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Why Sleep Training Didn’t Work

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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!!!!

giphy (3)

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:
[list type=”checklist”]

  • 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.

[/list]

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.

sleep patterns before and after teaching baby to fall asleep

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.

[/list]

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?

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. I sleep trained my daughter at18 months and for a few weeks she sleep through beautifully. After her getting sick and letting her sleep in our bed,I have not gotten her to fall asleep in her own. I need to lay down on the floor next to her otherwise she goes hysterical. She now wakes up 5x a night and I do the same thing. Sonetimes she wants me to hold her for a little bit in a chair before putting her to sleep! Any advise is great!! I m 5 weeks pregnant and super sleep deprived

    Reply

    • This msg is old but we have the same problem. Did you manage to go back to sleep training her? I don’t know what to do. We are so lost.

      Reply

  2. We have been sleep training our baby boy (almost 7 months old) for the past 2 weeks. Initially, the changes were amazing. We went from 3-4 feeds a night to a single night feed between 12am and 2am, and no other wake-ups (mostly). The changes happened quickly – within 4 days.

    I don’t want to cut out that single night feed just yet because our baby is on the small side for his age. BUT I’m wondering whether the single night feed makes it a bit confusing. After all, how does he know what time it is? And doesn’t it make it a bit inconsistent?

    (Just a bit of background: We put him down awake and the bedtime routine goes “feed – bath – PJs”, rather than the other way around (which it used to be). He settles quickly for the first sleep (didn’t even cry at all tonight, which was amazing). He uses a comforter bunny, which admittedly does have a pacifier on it, but we don’t put it in his mouth – if he wants to find it, he can, but we don’t put it in. Mostly he just rubs his face on the bunny. Sometimes he finds the dummy in the morning – when I go in there in the morning sometimes he’s rolling around happily with the pacifier in his mouth.

    After some very successful nights, last night was not so good: a LOT of crying at 10pm, 11pm and 3am (over 40 mins 2 of those times), although I only fed him once – at almost midnight. Why is he going backwards with the wake-ups? Should I just completely night wean, so the message is clearer and more consistent?

    Incidentally, we are using the extinction method, as Ferber style timed visits only served to enrage him and prolong the crying. It’s tough to listen to. But it was getting better until last night… What can we do to keep the success rate going? Do we need to drop that final night feed? Any tips for night weaning?

    Reply

    • Did you get an answer? This is us exactly but at 11 months. And she is bottle fed and I cant get her to stop night waking- would love your thoughts. If I drop the bottle at night fully- how to console her long wakings?

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      • My little one is 12 months and hasn’t had milk feeds at night for about 6 months. If he wakes which is rare he’s usually lost his pacifier or thirsty so he has a little water and goes back to sleep. Perhaps try the Gina Ford method of a dream feed at 11pm which will see him full until 6:30am at the latest. You start at the time and feed only water if they wake so the milk feed association dissappears. Then each week you bring the time forward to 9:30/9/830. This should help I hope. My boy feeds 0630/7, 930 bottle/nap and 1030 snack, and 12 lunch, and 1:30 bottle/nap, and 3 snack, and 4 dinner, and 5:15 bottle and bedtime routine with bottle 6:30/7pm. If he drinks too little at bedtime feed I offer the rest at 9. That’s it. I he sleeps 7-630.

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    • yes, this is my exact question too and issue!! Did you get any closure on this?? Or find a solution?? Please help!! 🙂
      lindsey.

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    • Hi, did you find the solution to this? I have the exact same problem. Im thinking his one night feed is confusing him so i should night wean him completely now and sleep train x

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      • Heya… I think the only solution really was time. He’s now 14 months old.

        After the original sleep training attempt at 7 months old (referred to above), we vacillated… but in the end the bubba fell into a routine of feeding once a night, usually at around 4am. This became quite a settled pattern for a while. You see, if I didn’t give him this feed, he’d be wide awake for the morning at 5:45am. But if he got this feed he often slept to 6:45 or 7am, so this suited our family better. So I just kept doing it for a while.

        But at 13 months old it was getting to be too much, and it was clear it was just habit, he didn’t really need it. We were down to 2 feeds a day: 4am and 5pm.

        So I stopped going in at 4am when he called out. At 13 months old, he wasn’t so much crying, it was more like yelling out. 2 nights later, he was done. No more night feeds. No more calling out. He was cool with it So yeah, it took a while to get there!

        Now, at 14 months old, he finally sleeps through (almost all nights, unless disturbed by an unusual noise or a nightmare). We put him to bed at 7pm and we don’t hear from him until 6:30am(ish). But I honestly think time was a major factor here: he had to be ready.

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        • Sounds like things went beautifully honestly. People often get stuck with a 4/5 AM snoozebutton feed and as you observed, the alternative is to start the day really early. So you stick with the snoozebutton for a while until they get a bit older and then you quit offering it. Usually there is a bit more than “a few yells” when ending the snoozebutton but as he’s now a toddler you’ll sometimes get that 🙂

          Well done!

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        • I know this is an old thread but if you happen to see this I’d love to know if you offered the bottle later, after the “snooze button” so he feeds once in the morning and once in the evening?

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        • That’s fantastic that he now sleeps through. I am in exactly the same boat as you were initially with our 6 month old. Our situation is exactly the same. I’m just wondering what you did after he started waking more frequently? Did you stay consistent with only feeding once a night and put up with the crying sessions? Or did you just end up feeding him back to sleep again?

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          • I’m also in this boat! Have been sleep training for almost a month, initially it seemed like it was working, longer chunks of sleep and only two night feeds at 12 and 4:30 (he’s 6 months old), but now he cries ALL NIGHT. I’m getting less sleep than before we sleep trained, and I really don’t know what to do.

