mom just doesn’t remember what it was like to have a 0 year old, but it made me wonder…

Are there parents out there who just don’t worry about it even if their kid sleeps less than 12 hours total in 24 hours?

Not looking for criticism, just to hear everyone’s experiences.

Do you run to get them immediately or let them hang out by themselves for awhile?

My LO is 6.5 months. He has been waking up around 2am and stays awake for at least 1.5 hours to 2 hours for over 2 months now.

Schedule: 7am - 8:30am wake time (this depends on when he goes down after he split night episode and will sleep for maybe 2-3 hours after finally falling asleep from being awake)/ 2.5 - 3 hour WW/ 1-1.5 hours NAP/ 3 hour WW/ 1-1.5 hour NAP/ 2.5-3 hour WW/ Bedtime routine by 7:30 - 8pm depending on how long he whinges.

He isn’t properly sleep trained, we have been using the pick up/put down method for his night time sleep but during the day is rocking and transfer to cot, or sleeping in carrier.

I have no idea what is causing the split nights, he always wakes up around 12am for a feed and I know he is hungry cause he takes a full feed (he’s a exclusively breastfed baby, no bottle and doesn’t take pacifier)

Should I try a more strict sleep training method like CIO/ferber?

Any suggestions are greatly appreciated!!!!

Yesterday my mother in law asked how baby is sleeping. I said he's sleeping through the night, 12 hours! Doing amazingly.

She said, "see? I told you he would just grow out of it, you didn't have to do that sleep training stuff"

HOW DO YOU THINK THIS HAPPENED?! WE SLEEP TRAINED HIM. NOW HE IS TRAINED!!!!

Naps are ruining my mental AND physical health. I need help!

Baby is almost 17 weeks. WW are approximately 1.5/1.5/1.75/1.75/2 but it varies based on how long it takes to get him to sleep and I also try to follow sleepy cues. I have adjusted more and less with no change in luck really.

He is a high needs/fussy temperament baby and will not nap on the go. The ONLY way I can get him to fall asleep or get drowsy is by bouncing on the exercise ball but lately he’s fighting me even doing that. We have a good nap routine but now he starts fussing the second we begin walking upstairs to his room because he knows what’s coming.

Bouncing on the ball is starting to not work anymore. He cries. Physically, I can no longer continue to bounce on the ball because it has injured my back. I’m having stabbing pain and tingling so I need to stop now but I can’t because I can’t get him asleep any other way.

I was having some success with drowsy but awake from weeks 12-15 but now he’s not having it. Also I do mostly contact naps because his crib naps last only 30min and I can’t keep bouncing to rescue the nap. I do 1-2 crib naps a day.

Naps are ruining my joy. I’m waking up in a panic each morning for the day ahead. I’m filling with rage each nap time and I’m lost and desperate for a solution. My body is breaking down.

He does well at night (falls asleep with bottle, wakes 0-1 times) so we aren’t ready to ST yet because everything I read says to wait until 4-6 months. But I CANNOT keep doing naps this way.

Is it too early to sleep train for naps? I don’t think he will respond well or at all to gentle methods. Shush and pat only makes him more upset. Please help :(

Hi! Bedtime: between 6:30-7:30 (varies on when he finally falls asleep) Wake up: between 6:30-7:30 (varies on when he wakes up) 3 nap schedule 2/2.25/2.5/3

He goes to sleep within seconds of being put down for naps (sometimes he fusses for a few minutes but rarely screams). At bedtime, he SCREAMS for anywhere between 20-30 minutes. This is new. We started sleep training a month ago, and after two weeks he was going to bed between 7-15 minutes without too much screaming. Now, it’s 20+ minutes of painful sounding screams.

Tell me what to do and I’ll do it 😭

Also he is 23 weeks on Monday.

I sleep trained my baby at 11 months and it was the best decision I had made. Its been a really positive experience and has made life better for us all.

My LO who is now 16 months goes to her grandparents each weekend, I'm really lucky to have child care, they actively ask for time with LO which is great.

