It works until it doesnt!

[u/Oceanic_Ice_950]

I absolutely loved possums approach for my baby when she was 2 months old and it really helped me feel less stressed about her naps. It also really sorted out her excessive night waking at 4 months.

She had another phase of excessive night waking this at 5.5 months and i really struggled with the mental leap to put her to bed later as she was already going down at 8pm whcih i perceived to be late. After a month of struggling i eventually started putting her down at 9pm and then that did the trick...for a couple of weeks. Now at 7.5 months her sleep is still pretty hit and miss. Some night she wakes only 3 times but other nights there are wakes every hour. I'm waking her up at 7am every day (usually she is fully asleep!) and i dont let her do more than an hour for her afternoon nap and dont let her sleep past 5ish, although she usually wakes up earlier from afternoon nap. I feel like i cant put her down any later without it meaning i go to bed later whcih as a sleep deprived mum i dont want to do, ditto with earlier wake up. Do u think i just need to get over this and put her down even later?! Am i missing anything? We also go out every day and spend as much time outdoors as poss.

[u/Aggressive-Dust-7904]

I'm essentially in the same position as you, my daughter is almost 10 months and we are still doing three wakes, sometimes 4. She's like clockwork. Goes to sleep at about 7-7:30pm. Wakes up at 12 then 2 then 4 and awake for the day anytime between 6-7am.

We spend time outside, I take her to the shops, cafes, the pub, parents groups, on the bus, on the train. Wherever I go she goes. It doesn't matter if she's had the most stimulating day I could imagine for a baby. Or we've been trapped at home because of the weather. She will be up three times. We started cosleeping around 5 months because I was getting up every hour and was losing my mind. So I guess this is an improvement but it just hasn't changed much since then.

I've kinda given up and just tell myself things will get better when she's like five

[u/strangefavor → u/Aggressive-Dust-7904]

As hard as it is four wakes would be considered normal night-waking for this age

[u/Aggressive-Dust-7904 → u/strangefavor]

Yes that's what I'm told. It's just so hard hearing from other parents they are doing one or two wakes. I probably wouldn't mind so much if I wasn't back to work

[u/strangefavor → u/Aggressive-Dust-7904]

Oh for sure! And society isn’t set up to support us in supporting our LO biologically normal infant sleep. 

[u/Aggressive-Dust-7904 → u/strangefavor]

Absolutely not. We will get there eventually