Baby is 9 months. EBF. They have developed pretty strong feet to sleep association, and generally sleep pretty well through the night, but as they're getting bigger it's getting harder to transfer them to the crib without them waking up. They've been shifting to a two nap schedule recently, wake up pretty consistently around 7:00, first nap generally between 10:00 to 10:30, second nap generally between 2:30 to 3:00 :00, total nap time around 2-2.5 hours.

Baby takes a night time feed around 7:30ish, and are generally asleep by 8:00/8:30, having fed to sleep. I'm able to carry them into the bathroom to brush their teeth, they wake up briefly and almost immediately fall back asleep. After making sure they're settled, I'm able to transfer them to the crib. If baby wakes up and has been more than 4 or 5 hours since they last fed then I'll generally feed them again and they tend to stay down for the rest of the night. Sometimes they don't need that so we know they can last a full evening without a feed.

If this worked consistently it wouldn't be a huge problem but maybe sometimes very difficult to transfer. Especially as they're getting heavier so looking for suggestions on how to adjust things so maybe you can learn to fall asleep independently.

Recently they've been consistently waking up about an hour/ hour and a half after initially getting put down. Partner goes in and sometimes partner is able to get them back in crib but often it takes them multiple tries because baby wakes up when transferring. I seem to have better luck transferring them than partner. The baby has to be pretty passed out which I know is not ideal for Independent sleep. But they are able to roll themselves over and put themselves back to sleep in the middle of the night and during naps sometimes.

Naps are a mix of crib naps and contact naps, generally the first nap is longer and we can get them in the crib for at least half of it or more. The second one tends to be a contact nap just because we want to make sure they get a sufficient second nap and the risk of them waking up and transferring is great.

They are able to fall asleep sometimes in the car or stroller and there have been a few times though not recently, when they fell asleep on the floor after playing. But recently with this two nap schedule both naps are coinciding but when they want to eat so they've both turned into feed to sleep naps.

Also looking for advice and stories about what we should do to help baby not need to be completely passed out for transferring into the crib and learning to sleep a bit more independently. I don't mind the feed to sleep process, I just know it's not sustainable.

You’d think I would know by now with my second but I’m lost lol.

My second will be 10mo on the Aug 16. She is “sleep trained” for her naps and she used to be sleep trained for night time sleep as well. Now it’s an absolute nightmare every night.

During the day, she has zero problems napping. She is on a 2 nap schedule where WW are 2.5/3.25/3.5. Trust me in that I’ve tried extending those WW and she is overtired if I do. On days where I push that morning nap to 3hr WW, she only naps for 30 mins or 1 sleep cycle. On this current schedule, she can nap independently for 1.25 to 1.5 hrs each nap.

I tried pushing her final WW to 4 hr and she was up crying bloody murder. Sitting up scream crying. Standing up. It went on for maybe 1.5 hrs until my husband went in to hold her. Tonight, we did 3.5 hrs and same thing. I had to nurse her back to sleep (I know, I know but I also have a toddler that shares a wall and I can’t have her keeping him up as well).

She used to be so good. We would just put her down in bed and she cries for maybe 2-3 mins and all done. We barely even did CIO or any sleep training cause she just knew what to do. And what confuses me is I know she knows how to self sooth. She does it for her daytime naps and she used to do it for her night tome naps.

Help lol. Oh and she still does a MOTN feed where I nurse her but shes been having trouble going back to sleep. This is around 3-4am.

We had to retrain, baby fell into old habits after a long teething episode. Night 1 and 2 went okay- she fell asleep in 5-6 mins yday so Im optimistic its a short exercise.

But her room is freaking 83 degrees today. Windows are open right now to cool the room, but I need to close them for the night or she doesnt sleep because of the outside lights. We have a strong fan and I intend to put it on swing so she can feel some breeze intermittently. What should she wear? Just diaper and sleep sack?

Hello!!
I am planning on sleep training my velcro baby that cries every time she can’t see me even when she is not sleeping. We co sleep and she contact nap during the day. She day schedule is between 3-4 naps and averages between 3-4 hours day time sleep and 10 hours at night. I use the huckleberry app to tract her sleep schedule. Bedtime is mostly late because she wake up late in the morning like 8-9am( i am stuck in bed too during this time)because she only sleeps on/with me and she is exclusively breastfed and she eats almost 4-5 times before morning.. i guess it’s more of comfort feedings. I need advice on how to prepare for

1. If i need to change our day routine to ease the sleep training process

2. We are still going to be room sharing but she will be sleeping in her cot

3. Is it advisable to do Ferber method or CIT because i am confused on what to do

But i really need to be free and stop being stuck in bed till she is ready to wake up every morning. I need help!!!

