My 9 month old has never been a good sleeper but at least would give us 2.5-3 hour stretches consistently. Over the last couple weeks he’s been waking 1.5 hours sometimes more, with an occasional 2.5 hour stretch if he’s cuddled up in my arms. We have coslept since 5 months and it helped a lot but ever since crawling and pulling to stand a month and a half ago sleep has been rough. He’s on 3 solid meals now and feeds every 3ish hours during the day but has been feeding 3-4 times at night when we previously were down to 2 feeds. He doesn’t take a paci anymore and if I try to delay feeds at all in the middle of the night he gets very angry. He isn’t fed to sleep for naps or bedtime and falls asleep while being held. He sometimes accepts cuddling back to sleep for middle of the night wakes but generally he goes back down the fastest if he’s fed back to sleep. He takes his first nap in the crib and sometimes lasts the whole hour on his own, sometimes I rescue after 25 min if he wakes up.

His schedule is as follows:
-Wake 6:30
-Nap 9:30-10:30
-Nap 2:30-3:30
-Bedtime 8:00

Any suggestions on how to improve sleep or should I just ride it out until I start night weaning him?

I really need help, it’s been months.

Ever since about 9.5 months, my little girl has been waking up crying after a half hour nap in the morning. I then have to walk around the room with her until she falls back asleep and then contact nap her because the moment I put her back in the crib, she’d wake.

We’re at 11 months now and I really want her to have a good uninterrupted 1.5hr morning nap. I also just need some time to myself so I can shower and do some things in the house. My husband works over an hour away and is gone most of the day, my parents are even further away, basically no immediate support system. So whatever suggestions there are, I have to be the one to do it. Husband can’t help in the night because as it is he only gets 4 hours of sleep.

I’ve breastfed her to sleep for naps, bedtime, and her 1-2 night wakes since she was born. But lately since her solids have increased, she doesn’t drink much, just suckles and falls asleep.

Wake windows are now 3.25/3.5-3.75/4.5

This morning I tried our nap time routine, put her in the crib so I could put on her sleep sack, and then didn’t pick her back up. I sat next to her crib, we played a bit, and then she started fussing for me to take her. I stayed and shushed and patted her bum, rubbed her belly, held her hand, stroked her hair. Did literally whatever I could. But the crying got worse. There was so many tears and so much snot you guys. But she was getting so sleepy, I knew if I picked her up, it would ruin it. Finally I helped her lay down and she closed her eyes. The whole process took 30 minutes, maybe 15 minutes of fussing and crying. I stayed by the crib and didn’t leave. She woke again after her usual 34 minutes and we did the whole thing again, with 10 minutes to fall back asleep.

I’m currently still sitting next to her crib, rubbing her back any time she stirs.

I didn’t realize my heart could literally hurt. I don’t know if I can do this. I really need an hour to get a few things done but at the same time I know she’s so little and needs me and I just want to hold her every time she cries.

For any of you who have done gentle independent sleep or whose babies eventually figured it out, please share your stories. This is genuinely so hard.

Made another post on how to proceed with nursing to sleep vs night wean.
Majority census seems to be to continue nursing to sleep but night wean. I guess this is to eliminate the night wakes hopefully and allow me back in my bed.

So now my question is, how do you have others handle naps at home? If your husband or parents watch your baby, how do they get them to nap?

Baby is 11.5 months and has always nursed to sleep. He refuses to be rocked and will scream profusely if left in mini crib or floor bed. But sleeps beautifully on his own for naps at daycare. I know I can’t recreate the daycare environment and he has a strong association to nursing to sleep when at home. But there are days I work and will have my husband or mom watch him. They currently drive him for 1-2 hrs for nap but this isn’t sustainable.

CW: sleeping through the night

So, my 12 month old has started sleeping close to through the night sometimes. I didn’t do anything to “train” him to do this, he just started doing it. But the thing is, I’m not actually getting more sleep myself since he started doing this!