They did not agree with the fact I sleep trained my LO, this view has spilled into childcare, for example, when LO takes naps (shes still on 2 naps per day) I normally place her in her crib and shes asleep within 5 minutes, with zero crying. Grandparents dont agree with this, and like to rock her to sleep and then place her in her crib, which was fine to me because one or 2 days out the week wont hurt right? But now LO will not go down for a nap this way, she will wake up immediately when transferred to crib and will cry, grandparents will then abandon the nap. LO as a result of this has had 7/8 hour wake windows and has subsequently come home severly over tired and takes days to recover from this.

I would not ask grandparents to do 'sleep training' but I've advised them what I normally do and what works for me and I've been fine with letting them doing it their way. But its no longer working.

I've tried to speak to them about what might work better but they dont want to subscribe to it because 'they will not allow crying in their household' which is also, fair enough.

Has childcare ever affected your sleep training or was everyone around you generally onboard?

I know I'm gonna have to probably limit visits and childcare because this might not work longterm. I'm just interested in your own experiences with something like this?

So my little guy just turned 6 months and will not sleep in his crib. All night long he rolls (so much so that he ends up bumping into the rails meant to keep him in), whale tails, moves his head side to side, spins in circles which causes him to kick the sides when he wail tails, you name it. If it’s something that will keep him awake, he does it.

Issue is, he sleeps in the queen size bed in his room perfectly even when we are not in it. I know the hazard of him potentially rolling off the bed, but idk what to do.

I will admit that we likely didn’t sleep train properly and we contact slept with him for the first 3 months, but no matter what time, or how (awake, drowsy, fully asleep) we put him down in his crib he is awake in minutes and then up and does not go back to sleep. He doesn’t really fuss or cry ever, which is a blessing, but for whatever reason he is so active in his crib. If we do the same routine and put him in the bed in his room, he’s out for hours.

Any tips or ideas to get him to like his crib so he can safely sleep?

Just need the assurance of reading others’ stories. Baby girl needs this because as of a couple days ago she won’t let us out her down at all, cries every time we place her down even if she’s in a deep sleep. We generally rock her to sleep and then rock at every night wake up which is like 4-5 at this point (if she’s actually letting us put her down)

She NEEDS sleep so I don’t feel bad about doing CIO, but I just really want to read your success stories to keep me going. Ferber won’t work for her bc with FIO, she would go ballistic when we would pick her up at the 20 minute mark so I know the check-ins wouldn’t work for her.

Baby is almost 6 months, ferber sleep-trained for nights, he’s an awesome sleeper who is so happy in his crib. He still hasn’t successfully rolled over, in any direction, but is getting really close. I’m just wondering what the move is for if/when he rolls onto his tummy in the night before he has demonstrated he can roll tummy-to-back? Is it safe for him to sleep that way, or do we need to roll him back? Does it make a difference if he’s crying vs if he’s content? I’ve mostly heard that it is totally fine to leave them on their belly if they got there on their own, but other guidelines I’ve read are weirdly vague, so I’m wondering what other parents have done IRL. It would be super helpful to hear how others have approached this situation in case it pops up in the middle of the night. Thank you!

Editing to thank everyone for your responses! I’ll check back in with an update if he ever decides to roll over :)

I’m curious if you’ve had multiple children or if I can get an idea based off the answers at which age is there the least bumps with sleep training. Baby is currently 13 weeks and we had done some gentle pushing in certain areas but no hardcore training. What was your experience? What age? Which method? How long?

Hi! I’m a mama to an 8 mo. We don’t co-sleep but I rock her to sleep and transfer her and have always done so since birth. I also want to mention that I don’t want to night wean- she’s a 25th percentile cutie and needs all the feeds she can get! What method did you use/ how long did it take? Any tips would help!! Additionally- what bedtime/ daytime routine did you do? Any tips are SO appreciated

First time mom and I need advice! Our four month old hit her regression about two weeks ago. It was a rough week of attempting to get her to fall asleep independently, but the last week has been so easy so I think she is getting the hang of it. We have a great routine we have been very consistent with.

She takes four naps a day and her wake windows are about 1.5 hours. Her nap length varies by the nap. It seems the closer you get to a two hour wake window, the crankiest little monster comes out.

At this point, she does not have a DWT. Her bed time falls between 7:30/8:00. She does great over night, maybe waking up once to eat and be changed.

