My 5 month old is finally figured out sleep training and has gotten on a good schedule and naps around the same time each day. He goes down independently as well.

I’m a pretty social and family oriented person and my question is, how do you go out and do stuff and still have a life but not ruin your baby’s routine for the day and wreak havoc?

I’m struggling wanting to do things or spend the night places because I’m worried he won’t sleep other places or will nap way too long in the car rides or nap way before his wake window ends.

Just curious what everyone's thoughts were on this idea! I see it all over the internet and my husband brought it up as something we might try. I'm afraid it will absolutely screw up our mornings bc my son seems to be pretty low sleep needs, but I do always wonder if (or hope) he could sleep more lol

Just wanted to share some success I've had this week! At 11 weeks baby girl hit the sleep regression HARD. We started cosleeping just to function because she was waking at the end of every sleep cycle. I enjoyed the snuggles for a few weeks but then I realised we were actually waking each other up whenever either one of us just needed a little wriggle to get comfy. I was popping the boob out to maintain sleep for both of us which then started reverse cycling which "fed" the waking habits.

At 16 weeks, a week ago today, I was a completely broken shell of myself. Even though cosleeping is "easier" for some (if that's you, amazing, you do you boo), she had still woken me 8+ times through the night and I wasn't getting quality sleep.

Fast forward to last night she slept in her own cot in her own room from 740pm-740am with 2 quick feeds at 120am and 530am. (Asleep again within 15mins from wake).

Here's what I did;

• Slowly extended wake windows over a few days. After day 1 of doing this she woke 6 times instead of 8. Then 4 wakes the following two nights (still cosleeping as she also had her vaccinations at this time and was a bit upset and irritated already! Plus just didn't want to change too much too soon).

● Night One in Cot

I rocked her to sleep but did a quick transfer only 5mins later. The theory and practice here was that she popped her eyes open for a few seconds to take in the transition but was already essentially asleep and just continued/fell back to sleep, mildly aware of the transition. (I've also successfully done this with a day nap but will focus on naps more properly once our nights are more consistent). 730pm.

• First sleep cycle ended and she woke up crying (35-40mins after transfer). Not common practice but it was here that we started Ferber style training. Because she was simply transitioning between cycles rather than falling asleep by herself, I found this may have made it easier but I have no other personal reference. She was in between falling back asleep for anywhere between 3-8mins, and crying, for about half an hour - 45mins with two check ins during that time if she'd cried for about 10mins straight. She fell asleep properly at 850pm for an hour. I fed at 950pm, then 4 more times through the night.

Win = first night in the cot by herself / cot exposure.

● Night Two in Cot

Started "Ferber" (kind of, you'll see) from actual bedtime. I was dreading this as I'm sure many do - it's hard to hear them cry. What got me through was remembering our first big road trip. She had always struggled to fall asleep in the car but on this road trip when she was due a nap there was no where to pull over and she essentially had to cry it out but with my hand, voice, dummy, white noise etc. And ever since she sleeps great in the car!!

So I put her down super sleepy at 640pm (when it worked out with wake windows). She had *almost* fallen asleep in my arms before this accidentally. She started crying straight away, I kissed her goodnight and left. Did first check in after 10mins of picking my nails in anxiousness and fully picked her up, gave her a big cuddle and actually ended up rocking her to almost sleep (had only picked her up about 1min). I put her back down still slightly awake and she cried as I left the room. I went to shower and had dad on duty. He went and did the same (pick up, cuddle) after 15mins of crying. She cried as he left the room and then fell asleep about 3-4mins later.

She then had a 6hr stretch of sleep!!! Wakes at 107am, 315am, 530am. Woke for day at 645am.

Win = longest stretch in about 1.5 months!!

● Night 3 in cot

Her naps and wake windows throughout the day were a bit confusing leading into the night (4 naps instead of 3 which meant an extra wake window and around 9hrs of wake time?)

I accidentally fed to sleep when doing a top up feed because she was obviously tired enough around 740pm.

Similar to night one, she woke crying after one sleep cycle. I had planned to only give her 3mins since she had fed to sleep she may have needed to Burp, but she stopped crying after only 2mins and fell asleep!

As previously mentioned, she then only woke twice at 120am and then 530am, then awake for the day at 740am. This was also the first morning of the 3 mornings that I caught her awake and happy on the monitor and went in with big smiles all round instead of her waking and crying!

