Link to yesterdays post: https://www.reddit.com/r/sleeptrain/s/ynYObLJpXR

Night 4 and after 20 minutes of screaming I just can’t do it anymore. I’m giving up for now and will try again in a few weeks.

Today’s WWs were: 3/4.5*/4.5
Nap 1: I logged as 1.5 hour but I think she woke up at some point and put herself back to sleep based on her positioning when I checked on her at an hour. I don’t have a camera and I never heard her cry or babble so not sure how long she was potentially awake.
Nap 2: 25 mins

I asterisked the second WW because I think she fell asleep in the car for like 10-15 mins between that during school pick up. I don’t have a mirror or camera in the car to know for sure but I think she dozed off because it was very quiet. So it’s possible there was a short nap between there.

Last night I gave up at the 90 mins mark and when I went in she was sitting up in the crib just level 10 crying. I picked her up and she fell asleep in my arms in less than a minute and slept until 6:30, ate and dozed off another like 45 mins.

Tonight I put her down after routine and she immediately went to level 10 screaming and crying. I told myself I’m giving it 20 mins to see if she calms down at all or I’m throwing in the towel. I took a long shower and when I came out she was still screaming. Showing zero signs of calming or soothing. I went in and she was again just sitting up in the crib. I picked her up and held her and she was out in less than 5 minutes.

She already sleeps through the night before ST. I just really wanted her to fall asleep independently but I’m going to call it quits for now, take the fact that she STTN for now even if I have to assist her to sleep for a little longer. I’m going to try and cement a better schedule and be more consistent with it before trying again.

So LO just turned 12 months and we got as far as I think we could on a 2 nap schedule. We were doing 3.5/3.5/4 with first nap 1.5 hours and second 30 mins. We were doing this for a while but for close to 4 weeks now he was taking around 10- 20 mins to fall asleep at nap time and always 20ish mins at bedtime. He has also been having false starts about 30-60 mins after bedtime but no early wakes.

We have had 4-5 1 nap days and half the days he took a 1h 15-1h 30m nap and then id rescue until he hit the 2 hour mark. The other days it was the same 30 min mark. During the day he was happy, didn’t seem overtired at all and nights were good maybe had one wake at 5am.

Now I really do think he is ready for one nap or at least in that awkward stage of somedays needing 2. The issue is that I think his need for rocking/co sleeping is not helping at all. He used to be pat to sleep and would sleep through for all naps and overnight. This stopped around 7 months old when we took an overseas trip for a month. Since then I have to rescue naps around the 30-50min mark by contact napping most naps. He is also rocked to sleep for all naps and bedtime and has a dummy. Nights are sometimes okay and he will sleep through, otherwise if he wakes its usually after 4am and we have been bringing him to our bed, I know we’ve basically enforced this habit.

My question is though is if its an appropriate time to start sleep training, or should I continue to offer contact naps during the day in order to get him through to a comfortable one nap schedule and then sleep train?

My 18 mo was sleep trained at 9 months by cio after failure with any gentler methods. Has been a consistently good sleeper since with short day naps but long nights.

From 17 mo, went on holiday and everything has gone downhill.

Before these troubles routine was
Wake up 6.15am to 6.30am
Nap 12 to 12.40 or 1pm
Bedtime 6.30 - asleep by 6.40pm

From 17 mo started waking at 5am to 5.30am. The daylight savings saved us. So bedtime moved to 7.30pm with 6.15am wake up.

After a month of early wakes. Last week she was back to independent sleep with 11.45 hour nights but short day nap again.

Last 3 days/nights - various bedtime attitude,sometimes ok other times needing to have a hand on her. Last 3 nights been going to sleep around 7.30 to 8pm and waking at 1am screaming. Awake for 2+ hours. Refuse to lay down, absolutely distraught unless in mums arms. Have been responding given the level of crying and not laying down.

Now refusing to nap unless being held.

Do we need to re sleep train or keep responding given its highly likely caused by separation anxiety.

If we sleep train, is cio ok at this age or should we attempt check ins or chair method?

