I’ve read the book about possums approach but not super across it. Please be kind- extremely sleep deprived.

Desperately seeking advice for 6month old who consistently wakes 10-15times a night and it’s no longer sustainable.
We have tried cosleeping (bed sharing) and using co sleeper cot set up and wakes happen either way. Historically not a great sleeper- needed to sleep on someone as a newborn, always woke frequently but has gotten worse since being unwell (is fine now)

At the moment napping between 2-3 hours a day but sometimes less- like 1hr. Wakes 7-7.30, nap around 9-9.30 for half an hour- 40mins, contact naps for up to 2hrs middle of the day and then we offer a short bridging nap around 4/4.30 for 20minutes depending on the day of sleep. Bedtime varies but around 7.30. Baby only gets about 9hours of sleep overnight due to all the waking. He often seems tired when we he goes to nap and to bed at night, doesn’t take too long to get to sleep- maybe 10minutes (fed of bounced) so I don’t feel like he’s having too much sleep. Overnight wakes every 30mins to 1hr. On a good night we might get 1-3 stretches of 1.5-2hrs but this doesn’t happen often. This has been going on for 2 months, before that we had 4month sleep regression with waking every hour half of the time.

Desperately trying to find a solution as this is unsustainable. TIA

Saw this in a comment on another thread and I’ll admit I was very confused.

I get that other than the 4 month regression, the regressions are not standard and not every baby will go through them. But if you define sleep regression as ‘a period of significant emotional/physical/language development where baby’s sleep becomes temporarily more disrupted’ - surely there’s not much to disagree with there?

ETA: this blog by Sarah Ockwell-Smith seems to back up the idea of common regressions https://sarahockwell-smith.com/2017/07/24/the-rollercoaster-of-real-baby-sleep/

My 8 month-old has been more difficult to settle during the night lately. He wants to constantly be latched all night, which prevents me from sleeping. He wakes about 3-4 times a night which mightn't sound terrible BUT I've come to think of them as more like 3-4 episodes of waking, and for each episode, I'll nurse him back to sleep, then he'll wake up, I don't know, 2-15 minutes later, I nurse him again, and this often happens 3+ times until finally, by some magic I do not understand, he finally sleeps for another longer stretch. Each episode of waking is probably about an hour and I get so frustrated :( .

Because I feed him multiple times per episode, I feel like I'm feeding him like 12 times overnight, which seems....bad. A couple times I've had no milk left and he's escalated to screaming, and I've grabbed a bottle of formula for him even because I just don't know how else to calm him. I'm kind of at a loss. I thought the whole 'breaking-the-nurse-to-sleep-association' thing was BS, but here I am, and I feel like I'll have to break this association :/

For context: he sleeps in a sidecar crib for the first half of the night, though it's not level with my bed so I actually get into the crib (the mattress is on the floor) to feed him, I can't just lean over into it and feed him. Then he usually ends up in my bed from say 2 am onwards.

Also, I am a solo parent, so please don't recommend getting dad to settle 🥲Sadly, I bet this would work, because I notice he falls asleep in other people's arms regularly during the day for naps and if I'm holding him....guess what, I need to feed him 🙃He does fall asleep when I'm wearing him, I'd say his naps are about 50/50 whether he's nursed to sleep or falls asleep while being worn. So I know he's capable of falling asleep without being fed!

I'm sleeping in a separate room tonight for the first time ever to see if maybe this will help, and I feel very sad about it :(

Does anyone have ...thoughts, ideas, advice on this?

I feel a bit silly asking this as a 3rd time mum, but my other 2 were so different. They always need to boob or be rocked to sleep.

Anyway I have a 3 month old and noticed she can be put down drowsy but awake for the first nap of the day pretty well. I just have to keep putting her dummy in until she passes out (5-10 minutes). It works 90% of the time. Otherwise I rock her to sleep or lie next to her.

I find as the day goes on its harder to get her to nap/she is more unsettled until the last nap of the day where I have to wear her. Which is fine, this was similar with my other kids.

Is there a way to encourage her to go down drowsy but awake for more naps? I feel almost privileged asking this, but with 2 other kids under 5 in the background it would be great to be able to do less.