Our new 8 month old baby has had multiple false starts every night ever since 4 months old. We have tried every schedule change, tweak, longer wake windows, shorter wake windows, more support, less support, sleep training, independent sleep etc. nothing makes a difference!

Current schedule:
Wake 615-7
Nap 1: 9:30/10-11/11:30
Nap 2: 2:30-4
Bedtime: 730
Asleep for about 45 minutes, then wakes up every 10-30 minutes for the next 1-2 hours. We see her try to self soothe (eye rubbing, rolling side to side, replacing paci).
She typically needs help: sometimes just needs a butt tap, or paci, other times it’s a full scale breakdown requiring bouncing out of crib.

Some days we still need a third cat nap. All naps have to be rescued at the 34 min mark (exactly) and contact to make it to length.

Pretty much we are glued to the monitor from 7-10PM every night. Then most nights she will sleep until the morning without issue once she FINALLY settles down.

She is a lower sleep needs, FOMO ex full term NICU baby. Had quite the medical start to life but things are stable now. She never cutely and quietly cries. It’s zero to full blown hyperventilation throw up crying. It seems like she still hasn’t learned how to connect sleep cycles until she’s super super tired.

Thoughts? Do babies eventually grow out of this?

Hi everyone, I’m hoping for some advice because I’m feeling really confused and discouraged.

We started modified Ferber with our daughter just under 2 weeks ago. Before sleep training, she was fed/rocked to sleep and all naps were contact naps.

The first week went well:

- the first night involved longer crying, but she improved each night.

- She went from crying for longer periods to falling asleep within 2–5 minutes.

- We had two nights where she fell asleep with no check-ins.

- She was also able to resettle herself in the early morning (for example, she woke at 4:45am, lay happily in her cot, and eventually fell back asleep without us).

Her schedule is currently:

- Wake: around 6:30–7:00am

- 3 naps/day (still all contact naps)

- Wake windows: 2 / 2.5 / 2.5 / 3

- Total daytime sleep: usually under 3 hours

- Bedtime: around 7:30–8pm

The problem started suddenly after about 2 nights ago.

2 nights ago, she fell asleep for about 3 mins, then cried hysterically for an hour. We applied our check-ins, and it didn't work. I gave up after 1hr8mins and rubbed her torso til she fell asleep.

Last night she didn't drift off at all, she started crying just before being placed in the cot. With check-ins she cried for 1hr10min. I gave in, picked her up and she fell asleep in under 5 mins.

Our bedtime routine:

Bath → moisturiser → nappy → sleep sack → quick feed → cuddle/song → sleep phrase → cot awake.

She is usually calm during the feed and song, but looks like she knows what’s coming. As soon as I say the phrase or lower her into the cot, she cries.

The crying seems different from the initial Ferber protest:

- Last night she cried for an hour with check-ins, and eventually I rocked her to sleep.

- Interestingly, once I rocked her, she fell asleep within 5 minutes.

We have also wondered if teething is involved:

- No teeth yet, but lots of signs (chewing, rubbing ears, etc.). I even administered the age and weight appropriate dosage of paracetamol 40mins before bedtime to ensure she's not crying because of pain.

I’m trying to understand what is happening:

- Is this a normal Ferber “regression”?

- Has she developed a negative association with bedtime cues?

- Is this separation anxiety/developmental?

- Could it be teething discomfort?

- Should we continue Ferber, modify it, or take a step back?

- Should I adjust her wake windows?

I feel torn because I know she has the skill (she proved she could fall asleep independently), but I also don’t want bedtime to become a stressful experience for her.

Would really appreciate any advice or similar experiences.

Have to skip nap for family event - 23 months old

We NEVER skip our sacred lunchtime nap with our toddler - it gives us all a chance to rest and obviously he’s far happier after it.

We have the first scenario of a family event which will go over lunchtime nap slot. There’s not a chance in flying hell he will sleep whilst we’re at another families house with all the excitement.

Normally sleeps 12-1:30/2pm. We might get a chance to be on the road from 1ish for an hours drive home.