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            • My son was exactly like this and I agree that time is key. My son is 14 months old and is finally sleeping through the night. We’ve never tried sleep training though because I don’t believe in the cry it out method. My spouse doesn’t help out at night so it was always way easier to just feed and change him and go back to sleep. I do, however, try to make sure he eats enough solid food during the day in hopes that’ll keep him from getting hungry at night. We also gave him his own room. He’s been fine sleeping in his own crib for sometime but we were still sharing a room. That could be irrelevant I’m not sure. But we basically didn’t push the issue and just gave it time and he weaned himself. No crying and minimal sleep was lost.

  3. Hey there. love the article!!! I have a quick question. I have been able to put my 5 month old down awake for about 2 weeks now. our bedtime routine is bath nurse massage book. sometimes we skip either the bath or massage but I alway keep nursing at the front of the routine. the only reason I moved it to after bath was I found the bath time wakes him up and he us cranky afterwards so nursing makes the rest of the routine happier for everyone. So I don’t nurse him to sleep and after a book we dim h
    the lights say good night
    u gently sway him for no more than a minute and lay him in his crib wide awake with no toys or pacifier. just him. he us usually asleep within 10 min. Now it seems he used to do a 6 to I hour stretch but now will only do 4 if I’m lucky and wakes up screaming so u always nurse him because I don’t like him screaming that way. I did do the Ferber for a couple nights and managed but the type of crying on his first wake is worse than that. All the associations you mentioned in the article I don’t seem to do with my boy and am wondering if anyone has any other suggestions? I thought once he could soothe himself to sleep we would be OK but we seem to have gotten worse.

    Reply

    • This is my life, my 5 month old falls asleep on own happily after well established bedtime routine. She does not feed in the night anymore but after a 5 – 6 hour stretch is up every 20 mins or 45 mins, I am beyond exhausted! If I try to feed her it does not change the wakings, I started giving soother once I noticed it was ramping up, to slow the crying and it works at the moment but the waking continues! so lost. I did CIO with my first child but this one does not really even cry at bedtime at all and she will not go back to sleep after waking that first time no matter what, she gets to talking and totally awake if I do not intervene. I have left her initially babbling and on and off crying for up to 30 mins in the middle of the night, so sign of dozing back to sleep. Did you get a response?

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      • This is my 13 month old. If I don’t intervene she goes from crying to banking and wide awake for an hour or two! I have no idea what to do!!

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    • I’m in the same boat as Jenny, Jillian, and Brianne. My 14 month old son has been going to bed awake every night for well over 2 months but the night wakings continue. I thought he just wasn’t getting enough milk since we have had struggles with breastfeeding from the beginning, but he eats and drinks like a champ all day long so I highly doubt that. Now I am 11 weeks pregnant with #2 and my supply is all but gone so he just pacifies back to sleep throughout the night. That worked for a few weeks, but now he is awake longer and longer with a 1.5 hr wake time last night at 4am. He takes awesome daytime naps and we have experimented with 1 nap (1.5-2.5 hrs) or 2 naps (1-1.5 hr each = 2.5-3 hrs). I think he does slightly better with 2 naps but honestly it’s just not that different. His last nap is done by about 4pm and bedtime is about 8pm, so he shouldn’t be overtired. I worried about being under-tired so we make the afternoon nap earlier but no change. He goes down for all naps & bedtime without assistance, in his crib with white noise.

      I guess the only thing I can think of is to make our bedtime longer, it’s currently just quiet play, diaper, coconut oil “swishing”, pajamas, hug and bed with white noise. Then midnight cry sessions, but we have neighbors living below us so I will have to do that out of the home which probably won’t be as successful.

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  4. Hi Alexis!

    So I know this is early but hear me out. My daughter is almost 4 months and has been sleeping through the night – I’m talking 10-12 hours since 2 months. We learned our lesson with baby #1 and have been very conscious about putting her down awake since she was born. Even very early on she was giving me 6 hour stretches. (She’s on formula so I know she’s getting enough to eat during the day and she’s a giant baby, 95% so doctors are happy). For the last 3 weeks she has been going down at her normal 7/730 and waking somewhere between 2 and 4, progressively getting worse after that. If we give her the paci she goes back to sleep but from then on she will wake every hour for paci. Is it possible that even this young I need to lose the pacifier? This also started right when she started daycare and has had constant colds since. Help!

    Thanks!

    Jenn

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  5. Hi alexis! Love your blog and your straightforward approach to baby sleep issues! I have an adorable 19 week old boy who I sleep trained at 14 weeks. He was giving us 5-9 hour stretches with one night feeding around 2/3am…. up until 18.5 weeks! Now he is waking every 2 hours! I assume its the 4 month sleep regression. Now when he has night wakings, he cries hysterically and I’ve been picking him up and soothing him back to sleep. I thought once he learned how to fall asleep independently at bedtime, he would also be able to fall BaCK asleep as well? What am I doing wrong? Help! Side note: he takes a paci to fall asleep and usually spits it out while sleeping… could that be contributing to the wake ups?

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    • Hi, I’m having exactly the same issue… did you get an aswer? What did you do? My sonis 4 months and really needs his pacifier… but wakes up every two hours for it…
      TIA, Susana

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  6. Alexis,

    Your blog is giving me the PEP talk that I need to help my son! Before I start with the massive changes related to our son’s sleep patterns, one question – should I remove ALL sleep associations at once or would that be traumatising to my son? I realise now that he has a TON of sleep associations (bottle at bedtime, rocking, timed musical device, paci and ME!). Do I take all those away at once??? I am honestly shuddering at the thought as it seems so cruel. Waaaah. HELP. ME. PLEASE.

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    • I want to know the same thing! But I don’t think she’s answering anymore questions as this post in over 3 years old already! :/

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    • I believe that ALL negative sleep associations have to be removed in order for sleep training to be successful. Good luck! You can do it! Your baby can do it too!