Our girl just turned 2, and we have started giving possums more of a try as we have been noticing frequent night wakings. Until recently she would sleep like a rock 730-830 with no wakings and a scheduled nap around noon.

We have been wondering if her sleep needs dropped at 2, or if nightmares have been bothering her, so we have stopped enforcing her daily nap and letting her decide if she wants to go down.

Today is Canadian Thanksgiving, and it's 5pm. She just fell asleep in her grandma's arms about 10 minutes ago. She was up very early today at around 630am which has been her current wake time, and didn't want any naps, and didn't fall asleep on the 30 minute drive to Grandma's.

If the nap was earlier I'd feel okay about it, but it's awfully close to her typical bedtime. We're pretty new to full on possums. What would you guys do? Let her nap as long as she wants? Wake her? Hope she stays asleep until we get home and then put her to bed? A little lost as to what to do.

I’m reaching out to see if I can get some reassurance from other possum’s families that it does get better.

I have a very sweet 5 month old baby boy. He is the centre of our worlds.

He used to be a trooper sleeper, sleeping 7-9 hour stretches. Wild - I know. But when we hit 3 months old, after 11pm they turned into hourly wakes. We co-slept for 3 weeks, until I got sick and my husband placed him in our sidecar crib to sleep. He has since then has been starting the night in his crib and for a few weeks he was only waking up twice at night.

His wake ups are now all over the place. Sometimes it’s hourly, sometimes every 2. I sleep next to him and am able to comfort him easily. He has started rolling around so he seems more comfortable with the space in his crib.

We have been using the possums approach and it really works for our family. I am hoping someone other families might give me some reassurance this will get easier (or have any tips that fall in line with the philosophy).

I have limited family support and I’m really starting to struggle.

Hello! I have an 19 month old who is a delight, and also wakes up frequently through the night. I’ve just night weaned her, and it was pretty easy, honestly. However, she still wakes up crying several (5+) times a night and needs to be cuddled and rocked back to sleep. She has always been this way and we co sleep in the same bed as a result (for me to get as much sleep as possible). We take her outside often, as we live on the west coast in Canada, and are lucky to have a large backyard with trees and a garden. She loves it outside. Inside, we play with puzzles and other Montessori toys and games or she just finds things to entertain herself with. We also go to baby meetups a couple times a week and she’s in daycare 3x a week. Both my partner and I take turns with her.
She generally sleeps 8:30pm-6:30 am and naps 12-1/1:30 with variations of course. She wakes up during naps 1x and gets soothed back to sleep. And her wake ups at night happen after her first sleep cycle and then more and more 2am onwards.
Note: we have had her iron checked and she is fine. We do still give her iron supplements at our pediatrician’s recommendation to see if it helps with sleep (it doesn’t).
Do folks have suggestions as to how we can support her with sleep? Do people have ideas around why she might be waking up so much still at this age?

Thank you!

My baby is 6 weeks and a day old. She grunts a lot while sleeping especially the ones in the early morning after 3AM.

I put her on the crib at 9:30 PM so that she is in her deep sleep. Until then she sleeps on me for an hour or so. Then wakes for feed, burps and back to crib.

But after then2AM or 3 AM feed there is a lot of grunting which is periodically every 10 mins. Sometimes it stops and she is asleep. Sometimes it’s too loud she wakes up crying from the grunting and squirming.

Yesterday night was a bit diffeeent. She had a dissociative evening where she would fall asleep and wake in 10 mins and she used to be active then shin fall asleep. Due to the over tiredness she needed comfort at night so did contact sleeping at 12:30 AM and thought she was in deep sleep and put her in crib. But boy she was loudly grunting and squirming which woke her up. She had grunts even after I picked her up and was walking with her.

Has anyone experienced this?