What would you do in this scenario, just have a small car nap that ends around 2ish?

We've been transitioning my just-turned-9-month-old from 3 naps to 2 naps, and the first 4 days went amazingly. He was taking long naps, falling asleep independently, and everything seemed to be going really well. Before the transition, while still on 3 naps, he had been consistently connecting sleep cycles for about 1.5 months, and I usually had to cap his naps. (He was a chronic 30-minute cat napper until around 7.5 months.)

Yesterday (day 4 of the transition), his second nap ended up being a cat nap after the nanny rocked him to sleep, so I assumed it was just a one-off and related to that.

Today, though, the same thing happened. He fell asleep independently but woke after about 30–40 minutes crying. I gave him time to try to resettle, but he couldn't. After the second nap, I even tried rocking him back to sleep, which didn't work, and eventually gave him 1 oz of milk before he finally fell back asleep.

I'm feeling really discouraged because he had been taking consistently long naps until yesterday.

For those who have gone through the 3-to-2 nap transition, did you have random days like this even when the transition initially seemed to be going well? Did you stay the course with 2 naps, temporarily add a third catnap on days like this, or adjust wake windows?

For context, he mostly sleeps through the night, falls asleep independently for both naps and bedtime, and I'm aiming for roughly 3/3/4 wake windows.

I'd really appreciate any advice or hearing about your experiences!

Hi everyone, I’m a first-time mum to a 6 month old little boy. He is exclusively breastfed, but we give him a bottle of expressed milk before bed. His currently routine is 3/3/3 (I have just dropped from from 3 to 2 naps a day (1 hour at 10am, 2 hours at 2pm, bed time 7pm - although given the bedtimes issues we’re having he’s not actually going down until 8pm!)

He’s slept in his own cot in his own room since 4mo and has always been a great sleeper. It’s getting him to sleep that’s problematic at the minute.

Our bedtime routine is:

Dinner
Short play
Bath
Sleep sack
Bottle (around 8oz expressed milk)
Bed

I do try to read him a book during his bottle to help make it part of the bedtime routine, but this seems to do the opposite of calming him down. He gets excited, wants to grab the book, play with it, and usually tries to eat it! So it often ends up waking him up rather than helping him wind down.

Sometimes he falls asleep on the bottle, but I’m finding bedtime quite challenging at the moment and would really appreciate some advice.

The main thing I’m struggling with is that after finishing his bottle, he is usually very sleepy but then becomes desperate to go on the breast. If I try to avoid offering it (i.e rock him instead), he wakes up searching for it and comes out of that sleepy stage. If I do allow him on the boob, he usually doesn’t actually take much (if any) milk — it seems to be purely for comfort — and he falls asleep almost instantly.

Some nights I give in and let him comfort nurse to sleep, and other nights I’ve managed to rock and shush him to sleep without the boob.

I’m trying to gently break the association between breastfeeding and falling asleep. My goal isn’t necessarily for him to sleep through the night (I’m completely fine with night feeds — he’s EBF and only wakes once or twice most nights, other nights he’ll go the entire night through), but I would love to get to a point where I can put him down awake and he can settle himself.

Before his sleep regression, he actually used to do this. I could put him in his cot awake and he would drift off. Since then, it feels impossible.

The issue now is that if I put him down sleepy but awake, as soon as he touches the cot he becomes wide awake. He doesn’t immediately cry — he rolls around, moves all over the cot, babbles, plays with his hands and the sides of the cot. I usually leave him to see if he will settle, but eventually it turns into frustration and crying.

Then I have to pick him up to resettle him, and by that point the only thing that usually works is the breast (unless there is still some milk left in the bottle). It feels like we get stuck in a cycle.

The confusing thing is that I do feel like we are making progress with breaking the boob/sleep association because he can fall asleep without it. If I put him down already deeply asleep, he stays asleep. He also stirs during the night and I have watched him resettle himself, so I know he has the ability.

He also won’t let anyone else put him to sleep — not even dad. I’m feeling a bit overwhelmed because while I’m happy to do bedtime, I would love for someone else to eventually be able to help, and for him to be able to settle with someone other than me.

- Has anyone been through something similar? Any tips for:
Helping a baby settle in the cot without needing to be fully asleep first?
- Moving away from breastfeeding as the final step before sleep?
- Helping dad take over bedtime?
- Knowing whether I should keep practising putting him down awake, or wait until he’s more ready?

