After weeks, nay MONTHS of struggle, you have finally mastered the challenge of putting baby down awake. Victory is yours! The gates of Valhalla are now open to you as you join your fellow Sleep Warriors! You have successfully gotten your baby to fall asleep without you! The battle cry of the Valkyrie pours forth from your lips! You pour a drink and begin the dance of victory!
VICTORY!!!!
But what’s this? Your baby is still waking up a lot. Maybe not like she was before, but it’s certainly not the fantastic transformative sleep experience that the “Sleep Training” brochures promised you. Maybe you’ve gone from nursing baby every hour to only nursing 4 times a night. But at 10 months you were hoping for better. Because it’s been 10 months since you slept for more than 3 consecutive hours and you’re starting to hallucinate and your partner, who had a lush head of hair a year ago, is now entirely bald. Is this the success you worked so hard to achieve? You did what you were supposed to do, so why are you still struggling with sleep?
Sleep Training but No Sleep?
Things are better but not great. And like a Baskins-Robins from hell “not great” comes in many different flavors but typically it looks something like this:
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- Bedtime is a relatively smooth affair where baby is falling asleep on their own.
- There is a longer stretch of sleep in the beginning of the night but things get progressively worse as the night goes on.
- There may be brief periods (10-20 minutes) of crying here and there.
- While you may try to coax baby back to sleep with various techniques, generally there is only one thing that will work reliably.
- It takes increasingly more involved intervention to get baby to fall back to sleep until you simply can’t, which often results in a “awake too early” issue.
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Here’s a chart that depicts a common night sleep pattern. And while I’ve used “feeding” as the root issue in the example here, it’s certainly not the only issue that can trip you up.
So what happened?
I have the answer. And I will tell you. For one MILLION dollars, MMWWWWAHAHAHAHAHA!
Or you could like my Facebook page. Although I would vastly prefer the million dollars.
Why Sleep Training Didn’t Work
In a nutshell, you managed to teach your baby to fall asleep but you still have a niggling sleep association that is tripping you up. There are a number of sleep associations that can result in this pattern but here are the most common ones:
[list type=”checklist”]
- You’re [insert: rocking, cuddling, nursing, feeding, etc.] baby until they’re MOSTLY asleep. People often ask me, “how awake is awake enough?” The answer is, if you’re still seeing the pattern in the chart above, it’s not awake enough.
- You’re nursing/feeding AT bedtime. If the last step in your bedtime routine is a nice nursing session or a bottle you’re inadvertently reinforcing the eat=sleep association. Don’t feel bad, MANY smart & talented people get tripped up by this. Switch up your routine so that there is a ~20 minute gap between the last bottle/nursing session and bedtime.
- You put baby down awake in their crib with a pacifier. I hate to be a buzzkill but if your baby is falling asleep with a pacifier they haven’t entirely learned how to fall asleep yet. Even if the pacifier falls out before they actually fall asleep it can result in the pattern of night waking outlined above.
- You’re hanging around until baby falls alseep. Some folks have figured out that they can get their baby to fall asleep sans tears by standing quietly and putting a hand on baby’s belly, or singing softly from a nearby chair, or even hiding behind the chair so they can spy on baby while they fall asleep (I guess this is a nice alternative to $$$ night vision baby monitors?). Regardless your child has now developed a “you’re there”= sleep association and now is waking up throughout the night and is unable to fall back to sleep because you’re no longer there.
- Sometimes a timed device (mobile, music, sleepy sheep, stars projected on the ceiling) that is on at bedtime and then auto-shuts off can cause problems. As a general rule, if it works on a timer you don’t want it. Unless it’s a coffee maker that automatically makes a fresh pot at 6:00 AM because those are awesome.
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Hopefully the solution to this dilemma is pretty clear but as most of you are running on a scant 3 hours of sleep I’ll spell it out using small words and hand gestures.
Fix the Bedtime Routine
You need to change what is happening AT bedtime. Because the activities (nursing, feeding, lurking, pacifier, etc.) AT bedtime are what is creating the waking, crying, feeding, nursing, early morning wake up issues. You should totally be proud of all the work you’ve done to help teach your baby to fall asleep. Your victory dance was well deserved! And you’re REALLY close, but there’s one more small thing you need to change up. Don’t be scared to change up bedtime. You’ve done the hard part, this last step is almost always far smoother and drama-free than people imagine it will be. And the results are often pretty dramatic and instantaneous.
Change what is happening at bedtime for 5 days. Then come back and tell me what happened. Unless it doesn’t work and you want to tell me I’m an idiot. Feel free to keep that to yourself.
Anybody else have any thoughts or experiences with sleep associations and putting baby down awake they care to share?
My nearly 7.5 month old has taken one giant leap backwards! He was going down, nursing I admit, but only waking once or twice a night to eat. We went away for a week and we are now back to waking every two hours at night! This has been going on for about two weeks & I’m seriously over it! I think I’ve now created a nursing monster & need to figure out how to get back to even waking twice a night, though once would be ideal! He’s still taking 3 naps which can be from the dreaded 20 minute catnap to 2 hours, total crapshoot! We definitely need some help around here! Any & all advice is much appreciated!
That sounds exactly like my 7 month old son. Awake every 2 hours And the only to make him go back to sleep is nursing him. I can’t get him to sleep past 6am.
This is EXACTLY what we’ve been experiencing. Reading this was so relieving. I will absolutely try to feed him his bed time bottle earlier tomorrow night.
Dani,
We are going through this exact scenario right now. Our bedtime routine consists of a bath, then a few stories, then a bottle. Right after we burp him we give him some quick cuddles but then put him down awake. The first few nights he cried and we followed the Ferber method time chart. Now he puts himself to sleep with no crying!! BUT he wakes up between 2-3am every night crying on and off for an hour I keep thinking- he put himself to sleep earlier why can’t he do it now?! Anyway, I am going to try to switch up the bottle and stories order tomorrow night and see how that goes. I was curious how your experience went!
How did switching the stories and bottles go? Success?!
Omg this is my sont righr now and he uses my breast as a comfort tool. Cant get him sleep past 2am. What am I doing wrong? I feel like such a failure. He was doing so good. Until he just got worse. HELP!!
Hey Barrie and Jess,
Technically you have a slightly different problem then the one in this post (although similar) – it’s an object permanence issue. Have you read this?
http://www.troublesometots.com/what-you-need-to-know-about-sleeping-through-the-night-part-i/
THIS is why you used to eat 1-2X a night and now are waking all night long 🙁
This was what I was afraid of! Ok so now what? Start moving nursing to a different step in his bedtime routine & then let him cry? I’m afraid if we try to do any no cry sleep solution his expectation will be that we rock him to sleep, etc. gah! I can’t believe he got so used to having me nurse him every time he wakes up in only a weeks time!
We are in the same boat with our 7 month old. At about 6.5 months, she all of a sudden stopped sleeping well at night and cried when I left her sight during the day. I did notice my little Wonder Week app tells me we were in a “fussy period” when babies begin to get separation. We ditched the paci a week ago, which helped a lot with the first wakings of the night. Now, about two weeks later, nights have gotten a little better and we’re back to wakings that look a lot like the chart above! So are we still dealing with object permanence or sleep-suck association or a combo of the two?
Alexis – any advice on how long object permanence affects sleep? Do we keep working towards good sleep habits and recognize that this is just a developmental phase? Or are there specific things that help during this time?
By the way – LOVE the Mad Men graphic. It made me smile while I was reading this at 4am! The article also helped me take a deep breath and feel empowered to keep working at good sleep habits. 🙂
“how long object permanence affects sleep”
Um…forever? Years? I guess maybe by 4-5 it’s no longer an issue. But there are plenty of older toddlers/preschoolers who are up all night due to bedtime/object permanence issues.
If you ditched the paci and aren’t nursing to sleep then I’m surprised to see that you’re stuck in this pattern. But if you’re nursing really CLOSE to bedtime then you could be right about the association persisting.
PS. I love Peggy Olsen. And Joan. I basically watch the show hoping that better things will come to them although it never seems to happen 😛
Wondering… Going to try next month to let our litle girl cry it out in her crib. She will be 5.5 months old and, I was looking at your chart, and 5.5-7.5 is a good time. Waited longer with our son because he puked every time before that! Well, our little girl who sleeps with me… My poor hubbie is on the couch… Is ADDICTED to the pacifier! Is 5.5 months too early to ditch the paci? Ugh! So done and my older son hates her because she gets to sleep with me!
So my baby is 14 months now. We co-sleep(unfortunately) but I finally managed about three months ago to stop the breast feeding at night. I just refused to nurse her one night and she cried for an hour in bed then she went back to sleep. The next night she only cried for twenty minutes. After that she didn’t look for my boob anymore. I couldn’t believe it. She wakes up a couple of times at night but goes back to sleep, the only thing is that she wants to hold my hand. She nurse at 5:30 or 6:00 am and falls back to sleep until 9:30 an.
Is she holding my hand because of the object permanency? How to get her off that?
Claudia,
I suspect it’s more that your hand is “her lovey.” If you want to break free of that maybe you try to give her an alternate option? Wear it so that it smells like you. Then try to hold it in YOUR hand so she gets used to holding your hand + lovey. Then try to transition your hand out.
Anyhoo that’s what I would do.
I wouldn’t be misled by this post. This is an unnecessary, accusatory post that misunderstands infant development. I’d read this article:
https://kellymom.com/bf/normal/comfortnursing/ a long with the numerous La Leche articles out there. Really annoyed at all the bad information out there making parents feel bad for how they help their child lovingly to sleep.
I don’t know why it’s so hard for people to nurture their babies. It’s a baby – letting them cry because you want them to sleep like an adult seems more horrible than nursing them to sleep.
We’re just starting mild sleep training– I hesitate to even call it that– with our 3 month old son. I was wondering how I could ever get him to go to sleep without nursing, but he took take of that for me. He has started refusing to feed before bedtime! He knows his bedtime routine and is all smiles for massage and bedtime story, but as soon as I tried to nurse him, he knew it was over and started freaking out. So I’ve had to move his feeding to the first part of the routine. Last night I put him down awake after his book and prayers and he fussed for 7 minutes and then passed out. I gave him a dream feed at 10:30 and he woke up once in the night to nurse and then was quickly back asleep. 8 pm to 6:45 am with only those two interruptions! I know it’s too early to be confident, but let’s say we are cautiously optimistic 🙂
That is a FANTASTIC success story! Sure it won’t be all marshmallows and roses from here on but you’ve taken a HUGE step that will help prevent lots of stress and sleeplessness down the road. CONGRATULATIONS!
Thanks for your wonderful tips, Alexis! We’ve been doing babywise method but nursing til she’s ‘almost’ asleep at night. She has been doing great….waking only once a night to feed. This week we transitioned her from her bassinet to a crib and things have been HORRIBLE! She is waking almost every hour. I feel like it has to do with the crib transition and the fact that she just learned how to flip over from her tummy to her back (she is a tummy sleeper). She is almost 4 months, which I’ve read about a “4 month sleep regression.” Your thoughts on this? Would it be a good time to switch up the bedtime routine?
Does having a bottle and going to bed awake count? Because my son (13 months) has his bottle, we sing a little song and in the crib he goes. It’s never the same though, some nights he’s out on his own, easy peasy, others he cries and screams and bangs his head on the wall, and then some nights he wants to play. Same bedtime routine every time.
He usually wakes once. around 12:30 or 1am (he’s in bed by 6:30, 7 at the latest) and he screams! Nothing will bring him down except a bottle of milk, NOTHING! We’ve tried it all. he drinks it and happily goes back to the crib, half awake until 6:30am. He just started daycare and isn’t sleeping as much so bedtime is early and expedited because of how tired he is, but usually we have the same outcome, one wake around 9 or 10 (for this one, we shush pat (no milk) because he’s usually crying too) and another between 12:30 and 1.
The bottle at bedtime IS probably why he’s screaming at 12:30. If he’s used to guzzling 8 oz at night he’s probably genuinely hungry too. But if you’ve tried weaning that bottle and are getting nowhere with it, I would definitely space out the bottle from bedtime by 20 minutes. It won’t hurt and will very likely help…
Thanks for the info Alexis. If I haven’t tried to wean him, would you recommend I do that simultaneously with the spacing out of the last bottle before bedtime?
ps. LOVE you site… can’t wait for the book, hopefully it’ll be out by baby #2 🙂
My 11 month has a bottle right before bed BUT he sleeps through the night with no night wakings. He was sleeping thru the night since 6 months but granted we were doing the bottle right before bed. But he takes a really really long time to settle in and I am often tempted to go in to give him more bottle but I don’t..Is it normal for a baby to take a really long time to settle in even when they show signs of sleepiness. Example: it was 8:30am and he was rubbing his eyes, yawning…So I put him in his crib and he ended up playing/singing in his crib until 9:30am when he finally crashed…He sleeps thru the night and if he wakes up there is no crying and he puts himself back to sleep…No bottle no intervention…
If he’s having a bottle at bedtime and sleeping through then GREAT! Some babies can roll with things like that.
It’s not really normal for a baby to chill out in bed for an hour. I’m actually pretty impressed that he CAN chill that long (most would be crying). It makes me think that the nap may be too early? Most 1 YO kids can be awake ~3 hours. So if he’s waking up at say 6:30 AM he may not be ready for a nap (despite signs to the contrary) until 9:30 AM. I would play around with the schedule and see if you can get the “chill in bed” time down to 10-15 minutes?
IT WORKED! You are a sleep genius!! He technically gets up at 5:30am but I don’t get him out of the crib until 6am because I just need that time to get myself up for the day – no crying just talking to his blankie friends. Today he went down seamlessly at the proposed 8:30am – since he gets up 5:30am and then at 1pm. And now he went to bed at 6pm with no crying or fussing!!! And now I will go away so you can help mommies with sleep issues but totally appreciate your advice.
Well I don’t know if figuring that out qualifies me as a sleep genius but OK I’ll go with it – sleep genius it is!
Congrats on making a good change 🙂
I would LOVE to have a post from you of just how to get rid of the pacifier. I’ve done all these things correctly (thanks to your site, which I’ve followed!) except my almost 10 month old is a paci addict..and still wakes 2-4 times a night to nurse, for about 1-3 minutes only. Ive tried just letting her fuss instead, or even rocking her occasionally, but she knows what she wants, milk, and wont go back to sleep until she gets it. She’s a screamer! I want to get rid of the pacifier, but it is extreme CIO if we even try. 🙁 only once did I hold to my guns and really not give it to her. She bawled for 2 hours before I caved.. I just can’t do it!! But I know I need to. Any suggestions?
Hey Jen,
Have you seen this?
http://www.troublesometots.com/how-to-use-and-loose-the-pacifier/
At 10 months you don’t have a ton of options – you could try the pull-out method. It may not be easy but if you’re uber-consistent it will work. Everything you describe comes back to a huge suck=sleep association and (as you already have seen) breaking out of the night nurse habit will be IMPOSSIBLE until you change up what is happening at bedtime.
Yep – paci has to go 🙁
Oh yes! I love that post! I had forgotten it included tips to getting rid of the pacifier too. Oops! I need to study it again, and try again looks like. Thanks so much for your wonderfully blog. It has helped me out the entire way. We will get there. One of these days… Hopefully I can report back soon with a success story!
Jen – I don’t know if this will help you but at 4 months when my son kicked his paci habit we gave him a blankie (that he sucks on ALL NIGHT and will not throw it out) and a teething blanket to suck/chew on. Only things in his crib. So if part of Alexis’s advice is to replace with something else a blankie has been working for us.
Jen,
We just ditched the paci at night a week or so ago. What seemed to help:
* Completely took away during the day, other than at naps. I did this gradually over a few weeks before the night removal.
* Started introducing a lovey. This was only mildly successful but I would put it between me/her while nursing and in her hand during all sleep times. She’s still indifferent on this one but we are still working it.
* I tried the gradual approach as she was falling asleep, ala Pantley, but that seemed to make her angry. So we went cold turkey at night.
* The first few nights my husband put her to bed, as he deals better with the fussing. There was crying and it took extra soothing and time to get her to sleep (some bouncing and putting down asleep).
* I ‘hid’ the pacifiers from myself (downstairs) so that I wouldn’t give in at 3am when I have zero self control.
* After about 3-4 nights, the protesting was only a minute or so. At that time, night wakings improved.
Just a note, we are paying for that extra soothing and now working towards putting down awake in crib again but there’s no more crying for the paci. Little successes I guess…
Personally I think you’re doing great. It’s a process, nobody said a quick or easy process, but you’re definitely making forward progress 🙂
Also this is a FANTASTIC tip, I’m totally stealing it 🙂
“I ‘hid’ the pacifiers from myself (downstairs) so that I wouldn’t give in at 3am when I have zero self control.”
We did CIO at 8 months. Prior to that, DD was waking every hour or two, and it would take me an hour to get her back to sleep most of the time. It took a few weeks to really sink in, so that she barely fussed when putting her down at night. Now she’s nearly 14 months old and she falls sleep great. I put her down pretty much awake (though she’s definitely tired). Sometimes she kicks around (quietly) in her crib for 15 minutes or so after I put her down, and then goes out. Sometimes she lets out a little cry when I shut her door, but within 10 seconds stops and starts working on falling asleep (if she doesn’t roll over and knock out almost immediately). I do nurse her still before bed, but I typically change her diaper, put on her PJs and sing to her and cuddle her for a minute before putting her down. Even if she’s acting playful or whatever, I follow the same routine every night, put her down and let her figure it out from there.
BUT… she still wakes twice a night to nurse. Usually she wakes after about 5 hours, and then another 4 hours after that. She goes down at 7, wakes up between 6:30-7 (we had a period where she was getting up before 6 am, but gradually moving her bedtime from 6:30 to 7 seemed to fix it). A few times over the last couple of months she has slept through the whole night all on her own.
I’ve been back and forth in my head over night weaning. It’s not killing me to wake twice a night, spend about 10 minutes feeding her, then put her back down and go back to bed. Though it would be nice to get uninterrupted sleep for a little bit before we get pregnant with #2. Then again, the nursing works like magic. We’ve tried a number of times now to use other methods to get her to go back to sleep (especially if she has woken up earlier than usual, like 2-3 hours after going down for the night), and NOTHING works. She’s inconsolable, until she gets a few minutes of boob, and then she’s good. (The only exception is that we’ve traveled a few times recently, and when she has popped up in her travel crib, next to her bed, I’ve had some success with just saying “it’s nigh-nigh time” — which we say before putting her down for the night — and then she laid right back down and went to sleep; I’ve tried that at home however, and it doesn’t work though).
So, I don’t know what to do… do I just keep nursing and hope she’ll eventually start sleeping through the night on her own more, as she has been… albeit quite gradually? Or do I force the issue? And how do I do that when we’ve tried refusing to nurse at the times she doesn’t generally nurse at night anyway, and she just freaks the eff out for an hour or more?
I really don’t think ours is an issue of how she starts the night out, because she goes down awake, puts herself to sleep, and has some other “activities” in between nursing and bed. I imagine she’s used to waking up at night to nurse, and does it more for comfort/habit than hunger (because she eats like a horse during the day).
Hi Danielle!
I just posted my own so clearly we have my own sleep issues but just wanted to share that I followed Alexis’ points on night weaning at 8-9 months and it worked fabulously. We gently reduced a minute every 2 days or so until he stopped waking up at all when we were down to 2 minutes. It actually worked SO well, that my plan with baby # 2 is to try it a little younger/sooner. Once I saw in my own home that babies DON’T need to nurse through the night for the long haul, it seems crazy that we didn’t do it sooner. Change is tough though!
I am in a simular situation so I would love to hear whatever anyone has to say. Baby goes down completely awake, talks to himself for a few minutes and goes to sleep. On a good night he will wake up around 4am to nurse and is back to sleep. On a bad night he will wake up one or two times before that (sometimes he will take a bottle with water or can be patted back to sleep but mostly wants to be nursed) and on a really bad night he will get up at 4am and that’s that. He usually wakes up again after 5am and I take him to bed with me so we get at least an hour more of sleep. I think at one year he does not need to nurse at night and it’s just a habit. I am thinking of moving his crib to his room to see if it helps. Wondering if I’ll have to take the ‘good night and see you at 6am’ approach in the end…
Sometimes babies are waking up because of a bedtime/sleep association issue. Other times it’s about habit/hunger. You are probably dealing with the latter.
It’s HARD because 14 month old babies are too busy to eat, are used to getting their calories at night, and enjoy it 🙂 Check this out – may have some helpful ideas for you?
http://www.troublesometots.com/night-weaning-your-baby/
I would love to hear some advice from others on how to separate nursing from bedtime as painlessly as possible. I currently nurse my 10-month old to sleep about 50% of the time — the rest of the time he nurses right before bed but goes down awake-but-groggy and falls asleep on his own. But he’s waking 2-3 times a night, sometimes to eat, sometimes not, and I intend to wean him completely in the next 6ish months, so I feel like I need to start putting some time between his last nursing session and bedtime, I’m just not sure how. To be honest, I dread it, because he goes down so peacefully and easily.
There is no magic ticket on this. If you can do it 50% of the time, it sounds like you’re halfway there 😉
Seriously, start pushing nursing up a little bit. Maybe 5 minutes (nurse, books, bed). He can still be groggy – and if he’s doing it occasionally it may be less stressful than you think. Then work on 10 minutes and slightly less groggy.
If he wakes and fusses try to soothe him back with minimal intervention. Ideally you don’t pick him up – so if you can pat his belly and shush that’s better. It may not happen EVERY night, just so long as the trendline is moving in a good direction…
God help me I never thought I’d be back on this site again with a 17 mo…but alas here I am with a son who is waking up AGAIN at 4-5am and now we have a co-sleeping habit. Argh! In June, Alexis suggested I move bedtime earlier which I did from 8:30pm to 8pm. It was magic. He slept through from 8-6:30 in his crib for a month. When I put him down there are no sleep aids. Literally we do books on my bed, bath, 2 quick books in chair in his room, hold for 30-60 seconds and put down awake in crib. (No bottle/no nursing, no paci, no nightlight to distract my distractable child.) He may cry and stand when I place him down and if so I kiss him again quickly and walk out. The crying is usually just a protest for 0-5 minutes.
In mid-July, he got sick with a fever and we co-slept in the early morning hours for a week when he started waking with 101 temps. He has never gone back to that glorious June. I’ve moved bedtime to either 7:45 or 7:30am. It doesn’t make a difference. I’ve let him cry at 5am and he will stand up/cry, lay down, stand up/cry lay down to no avail. He simply will not settle on his own. He refuses a lovey or a blanket to cuddle with. He IS a spirited baby in many ways (currently reading “raising your spirited child”) and I’m at a loss AGAIN. About twice per week he will also now wake and stand/cry around 12-1am and I can ignore him and he will fall back asleep. When we co-sleep at the 5am hour…he sleeps until 6-6:30am just like he did in that magical month of June. It really feels like a bad habit but how can I wean him out of this? Baby boy #2 arrives in January.
Hi Robyn,
I’m sorry I don’t have any advice for you, but I wanted to let you know that I feel your pain! I have an 18 month old who loves to wake up at 5:30 am. It doesn’t matter when we put him to bed. I used to think he woke up early because I put him to bed early-for a while he was asleep between 6:30 and 6:45. This was because he was so tired from transitioning from 2 naps to 1 (which he did at 14 months)and he would take his nap at 10:30, so he was exhausted by dinner. Now, he does much better with his one nap, and sleeps anywhere from 1-2.5 hours. We tried moving his bedtime closer to 7:30, hoping he would sleep later and he did for 1 week. He slept until 6:30 and one day he slept til 6:50! and now it’s back to 5:30. So I finally moved his bedtime a bit earlier.
He is still tired at 5:30 and wakes up crying.
I can’t figure it out.
He doesn’t usually wake up at all during the night.
Any advice?
Hey Guys,
Early wakeup blows. Sometimes you can fix it, othertimes not so much.
I’m assuming your 17 month old is down to 1 nap. If he’s not then it’s probably time. The early wakeup could be a symptom of the fact that he’s sleeping TOO much during the day and thus is less tired at night. But I’m going to assume you’re already at 1 nap.
I would push bedtime up. If he can still fall asleep easily then stick with earlier. How early? Move it gradually – 15 minutes – up to 7:15, 7:00, maybe even 6:45/6:30.
Sometimes when babies take one nap (or have recently transitioned) they’re actually overtired and NEED a really early bedtime. Try it for 1-2 weeks, see what happens.
If you get there and he’s STILL waking at 5:00 AM you can:
– Of course continue to co-sleep
– Quit co-sleeping and let him cry (note: this only works sometimes, othertimes it’s just a big crying mess. Sorry.)
When he’s a little older (say 2.5) you’ll have a more creative set of tools to work with. At 17 months? Not so much.
Alexis – the magic words here, as far as I’m concerned, “When he’s a little older (say 2.5) you’ll have a more creative set of tools to work with.” Just out of curiosity, what would some of those tools happen to be?
My son’s sleeping went all crummy when we switched his crib to a toddler crib (or whatever you call it — the mattress is on the lowest peg and one crib “wall” now has an opening for him to get out). He gets second winds and goes to bed later, he wants us in his room while he falls asleep and he’s getting up earlier.
Is there a book on this? An imminent troublesometots post (or did I miss one on this topic)?
Thanks in advance! MA
I feel like you wrote this post for me! My now nine month old had been sleeping great for about the past 3 months after we followed your previous advice, however waking two times a night to nurse. I started to try to night wean and her sleep crumbled, timing coincidnce or not? She is going through some semi separation anxiety during the day. She started following exactly the pattern you show in this article, I caved in and quit trying to night wean to save our sanity. I was sure it was the nine month regression. We started a mix of cry it out with checks and nursong and her sleep has improved but is still far from where it was. Going to try maybe just separating nursing from bedtime and continue nursing at other wake ups as we have been. Will let you know, thanks!
This may be helpful too?
http://www.troublesometots.com/night-weaning-your-baby/
There are often a whole set of reasons why the average 8-9 month old is keen to nurse at night. Good luck!
My almost 6 months old son seems to have the opposite sleep pattern than the chart above. He wakes more (lately like 4 or 5 times, I think we’re dealing with object permanence and teething) until around 3am, then he’ll sleep straight til 8am. It’s like he doesn’t go into deep sleep until later, instead of doing it at the beginning. Is there something we can do to help him sleep more deeply earlier in the night?
That is unusual. Hmmm…There’s also the potential for a 6 month growth spurt in there too. Generally if you’re:
– putting him down awake
– giving tons of soothing (at 6 months you’ve got maybe swaddle, white noise, lovey)
– not letting him get overtired
– medicating the teething
You’re doing everything you can. Are you doing all those things? Is there some angle that could be improved upon?
I actually sent you an email because we are dealing with teething, object permanence, outgrowing the swaddle, and he has a “suck to sleep” association with the pacifier and his bottle. I wasn’t sure which to tackle first. We are going to start feeding him 15 minutes before he goes to sleep and see if that helps. We use white noise, blackout curtains, and have switched to a woombie to try and help transition him out of the swaddle. Do you take the swaddle and the paci at the same time? How do they soothe themselves if they are still swaddled, but lose their paci?
No KEEP the swaddle DITCH the paci. The swaddle IS soothing. Ditching the paci doesn’t guarantee that he’ll be happily chewing on fingers. Also fingers are not the only source of soothing. So I would keep what is definitely working (swaddle) vs. hoping for something that may work (finger sucking). PS. Why is he outgrowing the swaddle? Unless he’s flipping you have plenty of room to maneuver on that front. Woombie is fine if it’s working for him!
First of all, thank you so much for this site and for all of your advice! I have seen some MAJOR improvements with my now 5-month-old and I am so grateful to you!! I have a quick question but wasn’t sure where to post it.
We are successfully putting him down for bed at night completely awake in his crib – around 7:30 or 8:00. The question I have is regarding his wake up time. He has gotten to the point where he either wakes around 3:00 or 4:00 to nurse and then goes back to sleep until about 8:00 or 8:30, or he wakes up around 6:00 or 6:30 to nurse and won’t go back to sleep, so he is up for the day then. So depending on the day and when he wakes to nurse, he starts the day at drastically different times (anywhere from 6:00 to 8:30). This then makes his naps all over the place and would make bedtime all over the place, but we now just stick to 7:30 or 8:00 no matter what.
Is this just his norm for awhile or is there something I should be doing/am doing wrong?
Thank you!
Hi Sara,
I am having similar issues with inconsistent wake up times too. My LO will wake up anywhere between 5:30 – 7. I’ve started keeping her up at that point, but like you said it makes her napping schedule different every single day. I still follow her cues and put her down for a nap about 1.5-2 hours after her first wake time, then let her have approx 2 hours of wake time until her next nap, etc. But it goes back to each day being completely different. I am searching for the answer on how to get her to sleep to a more consistent hour.
I would do two things:
1) Lock in on bedtime (maybe pick 7:30?)
2) Offer a dream feed at ~4ish. If he wakes up to eat – great! If not you set your alarm and you dream feed.
What I’m getting from your question is that if he stretches it out to 6:30 he’s legitimately hungry but isn’t TIRED enough to fall back to sleep for the extra hour or two. So the answer is to prevent him from waking up at 6:30 by feeding him prior to that.
The other thing I would throw out is that not all babies sleep 12 hours (11 is probably the average) so while it’s AMAZING for him to sleep 12/12.5 hours, he may not always need that much sleep. 7:30-6:30 is a pretty typical night for most kiddos. So it could be that somedays he’s interested in a bit more, others not so much.
But if your goal is to keep the sleep clock running till post 8, I would try the dream feed and see where that gets you. Good luck!
Thanks, Alexis! So should I pick a bedtime and stick to it no matter what time he woke up from his last nap (so he may be up for more than 2 hours/a little overtired, but the bedtime is always the same)?
Also, if I do the dream feed will that cause problems down the road of creating a habit for him to feed at that time, and then later on we’ll have to wean him off of it?
Lastly (sorry for so many questions!), is it better for them to wake up earlier? I know Weissbluth says in his book that babies shouldn’t really sleep past 7:00 am, and that they take their best naps at specific times (like 9:00 am and 1:00 pm). Do you agree with this or does wake-up time/nap times not matter so much?
I just want to do what’s best for the little guy.
Thank you again!! This site has been SOOO helpful! Especially for this first time mom! Do you have somewhere I can leave a monetary donation? I really appreciate you taking time out of your day to not only provide information on this site, but also to answer numerous posts/comments. I’d love to leave a token of my appreciation.
Hey Sarah,
As babies get older you need to manage PM sleep to “defend” bedtime. So yes being consistent helps in a number of ways (I won’t go in to but you get it). So if they’re sleeping at 4:30 and it’s going to mess up her ability to fall asleep easy at bedtime it’s time to wake her up so she CAN fall asleep easy at bedtime.
As for the dreamfeed – yes potentially she’ll be hungry then. But your questions was how to avoid the 5 AM feed that messes with morning. Sometimes you have to pick your poison!
Most – I man MOST – babies are up super early. Rarely to babies who have an early bedtime (which is a good thing) sleep super late. A baby sleeping vastly past 7:00 AM is pretty rare. Is it a problem? I’ve never seen it be (generally the problem is that you have a baby who goes to bed at 10 and then sleeps till 8 but that’s a whole DIFFERENT problem).
If you’re putting baby down at a good age-appropriate hour (you are) and they sleep till 7 it just means you’ve got a baby who sleeps 12+ hours. It’s uncommon but not a problem. I would simply call you lucky 😛
You don’t need to make a donation but I used to have a page for that (I took it down because I felt like an Internet panhandler). Totally optional 🙂
http://www.troublesometots.com/helping-out/
…Or maybe none of the issues listed are the root cause of your baby’s waking? I stopped reading these sorts of articles long ago because they make me feel like a failure at making my baby sleep.
But you know what? No one can make another person sleep. You either have a good sleeper or a bad one, and you play the hand you’re dealt. That’s what I believe.
Question: As somebody who writes these sorts of articles, is there a way to write them so they don’t make you feel like a failure? Curious to hear. I’m not trying to make you feel like a failure.
I think there are easy babies and harder babies. Although even an “easy” baby isn’t super easy. And every baby is a challenge for their parent in some ways, even if on a relative scale that baby is easier/harder than the neighbor’s baby.
But I do think you can make choices that will maximize or minimize the amount of sleep your child will get. But admittedly it is hard to know – are you at the max or can it get better?
I love your book and blog posts Alexis! They’ve been really helping me navigating this though sleep stage (4-5. 1/2 months), but we’re a bit at loss here. We de the cry it out Ferber method 3 weeks ago and it definitely made a huge difference. No problem at all at bedtime, he’s not waking up 15 times a night anymore, baby is always put down awake and he’s happy he might fuss for a minute or two but that’s it. But he’s been regularly waking up once a night still 2-3 or 4h after putting him down and crying at the top of his lungs for an hour. It doesn’t happen every night, most of the time he soothes himself throughout the night wakes up a bit there and there and goes back to sleep no problem. But that crying session that happens a few times a week is so painful. I’m not picking him up because I’m scared of undoing everything we did, but I’m wondering if there might not be another issue that has nothing to do with self soothing. I’ll try changing the timing of the feed as per your recommendations to see if it makes any difference. Now it happens 5-10minutes before putting him down.
Not sure if this applies or not – my 11 mo guy does bath, book, bottle/boob at night (7 pm). Goes into the crib 100% awake and crawling, though, not sleepy from nursing. No boob before naps, and he puts himself to nap like a rock star.
We did a wean down and modified CIO for night wakings around 8 months, and he then just kept the 5am feed, back to bed til at least 7am. Sometimes he would STTN entirely, or get up at 6/6:30 – heaven!
We have been traveling a lot, then a virus, and a tooth, and now we are back to waking up more like 4 am. We have tried CIO, daddy comfort, etc and he ends up protesting til after 5 am and then I just feed him rather than have all of us up and cranky. Not screaming crying, just fussing enough to not sleep. He will suck on his thumb and be quiet for a few minutes, but then cry again.