Fingers crossed someone has some ideas. I’m 4 months pregnant and the night wakes are triggering me being sick. Very exhausted!

My daughter is newly 11 months. I'm very open to sleep training but haven't used it because we never needed to. She was a textbook good sleeper from the day she was born, and she dropped night feeds on her own until she was down to one. Then we just stalled there. She'll wake up, chug a bottle, and be back to sleep in 15 minutes. So it was just easier to keep doing.

Now I'm introducing milk to her, and in a month hopefully she'll be fully off formula. I don't want to give her milk overnight for many reasons (her dental health, inconvenience for me). But I'm at a loss for night weaning because we haven't used sleep training before.

At bedtime she goes to bed so easily on her own. Bottle is 30 minutes before bedtime. The routine takes 5 minutes and it's book, lullaby, into crib, sound machine on, lights off, back pat. BUT occasionally she's hungry at bedtime (growth spurt or distracted during her bottle) and she will show that by crying. If she cries at bedtime I will give her another bottle, which she drinks. This happens maybe once or twice a month.

So when she cries at night from true hunger, I don't know where to start. What's a good method to start with when it's actual hunger and not just that she needs soothing? Should I just pick a weekend and stop night feeding altogether, and just CIO until she goes to sleep? That seems like the quickest way but I'm worried she'll cry for hours.

Has anyone else had this situation, and what worked for you?

I feel like I've always been 10 steps behind the nap game and so far behind on any sleep schedules etc.

I'm purely just curious lol

Okay so my baby is 9.5 months and is currently on 2 naps and goes to bed at 7pm.

When do most babies go to 1 nap? How do you know? How do you transition? How long does the transition normally take? When they are on one nap how long does that last for like how many hours? What time of day usually? How long do most kids need between nap 1 and bedtime? How long does the one nap stick around?

How does bedtime change over time? Changes to routines? Timing? Etc. what are typical bedtimes at different ages?

When do we need less strict white noise and blackout curtains?

I feel like when I was a kid I was always up to see fireworks and sunsets and stuff. Right now my baby is asleep in bed before anything like that lol

What do you do when you sleep train and after 1hour and 45 min of crying baby eventually gets tired and is falling asleep standing and then sitting. But not really fully asleep. They are bobbing around sitting up. At what point do you lay them down? It’s sad to watch and I’m concerned it’s going to back fire when the next day they are completely sleep deprived.

What to do??

13 months this week
3.5/3.5/4
Generally Up at 7am and down at 8pm

Is this the 4 month sleep regression…. 15 week old woke up multiple times last night. He was hysterically screaming even when we picked him up everytime. He would take a while to calm down and go back to sleep. Sometimes I nursed him if it was time for him to eat and he went back to sleep relatively easily after that. Tonight we put him in bed at 7:30 and at 8 he was screaming. My husband picked him up and he still screamed for a few min while being held. Not sure what the issue is.

Baby is 9 months old and wake windows are 3/3/4 (well, that’s the goal)

She was having great two hour naps in the morning but still waking twice a night to nurse.

We hired a sleep consultant to help drop the night feeds and help make bedtimes a bit smoother and things went disastrously.

First night we did the check in method and she cried so hard she vomited. After 90 minutes I gave up and held her and transferred her to her crib. Second night the coach had us try the chair method to avoid the hyperventilation and vomiting.. this worked for bedtime after about an hour but then at midnight she was awake and I returned to sitting by her crib and 2 hours later she was still not asleep. I caved and brought her into bed with me.

The next morning I quit the sleep training program. She had cried so hard she had lost her voice and I had completely lost my nerve..

Since then things have fallen apart. Now she won’t link ANY sleep cycles. All naps are 30-40 mins and sleeping in her crib is a source of mega anxiety for her. She has ended up in our bed every night since the attempt because we are all so sad and sleep deprived. I can’t follow proper wake windows because her naps are now only 30 minutes long! The whole thing is spiraling out of hand.

Things are so much worse after attempting sleep training. I know I didn’t stick with it long enough but her poor squeaky voice broke me. I was also a nervous wreck after the whole ordeal too.

