r/sleeptrain • u/ceramicpassion • Mar 10 '26
4 - 6 months Are the first six months just pure hell?
The first 2 months were hard but a piece of cake compared to the last 2.5 months. I feel like I’m in hell, and just don’t know what to do or what to try anymore.
My LO is almost 5 months old.
At 2.5 months my LO stopped sleeping. He never slept through the night before but he went from nights of 4 hours, then 3, then 2, and 1 hour before being awake for the day. To 2 or 3 hours of sleep and up every hour after that for the rest of the night.
So starting at 3.5 months I started a few sleep training things. Waiting 10-20 minutes to see if he settles, never did. Trying to comfort him back to sleep instead of feeding him, if it worked he was still up the next hour. I’ve been trying anything I could think of other than CIO and nothing changed.
Well I got desperate and we tried CIO, not full extinction, we started with waiting 20 minutes to see if he would settle and if he didn’t we would go out and comfort him and then wait 50, and the first night we even waited 2 hours after that. My mental health couldn’t handle that so I decided if he didn’t fall asleep after the 20 and 50 then I would feed him to get him to fall asleep. Well after a week of these rules, and slowly moving to even 30 and 60. He would only fall asleep first thing at night. Usually within 15 minutes. He has also fallen asleep well on his own for a few naps after this as well. He was also starting to do 5 hour stretches at the beginning of the night. Still up every 1-3 hours after that though. But he NEVER not once fell asleep from crying it out. So we stopped doing that.
I then heard about dream feeding. I tried that for one night. I woke up before him at 5 hours, picked him up and fed him and he slept straight through it. He woke up 3.5 hours later to feed again. But that was one of the best nights we have had. And since then (it’s been four nights) he hasn’t slept more than a 3 hour stretch again. Please send help I don’t know what to do. I don’t want to do CIO again, it helped a little but he would be up for 1-2 hours for every feed and it meant that I got less than 5 hours of sleep and I don’t know if I can do that again.
For wake windows I have been trying to get him to be awake for 2/2/2/2.5 but it’s usually more like 1.25/1.5/1.5/1.75/2 and that’s me trying to follow his cues so he doesn’t get over tired. Naps are anything from 5 minutes to 2 hours. But I’ve been trying to get him to take three 1.5 hour naps.
Bed time routine is an hour before bed (we aim for between 7:30-8 pm) we bathe him, Vaseline rub (he has bad eczema), trim his nails. We move to his bed room where the lights are dimmed and the noise machine is on 30 minutes before bed and read him a story or two. Then 15 minutes before bed we put him in his bassinet and let him fuss for 30 minutes.
Send help.
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Mar 10 '26
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u/ceramicpassion Mar 10 '26
I have tried to get the shortest nap of the day to be the last one, I know at least that much but I guess I read that between 4-6 months his naps could be anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours with a total of 3-4 hours and so that’s what I’ve been doing. But it sounds like it needs to be much closer to the 3 hour side of things.
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u/dundas_valley Mar 10 '26
You only have 8-8.5 hours of awake time during the day and you need more like 10. Add a good 2 more hours of awake time (take it mostly from naps, aiming for 4.5 hours is way too much, 3 is more age appropriate). A lot of babies at 5 months do 2/2.5/2.5/3. With 10 hrs awake time, I did not find CIO that bad. My baby was tired enough, took him 23 min of crying the first night (on and off), 11 min the second night, and 3 min the third night. After that, 1 min. And we started to get some nights where he didn’t cry at all at bedtime. We did 5/3/3 overnight, and I dream fed twice at 1 am and 4 am. At 6 months we dropped the 1 am feed and are now just at 4 am. Baby is 7 months now and rarely cries at bedtime, and if he does, it’s a few minutes and he’s out. I don’t think he’s cried more than like 5 min for naps either in weeks.
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u/ceramicpassion Mar 10 '26
Yeah I’m realizing that even though I’ve been stretching wake windows and trying to keep some sort of schedule he has grown fast enough that he is too old for what I’ve been trying, I haven’t been stretching fast enough!
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u/verb322 Mar 10 '26
No, my baby is 8 months and the last 2 weeks have been hell with this regression. She’s stronger and more active. I’m tired of her kicking me. At least when she was 6 mos she was just hungry as hell and would go back to sleep. She wakes up a kung foo ninja these days.