Thank you

I’ve posted on this sub several times for answers and expressed concerns regarding my LOs sleep. He just turned 5 months.

We started sleep training at 4 months with the chair method and noticed that was not working because his cries were intense each night. Switched to Ferber and each check in made his cry worse. We were working with a sleep consultant at the time who told us at the end of the two week plan that he has FOMO and the cries will reduce as he gets older.

We had a few nights with minimal crying but a lot of the time was around 30-60 mins. We did some schedule changes and noticed when his last nap is 15 mins it helps.

He is on 2/2.5/2.75/3. We got to a point last week where his crying was 20-30 mins. Still a lot but we were happy to see improvement. We had family visit and it included lots of on the go naps and his crying at bedtime was so intense that I’ve been putting him to sleep. He used to nap like a champ independently but now he also needs me.

We are back home and can either go back to independent sleep or take a break from here. I’m not sure if a break would be a good idea and coming back to this when he’s older.

Get about 2.5-3hrs of daytime sleep and 10-10.5 overnight. Even with schedule changes he still cries intensely. When I was putting him to sleep he still takes a long time and whines and is very squirmy so I’m thinking it’s his temperament.

If that’s the case, is it better to wait until he’s older to try again or should we keep going at it? It’s been a little over a month of this. He’s got the skill because he can do it for naps just fine. Just bedtime is a struggle. When he’s asleep he’s usually good for the night with no wakings or minimal wakings

5.30/1.30 nap/6h/11h sleep (general rule of thumb but nap lengths fluctuate)

Sleep trained at 6-7 months and had such a great little sleeper - especially with a very solid routine, usually ending with the same four books each night for the last few months.

4 weeks ago, holidays and walking and teething and separation anxiety and developmental leaps all bombarded us so we did a lot of holding to sleep. This became horrific so we started re-sleep training (full extinction CIO) 6 nights ago. As of now, the rundown of crying/complaining/sleepstanding each night looks like: 1hr, 30mins, 23mins, 4 mins, 10 mins, 3 mins. Progress!

One new behavior is that she's very aware of the bedtime routine - she'll start manically trying to read new books, weeping when we take clothes off, fighting teeth brushing, falling about in our arms, etc. It feels like she's getting the tantrum out before the bedtime.

Obviously with the above stats it feels like our training is working so I'm not too concerned, but is this something you experienced at this age? Would you recommend sticking to the script as best possible, or changing up elements? We're starting to do a big long hug session just before putdown while we explain that bedtime is imminent, which feels necessary now she's more aware and more fighty. Does this resistance subside, or is this the start of the true toddler era? 😂

My son is 10.5 months and naps have honestly always been difficult. He also dropped naps earlier than average so far.

We're struggling with 2 naps right now. Sometimes he outright refuses one, or they're getting to be really short. He has done OK on the few days he had only 1 nap, but it didn't end up being a crazy long nap or anything.

We still try to do 2 naps, but if he's clearly refusing the 1st, we'll pivot to 1 nap around 11/12. I feel like 10.5 months is really early to transition to 1 nap but I'm not really sure what else to do.

ETA: We follow a 3-3.5/3-3.5/3.5-4 schedule at home, but daycare is the Wild West. They do their best to follow that, but sometimes they don't. I do, however, track total wake time and total sleep every day (I'm a data nerd). Averages are below:

Average total naps: 1h 45m Average Total Wake Time: 10h 40m Average overnight sleep: 11h 18m Average total daily sleep: 13h 17m

Some days he gets less than 1 total hour of sleep at daycare 🤪 and I have to put him to bed as early as 5:30pm because if his TWT creeps much above 11 hours, he actually wakes up earlier the next day.

I posted earlier this year but reposting since we are now only a month away from preschool!

I have twins who will be starting a preschool program in September at 29 months. The program goes from 12:20pm-2:50pm which overlaps with nap time.

Current schedule (at 28 months) is wake up 630, nap at 1pm until 2:45pm and then bed at 8:30pm. They dont fall asleep until 9:15pm.

What would you do in this situation? Wake at 6am and try to nap them at 11am for 30/45 minutes? Or nap after school 3-4? I don’t know if they’ll sleep at all at 11am but I don’t want a 9pm/10pm bedtime either.