Do I just keep it up and wait it out? Ignore him at 4 am? Separate the boob/bed pairing? I know he’s a good sleeper overall, but I would rather not be up at 4 am if I can avoid it!
Hey Annie,
You can pretty much do anything BUT let him fuss/cry from 4 till 5 AM. I mean you can try it a few times but if it’s not working, the unintended consequence is that you’re teaching him to cry/wait it out. You’ll come if he waits LONG enough.
So generally I prefer to think of your options as:
– go in johnny on the spot
– don’t go in AT ALL
At 11 months I would probably just go in at 4 and start working on gradually weaning off night feeds a la:http://www.troublesometots.com/what-you-need-to-know-about-sleeping-through-the-night-part-3/
Skip the whole issue of trying to shift when the feeding is and focus on no feeding.
I followed that article before when we had a 1 am wake up (worked great), which led to only a 5-6 am quick nurse just like you said could happen, because you are a genius. Then came the vacation/teething/fever [email protected] and here we are.
Yeah, we were trying to just ignore him at 4 but he NEVER goes back to sleep on his own then – I think he is just hungry and stubborn enough to just cry til morning comes.
I think I will just weather the storm and go in for anything around 4am, maybe slowly decreasing boob time, and if this persists past a year, we go cold turkey and cross our fingers.
Thanks for the advice – when the book comes out, I will take 10 advance copies to give to all my friends 🙂
Oh good. Between you and my Dad that’s 11 copies I can count on selling.
😉
I would like for my 2nd baby (4 weeks young) to start off with good sleep but it seems I’m already creating the sleep association of nursing and holding / sleeping in the wrap because she keeps waking all the tine from her 19 months old sisters noises and I can’t keep her “locked up” in a room with white noise ALL day… her sleep is already going down to 45min-1h15min and she wakes right when I put her down fron the wrap and won’t go back to sleep. I don’t feel comfortable letting her cry and her sister keeps buzzing around us whe she’s crying saying nooooonooo!
What do you suggest to avoid the common mistakes I’m seemingly already starting?
I should add that she sleeps a total of about 15h/day so she’s not yet in an overtired cycle and if she does I stick her in the wrap and that takes care of it. Swings and bouncy chair won’t work and also not “just putting baby down when tired”… or am I trying too early? when is the “turning point”?
I think 4 weeks is too early to be stressing yet. I know it’s hard with a 2 YO running around. At 4 weeks your goals are really to keep her from getting tired (you’re doing that), establish healthy feeding (check), and help keep her happy (soothing a ton).
You are going to have to deal with the 2 YO screaming thing and it’s REALLY hard because the older sib is too young to “get it.” Eventually she will probably have to nap in a different room so that you CAN keep things calm and quiet. A video baby monitor may be in your future?
But I would look at the next 2 months as your runway to focus on put down awake. So you’ve got plenty of time left 🙂
Thank you for this post. My 5 mo old has been happily getting himself to sleep for at least two months for bedtime and naps. He is so good at it! But, he is still waking around 2 am and 5 am for a feeding. I can’t tell if he genuinely needs the bottle or if its just a habit now. I do feed him right before bed every night. I figured it was the best way to get a longer stretch of sleep before the next feeding. But I will try to feed him 20 minutes before bed and then put him down!
Also as a side note: he used to have a terrible habit of waking up for his second feeding of the night, whether 4 am or 5 am, and thinking it was time to be awake for the morning. I tried everything to gt him to go back to sleep. I decided to change his diaper at each feeding (because he was waking up soaked in the morning, even with the next size up diaper on) and it did the trick. Funny how it could be something as little as a wet diaper. Yet, I guess I wouldn’t be able to sleep all wet like that either. 🙂
5 months is a tough age – he could literally NEED those feedings or it could be habit. There are babies fully ready to fast for 11 hours at 4 months and there are others who are BOUND AND DETERMINED to eat at night at 9 months. There is no magic litmus test to see which you have.
I would try to gently wean the 2 AM and see where that gets you a la: http://www.troublesometots.com/what-you-need-to-know-about-sleeping-through-the-night-part-3/
It may get you down to just 1 feeding at ~4 AM which would be a win in my book. Try it out for 1 week and let me know what happens!
I really am excited for your book that is awesome! You have a huge fan base and your book won’t be like the rest so can’t wait! I’ve learned so much and every advice you have given has made things so much better. All your tips and steps have made things better. Sickness has set us back but I have he tools to set it back on course so thank you!
Thank you so much Taties 🙂
The thing about a book (or a blog for that matter) is that it’s SO public and if people don’t like (what you write, how you write, how you look, whatever) it feels REALLY vulnerable and scary. Like going out naked in public and hoping nobody points and laughs.
So kind words mean a lot – CHEERS 🙂
I guess another reason why baby could continue to wake at night is if they were put to bed too late / overtired. My little boy is great at self settling and sleeping through now (except for those pesky early mornings – gah!) but still wakes overnight if I’m not careful to watch for those tired signs 🙂
Absolutely. This is not the end-all be-all of why you’re up all night. Just one of many fun and exciting alternatives to choose from 😉
LOL!! You are so funny!! I laughed out loud! We did really well with sleep training for a while…. then …. then…. we went on vacation…. and…. the end. Now she sleeps longer BUT wakes up in the night again and wants milk, sometimes I put her in bed with me just for some peace but she wakes MORE often to nurse and although I don’t have to wake as fully I’M STILL AWAKE!!! sigh. You are right about putting her down just before she falls asleep…. I’m a sucker for her crying… and then feeding her to sleep too. I noticed last night my hubby had to put her to bed because I was at a PTO meeting. No nursing. She slept MUCH better. The night before that my daughter had put her to bed as hubs and I went out on a date (!! I KNOW!!!) and again, she slept much better. Soooo…. looks like hubs is up to bat!! 😀 I’m going to give it a try for 5 days and see what that looks like!! Thanks for everything you do! 😀
Fantastic! Dad (aka the milkless boob) to the rescue! Let him at it! You’re already 2 days in, time to close the bedtime milk bar. It’s SOOO worth it!
I know you said at around 5 – 6 months I’d have to start getting rid of the pacifier, but what about the Wubbanub (http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=10823570&CAWELAID=674145674&cagpspn=pla&pla=plab&camp=PLAPPC-_-PID8884078&KPID=8884078?)
After being tired of doing the ‘paci shuffle’ at 6 months, I bought this for Munchkin. She is better at plugging herself back in if she wakes up at night (which sometimes happens at about 3am). She only uses this and a lovey for sleep, not during the day.
I haven’t had to go back in her room to help resettle her from a night waking in months (except for those three nights when she was having teething pain and I didn’t know she was teething).
She is pretty good at putting herself back to sleep unless she is in the midst of a teething episode and it takes her a good half hour to resettle.
She is 11 months and because of her history of silent reflux I still feed her a half hour before putting her to bed. So for thirty minutes it’s “family-time” in our bedroom.
God Bless the Wubbanub!
Man, babies seem to really love these wubbanub!
But I think it’s not about the wubbanub it’s about the fact that it’s not causing problems. See I’m actually very PRO paci because they’re frankly AWESOME. Until you’re up all night at which point they’re not.
But if your 6 month old has figured out how to manage her wubbanub all by her self than I say more power to her!
Yes!!! We used your previous posts at the 12 month mark to fix our very dire sleep situation (routine, using more water in the formula til we were off night feedings, etc) and can get our now 13 month to go down without a problem now but she still gets up like clock work four hours after she goes down. And admittedly, we lurk and she is still hooked to the paci (literally). Although she puts the paci back in herself and has since she was 5 months so we will probably tackle the lurking first. Not sure how we will break the lurking since we have a strong willed child and sleep training was a battle of the wills that we lost. At any rate, thank you for this new post. Looking forward to the book. Will it be all about sleep or baby everything? Best of luck to you.
Regardless of if it’s with babies or celebrities, lurking rarely works out the way you hope 😉
Good luck with the lurking. I’m actually really hopeful that it won’t be nearly as traumatic as you think. You never know!
First, thank you. We used your advice and successfully “sleep trained” our 15 amonth old. I should say he “schooled” us. The kid did great! And then 1 month later was waking frequently and SCREAMING BLOODY MURDER for 45-60 min twice a night.
Problem solved. He was overtired. We are teachers and had just started back to school He was going to be 30min later than his “latest allowed bedtime.” And waking up normal time. Also meant he wwasn’tnapping at school. 🙁 Things are ggreatnow that he is bback on schedule!
Isn’t it amazing how much a small loss of sleep can have big consequences? Seriously – I get 10 emails a week that are essentially, “We went on vacation and now baby is up all night.” Why? Because those little losses of sleep that build up when we travel (it just happens) catch up on you quick.
Congratulations on figuring out how to get things back on track!
Help, help, help! My soon was a pretty typical sleeper for his age when he was really little, then we hit the 4 month sleep regression and limped through it. Then, woohoo, we had a little guy who would go to bed around 7 (give or take 20-30 minutes) and then sleep until 5 or so. We went on a trip when he was about 5 months old and he started waking up around 4 or 4:30. At the time, we found that giving him a bottle would help him fall back asleep more easily. Well….fast forward a few months to just the past couple of weeks. He is now 7 months and we figured out that we had created a habit and were able to wean that 4:00/4:30 feeding. This was also around the time that he started daycare and we found that the early bottle REALLY threw off his daily intake of formula. He seemed okay without the bottle, but was still waking up around that 4:30 time. So, we started cuddling him back to sleep and everyone would get a few more hours before we woke up for the day.
Gradually, we were working into not needing the snuggles and then he got sick. He has finally recovered from the cold, but his overnight sleep really took a hit. He is now waking up between 2-3am and WILL NOT go back to sleep without snuggles. He doesn’t need the bottle, but he will scream and scream and scream in a full blown tantrum until he is picked up. What do we do? He is also not napping well at all at daycare – these past couple of weeks, we are lucky if he takes 2 naps while there. Typically, he will fall asleep on the way home and take about an hour’s nap around that time (4:30 or so until 5:30 or so). He still is ready to go to bed around 6:30. How do we help him sleep better?
Our bedtime routine consists of some sort of solids for dinner, bath, bottle, books, songs, bed. He does go down awake and we are able to usually give him his lovie and leave. I think separation anxiety is in full force because he will go into those screaming tantrums if he actually watches us walk out. If we drop to all 4s and crawl out, though, he doesn’t cry at all. Go figure. Anyway – we are at a loss. I’m worried about him getting a good amount of sleep overall throughout the day, but also during the night. Any advice would be appreciated!
My gut says there’s probably a few small things compounding to trip you up but here’s my 2 cents…
1) I love the image of you guys army-crawling out of the room 😉
2) I think that late afternoon nap is mucking you up at night. I get that it’s all but impossible to keep a sleepy baby awake in the car though….but I also think that it may actually be part of his night sleep (so the gap between 5-6 is just that – a gap) which is why he’s wide awake at 2 am. From his perspective he’s been in bed 8-9 hours at that point. Follow me?
3) Which brings me to the tricky wicket of – how to get him to nap better at daycare. That’s the root issue, I think, of where you’re at. If he’s not exhausted at daycare he won’t fall asleep in the car and his 2 AM wakeup will stop.
What can you do? Is there anything they can do to help him more? Swaddling? White noise? Block out blinds? I know it’s a toughie but that’s where I would work to make improvement overall.
Good luck 🙁
This post came at the PERFECT time, it’s exactly what we are going through! So last night I separated the feeding by 20 minutes and he slept great (also found his thumb yesterday which might have something to do with it).
My question for everyone… if you take nursing/bottle out of your bedtime routine how do you have a good, lengthy bedtime routine? I fed him downstairs, then brought him up, put on his pj’s read him a book and put him in the crib, it was about 5 minutes which seems to go against the “have a 20 min bedtime routine” advice….
To be clear, the 20 minute rule isn’t actually a rule, just a guideline. Why? Because some people are doing 60 minute routines (true) and others just throw the kid in jammies and wonder why they won’t fall asleep (also true).
I think as long as you have a sequence of increasingly relaxing activity in dim light it all counts as “bedtime routine.” So your bottle is still part of that, it’s just happening at the early end and downstairs. If you want a longer routine you could throw in infant massage, songs, or bath. But the key issue is that your routine works for YOU so I say it’s a good routine 🙂
my little one, a week shy of 1 year old, has me confused, exhausted and downhearted. He has been waking in the night at 2:00AM for 2 hours for nearly 2 months. I am guessing teething,sickness and separation anxiety can only be blamed so much. I have tried to let him cry it out but it hasnt helped. And we have come back in the rocking chair with me nursing him all night. This has even unraveled our efforts of (in the crib awake) completely. So he takes 2 short naps (30-45 minutes) a day, nursed to sleep. But he wakes up happy. 2 days he took 1 nap and those days he slept through the night. but those days he was so exhuasted all day and the next day. He wakes around 6:00 ish his first nap is 3 hours from wake time (9:15ish) and next nap about 5 or 5.5 hours later (3:00 or 3:30). He wakes around 4:00 PM latest. His bedtime has always been 6:30 and he rubs his eyes during the bedtime routine. BUT HE WAKES UP IN THE NIGHT after 7 to 8 hours of sleep . Am i putting him to bed too early after the nap, or should I force him to take one nap? He doesnt seem ready for it. Please advise, I am at the end of the rope.
I think that 3:00 nap seems too late. I would try putting him down earlier and see if he sleeps longer. Maybe he’s overtired?
Hey Mira,
Yeah I think the nursing to sleep is probably the big thing thing tripping you up. I totally get how you get sucked back in (always makes me think of The Godfather – just when you think you’re out they pull you back in!).
But that right there is probably the #1 cause of the night tears 🙁
The #2 culprit is also probably the napping – I agree with Alexisanne about nap #2 happening too late. Both too close to bedtime and too far after nap #1. If you are open to it, I would gradually shift it up to closer to 1:00/1:30 ish. Then he would be awake ~4 hours to bedtime which I think would set him up for better night sleep.
Good luck!
Hi Alexis!
I reached out to you via email a few weeks ago and you suggested that I move nursing to 20 minutes before bedtime. IT WORKED…for a few weeks and now I’m back to him waking up 3 hours into his nighttime sleep. He’s broken, right? I just don’t understand it. We do not use a pacifier at all for sleep, he goes in his crib awake and falls asleep with very little fussing – if at all. I do not rock, nurse, sing, use any timed devices for him. I am not in the room, I lay him down and walk away. After using your advice he was doing a solid 6 hour stretch and one night…8 hours! First time ever! After his first wake up though, things were never great, he’d be up every 90 minutes to 3 hours after that but I was willing to deal with it hoping that the initial stretch would just get longer and longer and eventually I wouldn’t have too many awakenings.
Any suggestions on where I went wrong? Or do you know where I can get a refund for my non-sleeping baby? 🙂
-Megan
Well did you keep the receipt? Most people loose those when they get home from the hospital and let me tell you, without a receipt you are TOTALLY SCREWED.
I don’t have any obvious answers for you but I’ll throw out some potential culprits:
1) He’s hungry. Distracted nurser, filling up on low cal solids, low milk supply – all lead to a lot of night waking.
2) Teething.
3) Bedtime too early/too late.
4) Shitty naps lead to night waking.
Not sure if any of those fit but those are my more obvious answers?
I think a few of those culprits are tripping us up. He’s going to be 6 months in 3 days and I noticed we are currently in Leap 5 according to the Wonder Weeks app, we seem to get hit hard in the sleep department during the growth spurts/Wonder Weeks.
I noticed he is a distracted nurser, he usually nurses for 7-8 minutes a side and all day today I’m lucky if he stays engaged enough to nurse for 4 minutes.
I think he might be teething.
He was doing so awesome at napping 2 weeks ago(naps over an hour long!) and lately, cat naps all.day.long.
Bedtime is usually between 6:30-7:30, depends on when his last nap of the day ends. I think my supply is okay, I haven’t noticed a reduction in output when I pump but maybe I’ll talk to my LC, can’t hurt.
So my plan is to just deal and get through it. I love that I’ve built (with your help) a good sleep foundation in that he can go to sleep alone without the pacifier or any other bells and whistles. THAT is such a huge thing, makes naps and bedtime much more enjoyable.
Wow, timely post. I have kiddo going to sleep on his own (apparently, not “on his own” enough, haha), he is “sleeping through the night” but usually wakes up very early (4-5 am) and does NOT go back to sleep on his own (overnight he occasionally wakes but settles himself back down, usually without crying). Letting him cry in the morning – he’d just keep going until I had to get him up to get to work anyway. I could get him lying back down but he’d flip out if I left the room (then cry until it was time to get up for work anyway). I’m doing myself no favors but ended up grabbing him and just laying down with him so he can nurse and we can half-doze until… it’s time to get up for work anyway. But at least this way we sort of half-sleep instead of both being wide awake.
I will try changing the routine (I do nurse right before bed, to my shame, though we rock and he’s usually awake enough to babble for a while when I put him down). From there, I’m guessing the next move is weaning off the morning nursathon, which is a bit painful to contemplate but probably must be done… :/
I have a very similar issue (see my comment earlier in the thread) – I think I am going to give it a little more time of nursing at 4 am, and hope he drops it eventually.
If its not happening, I think I am going to make my husband go in with a small bottle and hope my dude decides that a bottle is inferior to boob and he should just sleep til 7!
Alexis’ night weaning info is very helpful, and I did have good luck with decreasing boob time over about a week, and he dropped the 1 am feed very well. Not sure how it will go with 4 am though… Sending dad in without food at 4 am has been a failure :(. Good luck, and let me know how it turns out!
I probably should have mentioned that he’s 21 months old, huh? I haven’t had more than 6 hours of sleep at a time in two years. Up until a few months ago, he was waking every few hours.
And at this point, nursing at 4 am doesn’t put him back to sleep, unless I can keep him still and relaxed till about 6 – at which point he will sometimes go back to sleep (but obviously, that doesn’t help us monday-friday. oy)
I’m hopeful that you might see some big improvements by switching up bedtime.
As for the crying in the AM – MOST babies will do that. Or kids or what have you. And at almost 2, he’s going to be able to “outlast you” at that point. Although as he’s getting better sleep (you mention that he was waking up a ton until recently) you may find he sleeps longer (more 5 AM days vs. 4 AM).
As he gets closer to 2+ you may have some luck with a toddler alarm clock. Used correctly these things are AMAZING. He’s a tad young but you’re getting close to the range where it could work:
http://www.troublesometots.com/how-to-use-a-toddler-alarm-clock/
Awesome, thank you!
I think this may actually be worth trying now – he’s learned that the light on the fishtank downstairs (on a timer) goes on in the morning and off when it’s time for the fish to sleep. He’s also extremely verbal so we may be able to get some traction out of this a little earlier rather than later. May give it a try!
This morning was rough as he woke at 3:45 n(though I got him back to sleep in his own bed, until 5:30 so yay me!)
I’m suffering from a similar problem- my 13 month old would fall asleep okay at bedtime on her own, but lately has been waking at 3:40/4:00 and isn’t able to fall back asleep. After reading your article, I realized that I’m not putting her down while she’s awake enough, even though her eyes are open. Tonight was night one of “put baby to sleep while awake awake” and after 45 min of CIO (with me checking in every 5 min.), she finally laid down and went to sleep.
My question: Until she gets the hang of falling asleep on her own for real, how do I handle the super-early wake up since she’s only 13 months old? Should I do CIO at 3:30 in the morning, which, as you said, is difficult since babies are pretty rested at that point and aren’t that tired?
Hi Alexis,
I’m having a problem with my 8mo that isn’t covered in your articles. He has learnt to fall asleep by himself since 4 months old for all naps and bedtime, we put him down fully awake and without any external aid, and always in his cot in his darkened room. But he still wakes a few times at night, usually between 9 to 11pm. After midnight he usually sleeps better. We don’t go into him when he wakes, and he would fall asleep by himself again, sometimes it takes only 2min, sometimes up to 20min. I’ve been dreamfeeding him still, at around 11:30pm. I wonder what is causing him to still wake when he knows how to self-settle? I was thinking maybe he’s expecting his dreamfeed? He couldn’t be hungry as he has a good sized dinner and milk before bed. Any thoughts?
I think this is totally normal. ALL babies wake up constantly all night long. The only difference is that your little guy wakes up and complains about it a little bit. Sure you would love it if he just rolled over and fell back to sleep sans tears, but sadly that’s just not the baby you have.
Sorry – I know you were looking for a “fix it” response but really there is nothing to fix. It’s his choice how to handle himself when he wakes up and he’s choosing to complain about finding himself alone in a crib.
Hi, my 10 month had gotetn to a good place and was down to 1 nightfeeding, ,but recently things have been going downhill. So i read your article and wanted to test if the food association was the prob, so i had my husband feed my lo a bottle last night when he woke up (i work so my lo is ver comfortable with a bottle all day, but i do nurse at night)and he refused it. he flipped out and screamed for 2 hours last night even when i took over and tried. theonly thing that would calm him down was the boob. what does that mean if he is refusing food?
That means he has a huge nurse=sleep thing going on. So it’s not about food, it’s about your boobs.
hmm, so tips on breaking that? i assume its a different process that regular night weaning?
Wonderful website! Both informative and entertaining — I’ve spent probably way too much time poring over your pages, so thanks for writing! I had a question about how to separate nursing from falling asleep at bedtime. My 4.5 month old sleeps pretty well through the night (8 pm – 6 am with one feeding around 3:30 am), but I nearly always need to nurse him pretty much asleep at bedtime (I spend a few minutes telling him a story afterwards, but he’s usually already between lightly and fully asleep at this point). I’d like to move the nursing further from when he falls asleep to not create a feeding-sleeping association, but how do I do this? I started trying the No Cry pull off method for bedtime and night feedings about a week ago, but if he’s not mostly asleep when I put him down (and often even if he is asleep), he wakes himself up and escalates into kicking, cawing, and thumb-sucking (the sucking somehow doesn’t seem to soothe him). I try holding my hands over him so he won’t move as much, which helps sometimes. Maybe a month ago I was able to successfully put him down awake a couple of times, but now I can’t seem to soothe him to sleep except by nursing (nighttime and daytime) or excessive bouncing (daytime). Should I just continue with the No Cry method for a while longer? I’m pretty well-rested and would rather not do CIO, I just want to nip any impending feed-sleep associations.
There is no easy answer. I wrote this post about it: http://www.troublesometots.com/what-you-need-to-know-about-sleeping-through-the-night-part-2/
But everybody always once some magic dance to do, “Well you pat his head 3 times, then you dance in a circle holding one arm over your head, then you dab olive oil on HIS had, then…”
You can keep trying the pull off method but make sure he’s awake when you put him down (pop him off BEFORE he’s fully asleep) as this is probably the best age for that to have a realistic shot at working. Also at 4.5 months I would definitely consider swaddling – especially if he’s flopping about when he gets upset. Swaddling + white noise at 4 months are awesome for many reasons.
But sadly the magic dance hasn’t been invented yet 🙂
Thanks for the response! Yes, we are big fans of the swaddle and white noise, and I’ve been using the swing religiously for daytime naps since I read your post about it — it was a huge help! He takes 1-2 hour naps!
One concern I have is that he does a lot of his best nursing when he’s asleep. I find that if I pull him off before he’s asleep, he therefore ends up eating a lot less, and I’m worried that may contribute to his night waking. Should I try to keep him awake more while he eats or just let him sleep eat and then try to wake him up after he’s done?
On a note related to trying to get his calories in during the day, he’s getting to that easily distracted age and during the day sometimes starts wailing after nursing for only a few minutes. Could I be feeding him too often (6 times a day + the 2 night feedings)?
If I’m out of olive oil, can I use safflower or regular canola oil? ;P Thanks for your patience with mildly neurotic moms such as myself!
Hi Alexis,
Fantastic web site and this article is so well timed for us! We have been shush patting our 8 month old to sleep 4 months. He has also been waking every 2 to 3 hours through the night for months! I have been slowly weaning night feeds and replacing with shush Patt
so he is now used to not feeding until 3 to 4 am ( goes to bed 7.30 or 8 pm) but still wakes to be patted. i slowly reduced the shush patting at bed time and let him fuss for a bit by himself and he can now fall asleep by himself after 5 to 20 mins of crying ( yay! ). However, he is still waking every 3 to 4 hours and needs a patt to go back to sleep, very similar to the pattern in your article except replace feed with pat until 4 am. Sometimes it takes an hour of more to get him back to sleep. After reading your article I have completely removed any shush patting from the bed time routine and made sure that he is fed 20 mins before bed and I am now on night 3 of this small change so we will see if this improves things.
My main query is what to do when he wakes, continue to shush patt if he does not go back to sleep after 5 mins? Or should we be letting him cry longer? We have tried 30 mins with checks at 10 mins but it just seems to wake him up more. Thank you for any suggestions.
An HOUR of patting? You’re going to end up with baby patting repetitive stress injuries. Imagine explaining THAT to your doctor 😉
Honestly in my experience checks don’t help anybody. it might be most effective to let him cry as I’m wondering if your well-intentioned efforts to gently wean are overall resulting in more crying than if you simply didn’t go in, check, OR patt. It’s hard to say but that’s what my gut is telling me…
Hi Alexis,
I have been following this site since my 4.5 month old was little and it has been great for us! My 3 year old son was sleep trained using the Weissbluth method and he has been a great sleeper ever since. Your site brings that info in and makes it more relatable for fellow parents – so thank you!! My question for you…when do you know they are waking because of habit or hunger? My daughter is being put to bed awake and I have shifted the feeding to the first part of her bedtime routine with it being followed by changing, massage, music, gentle talking and then put to sleep. We also use consistent white noise and no pacifier. She has been great at going to bed on her own but the night wakings have increased a lot. She goes down at 7:30 and would usually be up at 1 and then at 6. Now it’s 11, 2, 4, 6. I’m thinking she’s playing me because she knows she can 😉 How do you think you know when it is habit vs. hunger? This mama is tired!! Thanks in advance…I know you are a busy lady answering lots of questions 🙂
Try to stay awake enough during the feeding to REALLY listen to what she’s doing – is she really guzzling, swallowing, etc. or is it just comfort sucking.
If it’s comfort sucking you know you’re answer. IF she’s guzzling then the issue is – why is she so hungry? Distracted nurser? Not enough opportunities during the day? Day snacking? Personal preference? I would definitely consider gently weaning off the 2 AM and doing a dreamfeed when YOU go to bed, just so you can get some sleep yourself.
Check this out: http://www.troublesometots.com/what-you-need-to-know-about-sleeping-through-the-night-part-3/
What’s the best way to determine if baby is waking due to object permanence/hunger(needing to be weaned)/or sucking association (paci)?
My LO is 9 months old and has never slept through the night. We don’t nurse to sleep, but he does use a paci at bedtime and needs it to calm himself down. He goes to sleep well usually, but never puts himself back to sleep in the MOTN. I nurse him back to sleep – he’s starting to fight the end of nursing and waking more often (instead of 11pm and 4am, it’s been every 2 hours)
I was getting SO frustrated with all the articles that claimed that putting baby down awake would solve all sleep problems – I’ve been doing that since 3 months old! So this article is helpful – i just need to figure out what steps I need to take. So thanks!
Hmmm…good question. I would say that the sucking/paci/object permanence are all the same thing.
If it’s JUST hunger you’ll generally have good success with gentle weaning: http://www.troublesometots.com/what-you-need-to-know-about-sleeping-through-the-night-part-3/
If you try to wean and get a FLAT REFUSAL from baby then you’re probably dealing with paci/sucking issues.
Good luck!
Wow, this post seems to be written exactly for my family! After our little guy started having absolute inconsolable melt-downs at all bedtime and naps at 5 1/2 months we decided to try sleep training–figuring we didn’t have anything to lose since he was regularly crying for over an hour with all the soothings we could offer (boob, rocking, singing, white noise). And it worked! He still cries for 2-7 minutes when we put him down, but he puts himself to sleep and the total amount of crying is DRASTICALLY less than before. Win! AND his naps have gone from 30 minutes to 60-90 minutes!! Double win! and he wakes up rested and happy from naps!! I’m now officially a sleep training convert. However, he still wakes up at 3 hour intervals throughout the night. After ready your site I think it is two things 1) what you outline in this article–now we’re focusing on moving feedings earlier to separate it from sleep and 2) night weaning (really appreciated that post)by slowly cutting him off a bit at a time. The frustrating thing is that his middle of the night sleep seems to be getting worse–his bedtime is 7:30, he wakes up at 11 for a meal, then again at 2. Both of these he goes back down easy. But then he wakes up around 3-5 and is super restless–sometimes wide awake, sometimes just tossing and turning. We’ve tried feeding him, letting him co-sleep, rocking, singing, etc. Ultimately we end up letting him fuss/cry it out, which usually lasts anywhere from 2 fusses to 5 minutes, sometimes longer. My question is– any other tips or tricks for getting a baby to sleep through the night AFTER he has successfully learned to put himself to sleep? Or do you think keeping up the night weaning/separating boob from sleep is our best approach?
Yes.
I mean yes I think that start with bedtime changes and then gently wean.
I think his night sleep is pretty fractured (which isn’t awesome for anybody – you OR baby). And ALL babies have a harder time resettling as it gets closer to morning because they’re body is less tired. So the key is to help him not wake up as often (or at least not wake up fully) and the key to THAT is to set things up for success AT bedtime.
That’s a little confusing but hopefully you get what I’m trying to say there 😛
My little man is 3 months old. He usually is nursed or rocked to sleep and he sleeps in with me most of the time (he usually sleeps his first stretch of sleep in his crib but I bring him in to bed when he wakes, latch him on and go back to sleep). Right now that’s great – I get plenty of sleep, I can nurse him straight away when he wakes before he gets upset so DH doesn’t get woken either. However longterm I know I need to move him into his own room and I need to teach him to fall asleep independently. He naps in his swing half the time during the day (If I can catch him at the right moment when he’s tired but not overtired) and I’m working on reducing swing speed etc… I’m also trying to create a Bedtime routine (currently it ends with him feeding to sleep which I know I’m going to have to change but I’m trying to create a familiar set of activities that he will associate with bedtime before changing the order up a bit. ) Anyway, any more detailed advice on how I can try to teach my baby to go to sleep on his own gently before it gets to the point that I’ve created a milky sleep monster that needs me till he’s five or I have to resort to cry it out (I’m too soft so it would be in the hands of my DH)
Actually my BIG piece of advice is to not have him co-sleep while latched on. Or to gently wean off that habit. Why? Because that is the HARDEST thing to break out of.
So more than anything else (like weaning off the swing, which I don’t feel is something that has to happen tomorrow) I would really think about your long term goal and if the GOAL is him in the crib at night then I would make that where he’s sleeping today.
Just to be clear – if you’re OK with him co-sleeping while latched that’s fine with me, it’s just really hard to gently back out of later.
Nurse to sleep weaning has no magic bullet but I would gradually put him down more awake. If he protests IN the crib you could jiggle the crib to help soothe him to sleep IN the crib. Increasingly work towards “more awake” + “less jiggling. Not easy but there it is.
But seriously – think about putting him BACK in the crib post feeds at night. Because that’s where I feel you’re really going to get stuck.
Hi there, my 5 month old has always been a pretty crappy sleeper.
We took the dummy away recently as she was waking every 45 mins wanting it back!
We tried everything but she wouldn’t settle, even in my arms. We tried CIO for bedtime…worked great. She cried 40 mins first night, 15 the next and now usually no more than 5 mins.
But she wakes every 2-4 hours. Last night was every 2 hours and I cave and feed her every time because I’m too tired too do anything else. She isn’t that hungry I know. During the day she only does 45 min naps now and can’t resettle. She isn’t feeding a lot as she’s a nosy parker and wants to see everything but the boob.
What do we do about the night wakings? I can handle feeding 2 times a night, 3 if I have to but what we have at the mo is insane!
Thanks
Also this 2 hour waking start at 8.30 -bedtime at 6.30pm. So not even any long period!
She is so grumpy when she doesn’t get enough sleep. I’m at my wits end!
I am thinking she has a huge suck=sleep association and I would start by making sure you put her down awake after EVERY night nurse. Meaning no more nurse to sleep. Hard in the short-run, far far better in the long-run.
Also make sure you are separating nursing AT bedtime. Also if it were me I would probably ignore the 8:30 wakeup full stop. You KNOW she’s not starving, just wants to suck.
Start with those two changes and see what develops!
Hi Alexis & Emma,
I am in the EXACT same situation as Emma. I understand the need to break my child’s over the top suck to sleep association, but every attempt to put her down awake throughout the night (after nursing) results in unending blood curdling screaming – for how long I do not know because even 20 minutes of it is outlasting me. I am essentially just replacing it with rocking her to sleep at this point. Given that she is 5 months and out of swaddle because she is rolling, our only soother left is white noise at this point. Would you recommend we bust out the swing or something else. I understand it will be “hard in the short run,” but gradually reducing my rocking and putting her down ANYWHERE before completely asleep is failing BIG.
Hi Alexis – You are HI-larious! I love your site. Ok, here’s my deal. We are in similar boat as the previous poster, Emma (I feel your pain Emma!). Baby girl is almost 5 months. For the first 3.5 months (roughly), I was giving her a “C” – meaning she was a pretty average sleeper: slept through the night three times total, but generally was up twice a night – bedtime at 6:30, up between 12-2 and then up again at 4-5, up for good at 7am. Over the past few weeks, it’s been getting worse and worse. She is waking earlier, and then up more frequently at night, but doesn’t eat ravenously when she wakes (I tend to feed her like Emma, since I am pooped and it usually works to put her back to sleep). The last part of our bedtime routine is the feeding, after which she gets put down whether she’s awake or asleep, but it sounds like I will have to push that feeding back so that it’s 20 mins before her bedtime… I will give that a try. I am getting more frustrated with each night!!
Definitely – I think you and Emma both have big suck=sleep associations that are leading to your multiple night wakings!