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u/Due_Highlight4537 Mar 10 '26
My baby is 5 months old. She was a good sleeper from 2-3 months old (we were getting 5-6h of uninterrupted sleep). Then she started sleeping way worst. We were getting 2-3h of sleep before she would wake up, and some nights she would wake up every hour. We were exhausted and tried CIO one night, I couldn’t handle it and she screamed for like 45 minutes and I gave up and decided I would try to live like this. But it was super hard so we spoke to our nurse and she recommended the chair method, it’s a variant of CIO but you stay with your baby all the time. I’m on my fifth day doing this and things are getting much better! She is learning to sleep by herself and now she is only waking up 1-3 times per night an tonight she settled after 15 minutes in the crib (and cried for maybe 5 minutes). You can look the method up and see if it can help you :) all the best wishes, it is rough when you can’t get enough sleep
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u/ceramicpassion Mar 10 '26
I’ve heard of that one, it’s so so hard for me to listen to him cry… I have to get earplugs and go to another room. I just want to swoop in and cuddle him to sleep, but I know he needs to learn, and he has proven he can fall asleep on his own within 30 minutes three times previously, he just hasn’t done it recently. Still if things don’t improve soon I might have to try this cause something has to change.
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u/Cool_Doubt2152 Mar 10 '26 edited Mar 10 '26
I would up your wake time 100%. I know you are trying to follow baby’s cues, and if it doesn’t work it doesn’t work, but you don’t have anything to lose. If you don’t want to go cold turkey, extend them by 10 minutes a day until you get there.
My baby couldn’t do 3 hours wake time until 6 months so if that feels a bit drastic try this first and gradually move upwards.. Shortest WW is usually the first (try 1.75-2hrs) all other WW’s between 2.25-2.5hrs. Mine is 6 months and his shortest WW is now 2.5hrs. Aim for day sleep of about 3-3.5hrs, cap the last nap if you need to so he has enough wake time before bed.
Mine has night wakes but is driven by his milk intake being on the lower end during the day so he makes up for it at night, but he’s 10x worse if he has too little wake time.
Lastly 3.5 months is quite early for sleep training, baby might not have been quite ready for it yet. Night wakes for feeds are still normal but give the sleep training a break, nudge your wake windows first and then go back to it if you need to. It might be that you need to try out a different method. I did Ferber for a few days followed by CIO at just over 4 months and baby goes to sleep independently now. However it’s important to note that sleep training doesn’t ALWAYS = reduced night wakes if baby is waking for a reason (hunger, teething, discomfort etc)
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u/ceramicpassion Mar 10 '26
That sounds like a great goal for me to aim for I’ll give it a try! We started some very gentle sleep training just letting him fuss for 15 minutes before feeding him to see if he has learned to self soothe, or trying to comfort him back to sleep instead of feeding to sleep if he had woken up again but been fed less than 2 hours ago. (With pediatrician approval, this guy is a chunk) Nothing major. We started the real sleep training at 4 months and he is almost 5 months now, but it’s been almost 3 months of no sleep and trying everything we can think of… so hopefully reducing nap time and adjusting wake windows help!
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u/Mama2One25 Mar 10 '26
My boy just turned 8 months. He’s never been a good sleeper but it got worse about 2 weeks before he turned 8 months. It’s just starting to get a bit better (waking every 1.5 hours until midnight, then wakes every 45 minutes). Also, he’s so strong and opinionated now and I can’t just sit him down and walk to the bathroom like I used to thanks to separation anxiety 😅 but it’s also the best time, his little personality is really developing and he’s just the happiest boy most of the time. Getting out of the house every day helps
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u/ceramicpassion Mar 10 '26
Oh yikes… you’re making me nervous. I don’t think I can take 2 more months of this/ it getting worse
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u/just_let_go_ 11 m | Ferber | complete at 4 m Mar 10 '26
It's good that you're getting on top of it early. 5 months is a great time to lock in a good schedule and habits. It can be hell if your schedule is off. As others have said, you just need more wake time. Aim for 10 hours awake and cap total nap time at 3.5 hours max. Make sure you have a good bed time routine, eg. bottle finished 30 mins before bed. If you're open to sleep training, pick a method that works for you and stick to it - only once you have your schedule sorted. Sleep training with a bad schedule is a recipe for disaster.
Our LO used to be hard work when it came to naps/sleep. We sleep trained at 4 months, refined routine and wake windows by 5 months, and had our girl down to 2 naps and sleeping through the night by 6 months. She's almost 9 months now and with just a few minor schedule tweaks along the way she's still sleeping through the night and napping brilliantly. There is light at the end of the tunnel!