Now that she is not napping well she is overtired and that’s making it harder to fix anything. And now that she is in bed with me she is nursing 3-4 times a night rather than 2. Basically everything has gotten worse in every way possible.

Where do I go from here? My instinct is that the chair method might work better for her than the check in method but she is waking every 30 mins all night long if she is in her crib.. how the hell do I keep going back to that chair every 30 mins and then stay there for up to 2 hours?!

Do I just give up and wait out whatever developmental regression this is? Is this just my life now? I think I broke my baby.

When would bedtime be ? Or would you keep bedtime the same ?
15m old due to visiting family naps are off & slept for 35mins 11:50-12:25 & then took a short nap in the car for 30mins maybe less 4:30 ish she’s on a 5/6
Normal schedule is 7:30a , nap 12:30-2:30 bed 8:30. But with 2 short naps wasn’t sure if I should keep bedtime the same or move it to 9pm as she had a late short 2nd cat nap.

I've been doing my own approach to sleep training with my almost 5 month old

I started to leave him.in his crib at nap time instead of fight him for God knows how long by bouncing and shhing until he gave in. He's been falling asleep between 10-15 min after being in his crib. However at night time when I try this approach he will not give in. Any tips or advice?

My LO turns 5mo next week. I know her recommended wake windows are 2/2.5/2.5/3 with 10 hours awake, 3 hours of naps, and 11 hours at night.

We were doing 1.75/2/2/2.25 when I last posted and was told we needed more awake time during the day. So I jumped to the 2/2.5/2.5/3 and she lost it half way through her last wake window. She did her normal routine of scream crying before bed, but it started in the bath after only 1.5 hours into her wake window, resting in the same scream crying for an hour before bed with or without sleep training as well as frequent wake ups overnight. Was it wrong to jump to the longer wake windows so abruptly and that’s why they didn’t work?

I went back today to reading her cues which meant shorter wake windows, and were still back to scream crying for hours before bed and frequent wake ups overnight.

Should I more slowly adjust to longer wake windows over a few days? Should I just force the longer 2/2.5/2.5/3 until she can do the 3 at the end of the day? Is the scream crying before bed just a phase that I need to power through?

I have a 6 month old who I can’t seem to sleep train. He has slept through the night since 3 months old. No need to wean night feeds. From 3 mo to 5mo he would fall asleep unassisted after I read him a story and stay asleep until roughly 6-7am. I should mention I cosleep and would put him down in our bed where he slept wonderfully, until recently. Once he started rolling I knew I needed to do something else. I also stopped breast feeding at 6 months. He started to wake slightly through the night and fuss or kick his legs up and slam them down on the bed. Maybe we hit the 4 month sleep regression late? Now it’s his arms and the only thing that helps is putting the paci back in. I have tried the Ferber method with no success. If I leave too many times he cries harder until he’s hyperventilating. I’ve tried the chair method. Seems calmer but he never falls back asleep. I’m talking he shuts his eyes for a minute and is back up. This has gone on for 1.45 hrs until I finally give up. I’ve tried rocking to sleep and transferring to crib with no success. Best stretch I had there was early on and he was asleep for 45 mins then awake with no success going back to sleep. I feel like it is only getting worse the more I try and he has associated the crib negatively. I can no longer put him down awake or asleep. He is up and screaming immediately. WW’s are 2.5/2.5/3 roughly. Bedtime routine is Jammie’s, lotion or bath starting at 7pm. Bottle and hopefully asleep by 7:30 or 8. Naps during the day are getting harder to obtain. 20 mins at worst and 1 hr at best. Contact naps only. I can’t get him to sleep in the crib during the day either. I have tried play time in the crib during the day to get him familiar with the space. I feel like I have royally messed this up. I have some very serious things going on in my life right now, on top of grieving a loss. I need this to work so bad I cannot express it. I am at the point where I just need to stop trying because I causing myself emotional stress. Is he just not ready? Am I asking too much of him? Am I causing this to be worse with my emotional load right now? I see others say the initial battle to get to sleep is long and hard but then baby sleeps till 3 am and the next day is slightly better. I can’t even get past the first asleep/wake up. He never returns to sleep. When I finally give in and hold him he’s asleep in less than a minute. Please help.

