r/sleeptrain • u/The_Chilled_Arvo • Mar 20 '26
Success Story When and why did you sleep train? Was it effective?
very curious to hear from as many as possible on when and why they started sleep training, and especially whether they are happy they did it/if it reduced night wakes for them
planning to ST my second child around 4/5 months and I’m so scared it won’t “work on him”
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u/FreeEnergy6116 Mar 20 '26
6 months—Ferber. My pediatrician scared me & said if I waited much longer, my daughter would be able to pull to stand in her crib but not lay herself back down, so sleep training would be a lot harder 😅
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u/ksnatch Mar 20 '26
6 months for us. But only so that he could learn to fall asleep independently.
I wasn’t willing to let him cry it out for middle of the night wakings. If he woke up, I’d give him a few minutes to allow himself to settle back down, if I saw that he was having trouble then I’d go in a help him back to sleep (which was usually nursing). I’m a strong believer that especially that first year, if they’re waking up, they need you.
His middle of the night wakings stopped eventually, on their own. My son is 18 months and has been sleeping through the night consistently since he was about 10-11 months.
And no, my nursing him back to sleep when he woke up had no effect on his ability to fall asleep on his own at bedtime or naptime at any point.
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u/PreviousFocus78 Mar 20 '26
What technique(s) did you use? I’m interested for the same reason!
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u/ksnatch Mar 20 '26
We tried Feber first for a more gentler approach and quickly realized it wasn’t working. So we tried CIO. A couple things I will say: 1. Have a cut off time that you’re willing to let baby CIO for and be prepared to call it quits. (I’ve seen some people say they let their baby CIO for over an hour and that’s just insanity to me),for us it was 30 min max.
- Be prepared to attempt multiple times, with multiple failed attempts before it sticks. We tried twice for two nights and he didn’t seem to be taking to it at all. On the third attempt, he was asleep within 10 minutes on night 1!
Just remember all babies are different so you can only take the advice on these subs with a grain of salt. You will recognize what works for your baby and what doesn’t. Our pediatrician was very adamant about waiting until 6 months to sleep train, but out of desperation we first tried at 5 months and he didn’t take to it. Our third attempt happened to be when he turned 6 months and lo and behold it was extremely successful!
Good luck!
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u/PreviousFocus78 Mar 20 '26
Thank you so much for your detailed response! Our doctor was adamant we should try at 4 months but I’d like to wait a bit longer!
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u/EducatorOk5759 Mar 20 '26
I also had this same experience with my now 8m old. She falls asleep (generally) on her own with no assistance. Depending on what time and how long she is crying for middle of the night wakes, I help.
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u/megkraut Mar 20 '26
My daughter was 5 months on the dot when we decided to move her into her own room and sleep train. I waited until she could put her pacifier back in her mouth by herself, we worked really hard on that. Also, I worked from home with her so I needed her to be on a “reliable” schedule so I would have time to work before she woke up.
Before we even started in her own room we worked really hard on getting her to go down awake in her bedside bassinet. That included bed time routine, feeding, and a book. Then I would put her in her bassinet and lay next to her, holding her hand or humming until she fell asleep.
When we did begin the official sleep training it started off exactly the same as what she was used to, just a different bed. Then I eventually moved to the corner of the room in her rocking chair while she attempted to fall asleep. I was quiet and if she cried I would tend to her right away. I think this was important because she was comfortable knowing we would always come to her, and with her being young enough to not be fully aware of her surroundings to know I was just a few feet away vs not in the room at all.
In my opinion, this gentle method of sleep training was the best parenting decision we ever made. It didn’t take long at all and she was even night weaned about 6-8 weeks later. She has slept through the night in her own room ever since then, happily and comfortably. We have the easiest night time routine now, at 19 months old, and we are all happy. We never did any form of cry it out, it was painless for all involved, and I’m confident she will have healthy sleep habits in the future because of this skill.