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u/ceramicpassion Mar 11 '26
That’s fantastic to hear! I hope I can iron out a schedule and get this all figured out now that’s I’ve been given so much great advice. I didn’t realize a 3 month schedule was so different to a 4-5 month schedule!
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u/just_let_go_ 11 m | Ferber | complete at 4 m Mar 11 '26
You got this! At 5 months we went with something like 2/2.5/2.5/3 wake windows. We were the same though before I found this sub-reddit. The advice here is excellent and all the mods are very active and helpful.
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u/Gloomy_Chance6642 Mar 11 '26 edited Mar 11 '26
If he has bad eczema, don‘t bath every day - you‘re damaging the skin. Once a week is enough! Also, vaseline rub is not ideal for eczema, did you talk to a dermatologist that recommended this?
If he fusses for 30 minutes, he‘s not sleep trained. A one hour routine is insane. He‘s probably not tired enough once you put him in bed if he fusses for 30 minutes. Three 1.5 hour naps is waaaaayyyy too much daytime sleep if he‘s on 4-5 naps. That‘s like 5 hours minimum daytime sleep.
You need longer wake windows, accept shorter and less naps, shorter routine, more sleep pressure. If this doesn’t work yet you‘re baby most likely isn’t ready for sleep training (which is fine at 4.5 months!!).
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u/ceramicpassion Mar 11 '26
But isn’t it recommended to keep up a consistent routine? I assumed we needed to to help him understand that it’s bed time. I don’t do soap every day and I do milk baths frequently as well. And no it was our pediatrician who recommended it and it had helped immensely! After only three days the eczema has decreased significantly, and has completely disappeared in some spots. But he has had some stubborn spots as well so we still have plans to see a dermatologist.
And yeah I’m realizing that I probably had closer to a 2 month old or 3 month old routine for my 5 month old, I’m so glad I posed here or I would have never figured that out!
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u/Gloomy_Chance6642 Mar 11 '26
From 4 months on the circadian rhythm helps a lot - the baby knows it‘s bedtime mostly because of melatonin. My LO is 6 months. We breastfeed, brush her one tooth 😅, fresh diaper, put pyjamas on, sound machine on, sleep sack and put her in bed in a dark room. She falls asleep within 5minutes every night. I would love to add a book to our routine but she doesn’t like it yet, she always tries to put it in her mouth and screams when we try to take it out of her mouth so we‘ll give it another try in like a month or two.
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u/ceramicpassion Mar 11 '26
Ha! Yeah my LO isn’t quite sure how he feels about story time, he doesn’t hate it but he stares at me instead of the book basically the whole time 🤣
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u/Amk19_94 Mar 10 '26
Sorry I’m confused, is he falling asleep at the start of the night independently? When were you trying CIO? Middle of the night? Your bedtime routine is way too long imo, don’t turn the white noise on or the lights off until you put him in the crib, awake. Apply sleep training method of your choice. For night wakes give 10 min of consistent crying before responding, if he’s still going after those 10 min go and feed, and put him back in whatever state he’s in after the feed (so if asleep don’t wake him up).
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u/ceramicpassion Mar 10 '26
Sorry for the confusion, so we have him in a bright room for the bath rub down and nail trim and only move him to a dim room with noise machine 30 minutes before bedtime. And we put him in the bassinet awake and let him CIO for 30 minutes. He used to settle in that time but he hasn’t been lately. And yes we have also been waiting at night to see if he settles and he never does. We started at 15 at night and gradually we have gotten to 30. He never settles. We have always had to either comfort him to sleep or feed to sleep in the middle of the night. If he has been crying for too long even after a comfort or a feed he will cry for an hour or more until we spend the time to truly put him to sleep. Full asleep in our arms for more than 10 minutes in order to stay asleep and transfer.
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u/Amk19_94 Mar 10 '26
Ok I think the issue is your schedule and lack of consistency. Leaving him to cry it out for 30 min at bedtime but then assisting to sleep just teaches him to cry for 30 min and then you’ll do what he wants. First fix your schedule and then apply consistency. For bedtime you need to persist until asleep. For night wakes I wouldn’t do 30 min, I’d scale back to 10 min of crying for now (I’m guessing you have night wakes issues because you’re assisting to sleep at the start of the night and because of your schedule) , if he doesn’t settle you can feed or assist to sleep if you fed recently. I’d follow 5/3/3 for night feeds (don’t feed until 5 hours since bedtime feed, then 3 and then 3).