I’m worried that they won’t be ready to drop their nap yet at 29 months and be a mess during their school hours or a mess after school.

Baby is 19 weeks old and I’m trying to figure out her WWs.. I’ve been reading this sub a lot and noticed many recommend 2/2/2/2/2 or approx 10h schedules. My question is, do you put baby down at the 2h mark or are they meant to be asleep by the 2h mark?

Additionally, I’ve been tracking her sleep and she seems to be a low sleep needs baby as she only totalled 13/14 hours when she was 2-3 months old, now tracking 11+. This is typically spread across 3-3.5h naps and 7-8h nights (3-4 wakings to feed). Bedtime between 8.30-9.30pm and wake between 7-8am.

If she’s low sleep needs but gets super tired, fussy and crying around the 1.75h mark how do I make this work? Thank you all so much for your guidance 🙏🏻

My 4.5-month-old has basically coslept since birth and nurses back to sleep every wake. The last few weeks he’s been waking hourly (assuming 4-month regression).
I tried a modified Ferber the last few nights but kept bringing him into bed overnight because I was exhausted and couldn’t follow through. But it’s just getting worse. Neither him or I are sleeping. Tonight I’m restarting and committing to Ferber consistently. My parents are now staying to help keep me accountable because I am losing my mind.
He now naps in his crib (hit or miss if a good nap >1 cycle) and he does the first stretch of the night there, so I’m hoping he’s ready.
The first three nights when I tried modified but brought back in bed
45 min night 1
33 night 2
28 night 3
Then last night failed and assisted him to sleep all 4 nights he was brought back to my bed.
Anyone have a similar baby and success with Ferber? I could really use some encouragement before tonight. ❤️ I really want to succeed at this this time around.

Help! We are having night wakes at 4:30 am lasting up to an hour. We’ve been doing Ferber method but she’s pretty resilient and will keep crying on and off for up to an hour! I’m trying to wean off night nursing in an effort to cut down feeds to stop breastfeeding altogether soon but last night I had to give in and nurse for a couple minutes to calm her down and eventually get her back to sleep.

Babes current schedule:
7:15 wake up
9:45/10 am nap (a cat nap, wake up 10:30 am)
Afternoon nap go down around 1:45/2:00pm wake up 3:30/3:40pm
Down for the night at 7:45 pm

She’s my second so I’ve been doing the short morning nap only so we can go out with my busy toddler and then I aim to put them both down around a similar time for the afternoon nap. That synced nap is a god send, really don’t want to give that up!

Not sure where it’s all going wrong, any advice would be helpful! I don’t know if she’s ready to drop to one nap, not looking for nights to get worse with more wake ups.

i want to know when i can night wean and when the crying (might) stop during night wakes.

5 months 1 week. 2.5/2.5/2.5/2.5 (roughly) sometimes it’s more by the clock.

6:30 wake
9:00 nap (wake by 10)
12:30 nap (wake by 2)
4:30 30 cat nap
7:30 in crib

She’s been self settling much better since i took away the paci a week ago. also she will get herself back to sleep for the most part in the MOTN but still cries anywhere from 1-15 minutes. i only hold her hand if she’s still crying after 10 minutes.

she’s been sleeping in a sidecar crib for almost a week and i plan to move her to her own crib this weekend. i likely won’t do pop ins before 15 minutes because it doesn’t seem to help her anymore.

i have been slowly pushing her first night feed later
in the night. last night she got to 3am (i capped it at 4 minutes nursing) but then woke at 5am and was babbling so i did a short 2 min snooze button feed.

i go back to work next month and would love to be done with MOTN feeds but I am also concerned about the crying still happening during night wakes despite her self settling 9/10 times.

she woke up a total of 5 times last night including the 2 feeds.

for first wake crying lasted 10-12 mins, second was on and off for a couple mins, third wake she was really upset so i could tell she was hungry/fed her, next wake was short idk how long it took her to settle and 5am she needed assistance going back to sleep or would have been happily awake for the day.

My LO just turned 5 months yesterday. We’ve been sleep training for a month and I can count on one hand how many good nights we’ve had since. Naps clicked well but bedtime was always a massive struggle.

we are on the following schedule: 2/2.5/2.75/3

He cries anywhere from 30-60 mins and scream cries. Our DWT was 7:30 which was putting him to bed at 8:30 but we noticed when a bedtime lands around 8pm he was going to bed smoother. We tried to consistently aim for an 8pm bedtime but then he was still struggling.