• Clearly I broke a lot of "rules". I didn't follow Ferber strictly but did allow a bit of crying through her frustration to give her enough exposure to work it out. I struggled not to pick her up once in the room with her crying and both her dad and i obviously caved to the cuddles, but that still worked for us as it was the level of reassurance she needed and a quick pat would have frustrated her. The cuddle also made us feel better for our own comfort level. The stretched wake windows and stuff prior was me really making sure that she wasn't undertired to risk hours and hours of crying and honestly I think she had been undertired for several weeks!

We also have a pretty consistent bedtime routine and prioritise lots of connection through this.

I hope this helps someone who might be struggling with cosleeping like I was! Or someone who doesnt like the idea of crying but is willing to do just a little bit for the purpose of exposure (it still sucks lol but glad it wasn't as bad!)

Tonight I'll try laying her down awake again and can edit with an update tomorrow.

I’m new to Reddit and a new mom- I have a 3.5 baby who isn’t the best sleeper. Starting to think about sleeping training when she is 4ish months. I’ve read several threads about sleep training, but am seeing a lot of acronyms like CIO and FIO- not sure what they mean!

We loosely follow wake windows.. she usually lasts 1.5 hours and only naps exactly 45 minutes- no more. Which is exhausting, but I’m told napping improves later. At night, she is still waking every 3ish hours. Between 8:30p-1a, my husband goes and soothes, then I’ll feed her the next time she wakes (I can’t tell when she is hungry vs just finishing a sleep cycle!!) around 2/3am then again at 6/7a. Then she zonks out till 10/10:30a. When she cries over night, sometimes her eyes are closed but I’m to the point I just feed her so we can all go back to sleep but I know that isn’t good long term. She can self soothe and finds her thumb especially in the early mornings.

Baby is 9 months old, sleep trained Ferber and CIO multiple times since 5/6 months old.

Goes to sleep on her own at bedtime after screaming for 2-10 mins. Patting to sleep for naps still screams a lot.

Waking 3/4 times after midnight for feeds and won’t go back to sleep without boob. Will happily feed both sides drained and go back to sleep for 2 hours until she’s up again. Was doing 5/3/3 but she screams the house down if she doesn’t get fed after waking within 2hrs.

She’s in my room cause we only have 2 rooms at the moment and my toddler is in the other one.

Only a handful of times has she gone to sleep peacefully. Never slept through the night - ever.

Only sleeps past 5.30am if she’s sick.

Routine is 5.30am/6.30am wake and milk feed 7am Brekky 8.30am screams for boob but trying to cut this one out 9/9.30am nap 1 for 1hr or1.5 10.30/11 Lunch 12 milk feed 1.30 screams for boob but also trying to cut this one out 2/2.30pm nap 2 for 1hr or 1.5 3.30/4 milk feed then snack 5.30pm dinner 6-7.30 cluster feeds (really annoying just wants boob all the time) 7.30 bedtime

Also feeds ALOT during the day but also eats a lot of food? She’s chunky like 9/10kilos.

Has she got a feed to sleep association? If this why she’s waking so much? Help!

Hey everyone. My son is currently 5 months and one week. We have been using the huckleberry app and following along their guidelines of when the next nap should be and it’s pretty accurate except my baby only sleeps max 30-45 minutes. Because of this he ends up having 4-5 naps to last through the day! We are sleep training him and on night 3 tonight. He took 6 minutes of crying the first night and second night was 20 minutes. We will see how tonight goes.
Just looking for some light at the end of the tunnel that this is going to turn out well for us. Will sleep training help his naps? We are all so mentally exhausted from worrying about his naps all day and cannot get anything done! Please help.

Getting desperate here… For the past 12 weeks, my baby has been waking up every hour and needs soothing. I am a single parent so I cannot share the nights with a partner. Please give my ANY advice you have!

Current routine:

Wake up 6:00
First nap 9:30-10:30
Second nap 14:00-15:00
Bedtime 19:00 (falls asleep within 10 minutes)

Then he wakes up EVERY hour between 19:00-6:00. 10 times at least 😭 he has always been bottle fed and around midnight and 3 in the morning he will not settle unless I give him a small bottle (90 or 60 ml).