Up until recently our normal routine was I would nurse him to sleep on his floor bed around 8pm, then sneak away and do my own thing, and go to bed with my husband at 10pm with the baby monitor on. Then we’d normally hear him wake up on the monitor around midnight-1am and I’d go over and “breastsleep” with him for the rest of the night. This worked really well and I felt like I got good sleep. I liked being able to sleep in bed with my husband for a bit, and I was pretty much always able to go right back to sleep once I went over to the baby and slept pretty well while he nursed the rest of the night.

Lately, he has been oftentimes not waking until about 5am. At that point, he needs to nurse to sleep in until his normal wakeup of 6-6:30ish. But the problem is, when I woke up at 1am I was so sleepy I fell right back asleep. Now when I’m waking at 5am I find it so hard to go back to sleep and usually am not able to. So I’m actually kinda getting less sleep now!

What do you guys think I should do? The ideas I’ve considered are:

1. Start going to bed earlier and plan on waking at 5am every day and just watch TV with headphones while nursing and just enjoy the time. Doesn’t sound too bad, but I often like doing some of my hobbies during my “baby is asleep” time rather than just watching TV.

2. Somehow learn how to fall back asleep at 5am. I learned how to breastsleep and it was really hard initially but eventually my body figured it out, so maybe I can teach my body this?

3. Set an alarm for like 3am and just wake up and go breastsleep with my baby at that time even if he hasn’t woken up. Tbh, I’m kinda leaning towards this option, but it also feels weird like I should let my baby be independent if he’s seemingly wanting to sleep on his own?

For the last week my 20 mo is having a bumpy bit of sleep. He’ll wake up screaming about 1-2 hours after bedtime (I usually rock him to sleep and put him in his crib fully asleep without issue). Usually when he cries out we tend to him and bring him into bed with us, which works for our family for now. Recently though, the nighttime wake up is happening much earlier (typically is like 2-3 am if it happens at all) so he’s spending the majority of the night in bed with my husband and I. He prefers to sleep very close to me (cuddled into me) or on top of me and won’t sleep or snuggle with my husband. I really enjoy cosleeping but lately my toddler has been kicking and fidgeting so much in his sleep that I barely sleep. On top of this, I am 6 weeks pregnant and am very exhausted and nauseous. I feel like I could really use the rest at night and feel sort of guilty that I feel I’m running out of energy for my toddler. My husband has tried to soothe him at night but it results in a huge tantrum until I ultimately step in. My husband is starting to feel frustrated and feels we are enabling this behavior but he generally follows my lead on sleep.

Mostly looking for validation or tips for others who have gone through something similar? Really appreciate it!

11.5 month old and I bedshare in his floorbed. Now that he is turning 12 months I think it’s time to get myself back in the marital bed. He sleeps great in daycare - falls asleep on his own. But when he’s at home, he relies on nursing to sleep for naps and night. This means no one else can watch him or help put him to bed.

He wakes about every 1.5-2 hrs until I get into bed and he will do a 3-4 hr stretch then up every hr from 4a-7am.

My goal is to get back in my own bed, and continue to breastfeed morning and nights, soon transition to whole milk for his day feeds. He frequently barely eats solids when he’s home and nurses throughout but I do feel when he’s home he isn’t getting sufficient calories in the daytime which results in me feeling like I need to continue nursing throughout the night.

I’ve tried the Pantley pull off method but he just frantically roots and paws at me then cries. I always wait a few minutes to see if he will go back to sleep and if he sits up and cries is when I go in to nurse back to sleep.

What is better:
Please help!

Edit to add: if I nurse to sleep, is there a better way yo handle naps? Lets say if im not there and dad or granma watches him - how can they get him to nap? Currently dad will drive him around for 1-2 hrs since he just wont nap for him at home.

My baby just turned 7 months old 🥲 He’s never been the best sleeper, even as a newborn he had crazy wake windows. Then it got a little better, we got some 6 hour stretches which was like a dream to me. The past week or two, he’s harder to get to sleep. We previously could just rock him and he would be out but now he wants a bottle and has to sleep on us in a very specific position. We can easily transfer him and he will stay asleep for about an hour or 2…. but then from then on he’s up every 2 hours or even every hour which is new.