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u/ceramicpassion Mar 10 '26
The only reason we got to this point was he never ever settles. He escalates every time. He cried for 2 hours straight without falling asleep. And we have tried to be consistent waiting 30 minutes for everything, bed time sleep and middle of the night, sorry if my explanation is confusing. We started at 15 over a week ago and we read we are supposed to lengthen so we are now at 30. Should we start over at 10?
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u/52andbraced Mar 10 '26
He doesn't settle because he's not tired - that's why you have to fix the schedule - so he has more awake time during the day, then is tired at bedtime.
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u/ceramicpassion Mar 10 '26
Yeah I’m starting to realize that from what others have said. He just gets so cranky during the day that I assumed he needed the extra sleep
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u/willgraham1 5 m | Ferber | Complete Mar 10 '26
10000% a baby under 6 months crying that long is undertired. They don’t have the stamina if they’re on an appropriate schedule. I would be amazed if following 2/2.5/2.5/3 didn’t consistently get your baby falling asleep in under 20 minutes, and under 10 by the end of the week. You shouldn’t have to be lengthening CIO over time - it should be dramatically reducing as they get better at falling asleep!
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u/Amk19_94 Mar 10 '26
10 for middle of the night wakes is my recommendation, but for bedtime you need to follow through until he’s asleep. Doing 30 minutes only and then soothing he’ll never put himself to sleep because he knows if he cries for 30 minutes you’ll help him. So you need to be consistent and stay out of the room at bedtime until he’s asleep, every night. The first night will be tough and it’ll get easier quicker.
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u/ceramicpassion Mar 10 '26
I guess I just get worried he needs something, hungry, a burp stuck or something cause it’s happened before and usually he settles within 30 minutes so I just assume something must be wrong. But it sounds like I might need to change my mindset.
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u/Unlikely-Word3155 Mar 10 '26
My baby just turned 6 months and I feel like we are finally maybe possibly on the up and up. She’s a fussy one and honestly months 3-5 were insanely difficult (month 4 being absolute hell) like you said, worse than the first two months… I think the exhaustion really catches up at that point.
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u/ceramicpassion Mar 10 '26
It really does. I wanted 2-4 kids before this but the past 2 months has had me really questioning if I can do this again…
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u/Unlikely-Word3155 Mar 10 '26
Saaaaaame lmao. I do think the second time around we will be better prepared. Who knows maybe we even get luckier with the temperament and sleeping 😅 plus an older sibling to keep them company
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u/pedrostutz Mar 10 '26
I tried everything with my baby and he is just a horrible sleeper. Suddenly at 12 months old he just started sleeping through the night. Didn’t change a thing. He would fall asleep independently with no tears but just frequent waking. We tried Ferber. We tried CIO but he would bang his head on the crib so we have to go in. All that to say you may be doing nothing wrong. It’s good to try different advice but at the end of the day just have to try to get through it and eventually they will start sleeping. But yeah the first 12 months were hell. He’s 13.5 months now and I feel like a new person now that he’s sleeping. For most babies they will start sleeping better before then and I hope it happens for you very soon!!!
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u/ceramicpassion Mar 10 '26
Well it’s good to know it might just be his temperament and that it might not be me doing something wrong. But I really hope this doesn’t last 8 more months… and I am so sorry you’ve dealt with this torture for that long!
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u/pedrostutz Mar 10 '26
Here’s to hoping it will get better soon!! Hang in there. It’s so hard!! I sympathize with you. I hope you have good support and can find some time to nap.
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u/ceramicpassion Mar 10 '26
Sadly most of my support lives an hour away so this has been really hard on me. Luckily I have a very very supportive husband or I don’t know if I could make it through this.
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Mar 10 '26
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u/ceramicpassion Mar 10 '26
I keep hoping he will just figure things out on his own eventually cause it truly feels like nothing I do changes anything.
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u/ksidly Mar 11 '26
I read this and I'm basically going through the exact same situation except we do have more awake time like others said. My little one has short naps and averages about 11-12 hours of sleep a day but she still wakes up 1-3 hours. After reading your post, it makes me truly believe that it's the eczema that is keeping them from sleeping through the night. My girl also has bad eczema and also doesn't sleep past 4-5 hr stretches.
Imagine being itchy everywhere and not being able to scratch it. I wouldn't have good sleeps either. Hopefully you find a solution and yes, it's been absolute hell.