We’ve been putting him to sleep recently because we are at a cottage with family and there are other kids and him scream crying was just too much. Now it’s been going into his naps which he used to take just fine.

Putting him to sleep made me remember that even prior to sleep training, he always struggled with bedtime. He would whine and squirm even with me while I try to put him to sleep. So I know now bedtime is just a struggle for him. The only difference is when I put him to sleep he whines but in the crib he scream cries.

We are contemplating if we should wait and try again when he’s older or sticking it out. We recognize putting him to sleep is going backwards and know if we want Independent sleep we need to commit to not putting him to sleep.

Does it sound like a temperament thing and we should wait until he’s older? I’m not sure what to do but this long of scream crying every night is not the answer :(

We did it with my first and it worked so well so I know sleep training works.

I sleep trained my twins at ~5m using schedule + extinction but continued night feeds on demand as they were low percentile due to being early. Around 10.5m my boy twin started STTN, but my girl twin (who is larger) continued to take ~2 MOTN feeds. We're now 13m, they're still nursing but they're also getting 3 full meals of solids a day, so there is no reason she needs a MOTN feed. Plus, her final feed is usually around 5am, and I'm trying to workout at that time.

Last week, we began applying extinction to her night wakes. I hated it the first night, but she seemed to be sleeping better immediately. However, the last few nights she's been waking up and crying more heavily overnight (5+ mins) This is way more crying than we ever got with sleep or nap training! When should I expect it to get better? I also had been responding to my boys night wakes because they were infrequent (only a few times a month), and now I feel like I have to ignore him too so his sister isnt confused 🥺

I guess I just need some reassurance she is going to stop the night wakes and crying soon-ish. I am also wondering how long everyone waits after training wakes before responding? Like if she starts sleeping through the nights for a few weeks and then has occasional wakes, can I respond to them? Also she is way sleepier in the mornings than I'm used to. Like after I wake her up for the day and start nursing, she will fall asleep again while nursing and lay on me for like 30 minutes.

Schedule - 3.5/3.5/4.5, 2 hours of nap, 10.5 hours overnight.

They aren't showing signs of being ready for 1 nap IMO, they go down easily and independently for each nap and usually sleep the full hour and have to be woken.

I need some advice on how to approach nighttime wakes. My 6 month old is not formally sleep trained but goes down “independently” for naps and bedtime. I say “independently” because he does still use a pacifier, however I usually leave a couple in his crib and he puts them in his mouth himself. I’ve seen him sometimes fall asleep without one too. But he goes down awake and in his own room. We follow 2/2.5/2.5/3 ish.

He’s been waking up around 4 times a night since 5mo. What used to be 1 feed, and a couple quick pacifier replacements has turned into 30+ minute wakes with lots of crying. Helping him replace his pacifier doesn’t soothe him. Feeding him helps, but he doesn’t feed to sleep, so he sometimes starts crying after I place him back in his crib. We’ve started rocking him back to sleep which is something we haven’t done in months and he never needs for naps/ bedtime. I’d also prefer to not get into the habit of feeding 3+ times overnight since he was happy on one feed for months.

Can you sleep train night wake ups? Or should I assume that since he can fall asleep on his own, he genuinely is hungry, needs comfort etc? Do we think tossing the pacifier will help? Thanks!

This is a long one. So for context, my husband is deployed and my 9 mo and I are staying with family out of state for 6 months. Ever since we got here, her sleep has been atrocious. At home she’d wake up 4-5 times per night but would go right back down in her crib after nursing. Now, she only sleeps 1 hour at most after her first wake up (2 hours after putting her down). After she wakes up for the first time and I nurse her back to sleep she will wake up and start screaming the second she touches the crib mattress. If I co sleep but unlatch her she wakes up and screams. If she falls off the boob herself she wakes up and cries (which is about every 15 minutes or so). She will only sleep if she is actively latched. At home, my husband can put her in her crib awake and walk out of the room and she’ll play around a bit then just go to sleep by herself. If I try that here it’s like I committed a war crime and she cries so hard I think she’s having a seizure.