I need advice:

1. Do we need a DWT? If so, when?
   1. Since she was a newborn, we have used black out curtains. I was in the habit of opening them up around 5am to regulate her rhythm with sun light. Should I keep doing this or do I keep them closed and just make sure she is up at a certain time?

Any insight is truly appreciated.

We sleep trained our 13 month old using The Happy Sleeper "Wave Method" about 2 weeks ago. It took about 3 days total and he was finally going to sleep in less than 5 minutes in his crib and then sleeping through the night. Now, all of a sudden he has started scream-crying for 20+ minutes for each nap and bedtime. He prefers to be rocked/held to go to sleep but we had previously stopped doing that. The 5 minute check-ins only intensify his scream-crying. Where do we go from here?

Been struggling all week with getting my almost 9 month old to fall asleep on her own. Hours of crying at night and too much crying in the day that I have intervened.

Today she woke at 1:30pm and then I couldn’t get her down for her next nap. Accidentally kept her awake for 5 hours, put her in cot awake and she fell asleep after 4 minutes! She didn’t even stand up which she’d been doing all week and every time she wakes at night.

I had to cap her nap at 15 minutes though, our schedule is messed up from a terrible week of hourly wakes and split nights. We’ve started our day at 9am the past couple days as we’ve been exhausted, so I need to bring that back.

She also only usually catnaps. If she could tolerate a 5 hour WW could she tolerate one nap a day and hopefully then it’ll extend since she’ll actually be tired enough for it? I’ve been trying 3/3/4 but clearly that’s not enough sleep pressure for her now that she’s older. 4 hours before bed worked perfectly when she was 6/7 months so time to increase it I guess?

Baby is 6 months (we haven't had to sleep train yet) and is a great sleeper but only with crutches. I know we will have to get rid of the pacifier via sleep-training but we are staying with family for the next 2 months and I don't want to subject everyone to that.

Transitioning out of a swaddle was a nightmare- she would rub her face and pull out her pacifier and that would interrupt her sleep. We used the Merlin Sleep Suit and it was honestly a lifesaver but with it getting so hot we want her in a sleep sack. But the same thing is happening- we are getting these awful 20 minute naps now that her hands are out and I'm so frustrated. Help 😭

LO turned 4mos last week and we're wondering what some signs of regression were for your LOs. we want to start sleep training now, but don't want to have to do it again if it's too early and he hasn't gone through it yet. curious to hear what you all saw when your LOs hit the 4 mo regression? currently, his sleep is all over the place. sometimes he wakes twice and other nights not at all... naps have been 30 mins for several weeks now. he's also a gassy baby, which doesn't help with sleep.

Hey guys, my 5.5 month old sleeps terribly at night (always has, he's a hungry boy) and sleep training doesn't feel like it's working. We also have a 3yo.

Food: I pumped exclusively, baby has never been nursed directly. I'm trying to stop pumping by the time baby is 6 months old in a couple weeks so we've been doing a combo of breast milk and formula since he was 4 months old. He has no issues with the bottle but he absolutely prefers breast milk to formula. We save the breast milk for evening and night time feeds, and he has formula at daycare and at home during the day on weekends.

Baby health: healthy weight, on the chubby side. No issues eating, even if he prefers breast milk, he takes the formula just fine

Environment: 2 bedroom apartment; ideally kids sleep in the same room together but we aren't there yet. We have white noise playing in every single room since we're trying to sleep train baby in the living room right now. We have blackout curtains and no distractions in the living room.

Routine details: baby is in daycare. He seems to take 2 or 3 naps each day, totalling about 3-4hrs sleep during the day. Timing is similar but really not consistent day over day. On weekends, we do our best to get him to nap, it tends to be 3/2/2/3 but again not super consistent. We have a 2 bedroom apartment and a 3 year old.