I am aware that sleep training is harder for some babies than others, many people will have different experiences. My advice would be to stay consistent. We made exceptions when she was sick or teething for extended periods of rocking and patting, but quickly got back to our normal routine easily after that. Never rock to sleep, or you’ll be doing it until they’re 2. Sleep training is much harder the longer you wait.
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u/katherine20109 Mar 20 '26
We sleep trained at 6.5/7 months. Our LO never got out of the 4 month sleep regression and was just impossible to lay down. He woke up every 45 minutes for months. My partner worked nights and when he was home we were just passing LO back and forth. One night he tried to give LO back to me and I said I can’t do it. I’m going to lay him down and just let him cry. So we started CIO from there. I know it’s unpopular but it worked great for our kid. He cried the first three nights for 30 minutes or less and has been sleeping through the night without tears for two years now.
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u/chattanooga-goose 22m | FIO | complete Mar 20 '26
we actually established independent sleep at 8 weeks with fuss it out. you can go back and forth on whether this counts as “training” - we would have pulled the plug if he had cried - but I just give this example to show that for some babies, they can manage it quite early and retain the skill. I don’t know that we’ll get this lucky with the next kid but we plan to try it again.
it absolutely did reduce night wakes for us, though making further schedule adjustments was essential to fully eliminating them. I’m really glad we did the experiment early because my son has never really known anything but independent sleep, and we’ve yet to have a major regression (knocking VERY hard on wood here)
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u/The_Chilled_Arvo Mar 20 '26
Oh wow ! Our lo is 7w, how do you go about ? Whst level of fussing do you tolerate ? And how can I do schedule adjustments so young? He literally doesn’t have a schedule (yet)
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u/chattanooga-goose 22m | FIO | complete Mar 20 '26
have you read Precious Little Sleep? I’d start there! we got on a relatively consistent 4 nap schedule and started with bedtime, using a consistent bedtime routine to cue him to sleep (but not assist). we gave him 15 minutes to fall asleep on his own. he didn’t really fuss or cry! just goofed off in his crib for almost exactly 15 minutes and then… slept. it was wild.
I’d try to get a sense for how much your baby currently sleeps in a 24 hour period and try to roughly calculate naps/wake windows based on that. at this age, 4-5 naps are appropriate.
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u/ExpensiveMammoth4578 Mar 20 '26
I want to do this (baby is 11 weeks) but when I’ve tried to let her fall asleep on her own she goes straight to full crying so i have to rock her to sleep. Pats and shushes dont work on her
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u/chattanooga-goose 22m | FIO | complete Mar 20 '26
that’s ok! try again when she’s 4 months or older. and I’d try to nail down an age appropriate schedule before then.
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u/ExpensiveMammoth4578 Mar 20 '26
I think her schedule is good so far. She wakes around 7-7:30. Then it’s 1.15/1.15/1.15/1.15/1.5/1.75. Bedtime around 7:45
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u/chattanooga-goose 22m | FIO | complete Mar 20 '26
I might recommend trying to extend those wake windows and dropping a nap. I suspect more wake time before bed might help with independent sleep if you’d like to try again soon. so like 1.5/1.75/2/2/2.5 or similar
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u/ExpensiveMammoth4578 Mar 20 '26
Okay thank you!! I’ll give that a try :) I’d love to get her falling asleep independently especially before any sleep training. Just want it to be as easy as possible for her
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u/chattanooga-goose 22m | FIO | complete Mar 20 '26
I get it! That was our philosophy as well. Good luck!
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u/argaman2 Mar 20 '26
When: 5 or 5.5 months or so Why: we thought it would be a good skill for her to learn to fall asleep in independently. A skill for life. And we also wanted to sleep better ourselves. LO was sleeping in her own bed already, but would wake up often. Was it effective: very much so. She became a good sleeper. Later we also did sleep training for night weaning. (First it was only to fall asleep at bedtime/naps, later we got rid of breastfeeding at night). How: adjusted Ferber. I read PLS and we went with that. Plus reading her on r/sleeptrain and r/newparents helped a bit
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u/wineandbooks99 Mar 20 '26
We sleep trained at 11 months and my only regret is that we didn’t do it sooner. We were cosleeping since birth and she basically spent the entire night latched to me, and was waking every hour or so. We did the Ferber method and by night 2 she was sleeping through the night.