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u/ceramicpassion Mar 11 '26
Well the thing is he used to scratch his face off every night. He would pull off his mittens and we would see a horror show every morning. I think this is one reason why he used to wake up every hour. But now after treating it with Vaseline he doesn’t scratch it hardly at all! We don’t even have him wearing mittens any more and he usually only has one or two new scratches on a daily biases. Now regardless of if this is the cause or not we do have plans to see a dermatologist.
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u/Strong_Ad4813 Mar 11 '26
You need to drop to 3 naps and then try sleep training again. If babies wake windows are shrinking and can’t seem to stay awake they are probably overtired and need to catch up on sleep. Don’t keep sleep training it won’t work until the schedule is fixed
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u/ceramicpassion Mar 11 '26
I’ve been trying to drop to 3 naps, but I always assumed he was too overtired to stretch the wake windows so it’s been tricky. But yes I plan to give things a bit of a break and focus more on wake windows and less naps!
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u/Strong_Ad4813 Mar 11 '26
It’s okay it’s a process. Try some 3 nap days to reset and catch up on sleep with contact naps. If baby has been up a lot at night their sleep debt builds quickly and there is a pattern in their wakes when they are overtired. Every baby is different and has different sleep needs but the average is like 14-14.5 hours at this age. My daughter’s was 14.5 at this age and I had a schedule that allowed only 14 hours and sleep training/ transitioning from the swaddle she quickly became overtired as well. I threw all the sleep training out the window and held her to sleep a lot of the night especially in the early morning because that’s when they wake a lot when overtired. I remember she slept 17 hours a day for 3 days and then the overnight wakes went away and those wake windows were easy to do for a 3 nap schedule that worked
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u/ceramicpassion Mar 11 '26
He seems to only need 12 hours which seems wild to me and why I assumed he was over tired all the time. I assumed he wasn’t sleeping well at night cause I was doing something wrong and not that he is not getting enough wake time and too long of naps during the day. After even one day of changing things it has been making a difference!
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u/Familiar_Gas_1706 Mar 11 '26
Don’t obsess over naps. Don’t obsess over bedtimes. Follow the baby’s cues and before you know it you’ll realize they’re sleeping much better. We did Taking Cara Babies with our first and drove ourselves crazy. Were a little lacks with our second and happily enjoying the snuggles and riding the waves with our third (4.5 months)
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u/ceramicpassion Mar 11 '26
We were following cues when this all started, and we tried to follow cues for a month but things kept getting worse. that’s kinda how we got here, but I will admit I’ve probably been over thinking things a bit.
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u/Heccabuff Mar 16 '26
My LO is almost 4 months and has eczema. Our ped recommended cortisone and then Vaseline on top, cleared it up overnight. We only bathe once a week bc of how dry it makes her. Also getting lots of exercise was a game changer for sleep. She would fight naps like crazy until we took the advice of optimizing wake windows with tummy time and stand ups. She’d fall asleep quickly.
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u/Master-Internet2270 Mar 10 '26
Bad eczema is a red flag for allergies. Is he formula fed? Could he have dairy allergy? Look into (dairy) allergy and sleep problems, there are so many examples.
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u/ceramicpassion Mar 10 '26
Exclusively breast fed, we thought it might be a dairy problem so I cut dairy for about 10 days and it didn’t improve. He never had any bloody or mucus poops either. It has improved a little with religious Vaseline application via pediatrician recommendation.
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u/pink_camouflage23 Mar 10 '26
I second this! I cut dairy from my diet and things improved but we still weren't baseline. Turns out, eggs were also the culprit for my little guy. I heard gluten can also be a big factor too
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Mar 11 '26 edited Mar 11 '26
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u/ceramicpassion Mar 11 '26
It’s possible we have an allergy problem but I will say he has never had any blood or mucus in his poop. He is gaining weight at a great pace. He is even big for his age. He almost never spits up.
Eczema runs in my husband’s family, so I don’t think it’s allergies. I even decided to stop eating or drinking milk for a while to see if it improved things since he is breast fed, but after 10 days it didn’t change anything. Still, I know it’s possible it could be allergies so I’ll still keep an eye out.
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u/l_eihpos Mar 10 '26
You're missing around 2 hours of awake time and have way too much day sleep. And you're also sending confusing messages to your baby by not being consistent.
Update your schedule to 2/2.5/2.5/3, or 2/2/2/2/2 for a few days if he really can't handle the longer wake windows. Cap naps to three hours total.
Once you've implemented that schedule for a few days, pick a sleep training method and stick to it.