UPDATE –
So last night I tried reversing the bath and the last feed. She was PISSED!! I cooked chicken marsala to the sounds of SCREAMING baby. We whispered to each other over dinner while I watched her try to fall asleep on the monitor, which she finally did after a total of 25 minutes of blood-curdling screaming. Woke at 9 pm which totally put the fear of God in me, but I ignored her. She cried for a few minutes but went back to sleep. Woke at 12:45 and I fed her, woke at 4:30 and I fed her again. I never thought I would be thankful for a night with “only” two wakings, but I was! Let’s see what happens tonight! She definitely doesn’t like dinner before bath, but I’m sure she can deal – thankfully we have her stinky short term memory working to our advantage, so hopefully in 5 nights we will be back to later and less frequent night wakings!! Thanks Alexis!
Alexis! This post was written for me!! This has been exactly my situation. Sleep training started at 6 months. Went only ok as baby was left waking in exactly the pattern you describe. And it is true that I nurse him right before bed and sometimes even all the way to sleep (so hard to resist!) He cries very dramatically for a few minutes and then nods off.
I think I’ve also created another problem by bringing him into bed with me after 4 am because then he will wake up at 5, 6 and then up for the day at 7ish. If I dont bring him into bed he’ll wake up at 6 for the day which of course we all hate.
But sometimes it is very hard to get him back to sleep in the morning and I feel like a human pacifier and I know that if he wasn’t in the bed with me I would just let him cry and get himself back to sleep (which he usually does pretty quickly.) And hopefully eventually he would be waking later…I guess.
My question is, what to work on first: the before-bed sleep association or the co-sleeping? Or both at the same time? What do you all think? Anyone else gone through this? Thanks!!
“And it is true that I nurse him right before bed and sometimes even all the way to sleep (so hard to resist!) ”
There’s the issue. You already KNOW what it is.
As for the co-sleeping, if you don’t co-sleep he’ll sleep till 6. If his bedtime is ~7 (I’m assuming) and he sleeps til 6 that’s an 11 hour night which is FANTASTIC! So if you don’t enjoy the early AM co-sleeping and without it he sleeps till 6, I would call that a win.
Of course you hate getting up at 6. So do I! And yet I do it (and my oldest is SIX). Kids wake up early. It blows. But it’s part of the package 😛
Ah of course! It didn’t even occur to me that he would be sleeping through the night and then waking at 6! THAT I can handle no problem!
I managed to nurse him about 10 minutes before bed. He cried but fell asleep within a few minutes. But then he woke up at night earlier than usual and though I tried not to nurse him he would not settle.
We also have a night hunger problem I believe. Distracted during day, gulping down milk at night.
Last night tried not bringing him into bed after 4 but he just kept crying and crying. Like falling asleep for 10 minutes but then waking up again and again. Finally at 5 I took him into bed because I didn’t think he would soothe himself. After nursing in bed he fell right asleep…until 6. Repeat. Then up for day 7:30.
Oh and he does not go to sleep at 7…He used to but that would result in 430 or 5 wake ups. Since I’ve moved his bed time up to 8:30 it is better. He can only sleep about 10 or 11 hours at night, depending on how much waking happened.
Oh one more thing, he will only go back to sleep nursing at night, and also, sorry for kind of bad grammar in my post. Haven’t slept more than 4 hours in a row in a year! Yay!
My babe is 8.5 months old. We sleep trained (using CIO) for sleep at 5 months and for naps at 6 months, and it went really well.
A combination of teething and bad cold really messed with sleep at the 8 month mark but I think we’re over the worst of it. She’s back to sleeping 10-11 hours at night with 15-20minutes of fussing.
My question is about the naps. During the latest regression I went back to swaddling for naps (otherwise they were only 30min long). Should I keep swaddling or wean her off it? I don’t want to create another crutch and I don’t want her to be a year old still needing to be swaddled for naps!
I’m never that concerned by swaddling babies. I know sooo many people are freaked about getting out of the swaddle but if baby is happy, sleeping, and not flipping over then I say embrace it. If you’re really ready to get out you could pop an arm out and see how things go. But there are plenty of babies who are swaddled till 9-12 months so personally I’m totally OK with it 😉
I’m out of ideas. We’ve tried the gradual night-weaning process with my 7 month old and he’s still waking up at least once and up to four times per night. Sometimes he’ll take one to three ounces of a VERY diluted bottle (1/2 a scoop of formula to 4oz water), but more often than not, he just wants a snuggle. Based on how little he’s eathing at night, it doesn’t seem like hunger is the reason for the night wake ups. We’ve also been dabbling in the dreaded 5 am early wake ups. Do we CIO for the night wake ups?
Here’s how the day/night goes:
6/630 am wake up
8/830 nap #1 (45 min-1hour)
1130/12 nap #2 (1.5-2hours)
4/430 nap #3 (30 min-45 min)
7/8 pm bed time
We have a nice night routine (bath, jammies, quiet play in his room, brief song/rock in the glider) then he gets put down awake. I confess, we may have an eat = sleep issue…sometimes he won’t eat enough during the day and I can sneak a bottle in right before bed. The trouble is, if I stop the before bed bottle, does that mean he’ll wake up at night genuinely hungry? And then are we stuck waking up at night with him?
He is really good at putting himself to sleep at bed time. He has a lovey, white noise sound machine, no paci, no lights. But, when he wakes up at night, there are hysterics, tears, screaming and thrashing until one of us goes in to him. Longest crying fit was two hours before we went in there. Awful.
But, we need to do something. We’re tired. And poor baby is too…he’s up at night just as much as we are so I can only imagine he feels just as tired…
Hey Morgan,
That’s a bummer because his day sleep is fantastic. Here’s my best guess, you say, “but more often than not, he just wants a snuggle”
Usually whatever they want at night tells you what your issue is. I think he’s got a snuggle=sleep thing. Now this is tricky because EVERYBODY snuggles as part of their bedtime routine. But I’m wondering if you cut out some of the snuggling (horrible I know!) he may not be waking up needing more snuggles in the middle of the night. I know you say it’s brief already but maybe more brief? Maybe you switch cuddle/song into 2-3 books and then bed?
And yes the bottle before bed is probably not helping. I would try no bottle for 7-10 days and see what happens. I know you’re afraid he’ll wake up hungry but maybe we can shift some of those calories to daytime. Worth a try especially if it helps us avoid 2 hours of crying at night?
Hi there,
We have been doing Ferber for 6 nights now with my 6 month old. He has been doing great at bedtime, fussing for a minute or two then going to sleep. He wakes pretty much every night around 12:30 and sometimes cries for about 10 minutes. But, he is often up for 1.5-2 hours during the night. He is not crying the whole time, he will fuss, talk, play, doze. I don’t think he is hungry until around 3:30 so I’m not sure what’s causing this long wakeup. And I’m not sure what to do….I’m not going to let him cry for 2 hours but I also don’t want to add in another nursing session and create a bad habit where he’s not really asking for it. I’m at a loss…please help! Any ideas?
I’m not sure why he’s up either but I’ll say this – if he’s talking, playing, dozing, etc. then I would leave well enough alone. You can’t make him sleep, he’s not miserable, so it may be just what it is for right now.
I’m wondering about the 3:30 feed though. If he wakes up at 12:30 and hangs out for ~2 hours till you come feed him, is he just waiting for you to come feed him? And if you wait 2 hours and THEN feed him are you possibly reinforcing the waiting?
As a general rule when babies wake up you either want to be johnny on the spot and go in relatively soon after they wake up. OR you don’t go in at all. If he hangs out for 2 hours and then you come in, you could be teaching him that “wait for Mom for 2 hours” = a good strategy. Follow me?
Hi Alexis!
Great blog! It has been super helpful to us as we recently started sleep training (Ferber method) our 6 month old. Up until we started he would have frequent night wakings and it would be very difficult to get him back to sleep….lots of bum patting/shushing etc. We just finished night 3 and the last 2 nights he has slept until 3/4ish with no wakings before this. We have not yet night weaned him so he is still getting a bottle at this time. I am going to try and wean him in the next couple weeks, but in the meantime I am not sure how to handle this feeding. He sometimes falls back asleep taking his bottle, but most times he is still awake afterwards. My question is…do I put him back in his crib awake and let him CIO? My dilemma is sometimes it is so close to his normal wake time (6/6:30) that I am not sure he will go back to sleep? Should I put a time limit on the crying? Should I go in and help him fall back asleep? This morning he took 1 hour to fall back asleep (talking/crying) and then only slept for 1 more hour and was up at 6 for good. I just worry that if he doesn’t fall back asleep it will throw our whole day off because he will have to have his first nap so early.
I should add that his last nap ends around 4/4:30 and his bedtime is 6:30/7:00. I welcome any suggestions! Thanks so much!
Early AM feedings are tricky. One option would be to offer a dream feed at 3 AM so that it’s not so close to his normal wakeup and he has an easier time falling back to sleep. Yes this means setting your alarm but it might be worth it.
If he can’t fall back to sleep you can help him fall back to sleep as long as you’re mindful that it doesn’t back up on you – ie take longer and longer, pushing you back into a bum patting habit. So what I’m saying is that if 2 minutes of patting gets you 2 hours of sleep, that’s a win. But if 2 minutes of patting turns into 40 minutes of patting, or multiple wake ups requiring patting then you have a problem (you probably already knew that however).
Hi Alexis-you are SO ridiculously helpful! And when I read this recent post, I felt as though it were written for my family.
So we changed up the bedtime routine with my 10 month old son last night and nursed, bath, books and then bed. With minimal fussing (<10 minutes) he was conked out! I was so surprised and ecstatic! My husband and I were definitely doing the martini dance above 🙂
He slept soundly from 8pm-1:30am. My question is, how do we treat the night wakings now? I resorted to nursing him twice during the night (1:30am and 4:30am)to get him back to sleep (guilty as charged). Do you have ideas how to treat the times that he does wake up in the night? He does take a pacifier….we haven't been able to get rid of that yet. Could that be the culprit?
Thanks a million for all of your advice and helping me to keep a relaxed attitude about all of this. It's important to laugh-and you've helped me do that!
-Erin
Excuse me while I change the title of this post to:
“What Erin’s Doing At Bedtime” 😉
Well if you’ve been feeding your baby at night and now you’re trying to back out of it you’ll want to gently wean off them. Your 10 month old definitely can roll with 0-1 feedings so personally I would start with the 1:30. Have you read this?
http://www.troublesometots.com/what-you-need-to-know-about-sleeping-through-the-night-part-3/
But yeah the pacifier may cause problems. I say “may” so start gently night weaning and see how things go. If the answer is “great”! then the paci isn’t an issue. If it’s a real struggle – meaning you get down to 1-2 minutes of nursing and he refuses to let you pop him off without drama, then you may have a paci issue.
Specifically the paci can result in a suck-sleep association which makes night weaning a challenge. But plenty of older babies, who can handle reinserting the paci on their own, do just FINE with the paci and not eating all night. So start with the weaning and see where you get before you go all ninja force on the paci.
Victory, again!!!
We are successfully sleeping–all night (well, at least for now, right? :))
He may make a peep once throughout the night, but withing 2 minutes he has quieted down and is happily snoozing back asleep.
He still has the paci, but like you said, he can pop that sucker back in when he needs to so I no longer think it was the culprit. I really think he was used to us coming whenever he called and used to mommy busting out the breast for a quick hush.
We feel so relieved-and educated about teaching him to sleep.
Your advice and humor is IMMENSELY appreciated.
Thank you Alexis!!!!!
Alexis, you said to try it out for 5 days and get back to you. We’ve switched the bedtime routine for a week to where I nurse him downstairs in the living room, then we go upstairs for bath, then lotion/diaper/pajamas, read a couple books, white noise & then in the crib. I’d say the last nursing session is separated from bed by 20-30 minutes.
He usually wakes between 1:30 and only twice 3:30. I decided I am not going to feed him until 2:30 since the past few nights that has been what time has he been waking up to eat. I’ll trying to push it back to 3:00 (a la Ferber) tonight.
But he is still waking occasionally in the night before the feeding time and I let him cry/complain until he falls back asleep… last night for example – fell asleep at 7:35, woke at 11 or so, cried for 5-7 minutes, woke up at 1230, same drill… then around 2:15, so I fed him. Why is he still doing that if it isn’t the sleep association? And one final thing, he wakes up at 5am and won’t go back to sleep. He keeps doing this. We have to get up with him for about an hour to an hour and a half, and he is cranky and rubbing his eyes (but won’t go to sleep if you try), and once the hour or so is over he will go back to sleep for 1-2 hours, which I think is him completing his sleep cycle.
Any ideas? I do feed him when he wakes at 5 but maybe I should be pushing it off until 6 at least. I don’t mind him waking up at 6 for the day but 5 is really early.
“5-7 minutes”
Here’s the thing – your baby is waking up every 1-2 hours all night long. They’re CONSTANTLY waking up. Only you don’t notice because most times they just roll over and fall back to sleep.
If your baby is futzing about for 5-7 minutes then the answer is, “He’s fine.” He doesn’t need you, and he’s definitely not starving. He’s USED to nursing and would probably prefer it. He’s grumbling because it’s dark and boring and your boobs aren’t there 🙂
There is no issue. The only issue you have is the 5 AM thing. Basically its generally a thing where he wakes up hungry but it’s too close to his wakeup time so he can’t easily fall back to sleep. My advice is to wean off the 2:15 feeding (I suspect he doesn’t really need that one) and try to insert a dreamfeed ~4 AM. See if that doesn’t solve the issue by keeping his tummy full so he doesn’t FULLY wake up at 5 AM and thus can navigate till 6 without a problem.
(I know you were hoping for a no feed sleep till 6 solution but this is the best I have for you.)
oh an he is 6 months!
Then DEFINITELY think 4 AM dream feed!
I’m trying to understand this and maybe I’m not finding it yet. But how do you put baby to bed awake? I do put her back after feeding in the middle of the night awake and she goes to sleep (we are in a swing or rock and play and she is fine not moving while being swaddled) but if I put her down awake at night what does that look like? Do I put her down and walk away? What do I do if she cries? She is 3 months old today. Thank you! Trying to get her into the crib in our room, unless its better to be in her own…
Hey Jennifer,
Check the post I link to below on swings. You have a very small window of time to use this powerful took and she’s already sleeping in it so USE it. Use the swing to help her fall asleep on her own. No tears.
THEN you can worry about gently weaning her OUT of the swing a la:
http://www.troublesometots.com/weaning-baby-off-swing/
What do we do if my 6 month old son refuses to take his bottle unless he’s already swaddled and calmed down? Cry it out? Let him go hungry? We are trying move his bottle to the beginning of our nighttime routine, but he gets distracted or just refuses to drink unless he’s swaddled.
Swaddle him early, feed him, unswaddle him to do your routine (bath, massage, books, etc.) then reswaddle for bedtime!
Hi Alexis
My little boy is 6 1/2 months and we’re currently doing CIO. We’re on day 5 & it isn’t really getting easier lol! He cries for longer every night. Part of the problem is he rolls straight onto his tummy when he goes into his cot & then gets hysterical because he’s on his front, which means it takes him longer to fall asleep, any tips??
He has his last feed, then a bath, a massage, story then put down totally awake in his cot. Then he’s hysterical! And to be honest I’m finding it harder every night to listen to it and leave him! He also still wakes in the night to nurse & is bad at naps in the day (I’ve been taking in the car since we started CIO to make sure he gets his naps in-nap master lol)
Any tips/advice would be great appreciated
Thanks, a feeling like a failure mum! 😕
Hey Rhiann,
I can’t tell you why he’s hysterical. If it’s because he’s getting stuck you’ve got two options:
1) Have him sleep somewhere he can be safely strapped in (like a swing – preferably a 5 pt swing). This is an awesome option because you can also swaddle him if he’s strapped and can’t flip.
2) Practice flipping all day long. Literally have him do TONS of tummy time so he gets really good at flipping BACK and thus doesn’t get stuck.
There may be some other reason he’s getting so upset but I’m going off your gut instinct that it’s due to getting tummy stuck and frustrated. Good luck!
Thanks for the reply Alexis.
It’s not so much that he’s getting stuck because he can flip back over, no problem at all, he just refuses to when he goes to bed!
I’ve tried putting him to sleep in his swing and he’s having nine of it! Just screams or alms to the bars, depending what mood he’s in!!
I think I’m just accepting the fact that I’m not going to have sleep until he’s 18 lol!!! 😴
Sorry should have read as ‘he’s having none of it! Just screams or talks to the bars’
Thanks
Hi Alexis, I love your site and have used your tips many times over the past 15 months of raising twin girls. We pretty much thought we had everything sussed as our girls were sleeping 7pm-7am from about 8 months, with a beautiful 2 hour nap at lunchtime. They were like clockwork.
And then a couple of weeks ago we started attending daycare. I live in Germany and they are very careful here to slowly integrate the child into their new setting. So for the first 4weeks they went only for the mornings and then came home for their nap. They would pass out at 12:30 exhausted after their busy morning. They were sleeping 12 hours at night without fail too.
Then last week we started napping at the kindergarten and it has been a bit of a nightmare. The sleeping room is too stimulating for them so now they only nap anywhere from 45 minutes to 1.5 hours but never more. To boot, the minders let them fall asleep in their arms, something I have never done. Since then, one of our girls is fine and catching up on lost sleep at night (13 hours) but our other daughter is having a really tough time. Shes overtired in the afternoon and hyper sensitive. She’s very upset going to bed at 6:30 (cries for 20 mins, then puts herself to sleep), then sleeps until around 3/4am and wakes up balling crying, refusing to settle until we take her into our bed. Even then, it takes at least an hour for her to get to sleep. We tried to let her cry last night but after 45 minutes of intense crying, we caved and took her into bed. Luckily her sister is blissfully unaware and snoozes on regardless. They do use pacifiers in bed but have been able to replace them themselves for many months now. Also bedtime routine is consistent and calm (book, bottle, pjs, bed).
I’m exhausted and need to find a solution as I go back to work week after next. What can I do to help her adjust to her new reality. Will CIO when shes so tired just make her more clingy and upset?
Thanks for any thoughts you might have 🙂
Oh no 🙁
Daycare sleep issues are hard because not only is she (the twin who is struggling) not napping well it’s REALLY stimulating. Meaning that even if she were getting awesome 2 hour naps there she would probably be a bit overstimulating. So now you’ve got two issues working against you.
I would start by talking to the daycare to see if there is any adjustment they can make. Lots of places are open to small adjustments (white noise, maybe having a troubled sleeper nap in a different location away from the other children, room darkening blinds, etc.) to try to make things better.
I know it’s hard. So sad to hear too because we (writing from the US) have this perception that childcare in the UK is fantastic so I hate to hear that it can be rough everywhere 😛
You also may want to stick with the same bedtime even though she’s overtired. If her circadian clock says 7 is bedtime she may have a hard time falling asleep earlier (even though I get why you’re trying).
Also if you can help her navigate these night wakings in her bed that would be ideal. I know it’s stressful and exhausting but you don’t want her used to sleeping with you – and it sounds like it’s not that helpful anyway. So back rubbing, quiet words, etc. in HER room would be better.
Sorry to not have an easy fix for you. Good luck!
Ok I’ve done as you’ve said for 7 nights. He is now going down awake with no crying at all. Nursing is at least 20 minutes away from sleep. Considering how hard he used to cry when put down, this is amazing!
But the night wakings haven’t changed. He wakes up around 1, I nurse him back to sleep. I’m trying to wean him off that first feeding. But then at 3 or 4, he wakes up and I bring him into bed and then my hell begins. He will wake up every hour at least and cry and have a tantrum unless I nurse him. If I don’t bring him into bed, he cries, falls asleep, wakes up every 20 minutes, repeat. Hell hell hell!
What do I do about this early morning problem? Should I just suck it up and not bring into bed anymore? Let him cry, and hope this cycle changes?
Oh yeah my guy is almost 13 months. He’s pretty spirited.
No no – you didn’t read the post. I said only tell me what happens if it works OUT. Otherwise please keep it to yourself.
I’m guessing (don’t know just a guess) that your kiddo LOVES THE BOOB. Some babies are like this. Same thing was just being discussed on the G+ group. Check out this post:
https://plus.google.com/u/0/115196000908474309872/posts/QjSK1j7o2oc
So basically any boob leads to requests for more boob. And I’m guessing that that’s why your AM co-sleeping, tantrum, hell begins. Because at each night waking he has to choose between boob or solo sleep. And boob always wins.
Check the post and advice I linked to. I think it’ll help. (Or feel free to chime in 😉
Alexis, please help!
I’ve been reading your website since my son was about 4 months old. He’s almost 11 months old now. He’s never been a great night sleeper or napper, but we got really good at putting him to sleep awake. He would just roll over and fall asleep. But just as you’ve written about above, we still had tons of trouble with night wakings and ridiculously early morning wake up. We’ve done the sleep training thing over and over, and I finally bit the bullet and stopped feeding him before bed and took the pacifier away eight days ago. The night wakings have definitely improved over the last few days, but we’re still having a really hard time getting past 10 hours of night sleep. He goes to bed between 6:30 and 7 and has been waking up for the day between 4:45 and 5:15. While this obviously sucks for me and my husband, it’s also not been good for the baby. He’s super cranky and clearly quite tired, but when I either ignore him or feed him and put him back in his crib, he screams bloody murder. I know you said some kids just have their internal clocks set for early, but this just doesn’t seem like enough sleep. He naps in the morning for about an hour or so, usually from around 8 – 9:30, which I know is pretty early, but is based on his early wake time. His afternoon nap has been spotty, generally between 45 minutes and an hour from about 1pm to 2. I realize he’s probably overtired by 6 or 7, but I’m worried about his whole schedule being shifted to super early bed and wake times. Should I put him to bed earlier? Later? Let him scream at 5:15? When I have left him to cry in the early morning hours it has taken a lot of crying/screaming for him to fall back asleep and then he hasn’t slept for much longer (30 min or so) before waking up again. Will he just grow out of this? I know 10 hours is enough for some kids, but he seems like he would really feel better if he could get another hour or two. Please advise!!
7-5 isn’t awesome but it may just be where he is. The AM crying is a bit of a hot mess (I guess it must work for SOMEBODY because so many books advocate it but I never hear success stories so I’m stuck believing that it rarely/never works). If you could co-sleep or cuddle and get him to doze/nurse till 6 I would definitely do it. And you’re welcome to TRY pushing bedtime back but it very rarely fixes things and often makes things worse. In fact there’s part of me that would want to try a 6 PM bedtime to see what happens. 6 PM – 5 AM would get you 11 hours, even if it’s a rude time to be awake in the morning.
What about giving 6 PM bedtime a go for a few days (3-5) and seeing how that shakes out?
So I feel like a celebrity because you responded to my post :).
We’re going through some kind of mini-plague right now, but as soon as we’re through it I’m going to give the earlier bed time a try. That’s kind of what I was thinking anyway. I don’t think we can push bedtime back anyhow because the afternoon nap has been so early/short.
Thanks so much for responding, and I will keep you posted!
I am so glad to read this post as we are having a short nap issue and I now believe it might be related to a pacifier sleep association, but I had a few clarifying questions. My 7 month old son is put down awake for naps and bedtime after a sleep routine including putting on his pjs (at night) reading, rocking, and singing with his paci in (although he often just plays with it). He then goes down for naps and bedtime in a cosleeper next to our bed. We don’t go back in once he’s down, and he usually looses the paci pretty quickly, so I didn’t think it was an issue. However, we are struggling with 30 min naps 3 times per day for the past 4-6 weeks (prior to that he was taking 1-2 hr naps!). His night sleep is pretty good, generally 6:30-7 pm bedtime until 6-7 am with 1-2 feeds. After reading your post we decided to eliminate the pacifier from the bedtime routine altogether. However, he was so upset during our routine, crying so hard, we couldn’t get through a single story. And then he has a very hard time falling asleep because he is already crying when i put him down. How hard core do we need to be about getting rid of the pacifier? Could we still use it during his reading/rocking and then take it away before laying him down or will that still reinforce the association? And what about other times during the day? I am pretty sure the nap deprivation is making this more challenging, but that’s where we’re at. Any advice would be appreciated! hanks so much for your help!
I am so glad to read this post as we are having a short nap issue and I now believe it might be related to a pacifier sleep association, but I had a few clarifying questions. My 7 month old son is put down awake for naps and bedtime after a sleep routine including putting on his pjs (at night) reading, rocking, and singing with his paci in (although he often just plays with it). He then goes down for naps and bedtime in a cosleeper next to our bed. We don’t go back in once he’s down, and he usually looses the paci pretty quickly, so I didn’t think it was an issue. However, we are struggling with 30 min naps 3 times per day for the past 4-6 weeks (prior to that he was taking 1-2 hr naps!). His night sleep is pretty good, generally 6:30-7 pm bedtime until 6-7 am with 1-2 feeds. After reading your post we decided to eliminate the pacifier from the bedtime routine altogether. However, he was so upset during our routine, crying so hard, we couldn’t get through a single story. And then he has a very hard time falling asleep because he is already crying when i put him down. How hard core do we need to be about getting rid of the pacifier? Could we still use it during his reading/rocking and then take it away before laying him down or will that still reinforce the association? And what about other times during the day? I am pretty sure the nap deprivation is making this more challenging, but that’s where we’re at. Any advice would be appreciated! hanks so much for your help!
One additional semi-related question. When he wakes up at his 30 min mark from his naps would you recommend going into to get him right away? Or letting him stay in the crib for one hour total (an additional 30 min after he wakes). He often wakes up crying so I know he’s not getting enough rest. I’ve tried leaving him hoping he will return to sleep with varied results, maybe 30% of the time I get another 30 min nap, but with more crying. If I keep leaving him for the full hour will he be learning to nap longer? Or i am just prolonging his misery? Thanks!
Oh Alexis…How I have loved your site, since the moment my non-sleep-loving bebe was born!! He is now 10 months old (just turned) and we are STILL struggling with terrible sleep issues. I feel as if i’ve been in Dante’s inferno…for just about forever. 🙁 He is a happy, healthy curious boy. Doesn’t want to miss a thing. We have been doing CIO to get to sleep, and our current situation is EXACTLY as you show on the chart above. But the constant waking is just killing me. That, and he does not nap well at all. Like maybe one nap a day, for an hour. I don’t know how he does it, but its just a nightmare to get him to nap….I keep trying to implement a schedule, and failing. Also keep thinking that if nighttime sleep improves napping will be easier. But since I’m still failing at night….ugh. He is EBF, but is eating lots of solids now. He’s teething and in growth spurts, etc. I nurse him back to sleep when he wakes at night. THen he wakes at 4 am like clockwork, regardless of the time of the last feeding. and then wakes over and over until 6 which is when he’s up for the day. He is currently in his crib screaming at my b/c I’m trying to get him to nap…again. Any help/advice would be soooooo appreciated. Both on napping and night wakings. Oh, I have tried the lessening the time of the feedings at night…but I’m so bloody tired that I sometimes doze off and go too long. Basically my brain is just not functioning at all anymore….;-( thank you for this wonderful site and all the comfort you give people!!!!
Hey Gwen,
Remind me not to ask you for a testimonial. “I’ve been reading Alexis’s site for 10 MONTHS and SLEEP IS A HOLY NIGHTMARE OF UNBELIEVABLE PROPORTIONS. But she’s totally great. Check her out and take all of her advice. Really, she’s super awesome.”
Hmmm….OK…
Well let’s start with this – what time does he go to bed and HOW does he go to bed? What is your routine? How often does he wake at night to get nursed prior to 4 AM?
See comment above – I think you’ve got a boob guy. I don’t know enough about what is going on but I’m guessing that ANY BOOB is going to keep him looking for MORE BOOB. So it might be time to close the milk bar at night (not suggesting you stop nursing during the day!!!).
There’s been lots of discussion on this over on G+ that may sound familiar, check the comments on this one:
https://plus.google.com/115196000908474309872/posts/LN8kgqQxpMd
I would start with:
– try not to nurse at night/aggressively night wean. If he’s calling for you send in the milkless boob (dad)
– Offer a dream feed if you must but DON’T feed him when he is awake (you get why right?)
– try to remove nursing from what you do at night – offer OTHER soothing (see Dad)
– Medicating the teething will help.
– Offer a bottle of expressed milk at 4 if you really think he needs it.
– Did I mention leverage Dad? Leverage Dad.
Hi Alexis!!
Oh my, I was SOO happy to see your response!! Thank you! And yes, of course you are right…you do NOT want to ask me for a testimonial. I have basically failed on ALL counts. For instance, this baby never got into the swing (which I could barely accept b/c my first just LOVED sleeping in the swing) and could take or leave white noise, etc. etc. No, definitely don’t ask me for any sage words…BUT, I still am the biggest fan!! Do I sound like a stalker? Don’t worry, I am wayyyyyy too tired to stalk. Also I live in Northern New Mexico and its hard to get anywhere from here. 😉
So, yes, he is a boob man. Fo Sho.
Bedtime is between 6 and 6:40. Sometimes he is just SOOOO tired (from no napping – seriously, we are now getting one 45 – 60 minute nap a day, total) he’s down by 6. And I am trying to separate boob from bed, and sometimes succeed and he’s in the crib totally wide awake and talking, etc. Lots of times, like tonight, he is so incredibly pooped by bed time that I literally can’t get him to stay up once he’s on the boob. And am I th only person whose baby is the messiest eater – of solid foods? My routine is to put him in the bath right after dinner b/c hee’s such a mess. Then pjs, then boob, then I’m trying to read some books. With limited success.
When you say aggressive night weaning, what do you mean? Like cold turkey? Like crying and screaming and no boob? (b/c that’s where we’ve been.) I’ve been trying to decrease one feeding…its slow going and I’m just so incredibly tired. My poor older child is definitely getting the short end of the stick dealing with a ridiculously tired mommy…
Right now he’s nursing at least twice before 4 am. Its been more, and sometimes its been less. But right now we’re about at a wake up around 10ish, then another one 1:30/2ish, then 4, then awake for the day at 6. I am dying…
Thanks for the link -0 I will check that out!! And I am trying to leverage dad. Its just hard b/c he works really wonky hours and is sometimes not here when baby is shrieking.
Also with re: the bottle of expressed milk…Do you really think I need to get to ZERO boob feedings a night? So, even if he’s still needing a feeding, it just CAN”T come from my boobs? I don’t know if I can pump enough (I never pump). Wondering if a formula bottle would work….
Argh.
And THANK YOU.
I don’t know if you can roll with 1 night feeding or not. Most babies can but I’m going with the assumption that yours is a BOOB BABY. Boob babies can be hard in that they really really like nursing and sometimes the “well I’ll nurse you at 4 AM but no other time” thing can be a challenge because the 4 AM feeding creeps up on you and becomes a 1 AM feeding and a 5 AM feeding.
But you’re more than welcome to try and see how things develop?
Ok. What if baby likes pacifier to help soothe gas pains? Should I let him cry out those without the pacifier?? I hate that he sucks the pacifier n hate even more having to search for it in the middle of the night because he is crying because it fell out. Baby is 6 weeks. Is he too young to learn to “cry it out”??
Oh honey – YES he’s too young! Your whole job at 6 weeks is to feed him (trickier than it sounds) and soothe him. and yes it’s a TON of work. TONS. Exhausting and never ending. But no tears and the paci is TOTALLY FINE at this age. Stick with it if it helps!
Do everything here:
http://www.troublesometots.com/newborn-baby-sleep-survival-guide/
Give TONS of soothing. And embrace the swaddle, paci, white noise, and possibly swing for now. It’ll get easier to wean these things off later.
Promise 🙂
Thank you for another timely and EXACTLY-what-is-needed post! I’ve tried to follow all the recommendations and was stumped as to why I still had a baby waking 4-5 times a night to nurse. I was chalking it up to some major new distractibility during nursing decreasing daytime calorie intake, but found nothing would improve it). Given that my nights look exactly like your chart, I was elated to see your post and will attempt anything to break this cycle. A couple questions though… 1. My little one is 5-months old and I am still expecting a couple wakings for nursing. She typically falls asleep on the boob during these night feedings. Should I be rousing her a bit when I return her to the bassinet in order to continue to ‘put her down awake’ every time she returns to sleep or are we focused mostly on the first time down at bedtime? 2. Related question dealing with nap time/ bed time consistency… my baby wakes at different times each morning – somewhere between 8-9:30am (sounds like a dream, I know, but we are one of those crazy couples that continue to keep her up until 10pm each night in order for her to be able to see her other parent each day). As mentioned in another post, this makes her nap schedule different every day, since I continue to pay attention to sleep cues and don’t keep her up over 2 hrs at a time. Most days this leaves her last, short nap needing to start somewhere between 7-8pm in order not to leave her overly-tired by bedtime. Problem is she is IMPOSSIBLE to get down at this time. Every other nap throughout the day is a breeze, but this one ends up skipped more often than not because it takes so long to get her down and if I finally do succeed at it, it seems we’re then running too close to bedtime. Should I drop it – which, at times, would result in her being up almost 4 hours by the time bedtime comes around or attempt some other solution? Just finished reading Karp’s sleep book and his sample sleep schedule for a 4 month old has the last waking period before bed spanning almost 3 hours. Just have had so much success applying the principles of “not keeping baby awake too long,” hard to accept not being rigid about it. She no longer has a very long stretch at night – maxes at 3 hours – so I am concerned that perhaps she is sleeping too much in the day and/or napping too close to bedtime. As always, any and all of your help is SO greatly appreciated!
Sorry, had to piggy back one more question onto this post. Does it ever work to have baby using pacifier for naps, but not for bedtime & during the night? Mine naps great with a paci – put down awake, not a peep, almost all naps exceed 1 hour (usually get 1 a day closer to the two hour mark), only need to provide reinsertion services once or twice if she looses it right at the beginning before she’s fully asleep). Problem is we are having SO many problems at night that I don’t know if I need to lose the paci during the day. She has never used it at night (goes down awake without it – unlike naps, where it appears it will NEVER happen), but as noted in my initial post, she’s up 4-5 times a night (I nurse her pretty much every time as nothing else will work), typically wakes up screaming bloody murder, and now – since beginning the attempts to move nursing 20 minutes away from bedtime – no longer stays asleep when transferred back to bassinet after a nursing session (more screaming until she’s put back on the boob or rocked to sleep). Aaarrghh.. still feels like so many possible problems at play to sort out where to start 🙁
Hi Amber!