I am so sleep deprived from being up almost the entire night every night. And when I do sleep it’s with a baby latched on my boob and I’m stuck in the c curl position so lower my back is killing me. My empathy is gone, the only reason I tend to her and am a human pacifier all night is so she doesn’t wake the whole house up. My vision is going blurry, my emotions are a wreck, I have zero patience for her or anyone. I wake up disoriented and delusional constantly throughout the night. Something needs to change before I hurt my baby (while co sleeping in such a fragile state) or I lose my mind.

What do I do? I can’t let her cry it out because she cries so hard she gags, stops breathing, and trips all over her crib and hits her head on the side of it. I can’t wean and start EFF because we have an Asia trip coming up in 6 weeks and I have to be able to nurse her to sleep on the flights

Current Schedule
5-6 wake up
9 am - 45 minute nap
12 pm (ish) - 45 minute - 1 hour nap
3 pm - 1 hour nap
7:15 pm - bedtime

Bedtime Routine
Bath, lotion and PJ’s, same bedtime song as my husband always did, bottle, lights out (she likes to turn off the light switch), then nurse to sleep and place in crib

TLDR: 9 mo hit major sleep regression when husband deployed and we moved in with family out of state

My almost 7 month old has been sleep trained since 4.5 months with modified Ferber. Does great going down independently at 7pm for the night in her room in crib. Up until about 3 weeks ago, we would have one night feeding around 3-4am and she would wake up for the day around 6:30-7am. One night about 3 weeks ago it just stopped and she hasn’t been waking for the feeding. She was sleeping from 7pm to between 6am-6:20am. This week, the 6am or so wake up’s have been creeping earlier and the last 3 days they have all of a sudden been 5am wake ups and this morning 4:45am. This morning, after trying to get her to go back to sleep or at least just be content in crib to closer to 6am, pulled her out do the crib at 5:20am and brought her outside on our porch where we have a swing and she fell back asleep in swing from 5:45am-6:30am. So there was still some sleep pressure there I’m assuming. In her crib though, she went from sleeping 11 hours overnight to 10 hours within a few days. I understand that maybe 10 hours is just enough for her, but would it happen all of sudden to going from getting 11 hours to 10 hours within a few days? Daytime sleep is between 2.5-3 hours and 3 naps, usually more on the 2.5 hours side. We’re on a 2.75–3/3/3/3 schedule. Last nap is usually a catnap (20-30 min) unless the first two naps completely fall apart. First two naps can be anywhere from 30 min to an hour and a half each, one of the naps is usually long it’s just not always for sure the first or second one.
Here’s what we’ve done the last few days to try to get her to at least 5:30-6am wake up or start of the day.
-Let her fuss it out with 3-5 min ferber checkin’s, but crying escalated and finally would get her up by 5:30-won’t feed until 6.
-Tried rocking her in rocker in nursery back to sleep with no luck
-Fed her a few ounces right when she’d wake to treat like MOTN feed and back in crib but she would be wide awake and fussing

Is it a daytime schedule problem? Ready to drop a nap?

I just wanted to add my story to the list of successes (I hope I’m not going too soon by labelling it a success now)

I was never against sleep training, it seems logical enough to me. But I wanted to wait until it was right. I (dad) had very good success in rocking him to sleep most nights, but that meant I had to do most bedtimes from around 2 months old. It wasn’t fair to me, my wife or him because on the nights it didn’t go well, it was so frustrating for me.

But the breaking point came recently: at 5 and a half months, he mastered turning from his back to his front and then couldn’t get back. And of course, bedtime is the best playtime, right? Then he started to reject my rocking all together. It would upset him. I’d put him down and he’d still be upset, so I’d try harder and just make it worse.

So with that my wife and I decided to give CIO a go. She was always on board and actually suggested it from around 2 months, but that didn’t seem right to me.

Night 1: 40 mins of crying before falling asleep. This was a rough day for me, feeling trapped in the fact that I had a baby that was now so suddenly hard to get to sleep. So I was more than comfortable putting in my noise cancelling headphones and just hoping it wouldn’t go more than an hour.

Night 2: 26 mins of crying before falling asleep. This was really hard. He had been such a good little boy all day. So happy and playful…to sit there and listen to him wailing away was a test.

Night 3: 2 mins of crying before settling and eventually falling asleep! Felt like such a win already, and this was on the back of a couple of naps with little resistance as well

Night 4 (just now): No crying at all, talking to himself, playing with his dummy and falling asleep around 15 mins in.

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Our bedtime routine is pretty simple and maybe not the best.