When soothing he is in his crib and I gently pat his back. When giving him the bottle I of course pick him up.

When he was 0-6 months old he slept in his own crib. 6-7,5 months I tried co sleeping. 7,5-8 months he is in his own crib again.

Thank you for reading my post. I am greatful for ANY advice or idea!

Our baby is 7 months old. We have a bad sleep routine for him where we basically feed to sleep him. The last month has been very hard where we wakes up and falls asleep feeding and sleeps in our arms but instantly awake in the crib. Takes numerous attempts.

Previous night routine was bath, then diaper change and massage and then feed in dark till asleep and put him down. Multiple false starts till eventually he’s asleep.

New one we started today was feed, then bath and disappear and massage, book and then into crib awake.

We tried Ferber day 1 today and he kept crying non stop for like 75mins. We stopped because it was going on so long. He wasn’t letting go and seemed like he was struggling slightly breathing from all the crying.

What can we do? We want to sleep train him but is 75min too long for night one?

Hi,

My child is approaching 13 months. He had always not been the best sleeper (compared to my other child) but maybe 7/10 nights he was sleeping thru the night fully.

Recently it has taken a turn downwards and he’s awake for 2 hours (almost clock work like) at night. Yesterday he started the day at 4am and on going to bed tonight he’s decided to wake up just as I’m going to bed so currently been awake 21 hours 🤯

His “typical day” is 7-7. Try to keep him on 1 x 2hr nap (12-2) or 2 x 1hr naps (10-11 & 2-3) I got these times from AI (desperate times call for desperate measures)

As soon as he wakes up he stands up in his cot and is trying to play and reach around. Before he took this funny patch if he would wake up we could rub his back and he’d drift back off but now that’s not possible

He falls asleep having a cuddle with his bottle at night (or after his bottle just in my arms) without any issues or fighting it. When he wakes in the night currently he is fighting going back to sleep.

I just feel at the end of my tether now and don’t want to live like this. Feel restrained with sleep schedules and still not sleeping at night
I’m open to all advice

Thanks in advance ,

From someone going through it 😂

Little guy is 5.5 months old and we are starting sleep training next week. Trying to give him the best shot at success by making sure his environment isn’t working against him. We have used the hatch sound machine for months now after he sized out of his snoo at 3 months (99th percentile long boy) and accidentally fell into a routine of keeping the red light on with the white noise. Aside from this, no outside light is coming into his room. Should we keep the light or slowly dim it this week so it’s pitch black when we start sleep training next week ? Same with the white noise, should we start phasing it out? ( it helps with drowning out outside noise so I’m more partial to keeping it , but curious if anyone has experience with it helping/hurting babies ability to fall asleep and stay asleep independently).

My baby boy is 7.5 months, we have a 2.5/3/3 schedule (though start times of naps often vary). He struggles with cat naps sometimes. He is currently usually waking up 1x a night but sometimes 2 or 3 on a rough night. He falls asleep usually being rocked which is a bad habit I’ve fallen into.

My question- I’ve wanted to do fervent but have really struggled to do so. Now he is sitting up and whenever I put him in the crib to sleep he just sits up if he’s awake at all. Did I miss my window to sleep train? Does anyone have tips to 1. Sleep train an older baby and 2. To just power through the crying? That’s basically the reason I haven’t been consistent is because I’m just so bad at hearing my baby cry

Our baby (13 months) is a late sleeper, so late that we all go together to bed at the same time and it is incredibly draining to not get any time to ourselves. Our baby wakes up at 09:00, has a 30/40 minute nap somewhere between 12:00-14:00, another 45 minute nap between 16:00 and 18:00. We would love for her to fall asleep around 21:00 so we can get a few hours to ourselves but whenever we try to put her to bed around that time it's just straight up 3 hours of screaming... Any advice would be welcome..

My baby has been getting really upset and physically fighting me when I’ve been putting her to bed. Her sleep has gotten worse the past few nights so I’ve just been putting her into her bed and surprisingly she’s been just drifting off?

It started with her first nap of the day and then last night I attempted it after she woke up 3x in 4hours.
There’s been a couple times she’s cried for max 2 minutes but typically she rolls onto her tummy and grizzles while rubbing the sheets.

Am I being naive or are we onto something?

Should I be doing anything different?

I’ve been putting her down 5-10min before her wake window ends so she has time to soothe herself to sleep withen her wake window is this right?