I just wanted to suggest reading all of the material on the site. Alexis says that 6 weeks is much too soon for cry it out, just to answer the previous question that you posted. She also explains that you can use things for naps that you don’t use for nighttime sleep, such as a pacifier. Your baby is so young though that you should be able to used things like the pacifier for another couple of months at least. I definitely recommend reading the sleep guide for your baby’s age and sections on getting baby to sleep better parts 1 2 & 3. Good luck!
Sorry, my response was meant for the other Amber that posted above!
You don’t say how long she’s sleeping during the day so I’ll just say this, the “sleeping too much during the day” issue is extremely rare. Extremely. Like maybe 1X a year I’ll see a baby who is sleeping so much during the day that they’re up all night. So there is a 1:100,000 chance that is happening. That’s how rare it is.
I do think that you want to start locking in on bedtime. Meaning it happens at the same time every day. You defend this time by managing naps so you can hit it. Thus if the choice is her being overtired (4 hours is probably pushing it) or napping TOO close to bedtime, you would want to go with overtired.
I also hear why you’re bedtime is too late and it’s working for you as long as she’ll sleep in till 9 AM. However most babies will organically wake up pretty early so if her morning starts to slide up on you, you may need to reconsider the late bedtime?
As for why she eats so frequently at night the general causes are:
– Not eating enough during the day (IS she eating enough?)
– Huge food/suck=sleep association (she’s a bit young but this could be the deal – in fact my vote is probably this one)
– Needs more soothing – she’s not getting enough from whatever your sleep setup is so she calls for nursing to get it
– Hugely overtired – I’m not guessing this is your issue however
A good clue to figure out what is happening is – how much is she actually eating at night? Do you hear her swallowing and generally eating or does she suck-suck-suck fall asleep?
Baby is 9 1/2 months old and has never slept more than 5 hours straight since birth.
Used your CIO method last month for a week and thought we might be getting somewhere but then she learned how to crawl and it wasn’t working so we went back to rocking and she’s up every 2 hours when we are rocking her to sleep.
Back to CIO again as of last Tuesday and trying to keep the same night time routine and eating prior to a bath, book and the CIO time was getting shorter to go to sleep at 8pm. Then she wakes up and cries usually an hour later and I use CIO again. Back up again at 1am and I feed her, rock her to sleep then attempt to put in crib asleep, sometimes works, sometimes, she wakes up the second she hits the mattress. Trying to limit the feedings to only once around 1am. After this, she’ll wake up at 4, 4:30, and I can’t get her back to sleep by rocking, letting her get to sleep then safely putting into crib sleep oh so carefully. Sometimes the husband can and she sleeps until 6:45.
Daddy is the stay at home caregiver and she gets two naps usually 1.5 hrs long sometimes, 2 hours each. Otherwise, she’s on the floor crawling, they go for a walk in the morning and afternoon and she eats plenty of solids at least three times a day.
We would really like to get in at least 6-7 hours of sleep straight and get this sleep training down before she just gets older and older and it gets harder and harder.
Any tips would be appreciated.
I would guess that the issue is rocking=sleep right? If so you really want to take rocking off the table for the night. So you don’t rock anywhere near to bedtime. And you don’t rock her to sleep post-feeds. This can be a rough thing to do but it sounds like you’re already IN a rough spot. I say this because anytime somebody is talking about multiple goes of CIO that last weeks, it’s generally a rough spot for everybody.
Also – and this is just a guess – are you being really consistent? Consistency is the hardest and yet most important thing to go. Meaning if you’re not rocking AT bedtime that’s great. But then if you’re rocking later, you’re not being consistent. So I come back to – it’s time to remove rocking from your options of “how we handle stuff at night”
Good luck!
Hi Alexis!
I have been reading your website for a few months now, trying to take the slow and steady approach to getting my sleep-monster of a 7 month old to sleep through the night. We had a baby that only woke once to nurse, until the 4 month sleep regression hit and has since turned me into a dairy-cow zombie.
We stopped putting her to sleep with a bottle and made a more solid bedtime routine about a month 1/2 ago. She finally falls asleep on her own (sometimes better than others) but her nighttime wakings are EXACTLY like you have posted here. Better, but still 4-5 times a night with increasing difficulty in getting her back to sleep.
Our bedtime routine is Bath, PJS, Bottle, Book, down awake in dark bedroom with loud white noise and her pacifier. I read this article and have been trying to put her to bed without the pacifier but it is NOT working. She literally will scream and thrash about and the second she gets the paci go right to sleep (I let her cry for about 5 minutes to see if she will go to sleep without it).
When she wakes up at night sometimes the paci works, but as the night goes on nothing but a bottle or boob will help her back to sleep. Our doctor suggested we stop feeding her at night (she’s in the 94th percentile for weight and height), but she screams bloody murder when we pick her up but don’t feed her. I don’t know how to stop the night feedings since she is arching and screaming at the top of her lungs at all hours. She falls asleep the second the bottle hits her mouth, barely drinking an ounce or nursing for 2 minutes.
I don’t know if I have it in me to CIO so I have been trying to be patient, but I am really struggling at work being exhausted for 7 months straight.
I should mention she CAN sleep through the night… every once and a while she throws us one just to torture us and make us think she’s “turned a corner.”
Any suggestions for us? I love your site and try to follow but this kid is seriously battling me.
Thank you!!!
Jenn
Oh and she gets a lovey! She can’t sleep without that thing on her face 🙂
” and her pacifier”
This right here is your issue. She’s got a HUGE suck/food=sleep association. She gets to suck to sleep at bedtime (paci) and thus is looking to recreate this as she goes through sleep cycles through the night. You can’t break out of the night issue until you break out of the bedtime issue.
And THAT means ditching the paci. The reason she’s freaking out when it’s not there is that in her world paci/suck=sleep. So she’s in a dark crib sans paci yelling, “What the heck do you expect me to do now!!!”
IS there a magical easy way to do this? Nope. This may help (some good thoughts in the comment section).
http://www.troublesometots.com/how-to-use-and-loose-the-pacifier/
Good luck!
Thank you so much for responding Alexis!
Figured I would give you an update…From reading your site top to bottom we now know the issue is the paci so we have been trying to put her to bed without it…keyword “trying.”
I read your article on how to lose the paci, but apparently Avery didn’t. We let her cry for about 45 minutes the last two nights, going in and checking on her every 5, eventually giving in and letting her have the paci at which point she knocks right out (I tried the pull out method but she wakes up WAILING immediately… maybe I’m not waiting long enough??) After this battle she sleeps til 3:30/4 (dramatic improvement), eats and goes back to bed til 7:30 (with a little fuss around 6 figuring out how to sleep on her belly).
It’s clear even just that not having the paci right away when we put her down has made a big difference, so I know we have to get it away completely, and I think our only option is CIO at this point since the pull out just pisses her off more…My husband and I decided I will have to leave the house because I am the one giving in every night.
Thank you for all your great tips, your site has been SO helpful…even if we’re not sleeping yet, we’re getting there!
Alexis, you are right, he does LOVE THE BOOB. When he’s nursing he is constantly trying to feel up my other boob too (though I don’t let him bc it’s creepy and also annoying.)
I have an update though! I decided no more milk at night! And because he can fall asleep on his own, this has gone pretty easy. His before 4 wakeups were gone within two nights (and he only cried for less than 5 minutes the first 2 nights.) Now he doesn’t wake up and cry until 430/5. At first I was letting him cry. He’d cry for 10, sleep for 10, repeat. Finally I decided to nurse him at that 430/5 wakeup. At first this went well. He slept until 630 after that. But this morning, he woke up again at 520 and wouldn’t stop SCREAMING. Finally at 540, I brought him to my bed, nursed him but he was UP. UGH. So I was basically up from 450 on.
Is this going to continue to get worse if I feed him once? Should I just go cold turkey completely? Mornings have always been so problematic for him! And I don’t think it’s totally about boob then. He just has a hard time sleeping well in the morning. What can I do about that? I really hate listening to him cry super hard all morning, and he will.
Also I still nurse him to sleep for naps. Can that be throwing things off?
I think he is hungry 4:30 and that you should probably feed him there. Why did you have a bad morning? Who knows! Babies do stuff like that 😉
I really wish this article fixed everything for me. Only my child has the dreaded curse of night wakings, ECZEMA! Mommies with babies that have eczema, I am sure you can relate. We co-sleep since it tends to help her sleep better. We do bath time, slather time (hydrocortisone cream, Cerave cream, etc.), 20 minutes of playtime in the crib (side-carred to our bed), and night time nursing about 30 minutes before bedtime. She typically falls asleep well on her own, until she gets an itch… And then it’s all over!
Luckily, her eczema is mostly under control through diet, but it won’t ever go away completely at her age – 9 months. I was tempted to try night weaning as it was a success to wean from the nursing-to-sleep association. That took about a week to nip in the bud at 6 months. Baby girl takes great naps, currently 2 naps equaling 2-3 hours total. And on nights her eczema is doing well, she’ll wake at 12 AM, 3 AM, and 5:30 AM to nurse after going to bed at 8 PM. Wake time is 7 AM. When the itch happens on a bad night, she’ll wake almost every hour and falling asleep on her own is a nightmare. My husband and I usually have to take turns holding down her hands and “shhhushhing” her to sleep.
Night weaning just seems cruel when the eczema is plaguing her. Seems to be the only solution to help her calm herself down most of the time. The Curel anti-itch lotion will help soothe her sometimes, and even cuddling works as well. However, these two options are rare as a cure-all. The boob just works so well, and even that sometimes only helps temporarily before she goes crazy clawing herself again. Then I wonder why I thought I’d skip the hydroxyzine tonight.
With the cooler weather here, her eczema flare-ups at night aren’t occurring as often. Also with her being on the age cusp of night weaning, I may try it at the 3 AM feed to see how it goes. She is actually starting to skip it on good nights, but I find myself waking up wondering why she hasn’t startled from sleep to be fed yet. I’ve heard that the Sleepy Wings product has helped with the waking to scratch, but I’m hesitant to spend $40 on something that may not work since she’s been doing better. Any mamas out there have tips for sleep training a baby with eczema?
Oops, meant I’m hesitant to go the swing route, not the crib route. Thanks!
If the root issue is that she can’t sleep because she’s uncomfortable, you don’t have a sleep issue, you have an eczema issue.
There was a brief discussion on this in the G+ community that might be helpful?
https://plus.google.com/112474089628923658595/posts/KLuYZ66apKJ
My baby has eczema too and we have had some success with having her sleep in the zipadee zip sleep sack. It covers her hands so she can’t scratch and wake herself up
Hi Alexis- I happened upon your site at 4am and it is a godsend- thank you so much.
BUT, I had already started CIO with my 4mo, who could not sleep without extensive rocking, paci, swaddling, etc. After going down initially, he needs this stuff to fall back asleep for 2-3 40 minute cycles at night before sleeping longer. He has slept 10-4 before twice. I have two older kids and a traveling husband and it is just too hard to manage.
So before I read about the swing option, we started CIO in the crib. First day, he had a tough nap day (despite valiant efforts on my part) so was tired at 6pm. SO sleepy and I set him down after our normal bedtime routine (feed, book, song, rocking, white noise) with one arm out after some soothing. He cried for 2.5 hours on and off before finding his hand (he had found fingers repeatedly but just not long enough to totally soothe himself to sleep) and passing out. Then up at 10, at which time he may have been hungry so I fed. Then cried for another hour before falling back asleep (two arms out) until 3am. Fed, then cried another 1:15 before falling asleep. Up again 6:30, fed and he passed out in our bed.
Night two: Cried 2 hrs 9 min, slept until 2:30, fed, went straight back to sleep without a peep, up at 6:50am to eat.
Tonight: This am was an amazing 2.5hr nap in the crib, pm nap 30min, second pm nap 45min, down to bed 6:40 (I think too late, but alone with two older kids I just couldn’t get it any earlier). Cried 1hr 13min. off an on, but less hysterical than the past 2 nights overall. Then woke after 45 min and cried for almost an hour :(. Is finally almost back asleep.
I feel like we’re too deep in it to go back. I wanted him in the crib to wean from the Rock N Play (my BFF the first 2 mos, mortal enemy when trying to get him to sleep flat) so I’m hesitant to go the crib route.
Keep going and do earlier bedtime tomorrow?
Naps before our amazing am one today were typically 40 min in the crib and another hour in arms after we soothe back to sleep for 10-15min. (so broken up)
Thanks SO much for your advice. He’s a sweetie and I feel so bad!
PLUS I have the sweetest 7yo big sis who can’t stand the crying. I wish she would stop saying all of the sweet caring things that make me feel like a crappy mommy for not “helping” him.
Oops, meant I’m hesitant to go the swing route, not the crib route. Thanks!
After the wake up tonight and crying an hour, he hung out, chatted, and sucked fingers for almost another hour before falling asleep. Confused!!
Ooof that is rough. What about a compromise- swaddling both arms and putting him in the Rock N Play? I get your thinking – lets just fix everything at once. But it sounds like he is really struggling with not enough soothing?
Then again it’s been 7 days so fingers crossed things are already going better.If NOT however, I would consider how you can give him more soothing without entirely backtracking.
Good luck!
Hello,
Well it’s 4:30am and I’m reading about babies and sleep. My 5week old and I know she is still little but the sleep deprivation is getting me worried for when I go back to work. She on some nights will wake up every 2 1/2 – 3hrs and eat her 3.5 – 4oz. She is formula fed breastfeeding didn’t work out :-(. And on some nights she ll wake up every 2hrs or less and eat only 2oz or 2.5 oz. I know she is little but I’m trying hard to establish a bedtime routine. Its basically bath eat wait a little and sleep. At night I keep the lights low and don’t talk to her. She is very awake for her age and we do play time etc and when I notice she is tired I put her down so she sleeps or put her in her swing. I know she is little but what else can I do to try to get her to sleep longer at night… maybe 3.5hrs straight would be awesome…
I thought about having her sleep in her swing at night but I don’t let her sleep during the day where she sleeps a night so she would kinda maybe know the difference between nap time and night time… I don’t know if I’m doing this right…
Hang in there Julie! I am no sleep expert, but I do remember that the first few months are hard because babies often don’t have their day/night associations sorted. I would bet that within the next 3 weeks your LO will begin to be easier to put down at night. So, she may still wake every three hours or so, but after you feed her, you’ll be able to lay her back down in her crib and she’ll go back to sleep. Then, as she get’s older you’ll notice a longer stretch of sleep developing. For example, she might sleep from 7PM – midnight (and then wake up every 3 hours the rest of the night), and then 7PM – 2AM (and then wake every 3 hours), etc.
I found that my expectations were often not quite right in the first few months. Alexis has a post on newborn sleep that I wish I’d known about when my LO was a newborn 🙂
If you’re struggling and worried about longer stretches AND she likes the swing, I would definitely experiment with it at night! Don’t worry about being consistent at this age, also typically naps and bedtime don’t need to happen in the same place so regardless, this wouldn’t be an issue.
PS. We all wonder if we’re doing this right at ALL ages 😛
Thank you for this post!
I can’t believe I’m only seeing it now and it’s been up for almost a month. This is our problem exactly. (Bedtime is 7pm, and our 8mo now wakes ~2x’s per night at inconsistent times and is up for the day between 5:30 🙁 and 6:30 :).)
My husband does the bedtime routine (I nurse at 6/6:30 and the bedtime routine starts at 6:50-7PM and lasts about 15 minutes) and has taken to extending the bedtime routine until our child is *very* sleepy. I’ve been asking him every night if he went down awake and he admitted last night that he only goes down awake a little over half the time. I just sent him a link to this post, so hopefully we can get this under control in the next 5 days.
Except…and this is kind of a huge exception. Our child has recently learned that he can quickly pop up and cry huge tears at us over the crib rail before we even leave the room. The first time this happened I let him cry. (He naps at 9AM – 10:30/11 and 2PM – 3/3:30, usually.) He cried from 2-3:10, at which point I just got him up and we went for a walk. Since then I’ve been letting him cry for 10-15 minutes and then laying him back down. I do this for about 45 minutes, and then I give up and rock him until he’s asleep and lay him down again. So far this has only happened at nap time, especially the afternoon nap, but I suspect this is partly due to him being too sleepy at night.
What do we do? Is there any advice on how to survive these “transition times”? (It took forever (a month) for him to learn to sleep on his stomach when he started rolling, and so far this transition is worse.)
Thanks for your help!
I think you’re talking two separate issues yes?
One is really committing to putting him down awake at bedtime. It sounds like you guys were there but have sort of backslid into “not really awake at all” which is leading to your night waking.
The other issue is that he’s fighting naps and you’re back to rocking him to sleep. The whole “pop up and scream at you” thing has gotten you to rock him to sleep. There isn’t an easy answer here – he’s screaming at you because it works. But you either want to keep soothing/laying him down awake OR rock to sleep. Right now you’re doing both which isn’t helping him and is probably pretty frustrating for you.
Is there a quick fix for the “rock to sleep” at naptime? No – sadly 🙁
Yes, they are absolutely 2 separate issues. I showed my husband this post and he has recommitted to putting him down awake at night.
As for naps, I was having a hard time listening to the hour plus of screaming over the crib rail, but laying him back down for 45 minutes and then giving up and rocking him to sleep was not the solution, and I knew that.
So…I let him cry yesterday afternoon, and this morning he went down with only a minute or two of crying.
Things went so well with CIO (following your guide) the first time, that I foolishly felt confident and was surprised when we had to re-do it when he learned to stand. (It was definitely worse this time.)
Lesson learned.
Thanks for your advice!
My 8 month old daughter has exactly the pattern you describe after sleep training, but none of the problems you list above. I put her in her sleeping bag, sing her ‘twinkle, twinkle’, then put her in her cot awake. She sometimes cries briefly, then falls asleep by herself. Then she wakes at least once in the night, which is getting rapidly earlier (so it’s not an early morning feed, it’s a middle of the night feed). Awake at bedtime, no pacifier, no feed, no timed device, etc. Not sure where to go from here. Feeding is the only thing that gets her back to sleep, which is fine at 5 am onwards, but not 3am. All thoughts gratefully accepted…
Hey Olivia,
So you have an 8 month old who sleeps awesome except she wakes for 1 feed at a floating point during the night. OK I wouldn’t love it either but it’s pretty normal. Babies don’t know what time it is so sometimes they’re waking for food at X hour and sometimes at Y. If you really want to break out of this the answer would be to night wean the feeding regardless of what time she wakes up.
This may be helpful?
http://www.troublesometots.com/night-weaning-your-baby/
So I just posted a similar problem about waking at some random point at night for a feed. You made me feel a little better though…. This is normal?! But will it ever end? Hehe!
Hi Alexis!
I’m baaackk and very tired I might add. So much has happened but here’s the short version: I had her trained at 7months at which she was only waking up once. We had to travel and were gone for 6 weeks and the training was shot to HELL! We were co-sleeping and she was back to nursing like she’d been trekking through the Sahara (she was 8 1/2-9months).
When we got back I was determined to get her back on schedule and sleeping on her own. Like you said, putting her down to sleep is a dream! She is fully awake, no muss or fuss even with dad. But gosh darn it the kid won’t sleep more than 3-4hrs at a time and it’s driving me NUTSSSSS!!!! She’s 13months and getting up TWICE to nurse! And to top it off she’s staying up sometimes for a little over an hour!
I’ve been working on weaning her off the boob so I don’t nurse her at all during the day unless she does the odd protesting by grabbing at my shirt but if I do nurse it’s usually only in the early morning. Last week she did a few wake ups at 5.30 & 5.45am! And I had to go to work for 10hrs!
I think she’s been teething but how long does that really last? I think even if she was ok she still wouldn’t sleep long. Oh! I’m not sure if she’s transitioning to 1 nap. Is it too early? She’s done a few of them the past couple of wks and she did sleep longer stretches though she was awake a long time too but now she’s back to being inconsistent.
She’s on cow’s milk but will not go near it at night. I did the feeding her 20mins before bed and it hasn’t worked! What am I doing wrong? Please help! I’m really starting to lose my temper and I can’t let her cry coz we live in an apartment and I’m certain her screams reach the 19th floor.
HELP! HELP! HELP!!!!
Thanks for all the advice and the humour, you definitely know how to get us tired moms to smile even just a little.
Hey Chandra,
Sorry that you’re um…back? Well not really. I mean if nobody ever came back I would get lonely. So YAY YOU’RE BACK!
So most babies drop to 1 nap between 12-18 months. Usually it’s a process – it takes weeks and weeks. They need the 2nd nap, they won’t take it, they’re tired, bedtime gets pushed up, etc. It’s a party but you can totally handle it.
As for the night weaning, that’s where you’re at. Maybe she’s nursing because she’s hungry or maybe she just likes it. I’m no lactavist but maybe she’s not ready to be done? What if you say “OK during the day” but close the milk bar at night?
I think the real question is – what happens when she night nurses? Is she starving, swallowing, eating a ton, etc.? If so you’ve got to night wean. Yep – she’s actually hungry and you need to get those calories in during the day.
Or is it suck suck suck then asleep. Or in your case awake for 30 minutes. If so maybe she just wants to nurse & be with you. Which brings me back to the – is she ready to wean? I totally get you are and don’t want you feeling stuck/resentful. But this may be one of those things if we wait a few months it all goes way more smoothly.
Feed 20 minutes before bed. If she’s snacking and you’re really committed – send in the milkless boob (aka DAD).
Hope that helps!
Hi,
My baby went thru sleep training. SHe is doing very well except she wakes up 445-5 am consistently. Some days at 415. SHe is tirred early and then her naps are all messed up. She takes about 3 hrs of naps in the day. Can I do something to get her to sleep till 6. SHe usually has poop and so wakes up. Her bedtime is between 645-7. Usually 645
Alexis,
First off, you are amazing and I appreciate your website and knowledge extensively. I have a 10 month old who goes to bed awake, no paci, etc. our problem is she randomly wakes once a night at different times (sometimes 1:30 sometimes 4:30). And from your knowledge, I know the problem. She has a bottle right before bed. Here is where it gets tricky, she is the most dis tractable eater.ever.ever.ever. And she will not drink her bottle anywhere else in the house except her room. I do not understand this, and you have no idea how frustrating it is to have such a distracted eater. I have googled and tried to figure out what to do with that, and I swear I am the only one in the world that has a baby that will only drink her bottle in her room. Anyway, do you think if I gave her a bottle in her room prior to bath it would break the eat sleep association? I am worried part of the issue is we are still in her room and she won’t drop the association. Ugh.
If anyone else has ever had this problem, please show yourself! Misery loves company.
Same here, my 9.5 month old is the same way, I’m really hoping Alexis can help us. My daughter is so easily distracted while eating that we feed in her room as well…
Me too! My 7 month old is SO easily distracted. I need to BF him in his room and the door needs to be shut and the curtains closed. Has been that way since about 4 1/2 months.
Oh bless your hearts. My daughter is bottle feed, but when I tell people she won’t drink unless she is in her room, they act like I am crazy. Honestly, it really causes a problem when we aren’t home and she needs to drink but she won’t… Cranky time!!
My daughter is bottle fed too, I noticed she will drink fine with a sippy cup and doesn’t need to be in her room…
Hi,
Like many others I’m so thankful for your site. It’s given me desperately needed relief, sanity and encouragement!! I commented elsewhere but wasn’t sure if you’d only see on the more recent posts…
My BF 7 month old boy has reflux and also intolerances to dairy, soy and gluten which was discovered at 16 weeks after lots of screaming since birth and 10 weeks of explosive diarrhoea. He also would refuse the breast for a couple of days leading up to when I got my period (which came back when he was 8 weeks old!!) Lots of angst and expressing.
We got to pretty ok sleep routines at 4 months once his gut settled. Down awake and wrapped, using a paci but rarely having to put it back in once asleep (paci helped the reflux), and using a lullaby CD to go to bed for the night but not for day sleeps. He never slept more than about 6 hours at a stretch, but would wake for 1-2 feeds a night but would just go straight back down again (not falling asleep on the breast) without the CD. He started sleeping 1 1/2 to 2 hours x 2-3 during the day then as well.
(I’ve put him down awake since day dot more or less. In fact he’d rather be on his own than in arms. But doesn’t mean he sleeps well.)
Just before 6 months sleep stopped being ok. Day naps went back to 45 min naps with lots of fighting to get down to sleep. He started waking 4-6 times overnight and was difficult to get back to sleep. Then he got sick for a week and a couple of weeks later is sick again. I’m going nuts after this 6 weeks of no sleep. Have had only a couple of sleeps longer than 2 1/2 hrs and quite a few nights with only 1 hrly sleeps basically. Lullaby CD has stopped being very effective too.
I just read about sleeps regression. Do you think that is what it could have started out to be? He’d just started sitting and doing a few other things at the times. He seemed to be in development overdrive – verbalising lots more etc.
I don’t know what to do now. It’s still going on. I realise being sick doesn’t help anything…
My current plan is:
On waking each time in the day, BF then solids.
He’s waking for the day around 7 (quite civilised I know, just not sleeping solidly at night.)
Keep him up 2 1/2 to 3 hours at a time during the day, and he’s back to 2 x more or less 2 hr day naps.
After the second nap, he wakes around 4 or 4:30ish. I BF him then give him solids, play and then bath, story and +/- another BF then bed at 6:30-7ish. I’m not sure what to do with BF then or not? He doesn’t feed well unless I’m really full and after 3 hours I’m not that full. I can give EBM in a bottle but not sure if it’ll help or hinder. Sometimes I do and sometimes I don’t. He goes down better with a feed (BF/EBM) but it doesn’t mean he stays asleep any longer. He’s often waking again at 8:30, 11-12ish, 2ish, and often 4ish as well. If I feed at 7ish, I’ve been trying to only feed him again around 2ish. If I don’t feed him at 7ish, I feed him when he wakes between 9-11ish and then at 3-4ish. By 9-11ish it’s 5-7 hrs since his last BF, I’m full and he seems really hungry.
I’m really struggling to work out what to do with feeds. His weight is ok but on the lower side. I don’t think he’s ready to have no feeds overnight and I think my supply will drop quite a bit if there’s no feed overnight (my supply is a bit dicey with hormones etc – adequate but only just at times).
What is realistic to expect for his age (just 7 months) with feeds and overnight sleep stretches?
Is there some way to get back to easy resettling overnight?
BTW I’ve tried to get rid of the paci for about 5-6 nights with lots of screaming (him and occasionally me!!) and he just can’t settle without it. He’s a real “mouth sucker” needs to be sucking for comfort. Not having it when awake unless sick and distressed.)
He seems to settle ok if I wrap with one arm out (at least during the day) but not sure if that’s part of the issue…him needing to be freer?? He just quite likes being wrapped to sleep, calms right down and so far doesn’t try to roll at all in bed. (Rolling when playing, very active, just not in bed.) He does break free with his arms often now when he wakes up so am wondering if he learns to go to sleep with his arms out he can then resettle himself with his arms out. He can often get his own paci in if his arms are out.
Sorry this is long and detailed. Like so many others I’m pretty desperate. I’ve never asked a question on a blog before but am just at the point of not knowing what to try next.
Thanks for your help.
My 4.5 month old slept 9pm-5/6am until we started solids on Friday. Idk if this coincidence or not but our sleep routine since he was born was bath bottle Swaddle which we started doing one arm only two weeks ago and he was ok. My husband would put him down and within 5min he’d be out. These days he sleeps till 1/2am wakeup bloody murder and I know he’s not crying because when I have given in and picked him up he calms down right away. I must add he wakes up fully unswaddled. Last night I refused to get him between 215 and 3 and he cried hysterically until I gave in piked him up rocked him to sleep put him down and he was awake by 6am. Plz help with any advice
HELP – I have an almost 8 mnth son who is still not slleping through the night!
He was a bad sleeper since the beginning and I struggled a lot to get him to sleep and nap but finally managed to get him to fall asleep for his naps and at bedtime by himself (sometimes with and sometimes without crying). He is going to bed at 7pm and has a very consistent bedtime routine (bath, pyjamas, bottle, book, song, bed. He is put down while awake and I leave the room singing the song on my way out. Hoewver, he will still wake up several times a night and I desperatly try not to nure him more than twice per night. I try to let him cry, go in and reassure him and leave. This works for the first part of the night but not so much for the latter. I usually end up nursing him and sometimes even have to take him to bed with me to get him to sleep until 7am. He now takes two naps a day and falls asleep all by himself and stays asleep for anything between 1-1,5h which I think is pretty decent. The only thing not working for us is the sleeping through the night. Could it be that the bottle before bed is too close to falling asleep? I try to give him the bottle as late as possible so that he is not hungry, but it clearly doesn’t work. I don’t know if I should stop nursing him in the night all toghether (he is BF in the night and only has a bottle at bedtime)… I am slowly loosing my ming after 8 month of very interrupted sleep…
So. A week and a half ago we swapped the routine and have the bottle first. But still no improvement on the waking to nurse situation 3+times.. in fact he now drinks only half of the bottle and wakes up 1h later screaming for the rest. No idea what to do now? He might be teething or going through a developmental change or sth. but what if he is not? How long do I wait and hope for improvement. And what do I do next if nothing changes? I need some quality sleep soon as I am returning to work in 2 weeks time. Anyone got some ideas for me?
Alexis,
Quick question – if your baby has successfully learned how to put himself to sleep with no associations and has been doing so for some time, is it ok to go back to nursing him right before you put him in his crib (rather than 20+ minutes prior)? Or will this cause him to eventually have night wakings again?
Curious…
Hi Alexis,
I love your site – the perfect blend of information and humour. I wanted to say that this post changed my life (wow, that sounds dramatic, but it’s true). I used to hate reading comments like this one I’m writing right now: it can get pretty annoying reading success stories when your darling baby is crying every 2 hours overnight. But we were there, up around 5 times overnight for my 5 1/2 month old daughter. We basically changed one thing – we went from bath, boob, bed to boob, bath, bed – and it wasn’t magic, but slowly but surely over about 2 weeks, she started sleeping longer. And longer. And I am pleased to report that last night she slept 11 hours SOLID. (Well, we all know that she actually successfully went back to sleep all by herself multiple times overnight). I am enjoying feeling like a real human with an active brain again! Yay!
Hello again! Well, I’ve put your tips to work and although we’ve had some improvements, I’m still zombie tired. My daughter is almost 6 months, bf, and now on solids at lunch and dinner time. She goes to bed wide awake at 7. Last feeding is usually around 630. She is getting up to eat at 10, 1, 4 and sometimes 6. I’m torn between night hunger (easily distracted during the day) or if she is just playing me. The times we have tried to reduce or push back the feeding have resulted in her crying untill I eventually feed her (up to an hour at times) I’ve used the dad arsenal and everything. I’m confused because my son took to sleep training well and was sleeping through the night by this time. Seems like it will never happen with this girl. Honestly not sure what to do at this point :-/
Alexis – I wanted to update you, as you had given me some advice!
My 7 month old son had been sleeping from 620-5am, with one nursing session around 2AM though the time varies. The early wake up was killing me and you suggested weaning the 2am feed and dreamfeeding at 4 to carry him until 6. The update is that I never got around to weaning him from the early feed, but that even if I fed him again at 4am, dreamfeed or not, he still would wake up at 5am – so I do not think hunger is waking him up.
Recently it has been even worse! He sleeps from 620 to *4am*! 4am! That is a terribly ridiculous time to get up for the day. I have tried letting him cry until 5, his room is still dark, we have white noise, his diaper is wet but nothing that should keep him from sleeping. This morning I fed him for the first time at 3 am and he STILL woke up an hour later at 4am. He isn’t even hungry when he wakes up. He just wants to play, will not come back to bed with me or go back to sleep no matter what we try. We have tried to push his bed time back and a couple nights he fell asleep at 6:45, but still woke at the same exact time.
What do we do? I am terrified of daylight savings and my baby thinking 3am is wake up time. We really are lost. Like I said I am pretty sure it is not related to hunger. Should I make his bedtime 8pm and give it like a week to see if he adjusts? Right now I have a whining baby because a 4am wake up just no good at all.
This week he did start crawling, pulling to stand, etc.
Please help!! I beg of you! 🙂
Stephanie
Hi
My 6 month old has always been a frequent waker. He is bf and on 3 meals per day. He was waking every 1-2 hours so we tried controlled crying. It did help and for 4 night he was waking at between 12 and 1 (he go es down about 6.45pm) and then 5.30am. He then started waking at 10.30 but will go back to sleep either on his own or with me going in once to tell him to go to sleep. He then wakes at 12 ish for a feed and 5.30.
I don’t understand why he keeps waking at 10.30 when he doesn’t get fed. I am also concerned that the frequency of waking will start to increase again as this has always been the pattern before. We get some sort of a routine and then he starts waking earlier and more often. I feed at bedtime but not to sleep but after reading your posts will try to separate more.
Should i start sending my husband in at 10.30 if he needs settled? Also is feeding him at 12 confusing him should I try to drop night feeds all together? I am worried he would be hungry though. In a bit of a muddle all help and advice appreciated.
Michelle
Michelle,
I thought I would share what has happened/worked with my 6 month old to see if it might help you. My little guy started waking more often at night and even waking earlier in the morning for a few weeks. I realized that I had started nursing just before bed again (prior I was doing it bf, bath, then bed), and even though I wasn’t nursing him to sleep, I wondered if nursing before bed was causing the wakings.
Before this he had already learned to fall asleep on his own with no associations, so I didn’t think that nursing right before bed again would matter since he had those skills. Well it must have, because I move nursing back to before his bath again about a week ago and now I’m seeing improvements again with his wakings. He doesn’t wake in the middle of the night anymore and he has started sleeping in a little later. Wouldn’t have thought it would have made such a difference since I wasn’t nursing him to sleep, and again – he already knew how to go to sleep on his own – but it must have.