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  7. So my little one goes down awake. Routine is eat then 20 minutes later massage, pj’s, sound soother (that stays on all night). He never puts up a fuss with bedtime. However he usually only sleep 4 hours so I nurse him and then after that he’s up every 1.5 hours? I was nursing him at all those interval but the last week I just nurse after the first long stretch because he only eats max 4-5 ounces every 4 hours during day. We’ve tried to give him more but he just doesn’t want it. Help this mom of three get some slee please :). Oh and on the nights I work he does the same with my hubby so it’s just not a mommy thing:(

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  8. Hello there. My daughter has been a great sleeper since she was 2 months old up to six months. I always put her to bed AWAKE and she is able to make herself fall asleep. No pacifier, no music, no nursing. But, now that she is almost 7 months old she wakes up 2_3 times and crying with no consolation, even when I just pick her up. My doctor told me to let her cry and just every 10 to 15 min let her know am there. I did this for more than 2 hours. She just kept crying. No sign that she was going to fall asleep on her own. Only when I breastfeed she goes back to sleep in two seconds without a fight. What should I do??? Thank you for your article and amazing tips.

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      • She won, I quit! Took me 10 min to breastfeed her and just put her back to sleep, instead of letting her cry for hours. I think each baby is different. She is now almost two, sleeps in her own room no more middle of the night waking. She decided when she was ready to sleep through the night. Good luck!

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  9. Please help!
    While my colicky first child sleep trained beautifully, my new baby (almost 6 months old), has not. We do everything you say to do except my one concern is the nursing–perhaps there’s an association. BUT if I were to feed her just when she wakes up, and not feed her before she goes down for nap, she would go too long without eating and not get all the feedings in I think she needs.
    She goes to bed between 7 and 7:30 after short routine that does include nursing right before sleep, sleeps through the night now, wakes around 6 or 7, down for nap by 8:45 or 9, while awake but calm, cries herself to sleep, sleeps 1/2 hour, and the day devolves from there. I let her cry one hour after the 1/2 hour sleep and she never goes back to sleep, or if she does it’s only for a few minutes. She almost never sleeps straight through past the 1/2 hour. Maybe 2 times out of 100. We’ve been doing this for one month. Thank you!
    bean

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  10. Hi

    I’m on day 9 of sleep training and he’s still waking between 11-12pm! We have given milk first in the bedtime routine since day 1 sleepy training.

    This is really doing my head in!

    Please give advice if you can,

    Thanks

    Hannah

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  11. 12 mo old daughter has never been a good sleeper, really. Just started letting her put herself to sleep. Bedtime is great. 5 min or less she’s asleep on her own. She does have a pacifier but 9 times out of 10, it’s across the crib when she falls asleep so I don’t really feel that’s an issue. Why is she waking up so frequently throughout the night now? It’s like “I’ll put myself to sleep but you will pay for it all night” lol. Wakes up whining that lasts half an hour or longer. She’ll fall back asleep for a few minutes then start again. This has gone on for almost 2 weeks. When we go in to pat her and walk out, it seems like it makes it worse. HELP!!!!

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  12. Me too! My 11 month old boy has never been the best sleeper either – 30 min naps max and many, many night wake ups. I just started the put down awake thing and it has helped with naps drastically – I am amazed at how much better he sleeps for those. I have mixed “camp out” and “ferber” for those and we are down to about 5-10 mins of fussing and then he is out for at least an hour usually – the other day, 2 hours! I couldn’t believe it. Now, fast forward to bedtime. It has always been easy – he has never really put up a fuss to go to bed. I have been doing bath, pjs, nurse (but not to sleep) and then pacifier and then hug/kiss, bed. He has been going to bed fairly easily (and this is the child who HAD to be asleep when you put him down). The first night was like a gift – he slept well (only woke a few times, yes taht is well for us ha ha) and we managed to eliminate the middle of the night feeding. But the last 2 nights have been a-w-f-u-l. Waking every hour to hour and a half. I go in and lay him back down and give him pacifier. It feels like I am doing this 8 million times a night. I am guessing the pacifier? He tries to hold my hand, too, like he needs extra boost of comfort. Not sure what to do. Very frustrated – its been 11 months of terrible sleep for me (and him!). Help.

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    • Hi Jessica! That’s awesome that your baby did so great with the change in the nap routine! So you know he can do it at bedtime too- but the pacifier at bedtime has to go! You could do Ferber or extinction at bedtime- extinction probably being the quicker solution. Good luck!

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  13. Good evening, I just came across your article in desperate need of getting some help for sleep training. After weeks & weeks of grueling sleep training and crying & sleepless nights we finally learned how to go to sleep on our own. At bedtime I usually spend 5-8 min singing a lullaby to our little one & cuddle him and then put him in his crib wide awake. I give him a kiss goodnight & that’s that. After a few minutes of rolling around he falls asleep on his own. However he keeps waking up around the same times 11pm, 1am, 3am & 5am. He is 6months now so I don’t think he is hungry that often. He does not take pacifier. I do not nurse him to sleep, he usually nurses 15-20min before bed. We have a small lamp that stays on as well as the music stays on all night. We have tried everything even cry it out but nothing seems to help. Please help us!

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  14. In case anyone is still reading these…We don’t understand what our 6 mo old is doing post-training (training was we sat by cot as she cried until she calmed). She goes down for bedtime without a hitch: no paci, no picking up, no lurking, etc., and she barely complains as we say good night and walk out the door, but she will wake at e.g. 10 pm, 2am, etc. seriously crying. We wait 3-5 mins to go in and sit with her but not pick her up. Paci at those points allows her to calm down enough at which point she drops out. Otherwise she’s crying quite strongly for an hour or more. We’re allowing feedings at midnight and 4. We feed immediately at those times without letting her cry.