Hello,

I've been hoping between 3 and 4 naps for about five days but extended her wake windows slightly and committed to a 3 nap schedule today. She typically naps 30 to 45 minutes but the last two days only one of her naps each day has lasted longer than 25 minutes, some have been a short as 17 minutes. Nothing has changed aside from slightly lengthening the wake windows. I expected her naps to stay the same or even possibly lengthen if anything. I know short naps are nonstop for her age but she's gotten less than half her normal nap total the last two days and I'm getting really worried. She is nap and bedtime sleep trained.

I tried to extend her last nap tonight and she laid in my arms drowsy for a long time but never fully went back to sleep. Any idea what could cause this?

Wake windows previous days: 2.25/2.5/2.5/2.75
Wake windows today: 2.25/2.75/2.75/3.25

Overtired or Undertired?

We sleep trained my son at exactly 5 months about 3.5 weeks ago. He is almost 6 months old. He is a super happy, high energy baby!

We first sleep trained him with CIO, but he took to it super quickly. Fell asleep in 10-15 min with crying the first night and then 10-15min no crying since.

The last week it has been taking him 20-40 min to fall asleep. Tonight it took him 40 min, about 20-30 of babbling and then 10-20 of crying and it’s heartbreaking because I feel we must be doing something wrong with his schedule.

Here’s his general schedule:
Put down 7:30pm
Wake up 5-5:30am (9-10h sleep generally)
First Nap 8-8:45 (45 min nap, 2:30 WW)
Second Nap 11:30-1 (1:30 nap, 2:45 WW)
3rd nap 3:45-4:30 (45 min nap, 3:00WW)
Bedtime 7:30

Sometimes the schedule varies (he does 2 longer naps and one cat nap, or he sleeps longer at night and so we do 2 naps with slightly longer wake windows) but we keep it to 3:00-3:15 of daytime sleep and try and keep bedtime consistent at 7:30 with wake windows ranging from 2:30-3h.

I have been playing around with his bedtime routine a bit. I was doing feed>bath>book>song>bed but he has so much fun in the bath it riles him up so I’ve also tried bath>feed>book>song>bed but both have similar results. He starts getting peeved with the routine… rejecting his bottle, upset during the book, etc. His least happy part of the day is bedtime routine.

My gut is telling me he is undertired because he isn’t yawning or rubbing his eyes before bed and he is babbling and playing in his crib for so long before he cries. But also some of the signs point to overtired.

Any suggestions??

Baby is 4 months old, and just used CIO for bedtime a few nights ago (thanks to this sub for all the help!). He’s done very well with it and now is fussing 0-5 min before putting himself down at night and night wakes have improved.

We started CIO for bedtime 6 nights ago. Up until today, naps continued as usual. Starting today he was having trouble going down for naps.

Previously, we’ve been rocking/holding to sleep or putting him down drowsy and using crib side soothing to get him down. Usually only takes 5 min and he’ll sleep 1.5 hours or so.

Today, he was fighting naps- I had to go in 3 times to cribside soothe more. He also refused a nap and we had to rescue with carrier. I noticed when I was cribside soothing or rocking it seemed to stimulate more, and I wondered if he just wanted space to get comfy himself. Can this happen after ST nights? Is it too soon to work on naps?

Today’s naps were weird with protesting, but typical schedule is:

6:45- wake up
Nap1- 8:45-10:15
Nap 2- 12:30-2:00
Nap 3- 4:15-4:45
7:45 bedtime

2/2.25./2.25/3

My 6.5-month-old is exclusively breastfed. Before sleep training, he coslept with me, fed to sleep, and woke every 1–2 hours overnight to feed, comfort nurse, or fall back asleep. All his naps are contact naps. Before sleep training, he napped 3–4 hours total during the day. Since starting sleep training, I’ve reduced his daytime sleep to 3 hours 30 minutes, with wake windows of 2–2.5 hours. He also has a history of gas and reflux-like symptoms.