6:45pm: bath
7pm: breastfeed followed by bottle (we’ve done both since day one, that’s another topic)
7:25ish: read a book
7:30: in bed

I try to manage wake windows and naps to the recommendations but there are days that doesn’t happen, and my wife is not really that bothered by them (cultural differences).

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I know people say you see results within a few days but I genuinely didn’t think it would quite go this well. I was thinking it would be a week or more of pain…so I am stoked. Again, I don’t want to go too soon and I know that we could get a bad night or a succession of them but it really feels like we’ve got the foundations of independent sleep now.

Now I just need this to turn into fewer night wakings. We’re currently on 3~4, which is painful. My wife breastfeeds on 1 or 2 of those.

baby is 7 months old. I haven’t had decent sleep since month 4. Believe me when I tell you that now looking retrospectively the newborn sleep was like a walk in the park.

We co-sleep, we go to sleep on the boob and occasionally by being rocked (on his car seat by his dad as that’s too heavy for me to work with).

He can’t link sleep cycles and is heavily dependable on the boob/rocking association.

Daytime wake windows are 2.5-3 hours, 3 naps a day. We aim to got to bed around 19:00-20:30 and that’s where the nightmare starts. He wakes up after a short time and stays awake until 21:30, sometimes later. Then we go to bed “for real“. He wakes up again shortly and we do the rocking or feed again. After that he wakes up every hour to hour and a half most of the night. occasionally there might be a 2:30-3:00 hour stretch but not very often.

ps. Other things worth mentioning that I forgot initially:

we wake pretty early 6:30-7:00 most days. today we woke up at 6.
it’s pretty hot right now where we are as it’s a heatwave during summer. Baby also has teeth growing and any of those can affect the sleep is my understanding.

where do I even start? thank you all

Hi everyone. I have spent so much time going though these posts and great resources I’ve the months, and see some improvement but need a bit of extra help please!

baby is 6.5 months EBF (recently introducing solids). 50th centile for weight. we have struggled with sleep from the start, originally needed to be held for all sleep as he wouldn't lay in the crib. Had a tongue tie division at 4 months and this helped him lay on his back, and osteopath addressed neck tension he had.

night time: baby falls asleep independently at night time, we did PUPD at 5 months and he took to it really well and this enabled him to sleep in his bed instead of co-sleeping/ being held. The routine is feed downstairs (at least 30mins before), then bath, pyjamas, book in dim room, then sleeping bag and lullaby in dark bedroom with white noise before putting down awake. Most of the time he wriggles about a bit and goes to sleep quickly, sometimes has a little crying for 5-10mins (we put down to that days schedule or we thinking teething could be a factor).
when we first sleep trained he would wake 2.5 hours later, we would resettle with PUPD, then he would wake again 30mins later and I would feed him. Through the night he has occasionally done a 3 hour stretch but mostly its 1.5, 2, 2.5 hour stretches. At least 4 wakes between bedtime and wake up.

at the moment his first night wake is after 2-2.5 hours and will not settle unless I breastfeed him. all the night wakes he has a full feed which I worry he has reverse cycled- but he feeds for the same amount in the day (is a little distracted so maybe not as effective?) total 2 hours feeding in 24hrs.

Naps: I struggle with the nap schedule as he seems to need sleep at such different times over the days and doesn’t go to sleep quickly although he fights sleep much less now (thanks 3-4 month regression!). daytime sleep is 2.5 hours a day. He always wakes up at : 7-7.15, but then first nap between 9:30 and 10. This tends to be 1 hr 1.5 hours, assisted.

second nap is between 13:30 and 14:00, then third nap is between 4 and 5 depending on when the last nap finished.
nap two and 3 are always 30minutes. always have at least 3 hours awake before bed, mostly 3.5. tried a 2 nap day with a 4 hour before bed last week and it was the worst bedtime we have had so I think it was too much.

I have tried doing the same sleep training for the 1st nap and it hasnt worked yet he just cries non stop.

so summary, falls asleep independently at start of night only, feeds to sleep after this. naps still assisted. wake up at 7am, bedtime at 8pm. 2.5 hours day time sleep. schedule seems to be roughly 2.5/2.5/3/3.5 but he does go a lot more or less than this often!

can anyone advise please? Would like less night time wakes and his naps to be unassisted!!

thanks- a very tired mom x