I follow the Possums approach and generally follow my 4 months and 3 week olds sleep cues rather than sticking rigidly to wake windows. Her wake windows vary day to day, and we get out every day with the dog, either in the carrier or with her watching from her high-chair attachment, so I don’t think lack of sensory input is an issue.
One thing I’m considering is waking her at the same time every morning. I stopped doing this in the first few months because her bedtime was so variable that I felt I was unnecessarily losing sleep. Now bedtime is consistently around 7:30–8:30pm, and she can sometimes sleep until 9:30am, so I’m wondering whether I should start waking her around 8am.
She’s definitely a low-sleep-needs baby, and non-contact naps are very hit and miss. Sometimes she’ll sleep in the car/pram with no problem, other times she screams until she’s red-faced.
My biggest issue is bedtime. She has occasionally accepted the cot since birth and has had a few nights sleeping through in it, but most nights she ends up in our bed. I feed her to sleep in my arms and transfer her, but she often wakes immediately or within 10 minutes. Sometimes this happens even after as little as 2 hours of daytime sleep.
We have a sidecar cot, and if she wakes, she’ll resist going back to sleep even while feeding until I bring her into the bed. I’ve spent hours battling this before, sometimes until 11pm, and I’m not willing to do that anymore just to get an hour or two in the cot.
For those following Possums: what does this suggest about sleep pressure and bedtime? If she’s having so little daytime sleep, how can she still supposedly not have enough sleep pressure at bedtime? And would waking her at a consistent time in the morning help?
Any advice/experiences would be really appreciated!

Issue: increase in night wakings; she seems to be reliving big emotions from the day in her sleep; she is shouting about these occurrences and that wakes her up. When she wakes she is distressed and wants to nurse.

Current set up: locked in 7am wake, rarely naps any more; might take a few mins in the car on way home from nursery. Sleep time usually 8:45pm (that’s when she crashes rather than me trying to get her to sleep). Nursing to sleep, cosleeping and nurses for regulation during the day. Growing and developing well. Day time is active and stimulating - outdoor forest school nursery.

Caveat - she has never slept through. 1 month into new nursery setting. Currently cutting last big molars

Has anyone else had this re-living tantrums in sleep situation? Any advice on how I can help her process during waking times and any general sleep advice in keeping with possums would be appreciated.

Many thanks for reading from a very tired Mummy

My nearly 11mo still wakes hourly. We have dealt with low iron(resolved), got him assessed for breathing issues, worked with sleep consultant and reduced his daytime sleep to 1x 30 min nap at 10am and 1x 45 min nap at 3pm. Bedtime is 8:30-9 and he wakes at 7. We co-sleep and he feeds to sleep each wake.

I am truly at a loss and as I’m returning to work in a month I’m starting to really be concerned with how I’ll cope with such broken sleep.

Any ideas/advice would be extremely welcome. It’s been like this since 3 months old and I feel like I’m at breaking point.

Edit to add: my overall goal each night is he does at least 3 hours in the crib before co sleeping. That way I get a little time to watch a show with my husband or just sleep in my own space. Right now I feed him to sleep and just sit there quietly and wait for him to be limp asleep. But that doesn't seem to be working lately as more often it leads to me sitting uncomfortably in the dark for 2 hours followed by 30 minutes in the crib and then we cosleep anyways. Would love to hear anyone's suggestions

Hi everyone,

I live in BC, Canada, specifically the Lower Mainland. My son is 7.5 months now and night time sleep has been pretty up and down. I know that's pretty normal at this age and we've been able to do enough that I wouldn't say we're in a place of emergency. Biggest issue currently is before I even try a crib transfer I'm holding him 2 hours every evening minimum. So by the time we do a transfer if it works for a chunk of time great, but if not I'm so tired by then we just co-sleep. I don't have the energy to try anymore transfers. And that has been what's keeping me sane during the daytime but 2 hours every night is really draining especially for it to maaaybe work half the time? And during the day we do so much sensory enrichment and time outdoors and on the go and quiet play etc I really don't think we could do anymore to stimulate his brain. My boy is also a very busy baby and he thrives off busyness during the daytime.

So I'll ask if anyone has experienced something similar and what helped? And also if anyone has used a professional consultant, ideally in my general location. I've been wary of any consultant as I'm not interested in traditional sleep training but I was wondering if anyone on here has used a consultant that follows the possums philosophy?

Thanks so much!

Sharing my success in case someone else (like me!) is searching about how to solve this problem.