I normally feed her right on the end of her wake window before nighttime sleep should I bring this forward?

Hi all. I'm here looking for some encouragement, success stories, and maybe a little tough love (gentle tough love... I'm fragile 😂) to help me finally re-sleep train my 18-month-old.

The short version: sleep has been inconsistent for the last 4 months. Between travel, teething, illnesses, regressions, and a huge wave of separation anxiety, we've slowly slipped into survival mode. Somewhere along the way we started co-sleeping from around 3-7 a.m., and now it's become the norm. It's time to break the habit.

He was sleep trained at 6 months but things really unraveled around 14 months, and since then we've mostly been putting band-aids on the problem instead of fixing it. Right now, bedtime is actually pretty good. We use the chair method, and he'll fall asleep independently with me sitting across the room in about 15-45 minutes.

The real issue is overnight. He typically wakes sometime between 1-5 a.m. Sometimes it's once, sometimes it's three times. The second he wakes, he stands up and cries. As soon as I walk into the room, he'll immediately lie back down, but then I have to stay in the room until he's asleep again. Hence, if it's after about 3 a.m., we’d gotten into the habit of bringing him into our bed because we're exhausted.

But now my husband and I have travel coming up, and my parents will be watching him for a few nights. I don't think it's fair to expect them to co-sleep or be up multiple times a night, and honestly, we're all ready for better sleep.

Schedule is
6:30/7am wake (ideally)
12-2:15 nap (at daycare)
7:20 bath, pjs, etc.
7:45 into crib
8-8:30 asleep

So... if you've re-sleep trained a toddler around this age after months of inconsistency, I'd love to hear your success stories.

I know what I need to do. I just need a little confidence to actually follow through.

Baby is 7.5 months old.

Schedule: Wake windows of 2.5 / 2.5 / 2.5 / 3 hrs between naps, naps averaging ~2.5 hrs across the day. Naps are usually 70-80 mins, then 40-50, then 30. We haven’t moved to 2 naps yet because she already has a hard time making it through the first 2.5 hr wake window

Sleep training status: Bedtime is CIO trained as of a few weeks ago— now under 1 minute of crying to fall asleep independently when we started at 30 mins of crying. However, we haven’t tackled overnight wakes or naps yet. Still getting multiple wakes overnight, and naps are 50% rocked to sleep and 50% nursed/contact naps. She had a 2-week or so period of no overnight wakes between when we put her down and 7:30-8pm and 4-5am but that has changed about a week ago, which we think is at least partially due to more teething

Question: how do we go about training overnight wakes? And then nap training? I saw that the nap resource is geared toward under 6 months. (For bedtime training, we did CIO)

Baby was sleep trained around 4.5-5 months old with ferber method. Aside from the first night, it worked well. We ended up with early wakes and changed schedule at the advice of someone on here which helped.

She’s on the whole been doing great, she goes down easily at night and doesn’t really cry, if she does it’s very brief.

The last 2 nights however, she has screamed the moment she is put down and carries on and on and on. She cries during the day but never screaming like this. We have tried going in after 20 mins of screaming and soothing her by picking her up (though we never did this while aleep training). One night she then fell asleep after a few more mins of crying. Tonight she is still screaming after me soothing her…she didnt even stop screaming when I picked her up, it took a few mins.

I put her down at 8;50pm roughly and it’s now 9:20pm and she’s still screaming.

Could this be separation anxiety? a scheduling issue? This week she has started “loving us back”, like reaching out for us to pick her up, or putting her arms properly around me when I hold her. She has also started rolling back to belly this week too (she has been able to roll from her front to belly for a while now).

The schedule has been working really well so it seems weird to have a sudden change?

Schedule: Wake up at 7:15am, Bed at 20:45pm

2.5/2.5/2.75/3.25 - total wake time 11 hours. Naps: 45 mins for nap 1, 1h15min for nap 2 and 30 min for nap 3. Naps are 2.5h across the day. She is not sleep trained for naps. Most naps are contatc naps or in the car at the moment.

Can anyone shed some light on this please? Her screaming and crying is breaking my heart.

We sleep trained for nights at 6 months using CIO and baby took to it very quickly. Baby goes to sleep independently at nights and does great!