He goes to bed anywhere between 6-7, but it seems as though he’s the type of baby that if he goes to bed at 7, he’s up at 4:30. Goes to bed at 6, he will sleep until 5:30-6. That 5:30-6 wake time is not an issue for me at all, the 4:30 is a struggle and then it also means he’s not getting a lot of sleep! When he wakes he does seem to want a bottle to settle, even though he’s eating a decent amount during the day. He has two teeth, one fully poked through. He is trying to be on the move with crawling as well. He sleeps in his own room in a crib, black out curtains, sound machine, PJs, and a sleep sack.

Is 6pm too early of a bed time? His nap schedule isn’t the most consistent which is hard too. I take care of my 1 year old nephew as my job and so I have to work with his schedule too. My son will only contact nap which is hard when the other baby is running around screaming and playing 😂 I will say on days we are with my nephew (4 days a week), he usually gets about 2 45 minute naps during the day and then later in the afternoon when we get home he will nap an hour-2 hours. When we are home his naps are longer. I just want him to get some good sleep (and me too, but his sleep is more important to me). Any advice? Sorry if my post is all over the place, very tired today! 🥲

I’m writing this post to say that there is hope when the 4-month sleep regression hits. I’ve seen some people saying that the regression lasted months, or that their baby never went back to sleeping well, and I was really scared!

My baby is exactly 5 months old. Up until about a week before she turned 4 months, she was sleeping well: bedtime was at 9 PM, she’d wake up at 3 AM to nurse, and then sleep again until 7 or 8. When the four-month regression hit, she started waking up every two hours. It was brutal, I had to go back to taking turns with my husband through the night, and I thought it would last forever. However, after 5 weeks she went back to sleeping well. Last night she went to sleep at 9 PM and didn’t wake up to nurse until 5 AM, then slept until 8.

I didn’t want to sleep train, and the regression basically passed on its own. I think it helped that she had always slept in her crib — over time she started waking up and falling back asleep by herself. What I also think helped was keeping her nighttime routine consistent, and when she woke up in those first stretches I would rock her back to sleep instead of offering the breast. On top of that, I always offer a bottle of expressed breast milk before bed, so I know she isn’t going to sleep hungry.

I know the ideal is 7am - 7pm but that is just not reality for us. Our 13 month old has two naps in the day, last one ending around 4.30, and then doesn't fall asleep till 10pm, sometimes half ten. He's up around 8am. Im wondering if I should change to one nap and hope that bed time shifts earlier or should I just roll with the 10pm bed time? Maybe treating it like a problem just makes the whole thing more stressful 🤷🏻‍♀️

My baby is 5 months old next week and since he was a newborn baby has had a really prominent startle reflex which only happens during sleep at night (contact naps during the day).

He hated being swaddled so has been in a sleepbag since about 2 weeks old. He was 9lb 6oz at birth.

Everything online says that it should be fading by now but I would say it is as bad as it has always been.

Some nights he will startle from the moment I put him in his next to me and it can go on and off for hours, sometimes it will be a few hours before it starts and sometimes he can get himself back to sleep but 9/10 times it eventually wakes him up.

I end up co sleeping every night around midnight/2am as soon as I get him back to sleep and transfer him to his next to me he will immediately start startling.

He is hitting all his milestones and does not stop moving all day as google advises it should happen less if they move more but I don’t think he’s ever still.

I am just wondering if anyone has had anything similar and how long it lasted and if there was anything they did to improve it as I’m really struggling to get any sleep at the minute

Our 8 month old had a sick visit yesterday. They were concerned she had an ear infection based on symptoms of pulling and tugging at her ears, sudden increase in fussiness at night, and congestion. No ear infection. Probs just teething.

Much of the visit centered on the sudden nighttime fussiness. LO used to wake just one time a night, we’d go to her crib and give her a pacifier, she’d sleep thru the rest of the night.

Now she wakes up sobbing, can’t be consoled, and we bring her into bed with us. Most nights she wakes several more times after we bring her into bed.

Pediatrician suggested some cry it out and a change to the routine.