My baby hit 6/7 months and went from hating being on her tummy, to rolling, crawling, cruising and walking before she turned 9 months. She also started going through intense waves of teething (still no teeth though!)

At the same time, she was settling earlier for her sleep, dropped to two naps and just started being awake for much longer.

When she was around 8 months, her sleep started to get very interupted. She would wake every 20-30 mins and my tactic of bedsharing just wasn't working anymore. I was getting incredibly tired and worried about her. I was convinced she was in pain or too cold because she would wake up all of a sudden crying and it would be hard to settle her again.

She was sleeping 12/13 hours at night (with interruptions) and taking 2 naps of 30 mins each. On average, 14 hours a day.

The solution: keep her active and part of my evening instead of settling her for her sleep earlier. Following her cues for sleep and not putting her into bed until I go to bed. If she falls asleep before that, she can sleep in her sleep space or on me.

She's now been going down for her big sleep at 10-11pm with me and then getting up at 8am. I've noticed that she also takes longer naps during the day now too, so her morning nap is now at midday for around 30 mins and her afternoon nap is around 1.5hrs. She's now getting around 13 hours sleep on average, so an hour less. She does wake still, but it's every 2/3 hours and it's to nurse. She goes straight back to sleep after.

As much as I would love a few hours in the evening to myself, I had to accept that my baby really didn't need as much sleep as she was getting and this was resulting in a very restless night for the both of us. So now she's a part of my evening, and I just get on with what I was going to do anyway and she comes along for the ride. Lately, she's been working on her walking for a good hour or so before she starts to tell me she's tired.

I try to follow a possums approach, but i have been stuck for a week in an overtir3d cycle.

Bub is 14 weeks and fights every single nap in the day, thus creating an overtired meltdown every night. I cannot for the life of me get him to sleep in the day for more than 30 minutes, and only after hes essentially cried himself to sleep.if I contact nap i can get longer but then im still stuck inside all day. I usually feed him to sleep but this isnt possible when im in the car or have him in a carrier.

Come bedtime we are dealing with another huge meltdown, and last night I ended up just driving around to get him to sleep. The sleep pressure thing seemed to make sense to me and has given me the freedom to enjoy my days this week but with a perpetually overtired baby. Its making me want to throw the possums approach in the bin and succumb to wake windows and being stuck in a dark room trying to make him happy. I read Discontented Little Baby and felt like id been given permission to leave the house again, but the cost isnt even worth the freedom. I find myself so overloaded with info about what approach is going to be best.

I have been to a possums trained lactation consultant to make sure he is feeding and transferring milk correctly and she was happy with everything, basically just told me to continue living and give him plenty of sensory stimulation, which I am and hes overtired all the time and not sleeping long when he does.

What am I doing wrong here?

About a month into part time daycare and no luck with naps as she’s never been able to nap in a crib. Based on the possums approach she would nap if she needed it, but she seems EXHAUSTED when she gets home and usually naps at 3 and 5. We shoot for an 8:30/9 bedtime based on that last nap and her sleepy cues, but night sleep has been terrible lately with wakeups after every sleep cycle unless we’re cosleeping (which is not preferred) and a lot of comfort nursing.

Other communities recommend super early bedtimes when babies don’t nap well at daycare, but she’s never been one to go to bed early and that seems to create a lot of false starts.

We aim for a 7:30 wakeup daily.

Recent night sleep stats:
Last night: 11h40min in bed around 7 but would not sleep in crib at all.

9/21: 10h18min in bed around 8:30 with a false start and then a longer crib stretch (2.5h) before a longer cosleeping stretch

9/20: (weekend with more naps) 10h31min in bed around 8 with wakeups every 30min-1hr before cosleeping around 11:30.

9/19: (weekend with more naps) 7h39min in bed around 9:30 (had a late nap). Wakeups every hour with a 2 hour awake stretch at 10:15.

Looking for advice or experiences implementing the Possums methodology with this difficult nap situation.