    Naps are mostly crap and she doesn’t go down on her own very well for them. So, it’s not bedtime that’s causing the problem because bedtime is perfect. What is it then? Do we try to improve going down awake for naps and nap schedule first, or is there something we can switch up at night? Or is it a matter of gritting our teeth through the long bouts of crying? But they can be really long and this has been going on a while.

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    • It sounds like even though your LO isn’t using the paci to go down at bedtime, she might have still developed a sleep association because she gets it within a few hours of bedtime and then throughout the night. I’m not an expert, but from all my reading here I would maybe recommend ditching the paci overnight so that your LO wakes up each time exactly as she falls asleep.

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        • BC, can I ask what happened and what worked to get your LO to stop night waking and crying? I’m in this exact boat right now, it gets worse every night. Would love to hear your story!

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          • Hi Kate,

            Actually, what worked was hiring a professional! First step was to get her to nap at any cost during the day – to do all the things they say you shouldn’t, because she was super overtired. Then we worked on her going to sleep by herself at bedtime. Then finally we worked on her going to sleep by herself for naps, but it wasn’t working that great, so our professional suggested we drop to 1 nap even though she was a little young for it –and that finally worked.

            Good luck….

            Reply

  15. Hello, how are you? I have an 18 month old daughter and she still wakes several times a night to drink a bottle and will then go right back to sleep. Which method would you say has better results, diluting the bottle with water each night OR decreasing amount of milk each night?
    Thanks for your time!!
    Thanks in advance!!

    Reply

  16. Hello,

    We are on night 10 of sleep training my 7 month old daughter. She has finally learned to put herself to sleep, but she is still waking up around midnight and 4am crying. She usually cries for at least 40 minutes before going back to sleep around midnight, but sometimes doesn’t go back to sleep at the 4am waking. I am really at a loss of what to do. Our bedtime routine is feeding, sometimes bath or change diaper, baby massage, jammies, reading two or three books, sing a song or two, then put down awake. All advice and help would be much appreciated!!!

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  17. Hello, I decided to re-post here in case someone has advice….I have a six month old that has been co-sleeping pretty much since day 1. We have a bassinet by the bed that he won’t go in without screaming/crying. He tries to pull himself out. He can see me and I even put my hand on him, but he still cries. We really want to transition him into his crib. We started the other day, where I stay next to the crib and try to soothe him while he cries (screams actually) however he starts to cough because he is crying so hard. I end up feeling back and caving in and bringing him back in bed with us. He sleeps so long in bed with us; which makes it even worse, like they say “if it’s not broke, why fix it” but we really need to get it sorted out before he starts crawling. We don’t know what to do. Do you suggest we try the Ferber method? What do you do if he doesn’t stop crying (i.e. pick him up and soothe then set back down)?

    Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

    Reply

    • Ferber method should not be tried so early at 6 months, they do not know how to self soothe themselves at this point,,

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  18. Wow, this made a HUGE, immediate difference in my baby’s sleep. We stopped feeding him at least 20 minutes before bed, and went from hourly wakings from 3am onward to just two wake-ups per night. Thanks so much for the great advice!

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  19. Alexis, thank you so much for this post! After months of failed sleep training and dangerous levels of sleep deprivation, my son basically just slept through the night! I say basically because I woke him up at 4:30 am when I went to check on him because I couldn’t believe how long he slept!
    It turns out that getting rid of his timed music fishbowl thing and ending the night with books instead of a bottle did the trick!
    I’m hoping for an equally successful night 2 (minus the waking the baby momfail).
    Thanks again!!!

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  20. We used a SLIP from this blog to get our baby (then 10-months) falling asleep completely alone. Feeding occurs 20 minutes before bedtime. He was sleeping 7pm-5am most nights – yay! I’ll deal with the 5am snooze feed later.

    Now he’s 12 months and has started night waking again. 10pm, 1am, 3am…it’s totally unpredictable. Our doctor has ruled out medical causes. He will cry forever in the middle of the night – the longest we’ve let him go is 2 hours (I know). What gives? We sleep trained him?!!? Even when he wakes in the night he’s still going from 7pm-5am without feeding, so should we use extinction in this case?

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    • Any news from the frontlines? My baby is doing this now… anything help/has it gotten better? My baby will cry for a LONG time as well. It’s hell. I think the longest I have gone is 1 hr 40 minutes and that’s because I was exhausted and fell asleep with ear plugs in and woke to him still crying. My husband confirmed he had been crying. Also, he sits up in his crib to fight sleep.

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      • How old is your baby? Around 13 months, he just randomly started sleeping better. He was still waking early (4-5am) but no more waking up all night. I can’t say it was anything I did or didn’t do. I had started going in to rock him after 30-45 mins of crying, it just didn’t feel right to let him cry for much longer than that in the middle of the night. I was finally able to stop the early wakings by completely weaning him at 14 months (I assumed, correctly, that he was waking earlier and earlier for that one morning feeding). Sorry I don’t have better advice – my baby never followed a predictable pattern. I call him the ultimate sleep training resistor! Now he sleeps 7pm-6am most nights. I am a functioning human being again. Hang in there!

        Reply

  21. Thank you so much for your blog. We are on Night 5 of sleep training, full extinction. I devoured all your cry-it-out posts, as well as Weissbluth’s book (one of many I checked out from the library), as my main resources.

    Little dude (6mo) cried 35 minutes on Night 1, then 10 minutes or less since then. He wakes once for a feeding and cries for 5-10 minutes when I put him back down. His longest sleep stretch so far was 9.5 hours!! Then a feeding and two hours more! I finally have my evenings and nights back after co-sleeping had turned into an all-night, multiple-nursing-session affair.

    I know there will be bumps in the road, but thank you so much for helping us have the confidence to go for it.