Night 1: We tried check-ins, but they often made him cry harder. I put him in the crib at 7:35 PM, but he would only close his eyes if I kept my hand on his chest or picked him up. I ended up sleeping on a floor bed beside his crib, reaching through the slats to keep my hand on him. Every time I removed it, he woke up and looked for me. He kept moving close to the slats, as if we were star-crossed lovers separated by a fence 😂. He woke every 20 minutes or so, and I was exhausted from repeatedly feeding and resettling him.
Night 2: After how rough the first night was, I adjusted his naps and wake windows. His first two naps were 1 hour 15 minutes each, with 2-hour wake windows. His last nap was 4–5 PM. I put him in the crib at 7 PM. He cried intermittently and fell asleep around 8:20 PM. He woke around 11:40 PM for a feed and diaper change, then settled quickly. He woke again around 5 AM to feed and was asleep by 5:15 AM. We accidentally slept in, so I woke him at 7:20 AM.
Night 3: We kept the same nap and bedtime schedule. He cried for about an hour before falling asleep. He woke around midnight and 3:30 AM to feed, then fussed around 5:30 AM but settled on his own. I woke him at 7 AM.
Night 4 (tonight): We kept the same schedule. It took him about 45 minutes to fall asleep and slept at 7:45 PM. 

On Nights 2 and 3, he had pooped when he woke around midnight, which is unusual for him. I’m wondering whether the stress of crying could have contributed. His voice was also hoarse the day after Night 2, although he seems happy during the day.

My questions:
His last nap ends at 5 PM, and I put him in the crib at 7 PM, expecting he will cry and fall asleep around 8 PM. This means he may have a wake window of up to 3 hours before actually falling asleep. Is that okay, or should I change bedtime?

As his crying gets shorter, should I gradually put him in the crib later, or keep bedtime consistent?

Is the hoarse voice and unusual nighttime pooping a reason to pause or change our approach?

15 months old has been sleep trained (CIO) since about 9 months and after adjusting to a 1 nap schedule starting at 12 months at daycare, we’ve been on a 6 AM wake/12:30-3PM nap/8 PM bedtime schedule that’s worked great.

3 weeks ago he got pretty sick and we ended up doing split nights co-sleeping after he’d wake up. Then we went on vacation and he wouldn’t fall asleep in pack-and-play without being pat on the back/being able to see me (10-20 mins). Noticed his molars were coming in and he did start co-sleeping 1-2 hours in the morning with me at the end of the trip. Back at home and still teething, he started waking up standing and screaming in the MOTN and can’t be soothed to sleep unless we co-sleep. Takes at least 30 mins to get back to sleep and is waking closer to 5:30 AM or earlier most mornings.

How can we fix these split nights? Is it nightmares? Still teething/pain? Does bedtime need to be moved back again (we were at 6:30 PM just 3 months ago)? He’s still napping great and has started falling asleep independently again after a week or so of doing sort of a chair method. Naptime can’t be moved or shortened due to daycare.

Sometimes my baby can only be comforted and put to sleep by nursing. Dad can successfully get him to sleep without nursing usually but with me he will NOT settle unless I nurse. I’m worried I’m going to ruin our chances of sleep training once he’s ready.

Does anyone have a success story with something similar? He’s waking every 2 hours so I am counting down the days until we can start sleep training. Do I keep allowing him to comfort nurse at 8 weeks?

For those who waited to nap train an older baby who was already night trained:

What method did you use? If you can, please breakdown how you used the method :) How long did you allow baby to independently fall asleep for the nap before taking them out of their crib? How long did you wait to try putting them down again?

Quick background. Our 12mo has been falling asleep independently in his crib and sleeping 12h nights since he was 6mo. We never nap trained though. He naps on-the-go in the car, carrier, stroller. If at home, we cosleep for his naps. Not asking for a schedule check. Just wanting to hear everyone’s stories/methods with nap training an older baby (9mo+, aka greater mobility/ persistence/ stamina/ awareness of separation)!