ETA baby is 5.5 months old

So I've read Discontented Little Baby and for the most part found it helpful. However, sometimes I think my baba is tired, I try to help him sleep, he says "absolutely not" and according to the book I should just "get on with my day" but what does that look like? If my baby is tired(or seems so to me at least) and won't sleep then he's just in foul form and needs constant attention or he will cry and moan. Am I supposed to just let him cry? I can pop him in the carrier but if he's really fussy he just struggles against this and even if it calms him or put him to sleep I'm pretty limited in the activities I can do with him in the carrier.

This isn't a major problem for me tbh, but on occasion I'll find myself trying to comfort my crying baby thinking "get on with my day? This is my day now!"

My 4.5 month old baby used to sleep 8-9 hour stretches at night and it was bliss. But for the last month her sleep has been all over the place and she’s now waking every 2 hours after her first stretch which is usually a little longer around 4 hours. Her last stretch is usually no more than 1 hour and she’s waking happy as larry pre-6am which is not really what I’m wanting. We put her down for sleep around 7pm and she’s always tired by then to go straight to sleep. I try and take her out and about a lot during the day, at the expense of getting anything done around the house, so she should be getting a lot of stimulation and she sleeps on the go when she needs it. Sometimes awake between naps for 2 hours sometimes 4 hours. I was fine with her low sleep needs during the day when she was sleeping through the night but now her days and her nights aren’t great it’s stressing me out because I’m exhausted and feeling like I’m failing. I’m starting to wonder if I need to be doing more to get her to sleep during the day to help her sleep at night. she needs the boob to go back to sleep each time and I’m getting frustrated with it. I’ve only read the discontented baby book, should I do the full possums program, will it help with this or do I just need to work on myself to stop stressing about it and accept this is biologically normal? Thank you for reading and for any insights 🙏

Hello so my (just turned!) 6mo girl has been having some tricky times with naps over the last few weeks and I wondered if anyone could help with possums lens.

She's super distractable/sensitive and curious baby so naps on the go are often very short because she wakes with any change of scene or if she hears any new sounds etc. She will very rarely sleep when out and about which is quite challenging.

But anyway, currently she has been having a short 15/20 min nap in the morning (around 1.5/2 hrs after waking) while I walk the dog... She then will have a second very short nap later in the morning which is usually interrupted by needing to transfer into pram or car for us to go somewhere or just woken naturally wherever we are.. she then becomes very tired later in the afternoon and wants to take a long 1.5 (sometimes 2 hour!) nap in the afternoon from around 2.30-4.30. she's often so tired at this point that she will conk out and if I'm at home I'll put her down and she will just sleep until I often have to wake her... But I fear that this big chunk at the end of the day is disruptive to sleep pressure for night time. Having woken up at around 4.30 she is then very tired for bed at around 7.30/8 but she has then been having a lot of wakes very soon after going to bed. She does take a feed and go back to sleep quickly but it's exhausting for me not getting a fair stretch of sleep at that time and being woken so soon after going to sleep.

I'm just not sure how to help redistribute some of that sleep into earlier in the day whilst still maintaining a possums approach and not hemming myself in for quiet naps in the house.

Has anyone has similar issues ?

2 weeks ago we were getting at least 2-3 hour stretches but lately she’s up almost every hour. She needs the boob to go back to sleep the majority of the time. She’ll latch on for 30 seconds and then fall back asleep. (We cosleep)

I’m trying to figure out if this is just teething or something else or if I need to work on sleep pressure. She seems to be more on the low needs sleep end. We are moving between 2 and 1 naps. Here is sample schedule:

Day 1

Wake up: 7am

Nap:12-2

Sleep: 830/9pm

Day 2

Wake up: 7am

Nap: 11-1130

Nap:4-5

Bed: 9pm

Any insight? I was already struggling with the wake ups before but I could get though it. The hourly wake ups are honestly a bit much.

My 5 month old is sick for the first time (thanks daycare). Prior to this we were going through a bit of a sleep crisis with extremely excessive wakes and trouble transferring to crib. Since finding Possums, I’ve been aiming for a 7:30 wake up but now that she’s sick should I let her sleep as much as she needs? Her night sleep was terrible last night and my husband took the morning shift holding her and let her sleep until 9:30 so it seems like she really needed it.

Loved this little "invitation to reframe" series from thepossumsclinic on Instagram