Anyway, try moving his feeding earlier instead of just before bed and give it a few days/week or so and see if that might help. It definitely seemed to help us.
Good luck!
Sara
Thanks so much. I am going to start it tonight. Will report how it goes in a few days.
Michelle
Hi Alexis,
I love your site. It’s very helpful in so many ways. However, we have recently come across a situation that I can’t seem to find on your site so I was hoping you could still help. I have a 4month old little boy. Let me give you a little background on him and his history of sleeping. By the way, during the day he is the happiest, most smiley little guy ever. It’s the nights he really struggles with.
Ever since he was born, we’ve stuck to a strict bedtime routine that has worked really well- quiet time in his room with us, bath, bottle, bed. We even would put him down awake and he would fall asleep. At about 3 months of age he was sleeping from 9pm to about 5am pretty frequently. At times he was waking up for a feeding at around 3am but that didn’t happen all the time. He is now 4 months old and experiencing what you call “4 month sleep regression”.However, I think it’s more than that. He wakes up every 45 min and it’s not because he wants to eat because I don’t feed him at night anymore. He won’t sleep in his crib anymore cause he doesn’t like being on his back. If we attempt to lay him down in the crib, we put him on his side and he falls asleep. Its only until he falls back to his back that he wakes up and starts crying. He can flip onto his tummy now but can’t flip back. So sometimes he tries this at night but then gets scared cause he can’t really control himself yet. So because he won’t sleep, we’ve resorted to letting him sleep in the snugabunny bouncy seat. Which was working for a day or two but now things have gotten worse. What’s happening is this: We’ve switched the bedtime routine to quiet time, feed, book, bed- in the crib. He sleeps for about 2 hours and then wakes up crying. We then go in and try to calm him down. We hold him until he falls asleep again and then try to put him back in his crib. He wants nothing to do with that crib. So we put him in the chair. He sleeps for about 25 min but then wakes up and starts crying hard again. I’m assuming this is the object permanence thing you talked about. Then we go back in and try to get him back to sleep. I feel like there is no where he will sleep for more than an hour. Its a vicious cycle and has just gotten worse. A couple of nights ago we tried to let him cry it out for a little and he just ended up getting so upset, gagging, and then projectile vomiting everywhere. He was fine but I was traumatized to say the least. My husband and I both work full time so this lack of sleep is not something we can deal with for much longer. I don’t know what else to do. If you have a second, any insight or suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
(Oh, also an important piece of info. The doctor thinks he may have silent reflux but he is on meds which are really helping.)
Thank you so so much.
We had a lot of trouble with getting my toddler to sleep through the night, even after sleep training. While not awful, at 12 months he would still wake twice a night. We switched him to sleeping on a twin mattress on the floor (it’s a Montessori thing) and within a few days he was sleeping through the night. It also made his naps longer. Hallelujah.
Honestly the floor bed has changed our lives. So I just wanted to put it out there since it’s something I had never heard of before getting into Montessori education.
Hey Stephanie,
So you’re the second person who raved about the “mattress on floor” thing. My gut says “don’t do this” because you’re giving mobility freedom to a little person who has not yet developed any sense of self control. This is why 2 YO who are moved into a big-kid bed stop napping – because they no longer are constrained so they start bee-bopping about when it’s naptime because really, who wants to nap!?!?
But I don’t honestly know much about the Montessori philosophy nor why this strategy makes sense. Can you elaborate a little?
Thanks,
Alexis
In my son’s case at least, I think having the choice to get out of bed actually helped him sleep. While we would be waiting the fifteen minutes for him to cry before going in, we’d hear him crawl out of bed and shake a rattle or something. He’d stop crying on his own and in the morning we found that he had dragged the toy into bed with him where he had fallen asleep.
Same thing for naps, I put him in bed kiss his forehead and shut the door. Sometimes I hear him walk across his room, then he eventually finds his way back to the mattress and I’ll find it full of board books when he wakes up.
I guess I think of his entire bedroom as his crib, so on the occasion he’s being stubborn about naps, I just let him CIO against the door. Since the mattress is more comfortable than the rug, he puts himself back in bed. Of course his whole room his baby-proofed. And we keep his toys in drawers, so while he can still get to them,they’re out of sight at naptime (which I think goes a long way for a toddler). And at least to my super clingy son, I think having a room full of toys and no mom was almost just as boring as a crib with a stuffed animal and a book so he might as well sleep.
It could just be that the mattress is more comfortable than the rigid crib floor, and that’s what helped him stay asleep at nights.
Oh, and he’s been sleeping on the mattress now for almost 8 months.
My gut reaction to this idea is, “don’t” because of my whole freedom+lack of self control=bad times.
But the truth is maybe I need to loosen up on the idea. You’re the 2nd person who has mentioned that it works great so maybe in some circumstances it IS a good idea.
For kids who are out of the crib but not staying in bed, the “make the room the bed” idea definitely works – babyproof the hell out of it, close the door, and let them have at it. Usually this is a response to something vs. a proactive plan. But clearly it’s working for you (and that other lady who mentioned it) so there may be something to it!
Hi Alexis,
I am doing everything you suggest in this wonderful post. My 4 month old goes down for naps and bedtime awake-with at least 20 minutes since the last feed at bedtime, and 1 1/2-2 hours since the last feed for naps- no paci, no timed devices, in her crib, with white noise, the whole enchilada. For naps she’s fine. If she wakes up from a nao early (which happens frequently) I let her fuss until she falls back to sleep and she does. The problem is night time. I do a 30 minute wind down routine that consists of a feed, bath, Merlin’s magic sleep suit and we walk briefly around her room very slowly. Bedtime changes because she’s still on a 3 to 3 1/2 hour routine and I am trying to get her onto a 4 hour routine, so the times change. I consistently struggle with nailing down a bedtime because sometimes she’ll need a nap come 5pm or 6pm and it’s too close to bedtime. Other days her naps line up so she gets to bed at 7:30pm, which is great. She also wakes up for the day anytime between 6:00am-7:45am and we have just decided to start waking her up at 7am every morning to help us get on track…only problem is sometimes she wakes at 6am so that’s an issue. She goes to sleep fine at night on her own…then she usually wakes up 1 1/2 hours later (or we wake her) for a dream feed. She goes right back to sleep but this time we put her in a co-sleeper in our room instead of her crib. I do this because she wakes up so often at night I’d hate to have to walk upstairs every time she cried out. She’ll wake up 1-2 hours after her dream feed. If it’s closer to the 2 hour mark I feed her, but she doesn’t drink much. Other times i let her fuss and she’ll go back to sleep after 10 minutes of crying. But sometimes she’ll just keep crying (almost in her sleep) every minute or so for 1 1/2 hours! Finally I’ll give in and pick her up. ALL she wants is for me to hold her to sleep and gets really mad if I do this and then set her down again. She will do this waking up all night long every hour or so. I know she still needs at least one feed at night because she doesn’t eat as much as she should during the day (and won’t). Right now she gets about 20oz of breastmilk a day including dream feed, so I know she needs at least 4 more ounces during the night-it’s just not consolidated. She snacks. Also, she refuses to eat upon waking up. We’re lucky if we can get an ounce down an hour after she’s been awake. She’ll take a good feeding after her first morning nap. HELP! What should I do? I have four children and I can’t not sleep at night anymore. You don’t think CIO is a good option for a 4 month old so I’m not sure how else to soothe her. She’s a touchy baby, and it almost makes it worse when I intervene and try and soothe more at night. CIO has worked for nap times, even though she doesn’t cry all that hard or long.
Hi Alexis!
I have a question. I have an almost 5 month old. She has always put herself to sleep until her 4 month sleep regression. Now we have the 30 minute nap monster who will only go to sleep if she’s 95% asleep before you lay her down. This is only a problem during the day. I’ve taken to nursing her to near zombie state during the day (do not need to at night as I lay her down sleepy but awake and she goes down just fine and then sleeps for 11-13 hours). She’s taking 3-4 naps a day (no longer than 40 minutes at a time) every 1.75 to 2.25 hours. I’m just wondering if this is still sleep regression at play and what I should do about it! Thanks!
So i started reading, no obsessing, over your site a few weeks ago. My five month old went from a rockstar sleeper (strings of 8-10 hours of night sleep) at three months to waking up 2-4 times starting about eight weeks ago. At first i thought growth spurt then he broke of the swaddle. It was a mess but i had confidance that we would get back to something palettable. After all we had done it with my daughter three years ago. But it just slowly got worse and worse and worse. Nursing is the ONLY thing that will get him back to sleep. My huband has tried at night but he just get more upset (that goes for both of them actually).
He is not a small boy so i don’t think food is an issue. He turned five months yesterday and he weighs 17 lbs. We put him to bed awake for both naps and bedtime. He takes about three 45 minute naps a day and it is a rare day i can keep him up longer than 2 hours between naps, hence the earlish bedtime. He is usually in his crib around 7. He is breastfed but takes a bottle on the days i work (3) and that doesn’t change the pattern. we haven’t started solids yet and he has no health issues.
Based on your post above we changed our nightime routine and i feed him earlier then my husband does the bath, book, etc. He goes to sleep great. Minimal crying. We have been doing this for over a week now and the pattern hasn’t changed. I might say he actually dropped his longerr stretch early in the night and now He is usually up 2-3 hours later(just when we are going to bed) and only nursing gets him back down. Then we are up about every 2-3 hours after that. And i am terrified that he will wake up my light-sleeping daughter. Its awesome, really.
I talked with another sleep expert this week and she thought he was getting too much sleep and that we should put him to bed later (he typically wakes up around 7). Two nights of that and it is worse! I think i may lose my mind. Any thoughts as to what i am doing wrong? we let my daughter CIO for a host of different reasons at 6 months i just was hoping to be better with the sleep thing this time around! Help!
Hi! I have a 12 month old son and have not slept since he was born. Now that he’s teething, it’s even worse. I know I have started a host of bad habits but I don’t know where to begin. I love doing things gradually and assume I shouldn’t break all habits on the same day- right? I nurse him to sleep and then every time he wakes up (which is about every 2 hours). He takes 2 naps a day and can be put in the crib awake and fall asleep on his own. Should I change the nursing before bed to about 20 minutes before bed first and then work on the middle of the night feedings? He goes to sleep around 7 and then like clockwork wakes up around 10. Do I do CIO or something else? I’m so jealous of everyone who can get their child to sleep through the night at an early age…..I’m so tired!
Hey Heather,
Wow – I’m getting sympathy tired for you. Getting up every 2 hours for a year is quite the thing. But trust me, you are FAR from the only one in this position. If it were me I would:
-Medicate the hell out of the teething. Truthfully it’s the only thing you really can do. Teethers, frozen bagles, etc. are all great for daytime use but they all require him to be awake and an active participant. The only thing that works when babies sleep is medication.
– Yes he’s got a huge nurse/boob=sleep association and working out of that needs to start at bedtime. It sounds like naps are great so YAY! But definitely Step #1 will be separating nursing from bedtime and putting him in his bed awake.
– Does this require CIO? Depends on the kid. Some kids are remarkably amenable to this change. Others not so much. Personally at this point I would lean towards CIO vs. some sort of graduated “Pantley Pull Out” approach but you’re welcome to try whichever feels most organic to you. Just know that graduated approaches take time and commitment and often lead to everybody being tired and frustrated. I don’t say that to dissuade you but hopefully just to set realistic expectations, OK?
– Once you’ve made the change at bedtime (and this is key, nothing will get better until that happens), you need to figure out how to handle night feedings. Obviously he’s not starving every 2 hours so it’s likely a combination of 1-2 “real” feeds and a whole bunch of little snacks that are more about his food/boob=sleep association.
Personally I would consider ignoring the 10 PM feed. Usually this is the easiest one as the compulsion to sleep is still very strong earlier in the night. What do you think would happen if your plan said, “No nursing prior to midnight” – I’m guessing he would cry for 20 minutes at 10 PM and then sleep till midnight (ish). I would pay attention to how long he nurses at each night feedings (hard as you’re tired but WORTH IT) and see if you can figure out which one is “real vs snack”.
So if you’re night feeding rules were this:
– no boob prior to midnight
– decide if you’re going to go every 2 or 3 hours after that
– when he wakes either go in RIGHT away or ignore fully – don’t ignore for 20 minutes and THEN go in
– Start working on gradually night weaning as soon as things calm down AT bedtime
Hope that helps – good luck!
Thank you soooo much for your response (and sympathy). I want to cry just knowing there is someone out there that is willing and able to help 🙂 We went away fr the weekend and my son woke up every hour instead of every 2 🙁 I have a couple questions before I start….
When I separate nursing from bedtime I should give it a couple days to work?
When I do CIO for this, do I check on him or leave him alone? Is there a max amount of time I should leave him?
Then when I start ignoring the 10pm feed, you said he should only cry about 20min and then go to sleep. Do I go in at all during the 20 min or just stay away. Do I let him cry longer if he doesn’t fall asleep after 20min? One of your articles said night weaning isn’t for CIO so just wanted to know what to do:-)
Ok so we have moved feeding at night to before bathtime. He doesn’t take much anyway. I dream feed at 10 but then not until after 5. If and usually he does wake once or twice my husband goes in and he usually settles in 5-10 minutes (doesn’t settle for me).
He goes down no bother awake for naps and bed so unsure why he is still waking in the night! It has been weeks since I fed him overnight. Only thing I can think is if he wakes at 5 or 6am I feed him and put him back down as he’s tired. Could this be enough to be keeping the feed/sleep association going?
All in all things are much better but after nearly 7 months it would be good to get some unbroken sleep.
I have just started CIO method with my 10mnt old. I was strongly against it but ive gotten to the point where i just couldn’t take take it. I had yet to sleep more than 3hrs continously since he was born. Today was my 3rd day doing this and he only cried 15min! Thats with the 5min check i did on him and then the 10 min check, however he did fall asleep while i was there with him. My checks however are not 15sec long they started from 2-4 min the first night since i had yet to read your site, i am working on decreasing the time im in there so the second day i was in there with him like a 1 1/2 minutes and today about a min, i will eventually get to 15sec i hope that doesn’t mess with the plan. Anyways yesterday he slept the longest he has ever slept!! From 8:18pm-4:40am!!! I hope i get good results from now on. My biggest problem at night is that i sleep in the same room with him and my bed makes so much noise thats what usually woke him up when i went to sleep, yesterday the white noise seemed to help. I also got a horrible sleeper that only takes if im lucky 2 -30min naps but im taking on night sleeping first then naps. Your website is awesome!!! I always read it while i sit here hearing him cry timing every second.
Thank you so much for this website! Sleep training worked like a dream with my older daughter. At 6 months I had a baby that went from needing to be rocked and pacified to sleep, and waking every 2 hours. Then after 3 night of crying it out (40min, then 15 min, then 5 min); went to bed with out a peep and slept all night. So with this baby I was just biding my time till sleep training, but also trying to do things right this time. Put him down awake, no rocking, no pacifiers. He puts himself to sleep… so what is the problem? So 6 months hits and I decide the time is right. Well 2 weeks of crying hours at night later; what is going on??? I took your advice last night and moved the bottle to the first step in the bed time routine instead of last. He slept 8 hours straight! Although awake I think he was glass eyed when I put him down. Last night he was wide awake, and it made a difference. Also I think my older daughter didn’t need to eat at night anymore, and this baby does. Thanks for a different article that says that CIO is not for night weaning. I think that is also what all the hours of crying is for. He is still hungry. Only problem for night weaning is how to do so when some nights he wakes at 3:30 and some at 11. I try to be strong at 11, but it only leads to an hour of crying. Going to start dialing back bottle size tonight.
I have a very tentative success story for you!
A while back I responded to this post, regarding my insanely early-waking son. He was waking anywhere from 3:30-4:30, not really ready to be up, but having trouble falling asleep, too. About the only thing that kept me sane was lying down with him and letting him nurse (he is 22 months now, so this was getting OLD) while he dozed in and out of sleep for a few hours. It was wrecking my mornings. I tried the advice on this post with no real change. Trying to let him cry it out in the morning did not work – he’d just cry till it was time for me to get up for work anyway (so he learned to fuss and cry and yell for over an hour, basically). I was really at my wits end when I saw advice about a wake-up light, and wanted to share how that went.
First, I got a “sleep buddy” light which is meant to be used overnight – like the light goes *out* when they’re OK to get up. I used it the other way and set it to go ON when it was OK to get up. I started setting it pretty early, around 4:30 AM, which probably woke him up unnecessarily a few times, but I wanted him to get that “light = mommy”. Then I started setting it back. When I got it to around 5 AM, we basically did have to do a couple mornings of cry it out. But with the added visual cue of the light, instead of learning that “crying for an hour gets mommy” he learned that whether he cried or not, I wasn’t coming till the light came on. It wasn’t the crying that brought me, but the light. And wonder of wonders, it seems to be working. The last few nights he’s been still waking early, BUT, after fussing a few minutes, he’s actually been going back to sleep till the light comes on. And today, he didn’t wake or fuss at all, and slept through the light and woke up at 6. This is HUGE. And while I don’t think we’re fully there yet, I’m so stoked I had to share somewhere, if for no other reason than someone else might be pulling their hair out and this might help them out.
It’s amazing how that extra hour makes me feel. I feel clearer today than I’ve felt in two years!
PERFECT! That’s not a tentative success story, it IS a success story!
I actually described this method in an old post that I should probably repost because I think that using a visual cue is fantastic. Mine (yes we still use ours) has been BRILLIANT in helping us navigate daylight savings time. Initially I balked at the cost but they work so well, in hindsight, I would have gladly paid more 😉
http://www.troublesometots.com/how-to-use-a-toddler-alarm-clock/
Thanks for sharing and Cheers!
Hi Ya !
I just started reading your site and so far love your concrete explanations on how to get our babes to sleep.
But I am still terrified of changing up the bedtime routine and putting my girls down awake.
I have gestationally 3 month old (who are actually 4.5 months cause they came early) twin girls, so according to you I can sooth them to sleep one more month. I have been practicing no motion naps for a few weeks now and they nap varying lengths for a 8:30am and 11:30am. I am so relieved to know that I can continue to sooth them for the rest of this month. But once the 4 month mark tolls to I stop?
I am hoping you can spell out the ideal bed time routine that results in putting a 4 month old to sleep. I currently swaddle and feed them to sleep. If I don’t feed them as the last thing what is the last thing?
I wanted to ask the collective opinions of other moms about crying in the swing. My son just turned 4 months. We have rocking/bouncing him to sleep the whole time. We used to be able to put him down but now he wakes up immediately. Based off this post we have been trying the swing for 5 days but he cries (not full meltdown but definitely crying) and still does not sleep. I have been picking him up when he cries after attempting about 5 minutes of “shhhing” and then rocking him to sleep and holding him. I spend about 5+ hours a day rocking so he is not overtired.
My question is ….
Am I supposed to let him cry in the swing? How long? If 4 months is often thought to be too young to CIO how is crying in the swing different? With each passing day I become more willing to let him cry but don’t want to be inconsistent or not be age appropriate. Any advice would be much appreciated. I have now joined the fellow souls of the 3:00am pleas for help!
I’ve found your website to be so helpful and reassuring. And even handed! Thank you for all the information.
I’m losing my mind, I think. My almost-7 month old has always been a terrible sleeper. For the past two, two and a half months that means waking every two hours and nursing back to sleep (except for literally one occasion, when she slept from 7 to 11, waking up twice but only fussing a little before falling back asleep).
When she turned 6 months we sleep trained her of the course of two weeks to fall asleep by herself. We started by just lying in the room with her in the cosleeper while she fussed until she was asleep. We then moved to putting her down, awake, and leaving the room. I nurse her about 15 minutes before she goes to bed, so that isn’t the last thing she gets.
She will, finally, and thanks to sleep training, fall asleep by herself. This wasn’t happening before. Being able to put her down and walk away has been wonderful. I can actually fold some laundry and watch a sitcom at night. So perhaps I’m getting greedy in wishing she would wake up a little less at night. At this point, I would tolerate even just 2 or 3 wake ups!
Last night she woke at 12:30, I nursed her and then tried to set her down- she woke up. We tried this four times, she woke up either immediately or after about 10 minutes every time. Then I pulled her into bed (before sleep training we were co-bedding). She wouldn’t settle to sleep even with nursing. I had to get up and leave because I am so tired and frustrated! My husband was able to pat her back to sleep, which lasted about 30 minutes maybe? I then returned, and we all went to sleep (her latched on).
So. Is the only solution here for us to sleep training for every night wake up? We are fatigued and the thought of not sleeping all night its pretty scary to me. I’m going to try moving her into the crib today, which is in our room but further away than the co-sleeper she currently sleeps in. I’m scared to move her in to her own room- but maybe that would help? We have a tiny apartment, so rearranging will need to happen in order to accomplish that.
Oh- I’m sorry for the novel. At 1:30 AM last night I actually felt so angry with her. I do not want to feel that way! It was such a difficult decision for us to sleep train, I still feel guilty about it. And now it seems like we are going to have to expose her (and ourselves) to even more crying.
Thank you in advance if you have any advice about the direction we should go in.
Hi,
My husband told me I need to “write a letter” to whoever suggested we switch the order of bedtime routine for our 11 month old. She was going to sleep on her own, but it took her a really long time with lots of talking and getting up in her crib. She also was still waking to eat at night. I read this blog and we decided to try nursing, diaper and PJs, stories and then bed. I still cannot believe the difference in routine order made. She now goes to sleep without a peep in less than 10 minutes, before it was sometimes taking 45 minutes. She has also started sleeping through the night, or at least going back to sleep on her own within a couple minutes. We are so grateful for your blog and advice. Mostly uninterrupted sleep is such a blessing. Now we just need to work on getting rid of her dream feed…
Your list of “why sleep training didn’t work” is TOTALLY us! We usually give our 11 month old a bottle and either put her down within 5 minutes because she’s falling asleep or let her play. It varies. She goes down between 7 and 7:30 and doesn’t make a peep until about 11. Then, she fusses for a bit and goes back to sleep (unless she’s sick). She’ll sleep until about 2 or 3 and then wake up screaming! The only way I’ve been able to get her back down is nursing but I know that it’s soothing and not nutritional. After that she’s up again about 1.5-2 hours later. So, we’ve been getting up about 5:30 which sucks when I go to bed at 11 and am up once or twice! She does sleep with a binky but the thought of weaning her from the only thing that soothes her other than nursing terrifies me! HELP!
Hi Alexis (and others),
First of all, I love the site. Seriously, you’ve made it very easy to read even when I’ve been sleep deprived for about a year.
I hope you’re still responding to questions on this feed, because I am desperate and just don’t know what to do.
My son is 12 months old and has never been a good sleeper. We initially did sleep training at about 5 months old after reading the Weisbluth book. It was VERY east to get him to go to sleep on his own. He cried for 2 hours the first night but was fine after that. The problem is, he would still wake up 3-5 times per night. I would feed him on a set schedule and let him cry the other times (he usually cried 15-20 mins).
After reading this article, I decided that we might have a nursing assoc., so we changed the routine to where there’s about 30 mins between nursing and bed. We do nursing, bath, pajamas, book, bed and he’s always in bed by 7. We’ve been doing that for a little over a week and he’s still waking up every two hours, sometimes crying for more than 30 minutes. Any idea what I’m doing wrong? I’m exhausted and I can tell he is too.
For what it’s worth, he takes two naps, and always naps for more than an hour. Naps are very easy.
We are all so cranky. Help? Please?
Hi Alexis,
I came across your site today and LOVE IT! My husband and I have been using the CIO method for our 5 month old,Jack, for the last 4 days/nights. My Mother in law (who would most likely very strongly disagree with CIO) is coming in town in exactly one week and we are still having sleep issues… gotta get this fixed fast as I can just see her making me feel guilty or sneaking behind my back to go in and soothe Jack!
Jack’s original issues which led to Sleep Training were constant cat naps during the day at random times and constant night wakenings at night (particularly between 7-midnight) looking for the pacifier and/or to nurse (mostly the pacifier).
For the past 4 days we have gone cold turkey on the paci (although my husband gave it to him last night once… dangit!) and we let him cry it out for however long we need to with minimum “checks” because I feel like the checks make it worse for Jack. Nursing has been the last step of going to sleep (bath, lotion, jammies, music with nursing, burp, sleep) and I use the burping to wake him up a bit. I plan on switching the routine to have nursing before bath time starting tonight after reading your article.
My question is: Jack is still trying to catnap during the day and wakes up about 20-30 minutes after he’s gone down. This is not long enough in my opinion so I just let him cry it out until he falls back asleep. Should I go in and comfort him by rubbing his tummy or something or just be mean and let him CIO till he falls asleep (which is what I’ve been doing)OR is 30 minutes actually long enough for a nap and I am forcing him to sleep when he doesn’t need to??? Also, and most importantly, he woke 5 or 6 times last night (4 times from 7-3 and once or twice after that with a final wake time at 7:30am. It’s day 4 of sleep training and I thought it would be better by now and it’s not. Is this entirely because of my nursing him to sleep? What else do I need to do to get Jack to sleep before my mother in law gets here???
Thank you so much – I love love love your info!! (I also ‘messaged’ this same post to your facebook inbox so just ignore one or the other). Thanks a million times!!
~Anne
Hey Anne,
Re: Naps – CIO after a 30 minute nap is often not productive and doesn’t necessarily turn a 30 minute nap into a 2 hour one. So you’re welcome to experiment with it and see if it’s working or not. If not, well it probably won’t. But if he can sleep 30 minutes, grumble for 20 more and then sleep for another hour then go for it!
Re: MIL – seriously? She’ll sneak into your baby’s room and do something even when you’ve told her not to? Wow. Maybe you need to put a cat bell on her so she can’t sneak around when she visits 😉
re: Night Wakings – I’m wondering if you’re combining sleep training with night weaning. If he used to be nursing a bunch at night and now isn’t nursing at all he is probably genuinely hungry. I’m guessing that is why there is so much waking. Or maybe I’m just misunderstanding what happened?
If so then you’re probably right – it’s probably because nursing AT bedtime is maintaining his nurse/suck=sleep association.
Good luck with the MIL cat bell!
I’m so excited I just found your website! My kids are so horrible at sleeping. My 23 month old isn’t bad, but we wakes up in the middle of the night and will cry. After reading this article I am going to try not to be in the room when he falls asleep. My 4 year old is a whole other story I have never been able to sleep train her, because she would make herself throw up everywhere (not fun to clean up). I can’t get her to sleep at night until midnight and she doesn’t nap during the day. Any advice on what may help? Also do you have an article on bedtime routines? I obviously am a failure at getting my kids to bed. Thanks!
Alexis,
Thanks for your great posts.
My question is: do you just start the crying it out at the beginning for the initial bedtime lay down? I’ve been totally making do and feeding my lovely child (5 months old) 3-5x a night in order to make sleep happen quickly. We just started to CIO for bedtime 2 days ago, and have not seen any (good) change in patterns.
Here’s the added issue: I feel extra pressure to keep him quiet so that my toddler doesn’t wake up AND so that my husband–who we recently found out has colon cancer and has started chemo–doesn’t wake up. Unfortunately, our home is a 2 bedroom, so we start out sharing a room to get him to sleep, but in the night I move him to a pack n play in the living room and do battle there.
There is no night relief for me without being able to “tap in” my husband, which I can’t do because we are down a man with the chemo. Clearly, it is a stressful time in our household. Any good ideas for us?
Hi Alexis!
Alexis, Thanks for your great site. Thanks also for doing some comment answering… Thought I would give this a whirl and see if you can help point us in a better direction, too.
Quick summary of our sleep challenges with almost 5 month old:
At bedtime: has fought us at bedtime since 2 months. I nurse before bed then give paciier (which I imagine are both problems after reading this post & others). He goes down awake but cries even behind his paci. We want to get rid of the paciier but I dread even more crying!
At nighttime: was a great sleeper until 3.5 months, then started waking up a lot. Started feeding him every time (treating it like a growth spurt), but still at it at almost 5 mos now. Will sometimes take paci in night, but will not stay asleep as long this way as if I nurse.
Questions: I know you don’t recommend CIO until 6 months, but how else do we break nursing/pacifier association at bedtime? In general, do you recommend getting baby to fall asleep on own at bedtime and then see if it helps nighttime resolve on its own? Or are other steps needed in night?
Naps aren’t perfect either, but I care more about the night sleep issues right now.
Thanks!!
Ok, so I moved feeding to the front end of the nighttime routine, and no improvement in nightwakings or early wakeup… Now what? I made the change 5 nights ago and my 26-week old is still waking 2-4 x per night and is AWAKE awake- eyes fully open, kicking about like he wants to play, when before during nightwakings he was very groggy and therefore fell back to sleep very easily. Is he sleeping too much during the day and not tired enough? I doubt it, because naps suck. Is he overtired? Do I need to night wean? Help help help… I am beyond frustrated!
Please help! We are on night 7 of sleep training my 4.5 month old daughter. We are using a check and console method going in after every 5 minutes of hard crying. She goes to sleep pretty easily now at bedtime with only 3-5 minutes of fussing/crying but wakes up 45 min – 1 hr. later and we have to go through the cry/check routine for an hour or two! Usually by that point I give up and nurse her and she will generally fall asleep at that point. I don’t know what we are doing wrong. She goes into her crib 100% awake and has a full feeding before that. Any ideas? Thanks!!!!
hi alexis
thanx for z article.. its veryyyy useful i finally undetstiod whats happenening with my baby.but i really need ur assistance and advice.. my baby is 7 months and half i have been waking up for him every hour for z last 3 weeks, im very tired and cant bare it any more.. i know where is z problem by now as he cant put himself to sleep without my assisstance by nursing him. i have tried all z recommended solutions but all failed.. tried putting him drowsy also letft him to cry it out but all failed. also im not able to night wean him as everytime he wakes up he needs to be nursed to b able to sleep again and if i did nt he keeps crying lound and resists sleeping.
apprciate ur support.
Hey Sherry,
I’m not sure what to tell you. You’re not going to have much luck night weaning until you help him DIS associate nursing from sleep. So you really need to focus on separating nursing from bedtime. Put a 20 minute gap in there. Put him down awake. Until that happens the constant demands for night feeding will continue.
Is there an easy way to do that? Sadly no. If you literally can’t bare it anymore (trust me, we’ve ALL been there) I would suggest cry it out. You say you tried it and failed – I get it. It’s not easy stuff. But really you need to commit to a plan. COMMIT – whatever you plan is. Commit to 7 days of that plan. You can do this. You’re stronger than you think.
Good luck!
Alexis
I’m also breaking the rules in my post in that this is not working for me. But I just don’t know what else to do.
My guy is 7 month. His bed routine looks like this EVERY NIGHT: last nursing around 5:45p, then pjs, say goodnight to Dad & brother, read 2 books, turn on the sound machine, turn out the lights and I give him a hug and slight bounce for maybe 5 seconds, sing twinkle twinkle as I put him down, whisper “It’s time to sleep. I love you.” this is usually around 6:15pm
Sometimes a little fuss, but most nights he goes to sleep without a peep. He is awake (but drowsy) when I put him down. Often he’ll smile or even a little *giggle* as I say goodnight.
It is a beautiful, textbook, putting the baby down “drowsy but awake” bedtime routine.
But it doesn’t stick. He’s waking up in the same exact environment as when he fell asleep..that’s suppose to be the *MAGIC* key to sleeping through the night. But he wakes up EVERY TWO HOURS and cries. We don’t even get the solid first stretch of the night. Even early in the night, usually starting some time between 8:30-9pm and then it continues all night long. The first few wakings, he’ll cry for 10 mins (20 max) and go back to sleep but later in the night..the wakings and crying can last 30-45 mins. One night it went for 2 HOURS. If I go in and nurse him, he’ll nurse and go back to sleep (and then wake 2 hrs later). But it’s not just “suck, suck, snore” he actually nurses. 10-15 mins or more.
What the hell?? If I’ve achieved the ever coveted “drowsy but awake” bedtime dance and he’s truly falling asleep on his own with nursing being at least 30 mins before he goes down…WHY won’t he stay asleep?
This has been going on for months.
I can’t take it anymore
Hi Alexia,
We are in the same boat as Alycia and Deanna (although don’t use a sound machine or lullaby in the nighttime routine, because of sleep association this may cause); I would be interested to know what You think the reasons are that these babies are waking up every two hours.
Back to us, we have been night weaning with part success, baby will accept a three minute feed and sleep for three hours but not the two minute feed. After the two minute feed, baby sleeps for half hour and then demands another feed, if not fed goes back to sleep for a further hour and then demands a feed again. What should we do? Or should the question be; what are we doing wrong? There should be no sleep association as baby’s last feed is forty minutes before bed, baby is put down awake, and sleeps happily within one to four minutes.
Hi Alexis,
We’ve been having some issues with my 20 month old son with bedtime and naps. He used to be a great sleeper-would go down right away for naps and bedtime with us doing nothing just giving putting him down with his blankey. His naps used to be about 2 hours and he would sleep from about 7-630 (that’s the time I leave for work in the A.M. If not he would totally sleep to about 8). Something has changed in the past two weeks. He now just cries when we put him down and throws his blankey out of the crib. We have been trying the CIO method and it is sort of working but he the wakes up frequently during the night. We have just given in and bring him to bed with us to get some sleep. His bedtime routine is pjs book bottle a little but of playtime and then bed. Would love some advice to get my son back into his old routine.
Thanks!
Iliana
Hi Alexis, I just found your website today while searching the internet for reasons why my 13 month old won’t sleep through the night all of a sudden. Since she was 2 months old she has been put in her crib awake and was falling asleep on her own and sleeping through the night. I thought we were very lucky, until three weeks ago. She missed her am nap due to spending the night at grandma’s and had a hard time going to sleep and then woke up crying about three hours later. She was inconsolable. After many attempts to get her to sleep she finally came to bed with us. This happened again for the next night or two and then she started to cry immediately when she was put in her crib. She would still take her am nap, but fussed longer before falling asleep. Now she won’t even take a nap without a battle. Trying the console for a few minutes and leave for increasingly longer times seems to just make her cry even harder. She did learn to walk recently and is teething. I would like to get her back in her own bed. Any suggestions?