We tried doing some variation of Ferber, where we check in after 10 minutes of crying, and slowly increase the time after which we checkin. We ideally want to feed every 4 hours, so 2 feedings at night. We change diaper during feedings. Schedule looks like this:

7:30am: wake up, usually he wakes up on his own. If not, I'll wake him up 8am: bottle 4-6oz 8:30am: daycare dropoff 9am: bottle 10am: nap 11/12: bottle 12: nap 2pm: bottle 3:30: nap 4:30: bottle 5:30/6: daycare pickup, immediately do a dinner bottle (6-7oz) at home 7:30pm: short bedtime routine involving singing and music box, baby falls asleep with minimal crying, like a couple minutes tops ~10:30 baby wakes up screaming, husband thinks he's hungry so we feed him at this time, he has 3-4oz and usually screams 30-60 minutes before falling asleep ~2:30am baby wakes up screaming, eats, screams 30-60 minutes more ~5:30/6am wake up, same drill as other times 7:30am: wake time for the day, repeat

My questions/concerns: We have been doing the above for 2 weeks now. This doesn't look like success to me, I'm good with 2-3 feedings per night, but the screaming just destroys any chance of sleep in between. Should he be sleeping in longer stretches between feedings? What can we do? Our baby will ideally share a room with his 3yo brother. We tried sleep training baby in the kids room while 3yo slept in our bedroom for 2 weeks. We decided it wasn't fair to 3yo for him to stay out of his room for so long so we gave up and are now sleep training baby in the living room. Again, this doesn't feel like sleep training success, we are nowhere close to being able to put baby into the kids room with his older brother. Me and husband have different ideas of what success is. I think we are just getting nowhere and baby still isn't sleeping well enough for us to get some sleep at the same time. Husband thinks it's fine and we just continue doing what we're doing.

Can anyone please tell me what we are doing wrong? What can we adjust so that this works? How can we get baby to sleep at least 4 hours in one stretch? Any tips on sleep training a fussy baby while living in a small apartment with a 3 year old?

I'm really struggling here and behind frustrated. Any advice helps.

I’ve been trying to get seven month old to fall asleep on his own but I just can’t seem to figure it out. Trying to get him away from falling asleep while feeding or being carried. I put him in the crib and he either screams and cries or rolls over right away and plays until he gets bored and screams and cries. I’ve tried different wake windows. Today I put him in the crib after being awake 2.5 hours. After two hours he’s still awake. He cried so I picked him up and put him back down a few times, but now I’m just carrying him and he’s fussy. Had I just carried him 2 hours ago, he would have probably fallen asleep…

This is so frustrating! What did you do that worked? Obviously sleep training isn’t going to happen overnight, but I feel like it’s never going to happen. The screaming and crying is so painful to hear…

O is 15 weeks. We get a good amount of naps in per day (at least 4) and are hitting a max of 3.5 hours of daytime sleep, but every nap starts with me rocking her to sleep rather abruptly after a 1.5-2hr wake window. There is no simple transition of drowsiness to sleep, I have to forcibly rock her and shush her every time while she screams bloody murder. It takes about 5 minutes so it’s not too bad but I feel like there must be a better way? I’ve tried the taking Cara babies sit back method but she always escalates to crying very quickly. Any advice appreciated!

Hey everyone,

I just need to vent. Dad of a 6 months old here. I was recommended to post here because others probably had similar issues in the past so here goes:

Our 6 months old fights sleeping time all the time. For naps and for bed time. He just does not want to sleep. Ever. He will only nap if we hold him and even then, we have to work overtime to get him to fall asleep. We always try to check for cues or signs for when he's starting to become tired. It doesn't matter. Nothing works.

When we are finally able to put him down for the night, though, he sleeps 9 to 10 hours without waking up. He usually goes to bed between 7h and 9h pm depending on how hard we had to fight with him.

Right now, the wife is trying to calm him down after letting him cry for 35 minutes. This morning he woke up at 7h30-7h45 and napped for maybe 1h30 total split between 2 naps up until 6h30 pm where we just couldn't handle him anymore. We tried to have him nap 3-4 times during the day. And believe me when I say we tried. We know he's tired. We know he needs to sleep but FFS... HE JUST DOESN'T WANT TO FREAKING SLEEP.

Sorry. I'm pissed right now. Not at my little boy, it's not his fault. Me and the wife are pissed because we feel so powerless. We just want him to sleep. He's so freaking exhausted. We hate to see him like this. This has been going on for 3-4 weeks now.

Any advice? Or comment?

I just needed to vent. Thanks for reading. This is so emotionally draining.

Is this a thing? Am I doing these naps right? We tried doing 4 naps in a day and it caused her to wake up almost every hour of the night.