But naps were contact naps up until 10 months when I was able to rock and transfer to the bed. Just looking for any success stories for gentle crib nap training and tips? Also baby has recently transitioned to 1 nap.

Help 17 mo suddenly crying and resisting crib at bedtime also in throes of 2-1 nap transition

Guys. We're losing our minds. I have so many chats with chat GPT, Claud, Gemini about this that I can't see straight.

We've been "transitioning" for like 3 weeks. It's been rough. I know everyone says it but JESUS. Anyway.

Her wake windows before the transition were like 3:30/3:45/4 (depending on nap length, short nap meant slightly shorter following ww). We were capping the first nap to an hour to ensure she had enough juice for nap 2.

Then she started skipping nap 2. Entirely. So we did a few one nap days. Then we would need to do a 2 nap day because she'd wake at like 4 or 5. Normal wake up time is 7am, I usually do a snooze feed at 5. I understand this can be a problem.

Over the last few weeks I've tried:

Short bridge nap, long following nap (I couldn't nail down the right wake window following the short nap so it's end in a melt down and she would only fall asleep on my boob, she used to be fine for naps in the crib)

Some one nap days, but then maybe we did her final ww too long even with a long nap again a meltdown at bedtime even before the routine was started landing up with nursing and some cosleeping. For one nap days I've tried:

4/5.5

4.5/5.5

5/5

5.5/6

For bridge days I've tried

3.5/2/4.5

4/3.5/4

Like they've been pretty random

I've recently reverted to my approach which I used for her other naps- long morning nap, and then a short bridge nap but the short bridge nap seems to only really happen if we are in the car, or on my boob and only if we plan it juuuust right (? Seems arbitrary)

This week seems particularly difficult. On top of all the above, she has begun to just say "no" when I put her down in her crib and goes ballistic when we leave. Its been difficult to understand, is it because she's overtired or undertired?? We've tried lessening and extending wake windows to no benefit. Two nights this week I've co-slept and she's only fallen asleep on my boob.

I understand I've mentioned falling asleep on boob a few times now and potentially see that as an issue but can you guys relate? Can you give me any advice for her one nap transition?? Yo yo-inh from 1 nap to 2 nap days seems wrong but I don't know if she's ready yet for just one day?

We have resorted to letting her cry it out tonight. To hold our bedtime boundary firm. It's hard. We've given her paracetamol to ensure she isn't in any pain from maybe hidden teething (covering our bases, juuuust in case).

Can you help with any advice? Please and thank you!

I think Im getting desperate and hitting a breaking point in cosleeping and I just dont know what to do to get my baby to sleep in his crib without absolutely losing his mind. We’ve been cosleeping since he was around a month and a half old because I thought he had a cold and as a FTM who was heavily sleep deprived, I did what I had to out of saving my sanity and let him sleep with me. After he felt better and saw the doctor and was cleared from any serious illnesses, we tried going back to his bassinet and he refused.

Now he’s 9 months old and SCREAM cries any time he’s placed in his crib. Even if its just for a few minutes so I can use the bathroom without having to hold him in my lap. He does not nap, sleep or even play in it. I’ve tried sitting down next to him while he’s in the crib and he still just scream cries until I pick him up. He has a couple toys in there and he does not care about them. Trying to sleep train does nothing as he will scream and scream non stop until his face is red, snot running down his face and coughing from crying so hard. Rubbing his chest/back doesn’t work. Talking and singing to him doesn’t work. Transferring him to the crib after he fell asleep in my bed doesn’t work. The whole “drowsy but awake” doesn’t work. Nothing works. I dont know what to do. The second he doesn’t feel his chest against mine as Im trying to lower to put him down in the crib, he screams then stops when I pick him back up.

I just want my bed back. I want to sleep comfortably. I want to be able to cuddle my husband without having to worry about the baby. I feel like he doesn’t even try to self soothe at all. The crib is right next to my side of the bed so it’s not like he’s even being left alone in a room but he doesn’t care and will cry at the top of his lungs until I hold him.