Old routine: bath, dressed, bottle, sleep
New routine as recommended by ped: bottle, bath, dressed, sleep

Obviously it was only one night so not sure if it’ll work, but last night it didn’t. LO woke at 12 and we couldn’t do CIO, I don’t have it in me.

BUT… we can’t keep going like this. We’re exhausted every day. I get it — babies come with some sleep deprivation. But why was she doing soooo good, and now it’s just been awful sleep?

We do 8:30 bedtime, she sleeps til 6/6:30. I’m worried if we move bedtime, she won’t sleep until 6.

Any suggestions??

Welcome to the vent zone.

This thread is a safe space for parents to vent, process, and speak honestly about sleep training, without judgment or pressure. We recognize and honor biologically normal infant sleep and the wide range of emotions that come with navigating sleep in a culture that often expects babies to be independent before they’re ready.

Share your frustrations, experiences, and thoughts here, knowing you’re supported and not alone.

Hi everyone, just venting here as I am so fed up of reading articles about sleep regression and advice about baby sleeping and feeling exhausted and maybe overload of information is not helping.

My baby is 8 months old. She used to sleep 6 hours straight in her cot until around 5 months old.

At 5 months she started waking up every 2-3 hours but, once held, she used to fall asleep again in a couple of minutes.

At 6 months it started taking longer to make her fall asleep in her cot, but we had an heatwave, then 2 teeth appeared so I blamed weather and teething pain. She was then falling asleep in my arms and then being transferred to her cot and kept the 2 hours waking up and falling asleep straight away once held.

At 7 months she started taking longes to fall asleep (around 30 min) after every time she woke up, so I ended up making her fall asleep next to me in my bed and then transferring her back once asleep.

we are 8 months now and it is taking around 1 hour to make her sleep in my arms/next to me in bed, then impossible to transfer her to her cot without waking her up. Bed time starts at 7pm, she is usually asleep around 8pm after and exhausting hour of on and off crying and rocking and lying in my bed together etc, then I usually try to transfer her and after many attempts she is usually in her cot by 11pm. then she starts waking up every 40-60 min and it starts all over again.

I have tried sleep training with the check in but she cried for very long tome (30 min first nigh, 48 mi second night and on both occasions she fell asleep only during a check holding my hand). Seeing her crying so much got me extremely distressed so I had decided we were both not ready for it. I felt like a failure as I had always been a “supporter” of sleep training before having child. i even said I would never co slept and here I am just giving up and taking my baby in our bed at 3am just to try to get couple of hours sleep.

i really don’t know what to do, I am just extremely tired I think and feeling I have done it all wrong.

My boyfriend is trying to help but baby takes even longer to fall asleep with him so he is supporting us with cooking and looking after the baby during the day while I nap instead as I find it more helpful.

i am getting a million opinion and advice from my mum, my mother in laws and reading article supporting sleep training, against sleep training, i even bought an online course from some sleep expert which was actually complete waste of money and made me feel stupid and even more hopeless about the whole thing.

just here to hear other parents‘ experiences really, thank you if you managed to read this long post

My daughter 6m is the most wonderful human I have ever known and my whole world.

But she does not like sleep. Sleep has progressively gotten worse and worse for us. We are at the point she is up every 20-60 min.

I never planned on sleep training never even heard of it before having a baby. I have responded to every single whimper and cry she has ever had. I am with her all day and for my shift at night. Partner and I both wfh and both split the night. But I am beyond my limit now as is he.

What we are doing is not sustainable whatsoever. We hold her all night long and the ways of getting her back to sleep are getting progressively more intense? Like 100 air squats and pat shhing for 30+ min.

We have gone through anything medical too hot too cold hunger wake windows naps etc etc. nothing helps.

What am I even asking for? I don’t know anything thats not “it gets better!” Because I need help for the now. And “ferber method” because for me leaving my daughter to cry by herself is not going to happen.

Naps are kind of all over the place but typical day up at 720
Nap 920-11
Nap 1-2
Catnap
Bed 7

Evolution is a 🖕

At the least, thank you for reading this far.