Hi Alexis, I love your site. I have a 15 month old that will always, ALWAYS wake once during the night. Sometimes it’s 3 am, sometimes it’s 5 am, lately it’s been 1 am. I usually try to let her cry for a few minutes, but I end up going in and in my exhaustion sleep with her in the recliner in her room. I’ve tried the extinction method and it works great with bedtime, but not with these middle of the night issues. One time I left her cry for 1.5 hrs before I went in because by that time the whole house was awake. She is also and always has been a horrible napper. My problem is, I put her down to sleep awake, so in theory according to all the books, she should stay asleep, because she fell asleep on her own. She is usually up after about 35 minutes at nap time, also. She takes only one nap a day. Her bedtime is around 7:45-8:15 ish. She wakes up with me around 7:15. I have two older children, a husband who works a ton (so sleep is precious to him), and a house that I think is made of paper (ha-ha). I use a sound machine in her room (set to white noise) and I have room darkening shades that I use for nap time. Some background – she slept in a non-moving swing until she was 11 months old. Can you help me? Is she just that smart that she knows that if she cries at a certain time at night I will come in and get her? Do you think Ferberizing at 3 am would help or would I end up with a fully awake baby? Any help you can provide would be great. Thanks again.
I recently was having a similar struggle with my baby. I really was doing everything correctly when it came to breaking sleep associations and could not figure out why my baby just would not sleep through the night. Eventually, I had a light bulb moment and realized that my child was simply spending too much time in bed. I tightened up his schedule and things really improved. I put him to bed at his latest bedtime, then woke him up at his earliest wake time and let him cry it out inbetween if he woke up. Then, I did not allow him to make up the lost sleep during the day. I only allowed him the day time sleep he would normally get. The next night we did the same thing. Over time, he began sleeping much more soundly at night. According to Ferber, a baby your age should be getting 11 to 12 1/2 hour total in a day, in which 9 1/4 – 10 1/4 happen at night, and 1 1/2 – 2 1/2 happen during the day. I wonder if your baby is spending too much time in bed at night?
Hi Amanda. I have the exact same situation as you. Did you find a solution? Baby wakes in the middle of the night (between 1 and 4) and takes 2h to fall asleep again… I’m totally by the book on all the bedtime routine. I also have 2 other kids and an overworked husband!!!
Hi, what really worked for us was having my husband go in and shush her. I was reluctant to try it because he’s usually so tired, but it really worked! I think it’s also an age thing. Baby is now 28 months and is doing good.
My 11 month old baby is capable of being a good sleeper. Just last night he went 11.5 hours straight. However, as soon as his routine is changed (especially when teething), it takes weeks to get him back to sleeping well. So what can I do when my baby is teething (only 16 more teeth to go!) so that he will still sleep or at least get right back on track after the tooth pops through? I never know if I’m going to get 10-11 hours or if he’ll be up every 2 hours. I keep the same sleep routine all the time. It’s also the same I did with my first son who was an excellent sleeper.
My 11 month old routinely wakes up every 2-2 1/2 hours every night. She is increasingly difficult to soothe (so having Dad go in doesn’t work anymore) and will go back to sleep only after nursing. (Not just a few minutes…She gets upset if I take her off ‘early.’) Any thoughts or suggestions? We do put her down awake and I have been trying to separate nursing from putting her down after reading info on this site. Thanks!
I’m confused. In this article you said that we should not feed at bedtime so we do not reinforce the eat/sleep association. However, in your article about E.A.S.Y., you said it’s OK to nurse them to sleep. What is the difference?
Hey Lindsay,
I think you misunderstand me – I’m never saying “Nurse to sleep” (unless you have a newborn in which case all bets are off). I’m saying that if you nurse your child to sleep you will definitely create/reinforce a food=sleep association. However EASY suggests that you feed them when they wake. Given that most older babies are awake 2-ish hours between naps this means that your baby hasn’t eaten for 2 hours when you put them down for their next nap. The “hasn’t eaten in 2 hours” baby often wakes up hungry which is why the EASY method isn’t the slam dunk the authors would suggest.
What I AM saying is that if you have the pattern above and you’re nursing AT or NEAR bedtime, that could be the culprit. The solution? Put a bigger gap in there. Not the 2 hour EASY gap, but a solid 20 minutes should do it.
Hope that clarifies,
Alexis
Thanks for clarifying. So, what about naps? Should I nurse my baby 20 minutes before I put her down for a nap, then feed her again when she wakes up?
Im also confused. You say when weaning from the swing that a swaddle and pacifier can help. And that when you take the swing away these are good tools to have, but here you say tje pacifier could be the issue. So, when do we nix the pacifier?
Lindsay – yes on naps. 20 minutes prior should be perfect!
Tasha – the answer is “it depends.” If your younger baby (say 3 months) is using a pacifier and sleeping in a swing, it can help to keep the paci and swaddle and gently wean off the swing BEFORE working on the paci. Because generally use of paci before 3/4 months is pretty great and not causing problems.
If you have an older baby (6+ months) the paci is often causing problems because they can’t reinsert it on their own so you become a professional paci reinsertion specialist.
Between 4-6 months I would say go with your gut. Some babies are huge swingers, some are huge suckers. If yours is a huge sucker and sleeping in the swing, use the swing to help gently get out of paci use.
Hope that clarifies,
Alexis
Alexis,
I have a 5 month old. We have been sleep training for WEEKS. We feed him and then do our sleep routine so he does not associate sleep and eat. We also rock/hum just until he is relaxed but he is always awake when we lay him down. It can take him from a few minutes to 30 minutes to put himself to sleep and most of the time it is with out tears. I am following ALL the right steps BUT HE STILL WAKES UP in the middle of the night. One night we let him CIO for 5 hours!!! Then the second night he woke up and cried for 2 and the third for less and the fourth night he slept through the night! Then he started waking up every night between 12 and 1 and it takes him 3 hours of on again off again crying to put himself back to sleep EVERY NIGHT. A straight week of this and I am so over it. We have PAID a sleep trainer. She thinks that if we don’t put him down for a nap at some magic designated time he will never sleep through the night. And that he needs to go to bed at 5pm. He is an awesome napper, falls asleep on his own and sleeps 3 naps at 1.5-2 hours each. Any advice?
Hey Tina,
Wow. OK, I’m biting back the urge to comment on your sleep trainer’s advice. I can’t really, without being a total hypocrite. I mean I offer sleep advice and what makes my advice better than anybody elses? Except the fact that I’m almost always right (oh no I totally went there ;).
So you’re expecting your 5 month old to take 3X naps a day and sleep 1.5-2 hours each for a total of ~6 hours of day sleep and THEN be ready for bed by 5:00 PM?
I’m I’m understanding correctly then you definitely have a “too much sleep” issue. This is actually really rare – most kids have “not enough sleep” issues. But you need to allow your child enough awake time to accrue a sleep debt so that they can fall asleep and STAY asleep easily. I suspect your “eternal CIO issues” and your “up crying for 3 hours” at night issues are really a symptom of the “in bed too long – too much sleep” issue. Make sense?
I don’t know the entire schedule but I think you’re asking him to sleep too much. I also suspect that bedtime is too early. Try moving it back ~20 minutes a day until it’s closer to 7-7:30. See if more awake time doesn’t help him sleep better at night.
Any suggestions for the 15 mo old who we nurse at nap time only because he is too distracted any other time?
I have a 7mnth old and I just can’t figure out what the heck we are doing wrong. He has the weirdest yet most predictable sleep pattern and it goes like this; he can & will give us a string of awesome 6hr stretches, feeding once around 1a and always goes down like a champ, no sleep aids or crying @ 7p. He might do this for 4-5 days and it’s bliss. Then the stretch gets smaller & smaller each night, from 6hr stretches to 5, then 4, 3 and then we’re back to he’s waking within 2hrs of going down and every 2hrs thereafter?? WHY? We did finally resort to CIO and it worked! For 5mnths he was only doing 2-3hr stretches which was torture, then we got through that hump with a successful CIO method and I thought my prayers were answered; the 1 feeding felt like a dream. Even at the first sign of a set-back I was not discouraged b/c I thought it was a fluke or some random tummy-ache…but it keeps happening. I am writing now b/c we’re on a night that he just woke after 2.5hrs, it’s been 30min of crying (lightly with a few loud bursts, I have to keep myself busy so I don’t go in there) and I fear the rest of the night will be the same. I am back to work f/t so these nights kill me when getting up @ 6a. I can’t find any suggestions or links to help with this problem, any ideas? I LOVE this website & have referred so many Moms, THANK YOU
I feel your pain. My son just turned 8 months and he has the same pattern. I could have written that post. Any luck lately? We’re into a rough patch now.
Hi Alexis!
Your techniques have helped us through the first year, and our daughter is typically a sleeping champ. She’s in her own room (finally), and is able to fall asleep on her own without a pacifier and with minimal to no fussing. However for the past 2 weeks or so, she wakes up screaming about 2 hours after she lays down. She doesn’t really want us; she’ll push us away if we go to her, and she definitely doesn’t want to eat. After a few minutes, she’ll lay back down and go to sleep. It’s seeming to become more frequent, and the past couple of nights, it has happened a few times during the night. Does this sound like a pattern you’ve seen with sleep trained kids?
From what I’ve read, it sounds like a night terror (different from a nightmare). Supposedly they’re still asleep when it happens and I think they say you just let them be … there’s a lot more info out there if you google it.
I’m so relieved I’m not the only exhausted mom here. My daughter is 9 months old, sleeping in a crib in her own room. Every night we give her a bath, put on jammies, I nurse her, and she is drowsy when I put her to bed without incident. Doing this exactly the same every night, sometimes she’ll sleep for 11 hours (not often!), sometimes 6 hours at a time, sometimes 2 hours.
I guess I’ll try feeding her, then hanging out with her for 20 minutes? I just think it’s easier to put her down and get out of the room so that she falls asleep. No?
She eats solid foods like a champ, and I’ve been trying to make sure she gets lots of food during the day, but she seems to wake up hungry. Nothing else we try to get her to sleep works. What am I doing wrong???
My 10 month-old sleeps 12 hours overnight, 6p-6a. He knows how to soothe himself well. He shows signs of being tired at 8am, but I try to stretch him to 9am by going outside. He very rarely sleeps longer than 35 minutes. That puts us at 9:35. From then we play, eat, till 11:30 or 12. He does another 35 minute-nap. By the time 3:30 comes around, he’s tired again, so he does another nap.
Because of his age, I understand he should be napping twice. What can I do to consolidate his naps?
Hi Lori,
My older son was similar. I wouldn’t try to go to two naps just because of his “age”. If he’s napping only 35 mins at a time, he probably still needs the third nap. My son needed 4 naps when most kids were on 3, 3 when most where on 2, and stayed on 2 naps until about 18 months (or more? I can’t remember). Anyway, his naps didn’t start stretching out until he was about 1 year old. Hang in there! He’s now 28 months and his afternoon nap is 1.5h-2h. If he puts himself to sleep well the rest of the time, I bet he’ll stretch it out eventually. 🙂
Good luck!
I love your site, it’s so helpful! I have a 7 month old who has occasionally slept through the night since we started daycare but recently has started waking up every two hours. We all have a long day of commuting so he wakes up at 6am and by the time we get home at 6pm he’s past ready for bed. I think a problem too is that we commute to daycare an hour (my job is 1 1/2) so he’s getting catnaps in the car that are throwing everything off. He naps at daycare 2x maybe 3x, one is 1 1/2 hour, and the others are 45 min. We’ve been doing CIO and it worked for a week and now he’s back to crying for an hour and vomiting then this repeats at every night waking. I’m going to try changing all the sleep associations (paci, singing, nursing) but I’m concerned that his routine is the problem and I don’t have much control over that. Any suggestions?
We have been working with our 8 month old on sleep training at night for over a month. She now falls asleep at night with a minute or less of crying in her crib in her own room. She is usually sounds alseep before I can get downstairs to turn the monitor on. This has not however helped with the night wakings. Currently she is waking at midnight and 4 am. Some nights she will wake at 3 and 5 am. The crying during these wakings is extensive (one hour plus). I have not been able to phase out her 4 am bottle because she cries so hard and long. We have decreased the formula in the bottle to 4 ounces but we have not been able to make any further progress.
At this point I don’t know how much more crying I can handle because it does not seem to be helping her. I am wondering if feeding her at one waking like 4 am and not at midnight is making the issue worse? Would I be better off just rocking her to sleep at all wakings so it was consistent? Typically when we rock her she refuses to let us lay her down (which is how we got on the sleep training path to begin with).
It is a bit disappointing because she does fall asleep on her own so well to start the night off but I just can’t figure out what is the cause of the other night wakings.
Just for additional information, at naps we rock her to sleep and she takes 1.5 hours in the morning and 1 hour in the afternoon quite consistently.
I could’ve written this comment! We are in the exact same boat. I hope Alexis answers this one! We’ve changed up our bedtime routine as this article suggests and he’s still night waking between 11 and 1, cries for about 1 – 2 hours, and I don’t go in, only to wake again between 3:30 and 4, at which point I nurse. We’re pretty miserable around here too. 🙁
My boy is 7 months and we are struggling to get him to sleep, I am really at my whit’s end at this point. I started reading up on sleep training and have read some things that makes me think it’s a good idea, but articles like this http://www.alternative-mama.com/8-reasons-to-avoid-sleep-training-your-baby/ kind of makes me think it’s cruel. I just don’t know if I should do it or not. I have read a lot of positive stories, so I’m kind of torn.
My daughter is 7 months old and we have night time sleep down (knock on wood!) She goes down at 6:45 on her own, wakes up once in the night to actually feed and goes back into her crib awake and puts herself back down, and then wakes for the day around 7-7:15. Our problem are her naps!!! She is a chronic 30 min napper and I am about to lose my mind. Here is roughly our schedule: naps around 9, wakes at 9:30 then I leave her in her crib until 10 hoping she goes back down then doesn’t. Then she seems tired for another nap around 12 and then the same process as morning. Then she goes back down for a third 30 min nap at 3. We have the same routine for naps for every one. I do rock her only to get her calm because she fights them so much but the second she closes her eyes, in the crib she goes. When do I put her in her crib wide awake and let her figure it out? I feel like maybe I am misreading her cues or I am getting her “too drowsy.” Any suggestions?
Hey Bridget,
don’t know if this will help but my little one used to take a morning 1hr 30 nap when he was about 3 months old and then somehow they whittled down to 45 mins. What I found worked for us was to keep him awake for a bit (for us it was half an hour) longer and he would lengthen his sleep. It was quite difficult to keep him awake in the beginning because he was so used to sleeping at 8:30am (awake at 7am) but it made all the difference and he started taking longer naps. He is now 7 months old and going down for his first nap between 2hrs 20 and 2hrs 40 mins of awake time and managing 1hr 30 – 2hrs.
But then again, maybe your little girl just likes to do all her sleeping at night – good girl!
Good luck!
We on the other hand are working on our nights!!
My daughter is 5 months old and we used to co-sleep until about month ago when we decided her crib would be best for everyone. We have tried everything and CIO is our last hope. She was doing good in her crib for about a week, in her crib by 8:15-8:30 and would wake up about 3:45 for a feeding, then go back to sleep until 7-8. However for the past week that has all changed. She has progressively woken up more and different times. She’s fighting sleep all together. Last night was probably the worst night yet!! Waking up every 30 mins-hour all night long!!! This Momma is exhausted! She has NEVER been a good napper unless I’m holding her. Her crib naps last a max of 30-45 minutes. She used to be okay with the swaddle,but now she screams when it’s on her and does all she can to break free!! And may I add, she has a few times. I am so overwhelmed and not sure where to even begin? Naps or bedtime? Please help!!
Do you have any suggestions for when a baby starts rolling over? My 5 mo old is not ready to leave the swaddle but he rolls over onto his belly in it. Then wakes. I’ve tried no swaddling and he cries and cries. I’m not quite ready for CIO yet. He JUST turned 5 mo.
Hey our little guy is going to be 5mths in a couple of weeks & is also rolling over now, which is a problem now because he’s a HUGE swaddle fan. No swaddle = no sleep..!
I’m obviously no expert here but here’s what we’re did:
1. Stopped putting him in crib swaddled b/c of suffocation risk
2. Started putting him in swing instead (naps & night)
3. Started trying to wean him off swaddle (One arm out below elbow for 2 nights, full arm out for 2 nights, then same with second arm – start with naps then night)
My little one is cool with sleeping with one arm out… Although sometimes its harder to put him down than when swaddled. You could also try using this special swaddling blanket called zippadee zip.
Anyone else have good tips on weening off swaddle?
In the past few days we’ve tried several different things (one arm out, no swaddle, CIO – which I’m not ready to do at this point…too little I think) but here is what ended up working for us… I made a swaddle strap, I guess I’ll call it for lack of a better word, that just wraps around his waist. I made it out of other store bought swaddles. It is the t-shirt material so it allows some give and more movement. He has been doing pretty well sleeping on his belly, he rolls there himself. So the waist swaddle still gives him some comfort yet his arms are free to prop his upper body up when needed. He naps swaddle free in the swing and at night if all else fails I will plop him in the swing. He was doing fairly well at night in his crib so I was hesitant to completely take him from the crib to the swing. But boy has the swing been a life saver with both my kids. The swaddle too! I’m going to give the waist swaddle a few more nights and then try a night without.
Thx for sharing! Quick update, we’ve followed the weaning off steps for about a week and he is now sleeping swaddle free, although we are still in the swing. It’s working out great for him – he even puts himself to sleep now after cooing for a few minutes. Cheers 🙂
We started sleep training our 5.5 month old a week and a half ago. We were co-sleeping (never part of the plan but was the best solution for our family in those early months) with decent success until about 3.5 months when she began waking and nursing constantly. I waited thinking it was a sleep regression but after trying everything, including her swing and every method of Elizabeth Pantley’s No Cry Sleep Solution that was age-appropriate, we decided to do CIO with checks. We have made tremendous progress with the actual night sleeping – 2 wakings down from 8 or more per night and zero crying in the middle of the night, she just nurses about 15 minutes then back into the crib with no problems (I wanted to get the crib sleeping well established before working towards night weaning). BUT she has been all over the place with bedtime! The first few nights were rough as expected, then we had a few nights with ZERO crying, then back to just fussing off and on for 30-45 minutes, then the past few nights have been terrible. Last night was night 11 and was by far the worst with over an hour and 20 minutes of crying. I do checks every 20 minutes if she’s actually crying, not just squawking a bit.
Is this possibly an extinction burst? We are coming up on week 2 and I have started doubting my decision to ST. She is not a good or consistent napper, so I suspect that is part of the problem on nights like last night. We are working on it with our babysitter as best we can. If anyone has any suggestions, or has a LO that did something similar, I would greatly appreciate it! It’s so discouraging to read all the posts and other advice from people whose babies went to sleep in 10 minutes on the 3rd night!
Hi Frances,
Hang in there! It will get better, I promise! My daughter is almost 11 months, and she is a great night sleeper now (7pm-7am). But it took some time to get here 🙂
We started sleep training at 6 months…and it was rough! We had a similar experience to you…some good nights followed by some AWFUL nights! It was so frustrating since I thought it was supposed to get a little better each night…but it was more like a roller coaster! One night, she fell asleep within 10 minutes, and the very next night, it was closer to an hour! But we kept at it, and it worked! It probably took closer to 3 weeks for her to start consistently falling asleep at bedtime without any fussing, and she’s still doing great 5 months later 🙂
Don’t feel discouraged, and don’t give up! You’ve already invested almost 2 weeks into this process…another week or so will be worth it in the long run 🙂
Good luck!!!!
Our daughter just turned 7 months. We do jammies, then Daddy reads the same 3 books in the same order, I nurse her, and she falls asleep and goes to bed between 8 and 8:30 without any problems. She wakes up twice during the night and goes back to sleep with no trouble. Her naps are short but she’s such a happy baby that I’m guessing the short naps aren’t affecting her much. Here’s my situation: when she turned 4 months, we were planning a vacation out of state for a week so I moved her out of the bassinet in our room and into a pack-and-play in our room to get her used to sleeping in there. Fast forward 3 months and she’s still in there. The play yard pad isn’t very thick (though I do have a soft quilted sheet on it) and it moves a little when she moves. But she sleeps well on it. My question is – how bad is it that she’s not in a crib in her own room? Frankly, I’m worried about the trouble it will cause to make her change rooms and beds. I’m happy with the arrangement as is and am not looking forward to changing our routine. But I need to know if I’m stunting her by keeping her where she is.
Frances,
You and I are in the exact same situation. My baby is also 5.5 months, and she and I were co-sleeping whenever my husband was working. He is a night shift worker and works 7 days on, 7 days off. She was always a horrible sleeper on nights where he was working, making it very difficult for me being the only one there with her. So it led to co-sleeping, which was fine at first, then slowly got to the point where she was practically latched on the entire night and wouldn’t sleep without the boob in her mouth, and I wasn’t getting any sleep. My husband also insisted that the co-sleeping had to stop. I was totally against CIO, so we tried Elizabeth Pantley methods. Some of those methods helped, like having a consistent bedtime routine and the gentle pull out to get her to stay asleep without the boob in her mouth. We also transitioned her to her crib. However she was still waking up A LOT, and it was nearly impossible to put her down in her crib without her waking up. After a couple of weeks and with pressure from the in-laws who were staying with us one weekend, we decided to try CIO, with increasing periods of checking. After about 4 nights she had her first ever 8 hour stretch of sleep. I thought we were on our way to good, consistent sleep. Well that was over a week ago now, and it has been getting worse ever since, and now her nap time sleep is also starting to suffer. I just have found this website in searching for answers, and realizing that we are doing some things wrong (still nursing to sleep for that initial bedtime sleep, using a paci when she cries in the middle of the night, using a timed music player). I don’t really have any advice to offer as we still have a lot to figure out, but you asked if anyone was going through what you are, and I just wanted to respond to say, yes we are!!
Well I came across this site a few weeks ago and we began sleep training with our 8 month old son. It went well for about a week and then it is worse than ever now! I just read about why it doesn’t work and it totally makes sense! My husband and I would give him baby food, then bath, then story, then bottle and he would be soooo sleepy at that point there was no fight to put him down awake, but apparently it wasn’t awake enough. We also are lurkers as you call it haha and sneak around the room watching him. I know he knows we are there and that is contributing to him waking up I’m sure. He goes to bed around 8-8:30 and wakes at 1:30, I try to soothe him back to sleep for sometimes over two hours and then breakdown and give him a bottle. At around 6 months old, there was one night where he went to bed at 9 and slept until 9 am!! I want that back! So tonight I am trying the full blown CIO method with no lurking! I am also going to do the bottle before bath, so it isn’t right at bedtime. Your advice is amazing Alexis! I am so glad I came across your site! I hope this works, the only thing about CIO is he is a mover, he ends up with his legs through the crib slats, or his head up against them. We took the bumpers down because he was rolling on top of them and I was worried about suffocation. Hopefully he will just crash and I can reposition him without waking him. I hope this works!
Do I have to get rid of the paci if she knows how to reinsert it herself? is just the reinsertion the problem?
Hi Alexis,
I was part of your recent Q&A session, but my microphone wasn’t working, so I didn’t get to ask my full question. Thanks for referring me to this page! My son is 6 months old. He has been putting himself to sleep at night since he was 5 weeks old. He has been putting himself down for naps since he was 4 moths old and we did CIO for naps. He used to sleep at night for an 8 hour chunk, plus two feedings. Then he dropped a feeding and was only eating once at 3 am. We put him down around 7 and he sleeps to about 6:30. Our problem is that every few weeks, he decides he wants to wake up every 2 hours. The two hour wakings has last anywhere from one random night, to two weeks at a time. Sometimes his first waking is as early as 9:30. He used to put himself down after 20 minutes of hysterical crying…we used to hear him gassing, so I gave up dairy. Then we thought he was waking up from growth spurts. These night waking got worse around 4 months, when he was also diagnosed with eczema, we know his skin must be really itchy. He has also had persistent congestion for 2 months and is having trouble breathing through his nose. We are just so confused because some nights we see on the monitor that he stirs, fusses a little and then puts himself to sleep. He also wakes up around 5 am, cries for 5 minutes and falls back to sleep…so we know that he knows how to self soothe. Other nights he cries hysterically…and I feed him because I know he will go right back to sleep. We did change up our bedtime routine, so our last steps are nursing, story, song, and bed (we used to nurse him as the last step)…but there is probably only 10 minutes after nursing until bedtime. I just don’t want to let him cry in the middle of the night by himself if he is in pain from his skin or his congestion. I also can’t figure out another way to get him to sleep without feeding him…it seems like the most painless way for us both to get back to sleep in 10 minutes, but I don’t want to condition him to wake up and need me. I don’t mind letting him cry to learn to self soothe…but how do I know if he isn’t feeling well? Every night is so different. Thanks for any help!
Just came across your website, I must say you are doing a great favor to the humanity. I swear!
I have the same problem. I don’t understand what to do? my lil po sleeps for two hours at night but wakes up at every alternative hour. Like if I feed her @ 9 she will be able to sleep till 12. After that she will wake up at 1 then I will tap her or feed her whatever her requirements are and then she will wake up again at 3 and this goes on till 10 in the morning. I’m not having enough sleep and it’s driving me crazy. It’s my first baby and I don’t know what to do. Please help me and tell me what am I doing wrong.
YOU GUYS!! I have been all over this site for the past couple of weeks – my 5.5 month old hit the ground running with the 4-month regression and has never really gone back to sleeping, but recently the trend was getting worse, not better, and she was exhausted and cranky during the day. Two nights ago, I put her to bed at 7, nursed her when she woke up at 8:30, and then when she woke up at 9:45, I decided to let her cry just for that one feeding, expecting to have to drop one at a time. She cried for 40 min, and then SLEPT THE REST OF THE NIGHT. No wakings. Woke up happy and cooing at 7:30am. Last night, cried for 5 min. on the 8:30 waking, then another little blip at 12:30, then I went ahead and fed her when she woke up at 5. Tonight, not a peep yet…
just wanted to give you all a little encouragement. I am blown away – she was clearly SO ready for this, and I think I was really doing a disservice to her by nursing her back to sleep every time (she always falls asleep on her own at bedtime, but ain’t nobody got time for that in the middle of the night).
Also, get ready for your boobs to be painful in the morning for a few days…might want to have the pump handy.
Alexis,
First and foremost- thank you – your site has given me a sliver of hope that I haven’t completely (or permanently) screwed my child up yet! I hate to bother you with questions you have probably answered 1,000,000 times already, but I feel pretty helpless over here these days, and you are just so darn insightful, smart, beauttiful and kind (is the flattery working yet, because if not I can keep going…. haha).
Let me start by saying that I had the easiest time sleep training my 3 year old. At six weeks old she was only waking once each night and at exactly 3 months old she was sleeping through the night… regression only occured when teething. To this day she is still an amazing napper. *I blame her for the crazy urge to have another child… she was just too easy* I thought I was the baby sleep guru… I scoffed at lesser mothers (just kidding…. sort of hehe) then I had my son…now I know that my daughter’s sleeping patterns probably had more to do with her than with my personal awesomeness.
Anywho, my 7 month old is. A. Terrible. Sleeper. And I AM DESPERATE. It isn’t really the night waking that gets me. It is the fact that I can’t get him to sleep. Like, ever. He has ZERO established naps. He hates the swing. He hates being rocked. He hates being swaddled. The only way I can get him to nap easily is to wear him in my ergo for excessively long periods of shopping…and it isn’t as fun as it sounds because when wearing him I can’t even try anything on ;)! And he is huge…. like, 25 lbs huge…. so my poor back is pleading with you for advice. Lately I can’t even nurse him to sleep. I have no clue what to do with this poor, miserable sleep deprived child. I want to cry along with him because I just feel so bad- and so guilty. On top of not having any clue what to do with him, did I mention my daughter is actually a banshee? Hard to drown out her siren screams with white noise.
So basically, I am sunk. I am so overwhelmed that I don’t even know where to start. I know what I want my end result to be- i want him to be on an established napping pattern where he puts himself to sleep. I don’t even care so much that he isn’t sleeping through the night. I just want him to be able to get to sleep on his own. Help, thoughts, anything?
In all seriousness, the work you are doing is vital…. so, thank you for doing it.
We have been trying sleep training (with a perfect bedtime schedule and intermittent checks on baby to soothe crying) all according to the method on this website for TWO WEEKS! And our little guy is absolutely terrified of bedtime. He cries throughout getting his pj’s on, calms briefly for the reading of his favorite stories, and the is hysterical as we walk towards the bedroom. I nurse him before bed until he is calm but then the minute I put him down he is again hysterical. 14 days into sleep training he has not cried less than 30 minutes. When do we give up?
Jennie,
Don’t give up. Make changes. The two changes I would strongly suggest are:
1) Separate nursing from bedtime. Don’t nurse until he’s calm, shuffle it up in your routine so you aren’t nursing right AT bedtime.
2) No checks. Honestly checks are a problem for many babies and they just lead to lots of crying.
Make those 2 changes for 5 days and then let me know what happens. Sound like a plan?
Alexis
Hi Alexis,
Your site is awesome and i love the humour you bring to the topic, it really helps:)
We tried sleep training and it worked initially and then it regressed and we ended up with that EXACT same chart in terms of night feeds for our baby. Then at 7 months we took the advice above and moved nursing earlier in the bedtime and it was amazing!!! Within 5-6 days he was going to sleep for naps and bedtime awake – victory! Waking 1-2 times a night to feed still, but way better. Really happy that he knows how to fall asleep on his own for naps and at the start of the night.
BUT… our issue is that for the past 2 months baby (8 months old) thinks wake-up time is 4am-ish. His bedtime is 7:30pm and he usually wakes to nurse around midnight and 3 or 4am. When he wakes for the second feed and I nurse him, at the end of the feed he is WIDE awake. We do everything to try to prevent this – he sleeps with a blackout curtain, white noise, no talking during nursing, and don’t change his diaper. I put him back in his crib and he will not settle and go back to sleep. We tried a little CIO at this time with no success. HUGE failure actually:( (he has lots of energy to keep wailing after already sleeping 7-8 hours) So, for the last 2 months (a very accommodating) dad gets up with him at 4am and they play downstairs until he gets cranky around 5:30am – at which time dad puts him in the Ergo and baby sleeps there until 7 or so. We have obviously ingrained this as a habit now and it is screwing up our attempts at a nap schedule and everything we do keeps re-inforcing this pattern. We would be okay if the day started at 5:30am or 6, but 4am is too much! How do we break this cycle? This morning dad lay on baby’s bedroom floor while he crawled around and ‘played’ in the dark with no toys until he got cranky, then he got rocked to sleep and transferred back to the crib – so slept another 1.5 hours after 1.5 hours of ‘play-time’ in the dark at 4am.
I would so appreciate any ideas!
Thanks:)
Hi Alexis,
As all the others have said, I’m so glad I found your site! My son Carter is 8 months this week, and this post fits our situation to a T. In our case the nursing before bed and the pacifier must be the problem. I will switch up our routine tonight. We do bath-breast-bed, so perhaps tonight we’ll do breast-bath-bed. I have a question regarding the pacifier – I will put him down for his naps and for bedtime without it, but what about when we are out and about? I like to give it to him in the car or stroller when he is fussy. If he naps with it in the stroller, will that mess up his sleep association? Even if he goes down in his “crib naps” without it?
Thanks so much for your advice!
Oriana
Hi Alexis,
I am at a complete loss with my 11-month-old daughter. She sleeps well for naps (she takes two 1-1.5 naps during the day), but is still waking several times at night. Our bedtime routine involves nursing, bath, pjs, white noise, lights out, into crib awake. When she wakes at night, the quickest way to get her back to sleep is to nurse her.
We recognized that this might be the issue and tried sleep training for a month. She did not get nurse once and we checked on her periodically when she woke. By the end of the month, she had slept through only a couple of nights. The majority of nights involved at least 2 wakes. Sometimes she’d wake and fall back asleep after a few minutes, but more often than not she’d be awake for 1.5-2 hours crying on and off. Needless to say, we gave up. We’ve seen her Dr. and there is no evidence of a medical reason for her waking at night.
Do you have any advice or suggestions? Should we try again? Is there something we could do differently?
Thanks!
Jill
Thanks
Hey Jill,
That’s a toughie. It could be a lot of things – separation anxiety is often a culprit. But if you’ve been consistent for ages and she’s still awake for 2 hours at night I’m wondering about something else…
She’s a hearty napper. Maybe this is a “too long in bed” problem? Because she naps so well she may need a later bedtime to accrue enough of a sleep debt to fall asleep and STAY asleep during the night. She’s tired enough at bedtime to do the former (fall asleep) but not the later (STAY asleep) which is why you have these long windows where she’s awake and can’t sleep.
I would experiment for 1 week – gradually nudge bedtime back until it’s like 1 hour later than currently. See what happens. Report back.
How does that sound?
Hi Alexis
Thanks for your quick reply! We will give your suggestion a shot this week. Heaven knows I’m willing to try (almost) anything at this point.
Cheers
Jill
Hi Alexis,
I just wanted to thank you for your advice. As per your suggestion, we pushed our daughter’s bedtime back to 8pm and she is no longer waking for hours at night. It’s been amazing!!
On the downside, she is waking between 515-545am. She’s just started to walk a little and she also on the cusp of transitioning to one nap (one is too little; two is too much) so we’re just going to leave things as is for now and see if this early waking issues sorts itself out…it probably won’t, but we’re just happy not having to get up in the middle of the night 🙂
Thanks again!