    I appreciated your advice to buy a video monitor — it really helped with the resolve to not go into that room, but still know baby was OK. I think one of the biggest takeaways from Weissbluth’s book was the importance of going into sleep training with baby well-rested. I spent the week leading up to Night 1 making sure baby had the best naps and sleeps he’d ever had, whatever it took. One of the biggest takeaways from your blog was the importance of separating nursing from bedtime, as one of our issues was nursing to sleep (it worked so well at the beginning…). Now, after nursing, it’s dad’s job to take the lead with bath-story-song-bed.

    Thank you again.

    Reply

  22. Hello! thanks to this website i now just literally put my baby down in the crib and she falls asleep: no rocking, no paci, no holding, no standing there, no bottle or nursing. But I am still up all night, its a nightmare! She is COMPLETELY awake when i put her down. It takes her 5-10 min to fall asleep, and she usually sleeps till from 8pm to 1-3:30 am and then up every 40 min – 1 hour. She is now 6 months, i have started sleep training when she was 5 months. What do I do wrong? Naps are anywhere from 50 to 2.5 hours, in a swing. I have to fix the second part of night, don’t know how? please help!

    Reply

    • Forgot to say, that i don’t use monitors or any other devices, except for white noise machine, that stays on all night (Can’t sleep without it myself:)

      Reply

      • Have you listened to podcast episode 16? In it, Alexis talks about this very thing – baby waking all night even though you’re doing everything right.

        Reply

  23. We’ve been doing pick up put down with our 11 month old and it had been working well. Then I stopped breastfeeding (son refused to nurse and I went with it and he now has formula from a sippy cup). Since then bedtime has been much as before and naps are fine but he still wakes once (usually around 4am) and will not settle except sleeping on me. It can take up to 2hours and feels like a huge step back. He won’t settle at all for dad.

    Does anyone have any tips?

    Reply

  24. We started sleep training about a month ago and clearly have a feed/sleep association issue becuase the chart above is our life, but only two feedings:). With that said, I also tried nap trianing and it has been a disastor. Did I mention I have twins?! I want to start fresh. Do I need to catch them up on sleep before starting again? They are exhausted from not sleeping duiring naps and also night time has been hell. Or, can I start immediatley and move the bottle up 20 mins?

    Reply

  25. Please help! I’m exhausted. My son is 9 months old and we started sleep training a little over a month ago(because i was waking up with him 15-20 times per night) We started by doing the bed time routine and night weaning down to once a night(bottle not breast). It would be better(only 3 or 4 night wakings) for a few nights then it would get worse and worse as each night came. Then we took away the pacifier and it was 3 nights of him literally screaming(in the middle of the night) for 2 hours each night. So we gave the pacifier back just in the middle of the night (still going to bed and down for naps without the pacifier). Then after a few days it would slowly get worse and worse at night (10-15 wakings) then we night weaned completly. He is still waking up 3 to 4 times in a good night and 10 times on a bad night. I am so exhausted. Thoughts?

    Reply

  26. Is it possible that some babies cannot be sleep trained? We tried for 2 weeks, and he was still crying for up to an hour when we put him down ‘drowsy but awake’. He’s 6 months old, and would sleep basically all night after giving in, after lots of crying. We took a 2 week break because we just couldn’t take the Crying anymore, and are now trying again. Tonight is night #3, and he takes 60-90 mins to cry himself to sleep at night. It’s awful. The first round we did check ins every 15 mins, so this round we’re doing no check ins. I don’t think it’s helped! His bed time is about 7:00-7:30, usually about 2 1/2 hours after last nap. HELP!! Do we give up?

    Reply

  27. My baby’s night waking follows a different pattern. She goes to sleep awake and then wakes a half hour to an hour later and then maybe the next hour or two and after that sleeps well the rest of the night. We’ve just done CIO with the bedtime and it wasn’t that bad but I help her Witt night wakings because I know she’d cry a looong time as even helping her can take hours to get her back to sleep

    Reply

  28. The reason none of these sleep training experts answer the “what if they are regressing”, “what if THEY JUST NEVER STOP CRYING FOR HOURS”, “I’ve tried ALL of the methods mentioned here and nothing works” questions : they don’t know. Baby sleep is a complete crap shoot and none of these opinions are based on real science.

    Reply

    • Yes yes I’m totally full of it, have pulled ALL the advice on my website entirely out of my butt, and baby sleep is a complete and utter mystery.

      Listen I get that you’re tired and frustrated. But please don’t take it out on me OK? Despite what you may believe I am not the source of your frustration.

      Truthfully I know a lot. More than the average bear. And while not every piece of advice has a cochrane review study behind it, there is a substantial amount of “real” science behind my recommendations.

      You had a terrible experience and it didn’t fix things. Option a) there was some small, likely non-obvious issue that undermined your approach. Option b) I’m a fraud who knows nothing and babies are unknowable.

      One of these is true.

      Reply

      • Hi Alexis, Although I believe you know a lot from your experiences, I am wondering about this “real science” you mentioned. I am a scientist by training and cannot seem to locate many peer reviewed articles on the subject of evidence based practices for sleep behavior modification, let alone infant sleep . In fact, the few articles I have found seem to suggest that babies will generally form adaptive sleep habits over time, with or without any form of sleep training, and that no sleep training method is superior to any other (including no intervention). Could you please point me to some references? Thank you.

        Reply

        • I feel I’m being called upon to substantiate the claim that sleep hygiene matters. Welp OK.

          There is a strong body of research on infant sleep. Is it perfect? No. Does it need for funding and research? Yes. However I disagree with your assessment that there is not much, nor that there is no evidence for sleep interventions. I know everybody is hoping to find that they don’t have to do anything differently because different = scary so we want evidence that we don’t have to do it. And to be clear, if you don’t want to do anything differently I support your choice to not do anything differently AS LONG AS what is currently happening is working for you.