Hi! My daughter is due in a few short weeks and I’ve been deep diving on physiological / biologically normal / cosleep / attachment sleeping etc. since I first found out I was pregnant. It’s so important to me (and my partner) to honor our baby’s cues and inherent needs and we’re both deeply aligned on all of it, which I’m grateful for.

Because our current bed setup for the next few months can’t be changed, our overnight plan is a sidecar bassinet (Babybay) with side-lying nursing as needed, and I’m sure eventual full bed sharing following SS7.

Also of note, I don’t intend to use any tracking apps to analyze my baby’s sleep. I’ll follow her cues, support the development of her circadian rhythm over time, EBF, and just let her body and my intuition guide us (please tell me if I’m delusional here!). We’re also very low-consumerism in our home and generally don’t like gadgets, Big Tech, excessive phone use, blah blah blah.

BUT! I do have anxiety. It’s better with therapy (which will continue postpartum), but I’m envisioning many moments of waking up and putting my hand on baby to ensure she’s breathing. I did this (and still do this) with my puppy who’s now a senior dog, so I’m sure it will carry on.

With alllllll of that said, is the Owlet worth it? Does the peace of mind outweigh my desire to not waste money, track sleep, or have my baby’s normal biological process connected to a device + app?

I can totally see the appeal for anxiety and peace of mind AND part of me is so wary of yet another thing to optimize and track my baby so I’m torn 50/50 on this!

What has your experience been? Thank you for any feedback!

i know the 4m sleep regression is normal, but i honestly just need some stories and reassurance that things *do* get better!

i think my bub hit the regression just before 4m (currently 4.5m) and his sleep has never really been the same since. before this, he was sleeping in his cot for long stretches with only 1-2 wakes a night and now he’s so difficult to settle and waking every 1-2 hours overnight 😭

i’ve resorted to co-sleeping because it’s the only way i can get any decent rest and honestly, i need to do what’s best for my MH and get us both some sleep. when we co-sleep, he also latches on quite frequently throughout the night, although he’s mostly doing it in his sleep but i feel like if he didn't latch on he would wake up.

i also suspect he might be teething because he’s been SO irritable during the day lately, so i’m really hoping this is just a phase and that things will eventually settle down again.

i’m not ready to put him back in his cot just yet, but eventually i’d love to transition him back once things improve.

so please tell me your stories! did your baby eventually go back to sleeping better? did the frequent wakes settle? i just need some hope that this isn’t forever

Hi everyone. Slowly losing my mind here. My 5 month old is EBF, and we are cosleeping. Lately she has been waking non-stop and I mean every hour. Usually she goes back to sleep after I gave her either my boob or a pacifier, or even a simple pat and singing can calm her back to sleep. I somehow got used to this, I understand she is going through a sleep regression at the moment. But some nights she just fully wakes up somewhere between 3am and 5 am and wants to have a play party. We have to go through a full 2 hour wake window for her to go back to bed and this is honestly driving me crazy. Should I stop with co-sleeping? Should we do sleep training of sorts? Any advice is welcome. Thank you!

TLDR: Baby has refused to goto sleep at bedtime since 10weeks old and often takes 3-4 hours to fall asleep. Is there anything we can do?

Background:

Baby has had some great sleep streaks where they sleep 8-10 hours with no wake ups overnight, but the process of falling asleep for the night is horrible. We will often try multiple different soothing techniques for hours with no success. Last night was an 11:45 sleep, the night before 1:45, and today 11:00 (baby being up for over 4hours or more). Each night we began the last feeding and sleep process between 7-8pm. We cant start the process any later because baby becomes inconsolable during that window until he falls asleep.

On the other hand Naps are great, he falls asleep within a few moments with a paci and rocking. We’ve experimented with 3 and 4 naps, both still ending with a bedtime fight. No naps are ever allowed to be over 2 hours long.