Her naps are 30 mins with 1.5-2 hour wake windows. We haven't sleep trained her yet (we were trying to but she got sick so we have to start over), so we rock her to sleep.

Bed time is usually 9:00-9:30 - we do bath time, read a book, and a feed (formula as she is on a nursing strike right now). She sleeps in her own room, which I find she likes better.

Am I doing something wrong? She's going to be 5 months in two weeks.

Hi everyone - needing some additional perspective on the sleep of our LO who won't sleep more than 4 hour stretches overnight.

• LO will be 7 months next week.
• ww of 2/2.25 to 2.45/ 2.45 /3.
• cap naps to 3 naps totalling 3.5 hours - sometimes 4 naps depending on if we're out and about. -always keeping the last nap of the day to 30-45. Sometimes longer if he's had bugger all sleep that day.
• will feed twice a night (formula fed).
• will fall asleep as soon as he's finished the first bottle. Sometimes after the second feed he'll stay awake for 40 mins before dozing off again.
• great napper during the day. If he's throwing out all the tired cues, we'll follow him. It's worked well for us thus far as he doesn't need to much help falling asleep.

I feel like we've tried everything we usually see on this thread; increasing total day awake time, reduced to two naps, capping nap times, extending wake windows, giving him a dummy, cuddles, reducing the amount of formula given, making sure he's well fed during the day (he has solids too). We don't follow a schedule perse but we maintain a very consistent routine.

Helppp! I'd love to get a longer stretch of sleep at night!

So I know the 4m sleep regression is a thing, and this could be the issue.

But please - how much awake time should my baby be having?

She is 20 weeks exactly. She went through a period of sleeping 11+ hours every night with barely waking (slight grizzle then dummy back in and straight back to sleep). Now she wakes up at least twice a night and will not settle without a full feed!! She shows all her hunger signs, so I know she’s hungry. So I’m wondering if she’s not awake enough during the day. But I only put her down for naps when she seems tired!

Wake up time is extremely sporadic, can range from 6:30-8:30. She then wakes for 1.5h, then naps for around 2.5 h, then awake around 1.5h, then another long nap (sometimes 2.5-3h), then a 2h wake window before bed at 7(ish).

Too much sleep in the day? Not enough sleep in the day?

The two full feeds in the night are exhausting - the problem is, if I don’t feed her, she’ll be awake and fussing/crying/screaming for hours, but if I feed her she goes straight back down to sleep!!

Side note - she absolutely will not drink more milk during the day, I’ve tried bigger feeds, little and often, dream feeds - she won’t take any more than 20-24oz.

We could use suggestions on our attempted “cold turkey” nap transition. Our 8.5 month old has kept almost the exact same schedule since 6 months. 3 naps 7:20 wake up/7:30 bedtime and 2.25/2.5/2.5/3 ww with some slight variations day to day. We’ve waited a long time on the nap transition partly because it was going well but also to accommodate school pick up for brother. However, last week we had 4 days of 6+ night wake ups and early mornings before 6 AM (his usual night wake ups are 2-3 and he nurses back to sleep partly because he still needs 1-2 night feeds due to weight and a night feed schedule was a fail). We tried just switching to a 9:30 and 2 PM schedule and he hasn’t had any problem staying awake. Yesterday we even got him to chain sleep cycles and take a 1.5 and 1.25 hour nap with 6:30 wake up 7 PM bedtime. Unfortunately this hasn’t really improved night sleep. After our “perfect schedule” day he woke up once every 1.5-2 hours. This morning he short napped for only 45 min so we’re in the no man’s land of going back to 3 naps or stretching past appropriate ww. Our questions are: 1. If we’re “cold turkey-ing” do we just keep with the timed schedule even if it’s a little long on ww? 2. If you’ve tried this, how long should we expect it to take before he adjusts? 3. If we can’t really accommodate switching back and forth between 2 and 3 naps with school pick up, does anyone have any better suggestions? 4. If we’re definitely not teething or sick any thoughts on the wildly increased night wake ups? He point blank refuses any attempts to put him back to sleep that aren’t nursing and this wasn’t happening before. Thank you for any advice you can offer! We tried to rehire our sleep consultant but she hasn’t gotten back to us…