          There are lots of issues with this sort of research that may never get resolved so I’m not sure what the standard of evidence is that you would find compelling, but I feel what exists today, while imperfect, creates a very strong case. There are issues with consistency and parent-reported surveys. And there is some truth that people, over a long enough timeline, will find some sort of plan that “works” (more on this) so surveys will show that eventually everybody is sleeping. However if the mother of a 2 YO has accepted cosleeping with her child latched on to her boob throughout the night (yes this happens and is more common than you think) fills out a survey saying her child no longer wakes at night, would you call that a successful sleep outcome and evidence that no intervention was necessary?

          “The most recent review of the literature was published in 2006 by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine (Mindell, Kuhn, et al., 2006) in conjunction with a standards of practice document (Morgenthaler et al., 2006). This review of 52 treatment studies for bedtime problems and night wakings in young children found that 94% of studies were efficacious, with >80% of children treated demonstrating clinically significant improvement (Mindell, Kuhn, et al., 2006). These improvements were maintained for 3–6 months. More specifically, empirical evidence from controlled group studies using Sackett criteria for evidence-based treatment provided strong support for unmodified extinction and preventive parent education”

          http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/138/1/e20160762.long

          http://www.smrv-journal.com/article/S1087-0792(15)00153-7/fulltext

          https://academic.oup.com/jpepsy/article-lookup/doi/10.1093/jpepsy/jsu041

          https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3190851/

          http://www.sleep-journal.com/article/S1389-9457(08)00313-4/fulltext

          http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0095454308000341?via%3Dihub

          Reply

      • How come you havent responded to the many other questions? If you say you can help, then please help us all struggling to figure out this baby sleep thing! There is a reason why this person doesn’t believe in sleep consultants, because sometimes nothing helps! So a little understanding and walking through our issues would be great!

        Reply

        • I haven’t responded to the many questions because of just that…there are so many. I say I can help and I think I have – I’ve written a comprehensive evidence-based sleep book that addresses all manor of sleep problems and helps parents troubleshoot what’s not working and develop a plan to improve it. Ive written blog posts and recorded podcasts on this topic as well. So I hope you’ll excuse me when I bristle at the suggestion that I’m not being responsive enough or doing enough to help.

          So your kiddo wakes up 2-3 times a night even while falling asleep independently. There is a whole chapter in the book on troubleshooting this exact issue. Have you read it? If not start there. There’s also a few podcast episodes on this topic so giving them a listen might be helpful.

          Reply

  29. Hi there, I’m really hoping you still reply to these!

    My little guy just hit 10 months and we recently weaned that 5/6am night feeding(I was being lazy because I’d get another 1.5-2 hours of sleep) But now he is still waking at night… to start he goes to bed At 7pm and will have a bottle half an hour before hand, He has ALWAYS put himself to sleep awake at naps and bedtime, No sleep props or anything. We just had night 6 of no bottles, he refused the water ones and was down to 1 oz so I know he’s not hungry. During the day he has about 21oz of formula and nutritional solids which he throughly enjoys. He has 2 naps lasting an hour and a half – two hours each.
    So here is our problem night 1 he woke up at 1am would lay there for 15-20 minutes quiet calm and I thought he was sleeping then all of a sudden he’s screaming this went on for over an hour of back and forth between laying calmly then melt down. Night 2 was the same thing but from 4am – 530am, night 3 he woke up at 5, did the same thing for about 45 minutes, night 4 we were at the hospital so he went to bed at 9 and woke at 7 so I just got him up for the day as normal, night 5 he slept ALL night – YAY But then last night again he was up at 3ish and screamed blood murder until just after 4, with 2 10/15 minute intervals of me thinking he was sleeping. When he wakes up I usually give him 15/20 minutes before heading in there, and when I do I’ll just lay him back down tuck him with a kiss and leave (same as bed time) his diaper is not overly wet and there’s nothing else I can think of that would keep him awake. He eventually falls back asleep until 7/730am but I’m wondering how I help get him over waking and screaming for an hour. I’m worried he isn’t getting the sleep he needs and this will become habit. It’s also disturbing to the rest of the house and sometimes I contemplate just feeding him again because I know if i do he’ll only be awake for 15 minutes for the feeding then he’ll go back to sleep.

    Sorry I am rambling but I tried to cover all basics you may ask, to get the best possible answer!

    Thank you!

    Reply

  30. Dad here (and I’ve been reading the 400+ comments since about 4am). Trying to help mom get more sleep. While we evenly split covering the night shift, mama needs more sleep and we feel like we’ve come to another dead end. Baby boy is 12.5 months. He’s never slept through the night, but has gone 9 hours on a few special occasions (I know that can be considered sleeping through the night, but waking up between 4-5am for the day is no bueno). Going to bed around 7pm is relatively easy, and falling asleep alone hasn’t been too much of a challenge. It’s the waking between 12am-5am that is killing us. Every night he wakes at least once, and to be more precise, it’s probably 2-4am-ish. We’ve tried the whole cry it out, but the dude has stamina and is relentless. He sits up in his crib and whales. The easy and fast fix has always been a bottle. Right back to sleep after he crushes it. He’s a big kid; 95% percentile in all categories. Some people think he’s just hungry and it is what it is.

    He gets a lot of colds, so that disrupts his sleep, and he’s had fairly major constipation (which we’re working on with a GI doctor). Have consulted with a sleep nurse and she says nothing we can do until his GI issues are sorted and back to normal (adults don’t sleep well when constipated, am I right?). So lots of health related variables. Including a week of HFMD last week, which was awful (lots of sleepy cuddles that week).

    His room is comfy, safe, dark, and we use white noise. So no issues there.