My LO turns 5mo tomorrow and is ebf. She has safely coslept 90% of the time since birth (time spent in the cot has decreased particularly since 3 months). I am a FTM and didn’t realise until a couple of days ago she wasn’t getting enough awake time, we dropped her fourth nap but have picked it up again in order to increase her awake time in the day and it seems to be helping (roughly 2/2/2/2) but we are only on day 2. Aiming for 7am wake up 9pm bed time. The first day of trying this new schedule she managed 1.5 hours in the cot at the start of the night, whereas tonight she’s managed ten minutes before waking up crying and having to come into the bed. I am fine with this maybe being due to the fact that she just needs the proximity to me. But I don’t want to be missing anything, as I didn’t even realise she is supposed to be awake for ten hours in the day at this stage lol. Based on the one night she did do in the cot all night relatively recently, I think she needs 13 hours total sleep. Therefore, I let her nap for 3hrs today as she slept for 10 hours last night, but usually we aim for 2 hours as she normally has about 11 hours at night. Do I need to give it time for the new schedule? Is 13 hours too much? Or does she just want to be close to me? Which is also fine!

I was never anti nor for sleep training, I’ve just waited to see how things played out. I got lucky, my almost six month old puts her self to sleep by herself. All naps and bed time. I feed unlatch put paci in her mouth and leave. Shes on 3/4 naps a day I’ve tried both to see which work and she naps fine during the day.

My problem, is that she still wakes up every 2-3 hours every night and has her entire life. I got the app huckleberry berry and followed the age appropriate wake windows and schedules exactly, and I think that’s what helped with her putting herself to sleep.

I’m literally dying from six months of sleep deprivation. I’ve weened feed before 12am, but she still wakes up between then. I’ve tried new wake ups, new bed times, switching wake windows.

I’m so desperate I just want to put her in her own room (she sleeps in our room which I like) and leaving her to CIO, and setting an alarm for 12am her usual feed time. I’m fine with waking up once or twice but 4-6 times every night is too much and I’m running on low. Husband works 13 hour days Monday to Friday doing heavy equipment so he can’t be tired or he could hurt himself or other people on the job site.

I don’t have a village or anyone to help other than his mom who will come for a few hours. But those who suffer with severe sleep deprivation know “napping” during the day or with LO is the worst.

Oh I hate co sleeping it’s even worse for me.

I need other parent’s suggestions, and also some advice. Should I just leave her to CIO?

Help 😩😩

Current schedule: 7:30am wake, 1 nap from 11:30-1:30ish, bedtime 8pm.

My son went from falling asleep independently for his naps and bedtime and sleeping (usually) through the night back to fighting falling asleep and constantly waking up and crying for me.

He was really sick about 3 weeks ago so he slept about 4 nights in our bed. We put him back in his crib once he was better and he did ok for a couple nights, but then suddenly seemed to have an extreme regression and started sobbing when we put him down for naps/bedtime. We tried retraining with Ferber but I don’t know if it’s because he’s older now or what but he would not give up and ended up crying for over an hour.

A bit of context, we live in a condo with very thin walls and have already had our bitchy neighbours complain about his crying. He is shockingly loud and sounds like he is being tortured, so I get it, but it has really limited our sleep training options and creates a lot of pressure to get him back to sleep as fast as possible (especially in the middle of the night).

This has now devolved into trying to put him down normally, until we finally give in and one of us lays with him until he falls asleep. Same with middle of the night wakes. He cries and cries for us. Our usual methods are not working and when it’s 2 am I can’t let him cry very long because our neighbours will come knocking or slam on the ceiling to let us know their displeasure. He has ended up in our bed every single night for the last like 10 in a row and I am deliriously tired.

None of us sleep in well when he’s in bed with us. It’s bad for everyone involved. I need to get him back in his crib like tonight.

Any ideas?

My baby is only 10.5m and everything I read says it’s too young for a 1 nap schedule but 4/4/4 is exhausting! We’re at <2 hrs day sleep because that’s the only way we can fit in our wake windows. I do have to wake from naps. If anyone was on this schedule, what did your transition to 1 nap look like and when!?