Jill
Yikes. And here I was, all proud about my 7-month-old’s calm bedtime routine, and yet clueless that it is causing my night/early waking drama. We do a bottle right at bed, so that needs to STOP being the last thing we do. Then, we pacify the kid. Also, obviously not helping. Bedtime is between 530-615, too early I think, as his naps are not consistently long, so he is cranky and in need of BED. Waking up an average of three times between 12-4, not always, but too often for my sleep needs. Thinks 445-515 is wake up time. Wide open and talking. And so, the day is all off-kilter with too-early first and second naps, and a catnap in the afternoon for my sanity. (He screams a lot now, with every emotion he has. Very vocal little person.) Bottom line: Day. Off. Schedule. What to adjust first? Or make my day a dream, and tell me what to do from start to finish in one fell swoop.:) I am a great direction-follower.
How do you suggest going about putting them down awake? Do you suggest letting a 8 month cry it out? In my attempts to put him down awake and without me there, my son cries for about an hour or more. Just seeing if you have any other suggestions. I love your website and you have picked up on some really interesting connections that I have never read about anywhere else!
I am at my wit’s end. I don’t know what to do anymore and I feel like a total failure right now. My almost 9-month-old was waking up between 3:30 and 4:30 nearly every night. Then he slept through for 3 nights but then started up again. I decided to do CIO for that time since I knew he could sleep through. He cried for an hour but fell asleep. Then he slept through solid for 5 nights. This morning he woke up at 5 am screaming. I didn’t know what to do so I just got up with him and fed him as that seemed to be the only thing to do. Now I am afraid he will go back to his old ways. I also need to add that he is a very inconsistent napper. Sometimes 30 minutes sometimes an hour and a half. Every day is different. I am trying to follow 9a and 1p naps and 7p bedtime. What am I doing wrong? Since he got up at 5a today I put him down at 8 because he was exhausted only to have him wake up 30 minutes later. Help me please.
Hi Alexis,
My son is 15 months old and we have been sleep training but still not getting good sleep…for over six months now. My kid just won’t go all night without a peep. 😞 He still wakes up at least once or twice every night, accompanied by mega moaning, chattering, fussing or crying.
The going-to-bed process is the only part of the night that goes very well. We nurse first, then have quick bath, story, and cuddle and put down awake by 7:00pm. Over the past month he has maybe slept through the night (7pm-5am) twice. Usually he wakes at 11:00pm and 3:00am. Our response is to do nothing. At 11:00pm he can usually settle himself in a few minutes. But at 3:00am, he typically cries and fusses for 1-2 hrs. Sometimes he fusses less if my husband pats his back and he falls back asleep. We might make it to 4:00-5:00am and nurse, then he konks out again until 6:00 or 6:30.
I should also mention he is a great napper during the day and still naps twice, for a combined total of 2.5-3 hours. Is he is getting too much daytime sleep? We’re in an awkward stage of approaching nap transition and one nap is too little, but two is too much.
Is there anything we can try at this point? Thank you so much.
Jenny
Hi Alexis!
You and this site were very helpful when we sleep trained our first son a few years ago. We have been working on sleep for almost two weeks now with our 8 1/2 month old. His average for falling asleep is an agonizing 45 minutes. Only once has it been 18 minutes. He starts to cry from the moment that I start his bath. Night wakings are going much better – with dream feeds, which I am weaning, he is figuring out how to put himself back to sleep quickly.
Our routine is bath, pjs, nurse, book, song (during which he is already upset). I know, move his nurse to before his bath, but during that time I am afraid that he won’t get enough to eat since he doesn’t take a bottle.
How long do you suggest he be awake between last nap and nite nite? Thanks in advance!
We are in the same boat!! Did you figure anything out ?!?
It was an epic fail so we are working on other ways to fall asleep than nursing. Hopefully that will help our next attempt to be a success!:)
If it’s been 2+ weeks and he’s consistently crying for 45 minutes then there is probably one of the following going on:
– bedtime is too early (not enough time between his last nap and bedtime) try pushing bedtime back 30 minutes for 3 days and see what happens
– you’ve got some intermittent reinforcement going on. Usually this is caused by Ferber/checks which sometimes have the unintended consequence of having your baby fight sleep because you keep coming back in 🙁
Not sure which one applies to you but I would noddle on those two directions and make a small change – see what happens!
Alexis
Hi Alexis,
My son is 12 months and he doesn’t sleep! It’s getting a little ridiculous if you ask me! I even had to postpone going back to work since I can’t function on two hours of sleep. We had sleep trained him at 9 months and he was sleeping wonderfully would only get up between 5:30 and 6:00 to nurse but that all got thrown out the window. It started as getting up every so often in between 1:00 and 2:00 then gradually increased to every hour and as the waking increased so has the time it takes to put him back to sleep. His night time routine is as follows he has a bath around 8:00 then he usually nurses. After that is quiet wind down time where we snuggle and read till 8:30/9:00. Then I put him to sleep fully awake in his crib. He has one to two naps a day one in the early afternoon for 1 hour and sometimes one in the late afternoon for about 30 mins. Please help I have been working on fixing his sleep all summer as it is nearing school season and I have an older daughter who is going in to grade three and she needs her sleep as well.
We started sleep training my daughter on August 1st. We paid for a sleep consultant who put together a 30 page sleep plan for us. She was 5.5 months at the time. We also started her on solids at that time so that we could establish a routine.
Her routine is as follows:
6:00pm Nurse
6:20pm Eat Solids
6:40pm 2 books with daddy
6:50pm Bath/lotion/massage
7:10 bedtime
We were able to get her to start falling asleep on her own (however, we are still using a paci and one of those baby einstein crib aquariums) We put her down now and she barely fusses at all and falls asleep after about 5 mins of babbling
As part of our sleep training, we were advised to start a ‘dream feed’ that we administer around 10pm. This is our first problem. Baby has started to consistently wake up before the dream feed, so we put her back down by patting her belly and giving her the paci and then give her the dream feed about 20 mins later, after she is back to sleep.
She will usually sleep until around 1am and then from this point on its a total free for all. She often wakes up every 30-45mins from 1am-7:30am. I have been trying to only nurse her once per night within this time period (usually around 2:30pm) and the other times she will go back to sleep with the help of dad patting belly. This has now bled into the daytime and her naps are always 45 mins or less (whereas they used to be 1.5-2 hours)
we’ve tried letting her CIO with wake ups, but it gets us nowhere, and we end up even more sleep deprived.
We also seem to be jumping from one ‘issue’ to the next. First we had feeding issues when she was newborn, then we jumped right into reflux issues that woke her frequently, and now I suspect we are teething.
I don’t know why I’m posting other than the fact that I’m sleep deprived and delirious and venting seems to help. Any advice for me?
My daughter is 14 weeks old. She used to be a good sleeper till 6 weeks and then after a couple of growth spurts and me being a first time mom failed to notice her overtired cues has led us to a horrible situation where she naps only in my arms. If i am lucky she will sleep in her rock and play on some days for 1-3 hrs after rocking her. It haapens only for morning nap. At night she doesnt wakes up for night feedings after being put to bed at 9 or 9:30. But for that also i will have to hold her for 2 hrs and then put her in her rock and play. She wakes up couple of times for her pacifier.
I want to shift her to crib and sleep train her using CIO and wean her from pacifier and swaddle. Is it too early? I am really tired of sleepimg in arms and rock and play thing. Please help.
Jass,
I would strongly encourage you not to do CIO at this juncture. She’s itty bitty and you haven’t ruined anything – there are tons of tools at your disposal. Also there is NO rush to get her into a crib so I wouldn’t push it until sleep is better.
I would try swaddle,swing, and white noise as as alternative to “holding for hours.” Also if you have to hold her for 2 hours then that’s not really bed time – sounds more like the witching hour. I’m guessing she’s not really falling asleep, she’s just hanging with you. Which is fine but instead of looking at it as “my daughter takes 2 hours to fall asleep” consider the perspective, “my daughter is calm and awake for a long stretch of sleep at this time.”
And yes it’s definitely too early to worry about weaning off the swaddle and such. Why is it such a problem if she’s swaddled in the rock n play? Lots of babies are swaddled till their 6 month birthday or even 1st birthday? I mean yes you can force the issue early but to what result? If sleep is already not going well, taking those things away is likely to make things worse for all of you.
So instead of trying to wean off, I would embrace them. Because eventually she’ll outgrow all of it all on her own.
Good luck – it gets better!
Thanks for your reply.l am using swaddle and white noise. She is addicted to her pacifier. As soon it falls out, she wakes up. How can i deal with this?
My son is almost 9 months old, we did CIO around 7.5 months for the sole purpose of eliminating early morning wakings. My son has been sleeping through the night since about 4 months, but he’s always woken between 3:30 & 4:30. Initally he would get a bottle and go back to sleep, but we eliminated this bottle around 6 months. He doesn’t get one before about 6am regardless of when he wakes up. He goes to bed around 6:30pm. Prior to CIO, we were having to pat his back for a few minutes at bedtime, but then we didn’t really have to go back in his room until after 3:30. Now that we have done CIO, we don’t have to pat his back at bedtime anymore, but it has had no effect on the early morning wakings. I know he is capable of putting himself back to sleep as I occasionally hear him in the middle of the night wake up, fuss for a minute or two and then go back to sleep. But 3:30am rolls around and he will scream all the way until 6am. Sometimes he’ll babble for 20 or 30 minutes before the screaming starts. At 6, we have to get him up and get ready for the day. I have been told by others that he will outgrow this, but I’ve been waiting for 5 months. Please help.
Hi! Big fan of your site.
I have an 8 month old who I effectively sleep trained at 5.5 months (thank you, your posts were very helpful!). He sleeps 12 hours “usually”. Since then he went through some teething, was sick etc so there were a few nights that he woke up and needed some attention/ pain relief/ water, but I never fed him, or assisted him with falling asleep and actually avoided picking him up unless necessary (promise). This need for us would happen maybe twice a week during periods of pain.
Right now, teeth are through, there aren’t any new ones on the horizon and he’s not sick. He’s still waking up around twice a week and crying (around 2-3am-ish). I follow Ferber’s check and console method and will go in and pat him for a minute after around 15-30 minutes of crying, then leave, then go back in after around 30mins for 1 minute… etc. He will cry for over an hour total, before falling back asleep until morning 🙁
I’m not sure why he’s still waking up and it’s kinda making me doubt myself. We have a good day routine usually, but to be honest it doesn’t make a difference whether we’re home all day with perfectly timed naps or out and about with naps all over the place.
Weight gain is good, he eats well during the day.
Can you offer any advice? Should I switch to extinction? Am I doing something wrong? Or is this all normal?
Any help is much appreciated.
I have a 10 month old who was effectively sleep trained and has 2 great naps during the day and sleeps thru the night. The problem is bedtime. She will not settle easily and still needs to cry for about 20-40 min until she sleeps. We have tried earlier and later bedtimes, more of a soothing routine and she just can’t seem to soothe herself. Help please!!!!
This post described our situation with our 7.5-month-old to a T. We had followed your other sleep-training advice and gotten to a place where bedtime was pretty smooth, the first chunk of sleep was significant, then it tapered off, continued to do so, until ultimately we were back to consistent every-3-hour wakings as of last week.
After reading Why Sleep Training Didn’t Work, it seemed clear that the issue was my nursing our son immediately before bedtime every night. So, we switched that up to feeding him 1.5 hours before bedtime.
He’s gone to bed okay for the last 4 days, but still has not slept more than 4 hours at a clip, generally only 3. (On the bright side, he has started going back to sleep after the 5AM feeding for an hour or so. Thank God.)
We are on day 5 of this new program. Bedtime was 1 hour ago (6:30PM) and he is STILL SCREAMING.
Is this an extinction burst? Or did I somehow completely do this wrong?
Hi Alexis!
I have an almost 11 month old who wakes 2-4 times a night (or more and usually towards the 4 times). I’ve read every sleep forum, so it seems, that exists. I’ve not laid anyone yet BC I doubt their help will work either. My son has been on the same day schedule forever and its worked well. He wakes between 7-8 and naps from 10-11:30 then naps again at 2-3(30).He eats dinner w us at 6:30 then takes a bath and has boom time with daddy. Then he nurses. He goes goes to bed at 8 or 8:30. I’ve tried many times to put him down somewhat awake but he will not have it. It worked for about a wk or so. I am going to try to start nursing him 20 min before bedtime, but I’ve gotten him to sleep many times not needing to nurse so I guess I’ve not thought it was an issue. He does, however, HAVE to be rocked and held to sleep. When I put him down asleep he wakes 2-3 times before my husband and I go to bed around 10:30 or 11. Then he wakes again around 1:30ish then 3, 5, and up at 7 or 8. I’ve tried everything I’ve read. I don’t care for the CIO method at all (read all pros and con’s). What can this exhausted mama do? (FYI: we coslept for a few months once he was 5 months old BC of seperation anxiety although he used to sleep wonderfully in his own bed from birth until 5 months).
Kimberly,
I’m not here to sell you on anything, but nursing him 20 minutes before bedtime won’t fix anything (although it’s a good step to take). As long as you are rocking him or nursing him to sleep he’s going to keep on waking up all night.
He’s nearing his 1st birthday and he wakes up 6 times a night. It’s not about teething, separation anxiety, learning to crawl, solid food, or growth spurts. It’s because he doesn’t know how to fall asleep on his own (which starts at bedtime).
If you aren’t into CIO that’s totally fine. So come up with a plan to teach him to sleep without tears. It’s not easy and there is no magic juju here. Develop a plan and commit to that plan for 7 days.
NO MATTER WHAT.
I say that because it won’t be easy, he’ll fight you on it, and you’ll feel it’s not working. So commit to doing things differently, for 7 days, and report back.
A common plan would be to put him in his crib and rub his back while he yells at you (he will yell) till he falls asleep – work on gradually less back rubbing each subsequent day. Will this plan involve zero tears? No. But maybe it’s a compromise you can live with?
Spell check: paid not laid
Book not boom
This gives us hope. We used the Ferber method with our son and it seemed like magic after 2 nights of hell, when he slept soundly the whole night. After 2 1/2 weeks, he’s been getting progressively worse, to the point where he hasn’t had a full night of sleep in over 7 days. We were ready to assume he was just a bad sleeper, and were flirting with the idea of feeding him when he cries at night.
Our bedtime routine is: after dinner daddy walks him and sings him a song, then he has a bath, followed by one last feeding while we play a lullaby video for him, and we put him down after the video ends. He’s usually asleep after the feeding. Ferber says if it works for you, don’t change it. And it *was* working, but we hadn’t considered that we were creating a new sleep association with this new routine, since he was falling asleep and staying asleep for the first part of the night.
I think we will try to cut out the lullaby video entirely (since it really is a kind of timer), and switch the order of the feeding and the bath, putting him down after the bath is finished. I hope this doesn’t trigger another round of crying to sleep, but we’ll do the 5 days you recommend and report back.
I would cut out the last feeding AND the lullaby video. Video (any bright light hitting the retina and I know the video doesn’t seem like bright light but in studies, any screen time = light hitting retina) diminishes your body’s ability to produce melatonin – a critical sleep hormone. So those 2 changes would be fantastic.
Definitely report back!
Good luck!
Alexis
So 6 days ago we cut out the lullaby video, started waiting 20 minutes after the last feeding to put him down, and putting him down while he’s still awake. For three nights he gave us about 10-20 minutes of protest crying but after that he started to settle after about a minute.
At first it looked like he was going to start sleeping through, but the night wakings began to creep back in. First at 2:30, then at 2:30 and 4:30, and most recently at 11 pm.
At 2:30 and 11 he will settle himself after 10-15 minutes. At 4:30 he will cry until we get him and mom feeds him, and then he sleeps until about 6:45. We think he is genuinely hungry and we are considering moving that feeding back to 2 or 2:30 and hoping that eliminates the 4:30 waking. We’re just concerned that he will acclimate to that night feeding and wake up early in anticipation.
FYI, he is almost 5 months, and we started sleep training at 4 months at the recommendation of our pediatrician — something that I later learned you disagree with, but what’s done is done.
Hi, I am new to the blog but I am finding it very helpful! Just a little background: I have a 7 month old and we started CIO 6 nights ago. We had a set back on night 4 where we’ll meaning grandmother who was babysitting picked him up. Before that he was going down after about 20-25 (longest was 40 mins). Would wake up a couple times a night with minimal crying. Since then he has reverted almost back to how bad it was on day 1.
My issue is that he doesn’t just cry, he screams bloody murder. He crawls all around his crib and screams so hard that he is shaking. My husband and I can coach each other through it when it is only lasting 20-25 mins;however sometimes it lasts a lot more than that. 2 nights ago he woke and fussed a little around 2:50. He started screaming around 3:10 after tossing and turning for a while. He proceeded to scream his head off until 4:10. I read in your CIO how-to guide that if they wake up between 4 and 5ish that they are probably not go back to sleep on their own because they have gotten enough sleep at that point. So at 4:10 I brought him in to our bed and he slept until 7 (he usually wakes at 6:30 if I put him down around 7:30 which is his average bed time.
Last night i put him down at 7:25 and he fell asleep on his own after some screaming at 7:45. He did not make a peep until 2:10 when he seemed to be awake for the day standing up in his crib and screaming. I was so tired that I brought him into bed with me. He calmed down for a minute or 2 then cried for a half hour with me. I got him to calm down with a running faucet finally and he slept until 5:50 and woke up starving! He has not had a night time bottle in over a week but i feel like he might have been hungry when he woke up at 2:10.
I am feeling really lost and frustrated and it is eating away at my soul to hear him screaming like that.
Am I doing the right thing by bringing him in to bed with me? How long is too long to let them cry?
Hi, I am a mother to a one year old and we are having some major issues with night wakings and I’m not sure what to do. I know she knows how to put herself to sleep because she does it every day for her first nap (and for her second too when she doesn’t refuse it). But for some reason she is waking multiple times a night and will not go back to sleep until I cave and put her in bed with us and then she sleeps the rest of the night fine. I do nurse her to sleep at bed time, but when she wakes at night I don’t nurse her. Please help! I’m desperate!
Hi,
I have a 4.5mth old boy who we have been trying to sleep train for WEEKS, he has (up until 1week ago) been swaddled and used a pacifier but have since weaned both of these cold turkey as I was a slave to both. He has always been a 45min cat napper (had 2 weeks around 3mths where he was sleeping 4.5hrs per day) but nights went downhill with multiple wakings but now hes gone back to cat napping. I was using the shsh/pat method but as that is now too distracting I am now using the check/console method with no results. He cant self settle between sleep cycles during the day and wont take a 3rd nap just screams the whole time so hes up from around lunchtime to 5pm, he only sleeps at night as hes completely exhausted from lack of day sleep. He is in a dark room, in a sleeping bag, white noise and a small cuddley (had to replace dummy with something else). Its driving me INSANE why he cat naps and refues to take a 3rd nap (usually around 3.30pm, his awake time is between 1.45-2hrs. Where am I going wrong 🙁
Hi Alexis,
I love your site and have been reading it every day trying to figure out what I’m doing wrong with sleep training my 8 month old daughter. I admittedly messed up my first attempt at sleep training her (at 7.5 months). Didn’t read enough and relied on friends’ advice and caved when she got sick and it was too hard on my conscience. When I gave up her sleep went to worse than it had ever been (was always pretty great until 6 months when we did a lot of traveling). I started back at sleep training her using your site as my guide 5 nights ago and it’s going well but something obviously needs to be tweaked. I expected her to cry more because of my failed attempt 3 weeks ago but here’s what the nights have looked like…
Night 1 – cry hysterically 1 hour and 45 minutes (we have been checking on her at ever increasing increments of time)
Night 2 – cry hysterically 1 hour 20 minutes
Night 3 – cry less hysterically almost an hour
Night 4 – cry less hysterically about 45 minutes
Night 5 – cry less hysterically about 50 minutes
I’ve been giving her a bottle at 6:30 then bath, books, song, talk about sleep and put in crib awake. The first couple nights she was in bed by 7 but after those two nights it has been more like 7:30 because she has been slow with the bottle — she was used to nursing to sleep.
I’ve been making sure she gets long naps (at least an hour) around 10:30am and 2:30pm.
Btw… mornings and night waking have been fine. When she has woken in the night she has put herself back to sleep and in the morning she has either slept until a fine hour or when she woke at 5 she came in bed and snuggled for a couple hours.
Would love any insight you may have as to what I could tweak to make this smoother.
Thank you so much!
Nicola
Hi Alexis
It’s so nice to come across some humane, funny and helpful comments from a sleep information site.
I have been sleep training my little boy for a long time now. He is now 16 months and has only slept through the night once since he was born, he’s such a fun loving boy that hardly ever gets upset apart from bedtime. I have tried everything apart from the crying out approach, I let him cry a little but stay in the room with him.
Our routine for the last 4 weeks is as follows:
Dinner at about 18.30, then from about 19.30 Pjs, story time, bottle, teeth and bed by 20.00. I lay him down awake and he crys a little and gets ups, I continue to put him back down and sit by his bed saying sleepy time until he falls asleep. He will then usually sleep until 12.30 or 1.30 and wake up crying. I try not to pick him up unless he gets very upset but if I do I put him straight back down once he’s calm. This could continue for about 30-50 minutes then he could wake 2 or 3 more times throughout the night. I always sit beside him until he falls back to sleep as if I left the room he would get very upset.
Daytime naps are similar. He has a nap about 11.30 and will cry for a while before sleeping, once asleep he will wake after the first sleep cycle of about 30-40 minutes then he won’t really sleep again. If I let him sleep with me he would sleep for 2-3 hours. I know that he needs to be thought to sleep independently but I just don’t know how to get there.
Kind Regards,
Hazel
Hello,
I’m planning to do graduated extinction for my 8-month old daughter. I know it works for her because we’ve done it before, but keep reverting back for whatever reason…. Well, I guess I always fear she’s teething. I mean, she’s going to have many periods of teething but I can’t do this anymore! So my questions are this:
1. Is it ok to do this while she’s teething? If so, just go about the method as usual and don’t be concerned about possible pain?
2. She’s now starting to stand. Should I lay her back down each time I come in to check on her?
Thank you!
Kids are constantly teething. They have 20 teeth to come in. Are you going to nurse/rock to sleep for all 20 teeth? Boy I hope not!
Medicate for teeth if you’re super concerned. Usually there is only 1-3 days per eruption where it’s particularly bad. Also there is ample academic evidence that teething doesn’t impact sleep at all (I know most of you disagree with those studies but they DO exist). So I wouldn’t get hung up on it.
Can she sit down without your assistance? If you prop her up on the couch can she get back down on her own? If not then practice. A lot. During the day. If YES then don’t go lay her back down. Because kiddos quite quickly figure out that standing up is a great way to get Mom to come rushing in.
Hi Alexis… Unfortunately sleep training has ceased working… It is about 1 month later, took about 4 days but finally through following all your advice, LO started sleeping through the night. Unfortunately tonight he woke at 4am (quite happy) lay in his cot quietly for about 40 minutes cooing and then started crying… I was tempted to give him milk but decided to let him cry it out. Is this the right thing to do…? Or should I have given him a feed…? He has proven he is capable of self soothing so I’m at a loss to understand why he woke up tonight after8 hours sleep when he has proven to be capable of at least 11 hours. Nothing changed in his routine tonight. Any thoughts?
What I meant to say at the beginning is that it took 4 days of controlled crying (ferber method) and after that, the controlled crying was a success – until tonight, that is.
A lot of babies have trouble with the 4am early morning wakeup. If your baby is sleeping thru until 4am, I’d still say that’s a success! Alexis typically recommends doing what is needed to get those few extra hours of sleep in the morning. Co-sleeping, a milk feed, etc. It’s the earlier night wakings that are most important for establishing good sleep associations.
Hi alexis,
This website may be my only hope of ever getting my little one to sleep! I’m so intrigued to try your methods but I’m desperate and not sure where to start! My little one is 5m now and is already used to being rocked to sleep, walked to sleep, nursed to sleep, sung to sleep & very recently the pacifier! Whenever I try to break a habit a new one crawls in and I’m clueless on what to do 🙁
CIO is not for me, when I tried my heart broke as my little one would cry so hard that it scares me. I really prefer trying a different approach that you may suggest first. I read that you’re telling moms to change bed time routine im not sure how to change it? Mine is story, bath, feeding, sometimes he sleeps as I nurse him other times he stays up for an hour or so then falls asleep. When he sleeps in my arms he won’t be moved to his crib unless with a pacifier which triggers him waking up the second it falls off. Many times re insertng it wouldnt put him back to sleep. He is definitely sleep deprived and im desperate to have him rest well. Im exclusively breastfeeding and haven3 introduced any solids yet. He usually naps twice a day for only 40/45 mins each.
Wouls greatly appreciate any input u may have that can help! Im up for trying anything at this point.
Thanks a lot for having this website and great community!
Hello i have a question. When you do extinction method are you suppsed to let them cio for subsequent night wake up’s? I did cio with my son at 6 months. We did it for about 45 days and eventually he learned to go to sleep with little to no crying but when he would wake up 2 or 3 hrs later we would stick a bottle in his mouth. Sometimes that would make him go back and if it diddn’t work then he would be back in bed with us. So my guess is that cio diddnt work for us because we diddn’t follow through at night? Now my son is almost 1 year old and we cuddle with him to sleep then sneak out and w he wakes up every hour and needs to be cuddled again and again every hour and then end up in bed with us. I am going crazy and even his daycare says they might give a 2 week notice for caring for him because he goes there and goes 8 hrs without sleeping because they can’t cuddle him to sleep and he just screams and waked up the rest of the babies. I would like to give another honest shot at this as i am desperate. So, when he wakes up at night should i not go to him then either? And if that’s the case do you atleast check diaper ect, before leaving him to cio at night? Thanks!!!
I know this post is kinda old but I’m looking for some guidance! This describes my 6 month old daughter to a T. She falls asleep GREAT – with nursing to almost sleep, then usually a paci – but her night wakings have increased to about every 2 hrs in the past 2 weeks. The only thing that soothes her is either nursing or the paci. I am losing my mind. I’d like to do two things – 1: lose the paci altogether and 2: start nursing her before her bath, instead of before bed. Is it cruel and unusual (and counterproductive) to do these two things at the same time?? Like, tonight?? Something has to change. THANK YOU!!!!
It’s not cruel and unusual, it’s totally logical. She’s got a huge suck=sleep association (either due to nursing or the paci but probably both). If you want to break out of that (you do, you do!) then you need to remove all sucking from bedtime. You are wise to figure this out and I totally support your plan. Good luck!
Oh gosh thanks for the reassurance ! My husband had a good question – what do we do when she wakes at night ?!? My thought is CIO ferber-style. It’s just gonna be hard for him as I am working the next 2 nights and he’ll be on his own with her until 7am. So I’m hoping that by changing her associations, the night wake ups will decrease. But how to comfort her (or not?) Until then? Thank you again!!
Hi again – Alexis, I just have to thank you for responding to my comment about my 6 month old daughter – it gave me the reassurance I needed to get rid of the damn paci and stop nursing her to sleep. Tonight will be night 4 and it’s going so well… she only woke up 3 times last night, twice to eat (we decided to let her nurse every 4 hours, which is her normal night-feeding schedule), then woke up once and fussed her way back to sleep in a few minutes. Her mood is so much more chill and calm after a good night’s sleep. However, her naps have gone to to sh#t – I didn’t see you advice about preserving the nap during CIO at all costs, and now she rejects the paci while simultaneously screaming and barely napping the past 2 days. The only place she’ll really sleep is in the swing. Am I creating another monster, or do you think her naps will settle and she’ll be okay in the crib again? Anyway, thanks so much, I think we’re onto a really good thing.
Hi,
I have read a lot in your website which I love and want to make a gradual plan to help her learn to sleep herself to help my little girl going forward, she is 10 weeks old and I want to avoid problems. I like to plan ahead.
Currently a typical day is….
She wakes at 7am and is breast fed. She then naps within 1hr 10 as she cannot stay awake any longer. I am putting her in her cot with a dummy, swaddled with white noise and she is going off to sleep. She always wakes within 45mins. I then get her up as I have tried the dummy to see if she will nap longer but she cries and cries!
I then put her down again after another hour ish, either in cot or on me in a sling, this will be enough to see her through the next awake period.
She is then fed around 10.15am, washed and fed again (split feed). She then goes in her swing, current plan is to work in her going in that awake. She usually sleeps through until I wake, if she wakes I can sometimes jiggle and shhhsss her back to sleep with dummy.
I then wake (around 1.30pm) to feed around 2pm, working on the idea she sleeps just over an hour and bed time starts at 5pm. So I need to squeeze in a 45 min nap and a brief nap to start her bed routine at 5pm (so she is not awake too long at bed time).
I feed at 5pm, she then has a bath/wash and I finish feed (split feed), she then goes down asleep in swing. Again if she wakes husband jiggles etc to get her back to sleep.
10pm husband gives bottle, she usually only takes 2oz of formula, goes down awake or asleep, varies day to day. She doesn’t suck in a dream feed.
She then wakes once at night, somewhere between 2am and 5am.
So….
Thinking about going forward, what tips could you suggest re. Gradually teaching her to go to sleep herself. All sleep/nap she has swaddle, white noise, dummy is for naps as she uses me rest of time!!
I would love her to nap longer AM and PM but I understand that it may be a developmental thing, although she can manage it midday.
Any help is much appreciated. Thanks!!!!!
So, my four month old can put himself to sleep (most of the time) for naps and when we put him down at the beginning of the night for bed, but he wakes up about a half hour later and won’t go back to sleep on his own.
Tonight we changed our routine so that we did t end on nursing, but put him down after reading a book. He slept for about 30 minutes, and then woke up and has been screaming since. This has been going on for several nights now.
We are at a total loss on what to do. We’ve done the Ferber method, we’ve tried extinction, we’ve sat in there with him, we’ve rocked him, shushed. What am I missing? And why is NOTHING working?
I cannot deal with this anymore. Its defi itely taking a toll on my marriage, and I am becoming depressed. What else can we do??? He’s cuddled all day long, he eats several times throughout the day, so he shouldn’t be hungry or “need” more touch for bedtime. He’s also starting to wake up earlier and wake several times throughout the night again. For about a week he was doing well. He was sleeping, woke up 3x to eat, but now he’s messed up…again. Please, anything is appreciated.
Hello Valerie,
Your post caught my eye as this was the story of our lives when our daughter was 4-5 months old. Are things any better now? I contacted a sleep consultant and did a TON of research as I was also at my wits end. For what it’s worth… I would say this:
-definitely make sure there is no medical issue – my daughter actually ended up having some reflux issues which we found out only after the consultant urged me to check this
-4-5 months is full of developmental milestones like grasping, sitting among other mental milestones. This disrupts sleep.
Personally – we followed alexis’ advice and used the swing as much as possible and also co-slept as necessary. It was a struggle! She is now almost 7 months old and is much better, though on some nights she doesn’t settle for up to 2 hours either at bed time or 30-45 min after. We are trying Ferber with “some” success now. Our daughter also could self soothe early on but was never consistent with it so I’m hopeful things shouldn’t be too difficult.
So… In short, waiting just a bit longer may be the best thing even if it’s not easy. I keep telling myself one day I will blink and she will be 18 and I will think I was silly for getting so worked up over this sleep stuff. When you’re in the middle of a sleepless haze it’s hard to think that way I know!
Best of luck,
Danielle
Danielle,
Thank you for your reply! He was starting to do well for a little bit, but has recently come down with a cold, combined with what I think is teething, he’s a mess again. One day he will sleep, I just need to remind myself of that. I just wish, for his own health, he would sleep well.
I’ve tried to sleep train my second child for seven months now to no success. We cannot get past being wide awake at 5am, and then falling sleep because he is knackered before lunch. He disturbs the whole house. Fixing the bedtime routine hasn’t worked, cry it out at interval hasn’t worked, and now his 4 year old sister who was beautifully sleep trained to 7am wakes up earlier. Any ideas are welcome.
Alexis,
Thank you so much for sharing your insight and wisdom! I have followed your guide as precisely as possible, with fantastic results…until now. I am so desperate, I actually began to cry last night from lack of sleep. My beautiful 7-month old boy falls asleep fine on his own; I nurse him a half hour prior to bedtime, which generally is around 7 pm. I put him in his crib (awake), no rocking, no white noise, no pacifier, no swaddle. But he still wakes up every two hours! I’ve tried rocking him back to sleep, and he just cries the second I set him down in the crib. The only thing that will put him back to sleep is nursing. Now he is up all night and wakes up at 4-5 am. I’m so, so tired and I don’t know what else to do. I’ve done everything at bedtime that is in your guide, but I feel like a failure. Please help me.
Oh no 🙁
Well Bethany this is REALLY common. Do do all the right things at bedtime but see no improvement at all. SO unfair.
Whats happening? Well early wake ups can reset the association you’re trying to break out of at bedtime. So when you nurse him back to sleep at 9 PM that nursing session resets the nurse=sleep association that locks you into waking all night long. Frustratingly unfair, and entirely true.
The answer to your dilemma is to not nurse him at those early wakings (say anything before 11). No pacifier either. Swaddle and white noise are totally OK BTW and I would recommend you consider those soothing alternatives, but yeah paci and nursing prior to 11 will trip you up.
Make that change and see if that doesn’t almost immediately break you out of the “nurse every 2 hours” routine.
Cheers!
Alexis
Alexis,
Thank you so much for responding (so quickly)! I actually read through all of your comments on this article, so I gathered some insightful advice you offered to ‘boob’ babies (who love nursing); I started setting my alarm clock to dreamfeed and it seems to have helped the initial early wake-up. I will definitely try the above approach tonight, though; thank you for all of your help and thoughtful advice. You are wonderful, Alexis!
Bethany
I’m so glad I read this comment! My almost 5 month old sounds a lot like this. She can put herself to sleep now (wahoo!) but she’s still waking up frequently at night to nurse.
I didn’t want to eliminate her feedings quite yet but I felt like I was bartering with her on which ones to keep – 1030pm & 430am felt most reasonable to me so we went with it…and slowly but surely she’s begun waking up earlier and earlier (930pm tonight) with many more wake ups through the night to eat.
Would you suggest letting her cry it out as we did before (we used Ferber) for the before 11pm wakings?