    Between 6am-7pm he is an angle. Literally the easiest, happiest baby I know (no bias). 7pm-6am it’s like Satan enters his sleep soul. He naps during the day fairly well too. Some people have said there are just some babies that don’t need as much sleep as others. I suppose, and perhaps we should play the lottery because we got a real winner on our hands.

    Mama has struggled with the CIO method, so I’m not sure that’s an option.

    Does this pass? Is it just a matter of time? Most of our friends have these sleeping angle babies that are much younger and sleep 10-12 hours already (whatevs). Does he just have a big appetite?

    It’s now 7am and he’s asleep, but on my chest in his room so mama bear can sleep. He loves to cuddle.

    Please help. Any insight. I know we’re not the only ones, but we feel like we’re alone on a island of sleepless hell (and we want baby #2, but how do you get their if you’re too exhausted from #1 [he doesn’t even cosleep; exhaustion has been the best form of birth control]).

    I enjoyed your blog (and shared with my wife) and I’m curious to see if people are still commenting. Hoping one of you has our golden ticket. Thank you!

    Reply

    • “Trying to help mom get more sleep.”

      Bravo Dad, Bravo.

      So no, he doesn’t need to eat (I’m sure he’s happy to though). The constipation could be an issue but I doubt it? If he ABSOLUTELY CANNOT sleep without a bottle at 2-4 am the likely culprits are:

      a) something related to the bedtime routine. Using a pacifier? Is the last bottle of the day just prior to him falling asleep? Likely there is a change needed here.

      b) not tired enough. Sometimes if kids are getting a touch more sleep than they need they can’t FALL or STAY asleep at night. It’s possible he needs to be awake longer before bedtime, drop to 1 nap, etc. to bolster his sleep drive.

      I wouldn’t go nutz carving out huge chunks of sleep right away but consider making some changes to the bedtime routine and possibly pushing bedtime later by ~30 minutes.

      Reply

      • Alexis,
        I am so grateful for your quick response.
        We agree that he probably doesn’t need to eat, but its what has been getting us through, so it’s what we know. Your confirmation is helpful and we are comfortable knowing he’s not starving (at a mere 25lbs!).

        We are changing the routine tonight. A bottle has been his final send off each night. Tonight, it will be first; then bath, the PJs.

        He’s never taken to a pacifier. Which is fine. He has a lovey and has started holding it at night. Perhaps that helps.

        We don’t let him nap past 3:30pm and we plan for bedtime at 7:30pm. Going to start with the reversed bed time routine and go from there.

        So grateful for your quick response. Looking forward to gaining more knowledge from your posts and the comments. Thank you!

        Reply

          • Natasha,
            We switched bottle before bath, and made sure he was tired before we “went to bed”. He does down like a champ. He still wakes up in the middle of the night, but this is due to the discomfort in his stomach and constipation, which we’re working on with the Doctor.

            I think advice offered will work great once his stomach is sorted out.

            Hope this helps!

            Reply

    • your post made me LOL. Nice to see a dad stepping up! Wish my husband was able to help more! How did things pan out?

      Reply

      • SD,

        Things are still up and down, We get a few good nights squeezed in there. As I mentioned about, we are confident that the discomfort in his stomach from constipation is causing restless nights. The bedtime routine is working and he goes to sleep very easily. Once we get his stomach back to normal, we should be all good.

        Hope this helps.

        Reply

        • Hi there,

          I’ve been a regular visitor to this site since my older son was a baby.
          Can you not night wean using Alexis’ instructions? They worked a treat for me. Just like she said they would.
          Cheerio
          Maya

          Reply

  31. I really appreciate this post as most sleep sites say once they go down awake all your problems will be solved, which is not always the case. I also want to point something out that is rarely mentioned on these sites and took me, well 10 months to come to terms with… some babies just have difficulties with sleep… period. It’s not necessarily anything we as parents have done (e.g., pacifiers, nursing to sleep etc.) And it’s not necessarily something you can just “fix” with a couple nights of removing the association, CIO or whatever sleep training method floats your boat. Just as every baby’s personality is different, so too are their sleep habits. I know I personally have struggled to put myself to sleep/staying asleep even as an adult, frequently resorting to turning the tv or other distraction on to quiet my mind, so why would I expect my 10 month old to be any different? Especially given all that they are going through developmentally during these early months and years.

    So speaking as a sleep training failure (and trust me, I have tried EVERYTHING), the best thing I have done for my own sanity and my baby is to accept the fact that we are not going to achieve sleep perfection and just accepting that has alleviated so much tension for us both. It has even allowed me to enjoy those middle of the night snuggles just a bit more.

    Reply

  32. I have been sleep training my 7 month old now for 4 weeks. I repeat 4 weeks! He goes to sleep on his with minimal fussing, but wakes every 2-3 hours the entire night. His bedtime routine is: Change diaper/Pjs->book->nurse->put on wearable blanket->sing lullaby->into crib he goes Fully awake. I don’t feel that the nursing is too close to the sleeping since there is a step in between and he is fully awake, but do you think it COULD be contributing to the problem? After his initial wakeup i let him cry himself back to sleep anywhere from 5-30 minutes. But i do typically feed him at around 1am/2am once he wakes up the second time. He does typically fall asleep during this nursing session, i put him back in the crib sometimes he’s awake and sometimes he’s really drowsy. Could that be an issue as well? He is waking every 2 hrs, max 3. I am not sure what else to do. He doesn’t use the pacifier anymore, and we are trained him for Naps too, in order to be consistent. I just dont know what else to do to help him sleep longer stretches. We are still sharing a room, but his crib is on the other side of the room so he cannot see me while i am in bed, and i watch the monitor to see him. Please help. SOS!