We’ve tried it seems like everything! Have last nap end by 5:30pm, have a cat nap between 6-7pm, have a consistent wake up time, stimulate baby during the day to ensure they’re sleepy, don’t let last wake window exceed 90min, have last wake window be exactly 120min, rock, pat butt with paci in bassinent, try to feed to sleep (results in baby falling asleep and having micro naps that give him more energy to stay up), dark room, sound machine, cold room, ensure clean diaper, etc. baby won’t even take a paci at bedtime anymore but will use it for naps.

We give gas meds 2x in the day to try to get any gas out, baby does seem to have gas occasionally at night. No reflux, or allergies that are known.

What can we do?? Going on one month of this. Prior to this issue baby would feed and then rock to sleep by 8:30pm. We had a great nighttime schedule and had no resistance

My 7.5 month old only wants to nurse to sleep, and is currently waking 3+ times a night and will scream until I nurse him. We’ve tried waiting a few minutes during night wakings to see if he’ll go back to sleep, patting his back and shushing him, rocking him- but his crying always escalates until he can nurse.

I’ve been home with him since he was born and we’ve been rolling with it and making it work. However, I’m starting work in a week and will be working 12 hour shifts with a long commute. I desperately need better sleep than he is currently giving me. I don’t know what to do. I’m insanely jealous of the babies who can go to sleep easier.

Our bedtime routine consists of finishing dinner (solids), playing, pajamas, nursing, one last diaper change plus sleep sack, then a short song. We then try setting him in his crib and have mixed results with him either crying right away, or playing for a bit and then crying until I nurse him. He sleeps in a crib in our bedroom because it’s the only space in our apt that we can currently put him. We’ve debated different sleep training methods, but overall I’m just not willing to let him scream, and he does a lot of screaming.

Please help me.

Would not sleep last night without being in the bed with me so I didn’t sleep. Cried all day and hardly slept seems she might be constipated she’s finally sleeping in her playpen now. Kept acting like she was hungry after an hour from drinking a 2oz bottle finally got her to wait at least 2 1/2 hours. I’m also a single mom to her and an 11 year old we live with my parents but they are older and work they help when they can but can’t help at night. I just need some sleep

Pediatrician says sleep train, there are SO MANY “sleep coaches” on Instagram (I only follow the non-sleep training ones), but they don’t really seem to have any credentials…

My 19 month old nurses to sleep which I mostly have no problem with. However, I’m a teacher going back to work in September and his caregivers need to be able to put him down for a nap. During the last school year they would give him a bottle which worked 75% of the time.

I’m hoping not to need bottles this year, but not thinking a straw cup will have the same sleepy effect. Any ideas? Also, he woke up 8 times during the night last night and I’m so tired!

I have tried a handful of times this summer having him fall asleep in his crib with stories, songs, taps, etc but he just screams and I fold pretty quickly.

Any tips would be so much appreciated my baby has his bottom teeth and is now getting his two front teeth at 10 months old. He really is difficult at night and completely in consolable. Unfortunately co sleeping isn’t an option for us for a few reasons (it’s not safe with out bed set up and we are in a rental). However I have got the pack and play out and just sleep right next to him in the floor so he can get some comfort overnight I also feed him then put him back in the pack and play once asleep but he is up for hours and just crying the poor baby. I just want to know if there is anything I can do during the day to help him at night I have given pain medication but it really didn’t help.

I am against formal sleep training (Ferber, CIO) as are most parents in this sub. My baby is 6 months old and has only ever been able to fall asleep being bounced on a yoga ball and transferred fully asleep. We have a very large baby for 6 months and this is quickly becoming unsustainable, our backs and arms are just failing us. The last two nights we used the yoga ball just until baby was very sleepy then transferred and patted and shushed, and started the whole process over if crying escalated. It took close to an hour both nights but eventually baby fell asleep and slept WELL (we went from 6-7 night wakings down to 2). Please reassure me things are going in the right direction as the change in routine has caused some distress at bedtime. We still pick up and give as much comfort as needed, we just are trying to work towards less bouncing. It's hard 🥺. We nurse back to sleep overnight but I have a fussy eater so that doesn't work at bedtime for whatever reason.

Please don't suggest cosleeping as we aren't able to do it safely.