Feels like this may be that missing piece in all this!
this is our issue too! My 5 month old can put himself to sleep, but is waking anywhere between 2 and 5 times per night to nurse. I try to keep it brief (only a couple minutes) but it’s enough to put him to sleep, and I don’t feel comfortable night weaning him completely.
Hi,Bethany. I know it’s been forever since you posted this, but I am having the exact same problem as you were. My 7 month old puts herself to sleep like a champ, but wakes up every two hours and cannot put herself back to sleep. When I calm her and put her back in her crib she starts screaming again, until I feed her. If I wait until 11 to feed her, she will scream until then. Did anything work for you? When did your little one start sleeping well? I’m looking for anything!
Hi Keelie,
I know you posted this a few weeks ago and just wondered if you had any luck with getting your 7 month old to sleep longer than two hours at a time. My 10 month old daughter is doing this and i’m so tired. What do you do at night wakings?
I dont want to keep offering the breast anymore as I now understand I have created an unhealthy cycle that needs to be broken.
Grace
I love this website and find new helpful things everytime I check it, which seems like multiple times a day as we are seeking answers to sleep problems.
Our 6 month old is doing great with cio at bedtime and going down with almost no crying. I have been nursing him to sleep for naps during the sleep training because I wanted to make sure he wasnt going to cio over tired at bedtime.
He still wakes 2-3 times a night with bedtime at 7:30 and wake time at 5. But night weaning to come later. Our biggest problem is naps. It seems like he has a 30 min timer that goes off for naps even when I nurse him to sleep. We have started cio for naps and he still wakes after 15 min and doesnt calm himself down again. If he wakes that early from a nap we let him cry for 20 min before getting him. How long should we let him cry for when he wakes up from naps so early and also at nighttime? Please help!
This sounds exactly like my 6mo. Same times and everything. No matter what I do he wakes after 30 minutes during naps. And even though he can put himself to sleep around 7:30, he wakes four, sometimes even five times throughout the night until finally staying awake sometime a little after 5am.
We’re kind of at a loss. I was wondering if you’d found anything helpful so far?
So it’s been over a year since this post. I have to ask…what did you do and when did the wakeups finally stop?
I am having the exact same issue with my 5 month old. Puts himself to sleep with 30 minute naps and wakes up at 5am to start the day (not okay)! Would be interested to know if you tried anything that worked for you?
Thanks!
Hi,
I was hoping to get your advice with my daughter. We found your site a few months ago in a desperate search for sleep because our daughter was waking up every couple of hours. We’d been putting her to bed with a pacifier and timed musical glow worm. She’s 11 months old now and her bedtime routine now looks something like: bottle, read a small book, brush her teeth, get her dressed for bed, and cuddle/rock her while singing to her until she starts closing her eyes like she’s tired. Then I gently transfer her to the crib and cover her with blankets.
For the first 5-6 days there was lots of crying and screaming, and by the end of the first week she’d usually adjust her blankets a little bit, roll onto her side or tummy, and pass out. Occasionally she’d she’d cry herself to sleep (sometimes it’d be 30 seconds, other times 5-10 minutes).
Recently it’s gotten to where the cry-herself-to-sleep behaviour is more the norm and quietly falling asleep is the exception. My wife (who usually handles the morning routine) has also indicated that the more worked up her pre-sleep cries are, the earlier she wakes up (4-5 instead of 6-7). Last night she woke up at 1:30 and I made several attempts to rock/sing her to sleep like normal, and every time I put her in the crib she’d start screaming again. Finally the wife laid down with her in bed and cuddled while they slept. Tonight she woke up after an hour of sleep and started screaming and the wife’s so tired (and has to wake up so early) she couldn’t bear to let her cry it out.
She _is_ teething and previously had weathered it without much trouble, but we gave her a little baby tylenol before bed to hopefully help.
The symptoms don’t look exactly the same as presented in this article. She usually doesn’t wake up multiple times a night, just the once, but the consistent march forward of when that wake up is and the increased crying is worrisome. It’s also entirely possible that I’m not putting her to sleep awake enough.
I’d really appreciate any advice you could offer and also am grateful for all the wonderful information you’ve shared. Thank you for doing what you do.
-Tim
We are in serious need of help. Our 7.5 month old co sleeps and is a TERRIBLE sleeper and is just getting worse. He sleeps crawls and wakes every hour or so and gets worse as the night goes on. Last night he wouldn’t stay asleep unless he was latched.
We tried to start sleep training last night and he was HYSTERICAL within a minute and a half, hyperventilating and twitching. So we gave up, since I was close to tears seeing him in that amount of stress.
I’m exhausted. I’m pregnant with #2 and dealing with nearly 8 months of chronic, severe sleep deprivation, and baby isn’t happy either. What do I do?
Hey Anna!
I know it’s been awhile since you’ve posted this. But, I was wondering if anything you did helped. This sounds identical to what I’m currently going through and any advice would be very much appreciated!
Thank you.
Alexis-
I need help! I have a 21 month old daughter who in hind sight was a breeze to sleep train. 12 hours at 10 weeks with 2 nights of crying for about 15 minutes…I’m sitting here wondering why I was so stressed out then. My son is 8 weeks old. We started a routine with him right off the bat home from the hospital. We don’t have any family here (and none were visiting when he arrived) and we wanted to keep my daughter on a schedule so he just sort of fell in line. He did not acclimate to the crib as quickly as her, but we finally can put him down awake and he will put himself to sleep. This is at 7 pm. He was doing great and got to where he was only waking up at 4 am to feed and then complete regression. Now he is waking up at least twice a night to eat and is super super fussy in the crib. He’s up between 12-130, he will go down then wake up and cry, then cry again for food 5-6am. I’m exhausted! I go back to work soon and I cannot figure out what I need to change. We tried a dream feed but if he’s not ready to eat he will eat 1 oz or less. I know he’s still young, but why are we going backwards? Also, we feed last thing before bed (after bath). Will switching those last two help? That’s what we did with my daughter so I never questioned it until I read your site. Any advice welcome! Thank you!!
Thank you so much for this post! Our little one naturally started sleeping the night from 3.5 – 4.5 months but then gradually started waking again. The night wakings progressed to match the sleep patterns you illustrated, and I would end up nursing him as the quickest and easiest way to get us all back to sleep. By the time he was 6 months, we were ready to make a change, but I knew I would have trouble committing to a CIO method. Getting him to sleep at the beginning of the night was never much of a problem for us, and we knew he could self-soothe (thumb sucker). After reading this post, I realized that nursing was the last step in our bedtime routine and that my intention to “top him off” before bed was actually developing an eat/sleep association. I shifted things so that his last feeding was at least 20 minutes before his 7:30 bedtime and followed it with a diaper change, pajamas, books and lullabies. By the third day he was only up once/night and now he’s been sleeping 8-10+ hours straight for the past five nights. I’m hopeful he’ll keep it up, and we now feel confident in our bedtime routine and its effectiveness. Thanks for the great tips and for providing a balanced sleep resource for all parenting styles.
Thanks for posting this! My situation sounds very similar to yours. Did the change in bedtime routine continue to work for you?
Thanks!
Hi Jess,
My little guy is almost 2 now, so those early months are all a blur, but the short answer is yes, I think it worked.
I nursed for the first year and he didn’t completely drop his night feeding until he was almost 10 months. There were some exceptions (teething, growth spurts, etc.), but overall the sleep schedule became more routine. We did have some nights where we would let him cry for a bit, but never had to enact a formal CIO method.
Now, as a toddler, his bedtime routine is still the same (without the nursing) and he goes to bed very willingly by 7:30. The consistency and routine really worked for us.
I know you can start to feel desperate, and certainly exhausted, but eventually you’ll be done with night feedings! Hang in there, and good luck!
Thanks for the response Kelly! It really is so important to keep putting things into perspective! It’s so “in my face” right now but in a couple of years it’ll all be a blur, like you say. Important to enjoy these precious moments for what they are (even if they’re exhausting ). All the best!
I am the first time mother of 15 month old twins who have never, in their little lives, EVER slept “through the night”. I really, really want them to be night weaned very soon. They typically fall asleep for the night just fine, and I don’t nurse them to sleep or nurse them to closely to bed time, they go down really well for my husband. They do wonderful at nap time. But they still wake up 3 to 5 times a night. I am weak, I don’t like crying, so, yes, I do nurse them back to sleep. Usually but not always they go right back to bed. One of them is more difficult at night and I put him back in his crib after nursing him (I try to not nurse them all the way to sleep, just to where they are very drowsy) after 10 minutes he is unsettled and wailing and sometimes after 30 minutes of this I bring him to bed with me because I am utterly exhausted. This usually helps him sleep but not always. Anyone with advice on night weaning toddler twins? Letting them “cry it out” works for the first twin, but not for the second twin I mentioned. Although I have never let him cry longer than 15-20 min, and I don’t really plan on it. Advice anyone?
I’m so hopefully to see this post now. We are doing extinction with my 4 month old for 8 days now and the situation and sleeping pattern is exactly as you mentioned. While we are extremely consultant for bedtime and naps, never help back to sleep or put down a sleep, I nurse him as the last step of the bedtime routine, even though he goes down awake and typically fuss/cries for 3 minutes before going to sleep. Bedtime is at 7pm, dream feed at 10:30pm and wake up usually at 6am, but in between he begins waking up at 4am every 25-45 mins with 10-20 minute crying spells. This is a huge improvement from waking up every hour before but still not perfect. He a big boy and eats plenty during the day. I know he can go 8 hours without eating during the first half of the night without a dream feed, but the dream feed at 10:30pm doesn’t seem to be extending sleep after 4am even though he ate 6 hours prior. I was about to try a dream feed at 3am instead of or in addition to 10:30pm, but first may try changing up the bedtime routine. Thank you for this. I’ve been searching for a reason and a solution this. It didn’t impact my daughters ability to stay a sleep so this didn’t even cross my mind.
Hello Alexis,
Thank you for all your insight, it is very helpful.
I can relate to all of the other commenters on this article.
My little one has a terrible time with naps. He is currently 4.5 months old. Bedtime routine : bottle, bath, pjs/sleepsack, book, song, crib fully awake. He will take anywhere from 5-15 minutes to go to sleep. He usually sleeps well until 4-5am then starts babbling and crying.
Heres where we struggle: short NAPS
I have tried every approach. We have put him down every 1.5 hours, every 2 hours, every 2.5 hours (each time taking 2-3 days to try a different approach) We use a nap routine (sleep sack, book, song) and he goes in awake. But NO MATTER what I do .. he will not sleep longer than 30 mins. And becomes progressively overtired as the day goes on. Bedtime ends up having to be early (6 pm) because he is so exhausted.
PLEASE any advice from you and any other posters who have had this issue would be so greatly appreciated!!! I feel like I have read every book and sleep related article out there.
Thanks!
I am to the point of tears. I can’t figure this out. My baby has been “crying it out” for a month now and tonight were going on 40 min, with no end in site. I’ve posted on many of the articles here, I’ve emailed Alexis, I’ve posted on the Facebook site.. And many other sites. But it never gets any feed back. I want to just give up.. But then I remember bedtime was a battle before I ever started sleep training anyways. So it’s hell… Or other hell.
Hi Alexis,
Our son is 16 lbs and 5 months. I followed your advice and moved my feed towards the beginning of the bedtime routine. I also got a continuous white noise machine. For a few nights things improved. He would sleep from 7 to about 1-3am. I would feed and change him. He would fall asleep again independently in his crib and wake about 530-6. Then for the last few days, he started waking at 1030-1100. We would wait about 15-20 mins to see if he would fall asleep again. He would cry and the cries would intensify. So I’ve begun to feed and change his diaper. He goes to bed awake and falls asleep no problem. But then he starts to wake at 2,3,4, and 5. What happened? Why can he self soothe at bed and after his feed and then other times he can’t? I see him trying on the baby monitor. He’s not teething or I’ll as far as I know. I should mention that it’s either my hubby or myself that sleeps in the room with him. Also I nurse and hold him for naps because his night sleeps are still so inconsistent.
What can I do to help him ???
I tried sleep training my 10 mo old, starting about 6 weeks ago when she was 9 mo. She now falls asleep on her own, no nursing, rocking, pacifier, etc, but it still involves a lot of crying. In fact, she tenses up and starts to wiggle and fuss as soon as I start the nap time/ bedtime routine (read a book, turn off lights, turn on white noise, sing a song, lay down in bed) and then starts crying as soon as I put her in her crib. Once asleep (crying anywhere from 10-40 min), she sleeps fairly well at night (usually wakes once to feed between 3-4am, then wakes for the day between 6-6:30am). I have seen improvement in naps, which used to be 30-45 min, and are now usually 1 hour, but she is fussy upon waking. Also, because she wakes between 6-6:30 am no matter what time I put her to bed, she is then is tired by 8am, naps from 8-9am, gets tired between 12-1pm for her afternoon nap, and naps until 2pm at the latest. I can’t get her to take a third nap (she will cry for an hour), but then she is tired for bed by 5 pm. I’d really rather she go to bed between 6-7, but if I keep her up that long, she is overtired and cries for 30-40 min before falling asleep. I think she needs longer naps, but don’t know how to get them.
I know this was written a while ago but this is basically word for word what we are going through!
Hi Amanda,
A couple of things-
1. While no one ever responded to my post here, I eventually got connected to the Precious Little Sleep Facebook group, which was an immensely helpful resource and support group for us as we navigated the world of baby sleep. I highly recommend that.
2. Our baby is now nearly 2 yrs old and is a beautiful sleeper. We went thru many seasons and phases to get here. Every baby is different, but here are some helpful things we learned along the way with our baby, in case they work for you.
– we needed to increase wake times (3-3.5 hrs). The tensing was at least in part bc she was under tired and resisting going to sleep for good reason.
-10 hrs (sometimes 10.5-11) is all the sleep our LO needs at night. 8pm-6am
-once we extended wake times, naps extended to 1.5 hrs; 9-10:30am and 2-3:30pm roughly.
Good luck!
Gosh, thanks for the reply. I am connected to the Facebook group too but lately the suggestions havent been helping (earlier bedtime, fewer naps). We will try even longer wake times and a later bedtime tonight. I have been reluctant to let her be awake too long because I don’t want her to get overtired, but I’m willing to give it a shot if it helped you!
Yep, I was totally there. For the longest time, I kept thinking she was continually overtired and thus needed shorter wake times. It was a weird combination of being overtired yet under-sleepy. We had to push through overtired for a few days to allow the sleep deficit to build enough, thus allowing her to fall asleep easily and eventually catch up on her chronic tiredness.
Hope it works for you. Just remembering that season last year makes my chest tighten. You have my sympathy.
Hi Alexis, I’m desperate! My 9m/o (will be 9mths next week) won’t sleep. Partly our fault as when she was 5-7 months we moved country travelling to a different country on the way to see in laws. She’s #2 and our 1st never battled like this. She refuses/rebels against all forms of daily routines. In the past 9 nights I’ve successfully got her going to sleep ok (changed routine to BF-bath-bed) but she’s now waking more than ever before! In the last week her daily naps have improved from several 30-40min naps to mostly x2 90min naps (although occasionally she’ll split one like this morning, 30min then 60min). Last night was horrific as she was up constantly. I’ve reverted to BF twice a night as don’t know what else to do plus she shares a room with her 2y/o brother. How can I stop her waking? We’ve been letting her CIO but she can go on for hours. Literally hours. Any suggestions????
Dear Desperate Mum,
Truthfully there are a lot of things that could be going on here and I don’t have nearly enough details to give strong guidance here, but this may help:
1) Ideally she is awake 3.5-4 hours prior to bedtime
2) Bedtime happens at the same time every night
3) She is falling asleep solo (is she currently? It’s great that she’s not nursing to sleep but if you’re rocking to sleep instead you’ve just shifted one issue for another)
4) How you handle early evening wakings can reset the sleep association. So if she goes to bed at 7:30 and you’re nursing at 9 PM it’s just like doing that at bedtime.
5) No pacifiers (you aren’t right?)
The key is almost always what is happening AT bedtime so look for things there (what, when, where, how, etc.) for root causes. Good luck!
Hi Alexis
Thank you for replying!!! She is awake 3-4 hours before bedtime, bedtime is at the same time, she is (now) falling asleep solo (song/cuddle then I put her down say goodnight & leave), I’m not nursing again before midnight and only using dummies during the day. And still she wakes!
Any suggestions??
Thank you
Help me can’t get my baby girl of 10.5 months to go to sleep with out a fuss
Hi Alexis, we did the sleep training with our now 10m/o about 6wks ago. It took a few weeks to click for her and really it wasn’t until I stopped the nighttime BF that it all came together – she was self soothing to sleep, napping well & self soothing when she woke in the night. We had about 10days of good sleeping and then both the baby and toddler got HFM disease which totally ruined everything! The kids had the spots in their mouth & throat which made eating/drinking hard so I increased BF the baby (had previously dropped to just 2 feeds a day, morning/before bath) including during the night. Now the kids have been better about 4 days but the baby has regressed significantly: she won’t self sooth to sleep or during the night and wants BF 2-3 times during the night. In this time she’s also learnt to pull herself up to standing/furniture surf so when she cries when I put her down at night she is standing, which is a change from 6 wks ago. I’ve tried leaving her to CIO like I did last time but the standing has changed it (don’t think she can get back down!) and she now cries for 90mins+! Whereas 1st time round she was asleep before 20min mark. Any suggestions??
Dear Alexis,
Do you have any experience with multiples? I have 7mo triplet babies. One of them quietly goes to sleep with no fuss when I put her down, but the other 2 become completely HYSTERICAL at bedtime. I’m not even as concerned with them sleeping through (they wake to breastfeed 2 or 3 times each and fall back to sleep ok), my problem is the crying at bedtime. Since they were tiny they have been like this: they scream their heads off as soon as they hit the cot:-(
I have tried many different methods since they were 4 months old such as gradual retreat, shush pat, pick up put down, timed controlled crying, and now complete extinction CIO. The problem is it has been over 3 weeks and things are not improving. They still scream hysterically for roughly 45 minutes at every bedtime. My neighbours keep asking what I’m doing to them, and my nerves are frazzled nightly.
Naps are even worse, I just cannot bear more crying (it can go on for even longer) so now I just take them out in the stroller/ baby carrier to ensure they get some daytime sleep. Obviously this is not sustainable, not only can I get nothing done, I’m ridiculously sleep deprived (all these mummies complaining about 2 or 3 nightwakings make me laugh), but I just can’t bear the crying anymore. It’s supposed to take a few days or a few weeks at most right? But here we are on week 4 of full extinction CIO. I desperately need help. There is no way I could do CIO for night wakings as well as the horror that is bedtime.
I’ve tried separating them into separate rooms (I house sat in a large house). I’m bf’ing them and then bathing them, massage, kiss goodnight and bed, between 6-8pm. I’m a single mum and have never had any help in the night, though I sometimes have friends or even their father come and help at bath time.
Please please give me some advice. I feed before the bath, I have introduced solids during the day,; I take them out for walks to make sure they get some naps… I can’t bear this anymore and it doesn’t seem fair on them. Would these be classed as high need babies? Is there a different rule in this case? They were born at 35 weeks with no health problems.
I would appreciate it sooo much if you could give me some advice, I don’t know who to turn to!!
Thanks
Wow – single parenting THREE BABIES. I. Just. Can’t. Even.
So if it were me, here’s would I do.
1) Have a good cry and a major pity party. After that I would…
2) Don’t worry about training for naps today. Get them napping by any means necessary. If the stroller works, maybe a swing would be a good step? I mean, assuming you can get your hands on 3 baby swings? Otherwise fine – we take naps in the stroller. Hopefully the weather is nice.
3) Bedtime sleep training should not take 4 weeks. So…something is tripping you up. What would that be? It’s hard to say but my best guess based on what you’ve shared is that it’s the TIMING of bedtime. The bedTIME.
The way our bodies work is that when we fall asleep at the same time every night our bodies are PRIMED to sleep there. Also you need to be awake a reasonable amount of time before bedtime. So you need to balance those two things to create a situation where babies can and will easily fall asleep. If you CAN separate them I would definitely do that. I would also figure out a consistent bedtime so they’re going down the same time EVERY NIGHT. At 7 months this should be roughly 3.5 hours after their last nap. So if your goal is 7:30 PM, they don’t sleep past 4:00 PM.
Ideally this is FIRMLY committed. However since they’ve been crying for 45 minutes every night I would start by having them go to bed 45 minutes past their usual time (the easy baby can go to bed earlier as per usual). If that makes things better then you gradually move things back to your target bedtime ie. the one that you can consistently commit to that is 3.5 hours after their last nap ends.
As for the night feedings, I wouldn’t use CIO to wean off them but gradually wean them out of those feedings using the strategies I suggest in other posts here. Hope that helps – good luck!
Alexis,
Maybe I spend too much time reading parenting blogs but this has been on my mind lately: I have a 6-month old. I nurse him before bedtime (7ish) Sometimes he falls asleep and I transfer him to the crib. Sometimes I put him down drowsy but awake and he babbles and then puts himself to sleep after 5-10 minutes. He ALWAYS only wakes up 1x per night to eat (between 2 and 4 usually), then goes right back to sleep until morning (6:30ish). He naps generally well and naps fine for his daycare provider too who puts him down without feeding him but I think she rocks him (I nurse him before nap time when I watch him during the day). So my question is, since he does sleep so well at night should I change anything? I know he wakes at night (I hear him sometimes), but he puts himself back to sleep unless he’s hungry. Should I be worried about a future sleep association? If it’s not broke, should I not try to fix it?? I appreciate your input!
Please help! No one has been able to help me so far. So I have read every sleep training book out there! From CIO to no tears to tge Ferber… Everything. My DD will be 6 months on the 26th of this month. She was born with really bad jaundice then we found out she has severe reflux and mspi. She was on Zantac for 2 months and it didn’t work at all so at 4 months they put her on nexium and that helped a lot. Since she was sick for the first 4 months of her life I just had her bedshare (even though I swore I wouldn’t) because I EBF and she just would not let me put her down. I’m a sahm so I’m the only one with her all day every day. Well she wakes up all night every night! Two weeks ago I went to my pedi (who doesn’t believe in reflux or anything I really dislike him but he’s the only one that takes our insurance within an hour drive because we live in the sticks) but anyways he told me to start her on oatmeal that day and start putting her in her crib and shut the door and literally just leave her from 830pm to 630am which was too extreme in my opinion but I’ve tried EVERYTHING except for that so I was like fine. He promised it would work by night 4. Well she literally screamed in hysterics from 830pm until 2am and I finally gave in and went up there to feed and she fell asleep within seconds of being on my nipple, put her down and of course she woke up immediately which is good because I didn’t want to put her down asleep and she screamed until 630am. Well the same thing happened the second and third day. By day four she was so tired from getting NO sleep that she was trying to sleep anywhere all day but I would put her down when she fell asleep and she would wake up screaming. Well night four she slept the whole time 830pm-630am and I even had to go wake her up to get the day started. Well night five and six were just like the first two nights so I gave up night six after two hours and put her back in bed with me. She was so happy for a whole week that she just slept right there with me just fine. Now she’s on night three of waking up every hour just as before screaming. We have a really nice bedtime routine that she loves where I feed her oatmeal cereal at 7pm we take a nice steamy warm shower (she hates baths) after and I feed at 8-810 and we read a book until bed. She won’t go down to sleep at all anymore. It’s like we’ve regressed so much! She has to have my nipple to fall asleep. I hate her hysterics because I read when babies cry it kills brain cells so I’m trying to avoid the hysterics. What do I do?!
Well you probably won’t like what I have to say but…
If it was just behavioral (she had a huge boob=sleep association) what your pediatrician suggested would have worked. Sure it would have still been messy (I don’t recommend sleep training + night weaning simultaneously because hungry babies will CRY AND CRY) but there should have been SOME sleep in there. But there wasn’t.
That leads me to think that there are still major tummy issues. You’ve sussed out soy and dairy issues, but are there others? Those are the big 2 but kids with multiple food allergies at this age could have others or sensitivities, etc. So you might want to consider that angle.
The other is that nexium isn’t doing the job. Your pedi isn’t helpful on that front, will he give you a referral to a pediatric GI specialist? They might want to do an upper GI which isn’t a terrible idea given what you’ve got going on frankly.
Lastly – MOST refluxing babies sleep poorly on their backs in the crib. My own refluxers were in a swing for 10 and 13 months respectively. Not because they needed the motion, they needed the angle. So you might want to pursue lifestyle options like that in addition to the investigating further allergies/meds.
PS. Check this out for more: https://www.preciouslittlesleep.com/medical-problem/
Thank you so much for the response. My pedi refuses to say she has reflux because he says there isn’t such a thing which obviously there is. He is the second pedi I went to (at the same doctors office because the whole insurance thing and living in the middle of nowhere) and the first one is who put her on the Zantac and just wouldn’t change it when it wasn’t working. She wouldn’t give me the time of day either because my dd was gaining weight like crazy and she thought I was exaggerating about the whole crying 24/7 thing. She would just rush out real quick and not give us the time of day. I have tried cutting gluten, tree nuts, onions, tomato, broccoli, garlic, and spice out as well. The reason I thought mspi was because she had major congestion and when I cut those two out it cleared up. The nexium did work at first but she’s been waking up every hour a week before the sleep training, no sleep during, and now the few days after. Maybe she needs to up her dose? I forced the current pedi to do something so he did send me to a gi and she was like oh she’s gaining weight so she’s fine and she’s the one who put her on nexium. I have a follow up appt with her on the 17th so I’ll discuss all of my concerns about that stuff. She wanted to do a swallow test and all this stuff but I didn’t want my 4 month old then or even now to swallow radiation.
Let’s say it is the whole boob=sleep. How can I fix this without her going into hysterics.
Needing some help with my 4 month old. He goes to sleep without me but with a paci and swaddled. I’ve tried taking it away but he ends up screaming in bed for a long time until I come back. If I put him to sleep not swaddled he also just kicks and screams. With a paci, he falls asleep on his own quickly and stays asleep for a few hours then wakes up way too much after that.
I have some questions regarding my almost 5 month old and the newly waking up early morning hours. Since she was 2 months old she slept from 8pm and I had to wake her at 7am. We started a daily routine at about 2 months old to be consistent. At 4 months old she started waking up in the early morning hours. Sometimes it was 2am. Some days it was 4 or 5am. At the time, she just learnt to roll from her back to tummy. We chalked the wake ups to to the milstone (She still hasn’t learnt to roll back from her tummy to back. She’s done it a few times but were working on that). During the day she usually naps pretty good. She goes down awake and puts herself to sleep. At the early part of 4 months she was napping 3 times a day but has now moved to 2 naps a day that are longer. Earlier her naps were getting shorter and shorter and she was fighting the early evening nap so we moved to two solid naps during the day. When she woke up I didn’t think to feed her as she hadn’t woken in the middle of the night to eat in two months. She was always happy but wide awake in the crib. I tried to let her fall asleep on her own but after an hour, or close to two, she was overtired and couldn’t fall asleep on her own. We then resorted to rocking her in the recliner and sleeping with her as it was getting close to wake up time (7am) and we wanted her to have some sleep before the day begins (this is when she wakes between 4 and 5). After speaking to a health nurse, she recommend feeding her when she wakes up. We started to try that this week and she is still wide awake when we put her in the crib and doesn’t fall asleep. For example, I fed her a bottle at 4:45 am this morning. She was still chatting and moving around and getting fussy at 6am. I went in and rocked her to sleep for an hour so we could continue with our daily routine of getting up at 7am. We don’t want her to associate falling back asleep in early mornings with rocking or holding and we don’t want our baby awake at 4:30 for the day. This is our typical daily routine:
7am – wake up and bottle (which has been affected by the 4 am feeding)
8am – rice cereal
9am – nap
11am – wake up and bottle
12 or 1230pm – cereal
130pm – nap
330 or 4pm – wake up and bottle
630 or 7pm – start betime routine (bath, books, bottle, bed) – we’re going to try and move the bottle to the beginning of the routine
If you have any suggestions to help us kick the early morning wake ups and sleeping in the recliner with her, we would love to hear them. We don’t want this to become a habit and need for her.
Thank you.
Hi Alexis. I’m so glad I found your blog and that after all these years you are still answering questions. My almost 5 mo old is driving me out of my exhausted mind-he was waking every and wanting to nurse every 45 min and now finally will sleep about 2.5-3 hours at a time. It’s sad that that’s good 🙁 we have 2 other kids and only 3 bedrooms so his crib is in our room so when we wakes at night,he knows we are right there. I have tried nursing him and also CIO but he is relentless and will too easily become hysterical so I give up and nurse him. He goes to bed awake, but he puts himself to sleep almost and shows sleep signals as early as 5:30! So I feed him baby food around 5, bath him and try to keep him awake but relaxed until I can’t anymore, usually between 6-6:15. Then we swaddle and nurse and I put him in his crib. He stays down until about 10. Then constantly up every 3 hours alllll night. Help!!
When does the crying stop???? We are at day 11 and my son is 13 months. He cries every night, between 5 and 25 mins, and I don’t go in. Am I doing something wrong?
We do the exact same thing every night: bath, boob, cuddles and he goes in the crib awake. He mostly sleeps through (which he learned without cio) but if he wakes up, we take him with us to bed which we don’t mind. We are only doing cio because he was getting distracted by our presence at bedtime, protracting bedtime and it was costing him his sleep.
He gets 12-13 hrs of sleep in 24 hrs, usually 10 at night and the rest in one or two naps. I time bedtime to be at least 4 hrs after last nap. 5 works best (there is little crying), but tends to eat into his 10 hrs night if the last nap was late.
It seems like the problem is separation anxiety. He won’t let me go anywhere these days. Should I stop cio?
Hi Alexis,
Thank you so much for your website! So helpful and informative. And… like everyone else, I have a question. Or questions.
I have a 9.5 month old who has never slept terribly well, at least at night. For the first few months of his life, I could put him down when he was clearly tired, and he’d fuss a little but put himself to sleep pretty efficiently. Until he learned to stand. Then, those days were over and were replaced by a teeny baby (he started standing around 6-7 months) hanging on to the crib screaming. So, then we were nursing to sleep. I know, I know. But it was easier, I like the peacefulness of nursing a sleepy baby, we were going on a trip, but yes… I know. And i regret deferring the issue until now.
A couple of weeks ago, I let my son cry in his crib for a nap, figuring he was exhausted and would eventually sit and then lie down. Nope. An hour later, no change. Still standing. We’ve addressed the putting himself to sleep thing by strapping him (loosely) into a car seat in the bedroom. He’ll fuss for a few min, but drifts off pretty quickly. It just doesn’t translate to the crib. Any suggestions on how to do that transition? It seems like the crib just affords too much freedom, and once he’s standing, he’s forgotten about sleeping. (I tried the crib at bedtime yesterday: blood-curdling screams, but after 10 min of that, I put him in the car seat and he was asleep in under 2 min).
Also–last question, I promise!–he still wakes up every 1.5-2 hours. At which point, yes, I just have to nurse him to sleep. And putting him back in the car seat doesn’t work any more. I have to bring him into bed with me (for the rest of the night) to get him back to sleep (he’ll be fast asleep, but doesn’t go back to sleep in the seat, and will wake up as soon as he feels the crib mattress approaching his body). Not ideal. I realize that I need to address the whole night weaning thing (sigh–I’m usually too tired to stay awake myself), but at some point, shouldn’t the whole ability-to-put-himself-to-sleep translate to fewer night wakings anyway?
Thanks in advance!
Hi Alexis,
I have been doing sleep training on my 11 month following your methods for about a week now. The first 3 days went seamless, but then regression happened, and so after reading this blog post, I found what I was doing wrong. So tonight, I’ll try out the tips you have.
Before this, she had been seriously sleeping for 45 min to 1 hour and then up to nurse or just use me as a pacifier. Right now, she goes down, wakes at 11 or so and then whines, goes back down until 2 or 3 AM, I do a quick feed but I am going to stop that, because putting her BACK down is becoming an issue. She fights it and it makes me feel even more awful.
My big thing right now is naps. She is getting up at about 5-530Am which I am okay with for the most part, and then her usual nap time is about 9AM-930AM. I feel like this may possibly be too late, so I’m going to move it up sooner because she is definitely tired. So I’ll nurse her beforehand, then put her down but she stiffs up her body and screams bloody murder. Then she continues to scream for 3-45 minutes and then nap is just crap. It’s only about 20 minutes long, and I KNOW she needs longer.
From reading this article, I need to stop the nursing and then put down, so I will do that, but do you have any advice for how to get nap times to be more peaceful? She seems legitimately afraid when I put her down now.
Thanks for your help!
Hi Alexis,
I tried the swing for my baby who was then 3 months old and it worked, I even managed to wean her off and she fell asleep on her own by 4-5 months. Then…she had a cold and with turning 6 months, she was unable to fall asleep on her own and woke up several times – night and crap naps.
Recently in exasperation, I got a sleep training consultant to assist. My baby is now 7 months. She taught me to resettle by rocking her in her crib to extend nap time and night wean. The only problem is that it is so successful (because I’m there rocking her for so long) that she now relies on me to settle her. If I don’t, then she can cry intermittently for over an hour until I come and I’m not a CIO mum…
For bedtime, the sleep consultant switched the order to dinner, bath, book, boob and then bed. Do you think it’s best if I move forward the boob before book so that she falls more easily to sleep on her own? What about for naps?
I’m a bit lost now as using the swing no longer works as a technique…
Hi Alexis!
I just discovered your site today and I have been voraciously reading it for a good portion of the morning. I have 10 month old twins, boy and girl, and my daughter is sleeping like a dream except for the rare occasions her brother wakes her up. My son, oy. I feel like I have tried EVERYTHING with him and he is still awake at 5am no matter what time he goes to sleep and he refuses to nap longer than 35-38 minutes during the day. I know he is exhausted and he spends most of his days cranky. Its to the point that I am wondering if he is tired or this is just his personality but I really think he is exhausted. We have tried mov