    Reply

  33. Hi,
    I have a 17 month old that gets put down awake, cries for max. 10 minutes, then falls asleep. ( no sleep associations) , just a bedtime story. He wakes up once in the night, anywhere between 12 and 4. at that point he cries so much that he’s inconsolable so I bring him to the bed, and he sleeps the rest of the night without any issues. Any idea of why he wakes up once a night? I know its not the best thing to bring him to the bed, but he just won’t stop crying when he wakes up in the middle of the night. its nothing like the beginning of the night. Any insight would be very appreciated. Thank you!!

    Reply

  34. Thank you for this. We are on night 5 of the Ferber plan and have been amazed how well our baby goes down and resettles when she wakes (in fact suspicious at how easy it’s been,) but are disappointed that she’s still not sleeping longer than a two hour stretch and woke 4-6x each night. We are down to one night feeding and a snooze button feeding (as compared to nursing hourly before sleep training). I just realized that her vibrating snugApuppy, which I was so proud of training her to use for a transitional object, may be the problem! She lays her head on it as she goes to sleep which causes it to shut off and she reactivates it a bunch of times before falling asleep. It only goes for 10 mins. She can find it and turn it back on easily when she wakes but it makes me wonder if I’ve just trained her to use it the same way she was using nursing: as a “task” that she must tend to each time she ends a sleep cycle!!
    In addition to continuing keeping her beside nursing further away from bedtime, I’m going to remove puppy and see what happens!

    Reply

  35. My 14 month baby (breast fed), can go down to bed or nap alone. I lay him down awake most every time, he has no troubles at all putting himself to sleep.

    Schedule is:
    Bedtime: 7:15
    Awake: 6:30

    Nap: 9:30-11
    Nap: 2-3:30

    The nighttime is where we have trouble. He wakes up 1-4 times, 2-3 being the average. 1 I consider to be an AMAZING night. A typical night he is up at 10:30, 1 and 4. I go in and nurse him and have him down in about 10/15 minutes on average.

    At this point, he should be STTN. I’ve been hesitant to let him scream because I have a 3 year old across the hall that I don’t want up. I also have a husband that travels all week so I’m typically solo.

    Any tips for how to sleep train effectively by myself?

    Reply

    • Well, it cant be, the child should sleep from birth one longer period of time. It strengthens his health and development. It is also difficult to say what could help, although you described the situation. Each child is different and needs you as a mother and your knowledge how to care for them. I was also in a similar situation and I wanted to use the help of a sleep coach for children, but when I was looking for it, I came across guides from Susan Urban. I bought one called “How teach a baby to fall asleep alone” through her website, but I think it is also available on Amazon. All her advice you have to adjust to yourself. Those advices helped me solve problems like short naps, early morning or night awakenings AND transitioning to a crib.. So I think that for you that could be also helpful. Check it and let us a know, how did you handle with it. Good luck!

      Reply

  36. Hi – While reading some of comments (appears some old and new), noticed a few people asking if the person who posted a comment has received a response as they have a similar issue. Not sure if everyone is aware, and are already a member to the Facebook group page. But, if not, figured would mention how helpful the group page is, with all kinds of info on, I guarantee every question you could possibly be needing advice on. Whenever a mom posts a question, seems there is always tons of other moms commenting with helpful information sharing their past experiences and what worked, while also having the professionals as admins commenting as well. The group is called Precious little sleep, and I highly recommend joining if have not, and interested in great advice from other non-judgmental moms. 🙂

    Reply

  37. Would you recommend putting your baby down wide awake after each night feeding as well? It’s diffciult because he falls asleep during night feeds!

    Reply

  38. Hi !
    Your website has been a guiding star for us and worked for us perfectly when we sleep trained our baby 9 months ago (when he was 9 months at that time). Since then we have been super consistent with the routine, not going in at all if he wakes up, and him sleeping in his own room and crib. For the last 9 months it has worked like magic. However for the past 3 weeks since he turned 17 months old, things have been hard. He fusses a lot while going to sleep , we leave the room no matter what, but he cries for 20-25 mins before falling asleep. He used to not cry at all and now its 20-25 mins. Yesterday he was resisting lying down, and fell asleep sitting in his crib after 25 mins of crying. Then he woke up at 4:40am and cried until 6am at which point I decided to go in as it had been 1 hr 20 mins. His usual wake up time is 6:30 and he used to get beautiful 10 hours of sleep. What happened even though we have the same consistent routine, please help!
    Thanks
    S

    Reply

  39. Help! My 13 month old has lost the ability to sleep. Right from the beginning she had a soother. And from such a young age she would put herself to sleep (with help from the soother). By 4 months she was sleeping for 10 hour stretches and by 5 months 12 hours. This continued till her 1st birthday. That’s when we took her soother away. It’s been a month and she still isn’t sleeping great. She cries for a minimum of 10 minutes when we put her down. She wakes up almost nightly and cries for approx 30 minutes and then wakes up at about 5 for good (she used to sleep till 7:30ish). And naps have become almost non existent.
    We are doing our best to let her cry it out and she has a stuffy to help soothe her but that doesn’t seem to be working.
    What are we doing wrong? This worked for her older brother within a week!

    Reply

  40. I heard that there was something called sleep training. It is supposed to help your newborn to get on the right schedule when it comes to sleeping. I want to know if anyone has heard about this.

    Reply

    • This was us 18 months ago, so I hear where you are coming from!! During the day, our ‘nap’ routine basically became: soothe for 30+ minutes (swaddling, rocking, running the water, white noise, dark room, sling, walks, lullabies – you name it), he’d finally fall asleep, he’d sleep in my arms (he wouldn’t sleep in his bed at all) for 10-30 minutes, then he’d wake up screaming, and we’d go through it all again. I knew he was exhausted. No joy. After two months of things getting worse and worse (and Baby getting crabbier and crabbier), we all finally decided to give sleep training a try.

      Reply

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Alexis Dubief Author

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