His bedtime routine is eating dinner, diaper/outfit change, feeding to sleep (breastfed) while listening to lullabies. Sometimes we will read to him but as he’s getting older I feel like he gets more distracted by this and just wants to grab at the book. He seems to fall asleep a bit faster than usual on bath nights but he still has to be next to me the rest of the night and still wakes up multiple times. Not to mention his sleep has been getting worse. The past almost 2 months he’s averaging 7-8 hours a night and he will barely nap throughout the day. He’ll nap for maybe 20-30 minutes if Im lucky. He self weened off of pacifers around 3 months old and refuses a bottle now so he’s exclusively breastfed aside from eating solids throughout the day. I cant even attempt having a normal schedule with him. We both wake up whenever. Go to bed whenever. Im up multiple times in the night still. His last nap will typically be before his dad gets home from work at 4:30pm and baby refuses to sleep until sometimes midnight despite being awake for *hours* and us doing everything we can to get him to go to bed in that time.

I successfully sleep trained my baby using the ferber method at the start of June (baby was 9m, 7.5m corrected). Within a week she went from 5 wake ups to 1-2 and was able to put herself to sleep drowsy within minutes. A week ago that all came to an end. Crying now for 1hr+ until we cave to rock her to sleep and waking up again 3-5x a night. We keep the bedtime routine consistent and the exact same and use sleep pressure (usually 3.5-4hr after her last nap aka a 3/3.5/3.5-4) Her routine has always been play time, bath, lotion, jammies, book, last feed, a few snuggles, and into crib. I tried to remain consistent but shes even more persistent with the scream crying these days. Any suggestions?

Hi mamas! My baby is 16m and she is a ebf baby who is now on solids but night feeds. She wakes yp atleast 3 times at night when she sleeps around 10 and gets up 2:30/ 5/8 ish and it takes around 40-45 mins on most days to make her sleep again. She cries for milk calling out specifically to feed and then on most days cries when i try to put her down to sleep. I try to give her sufficient solids , ghee, butter, try giving her cow milk before sleeping , have a routine around sleep but I dont know what mistake am i making. She is learning to walk but talks thruout the day repeating things/ words / sometimes sentences too broken though. Please help dear mamas!

Original post: https://www.reddit.com/r/sleeptrain/s/eQZRnR7Itj

I wanted to come back and thank everyone who took the time to comment on my previous post. I was extremely anxious about starting sleep training and honestly felt terrible after the first night. My 6-month-old cried for about 25 minutes, and I even worried that he would hate me afterwards.

We followed a modified Ferber approach:

Bedtime only (no nap training yet). Put him down awake after the bedtime routine. Planned to do timed Ferber check-ins, but on the first couple of nights I found it too difficult to leave the room. Instead, I sat quietly beside the crib, gently patted his chest for reassurance, and didn't pick him up. If there was a genuine need (e.g. hunger), I responded rather than rigidly sticking to the plan.

Here's how bedtime went:
Night 1: 25 min

Night 2: 20 min (some neighborhood firecrackers woke him after he slept at 10-12 mins😅)

Night 3: 13 min

Night 4: 8 min

Night 5: 10 mins or so

Night 6: 6 min

Let’s see what happens tonight 😂

The biggest improvement for us isn't just the crying time. Before this, I would spend 20–30 minutes carrying him around until he was deeply asleep, only for him to wake up the moment I transferred him to the crib and we'd have to start all over again.

He's also had much longer first stretches of sleep (up to 6 hours one night), still smiles at me every morning, and the bedtime routine has become so much less stressful for all of us. Still wakes up 2-3 times during night but sleeps after a quick feed.

I know we're still early in the process and there may be setbacks, but I genuinely wanted to thank this community. Your advice and reassurance gave us the confidence to stick with it, and it has made a huge difference so far. Thank you!!

Baby is 7.5 months old and we’ve been doing either contact naps or car naps for a while now… not going on a car ride just for him to sleep, but we end up going somewhere and I plan it around his nap time. I would like to start doing crib naps though because contact naps are getting hard, takes a while for him to go down because he would prefer to nurse the whole time. I feel like we’re teetering on wanting 2 naps per day, but will only work if his naps are longer than 40 minutes which hardly happens. So I’m thinking they’ll happen if he naps in his crib?
I really just don’t even know how to start nap training though, do I need a routine like at bedtime? Should I change him into a sleep sack?
He’s been falling asleep mostly independently for about 6 weeks now at bedtime, sometimes it does take 15-20 minutes though for him to finally settle. His WW are about 2.5/3/3/3.25 give or take. He wakes up around 6 am, bed anywhere between 6-7:30 depending on his naps