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u/The_Chilled_Arvo Mar 20 '26
Wow! And still now) does that mean you can just go to bed at your pre baby time, sleep through, and wake up rested? It sounds like such a dream
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u/wineandbooks99 Mar 20 '26
She goes to bed around 7:30am and wakes at 6am (which is totally normal!) and we go to bed around 10pm so I’m usually a bit tired in the morning but it’s nothing a cup of coffee can’t fix. I will say my mood and mental health has improved significantly, I was in a very dark place mentally dealing with sleep deprivation. Plus she’s on a really predictable nap routine so I get my breaks during the day to unwind and do my own hobbies.
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u/ExpensiveMammoth4578 Mar 20 '26
Right when he turned 4 months we did CIO with no check ins. It worked great. We kept 2 night feeds by ignoring any wake ups within 5 hours of bedtime, and within 3 hours of a night feeds. Max crying was like 45 mins the first night. He dropped one feed within a week, and then slept through the night on his own within a few more weeks. He’s 3.5 now and we’ve never had to retrain.
Planning the same for my current baby when she turns 4 months. Only 5 more weeks to go!! lol
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u/laurenelizabeth8 Mar 20 '26
I didn’t sleep train my first so I was hesitant to do it with my second and I wish I would’ve done it sooner. I sleep trained my second at 10 months after months of bad sleep and started feeling really drained mentally and finally I just knew I couldn’t continue living like this! Within 3 days it was low key life changing lol and would recommend it to everyone. We’ve since trained him again after an illness started bad sleep habits again and it’s helped so much even to do it again at 13 months.
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u/BumblebeeGold2455 Mar 20 '26
4.5 months. No one was sleeping. Not us, not the baby. We were all exhausted and miserable. I went to Co-sleeping and that was something I really didn’t want to do. So I needed to change it. I read the book Precious Little Sleep. I highly highly recommend it. It made me understand the science better. It also goes through a ton of sleep methods so it’s not just one. You can decide what works for you. We ultimately did cry it out. Check ins did nothing but piss our baby off and restart the clock. By night 4 he went down, rolled over and fell asleep. I will say it made going to bed so much easier and we only had 2-3 wake ups per night versus 6-8 from previous. My baby didn’t sleep through the night until about 9ish months and still at 11.5 months I have the occasional wake up. I was fine with getting up with him to feed because he seemed like he actually needed it. And around 6-7 months it went to 1-2 times a night. For some, sleep training means fully sleeping through the night. For us it meant significantly less feeds, bedtime was no longer a battle (it’s peaceful and enjoyable), easy transfers after I fed him in the night, a well rested baby who is happy.
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u/dundas_valley Mar 20 '26
I sleep trained my son the week before 5 months. It was after all the Christmas holiday parties or I would’ve tried it sooner. Why? Bc I hadn’t slept more than 3h in a row since he was born. I was very sleep deprived and it started catching up with me around 4 months pp. I just couldn’t do it anymore, I needed him to do at least one longer stretch at night.
I am super happy I did it and have no regrets. We did CIO (I did not feel that my son would do well with check ins, thought gentler methods would result in ultimately more crying, and I’m happy with my choice). I strongly, strongly recommend making sure your baby is on a good schedule ahead of time. We spent basically all of December preparing. The longest my baby cried was 23 minutes the first night. He now puts himself to sleep at night and at naps. He went from sleeping 3h, then waking every hour or two the rest of the night to doing 5/3/3 many nights. If he woke up outside of that, he’d settle himself without me needing to go in (most of the time). We nap trained him 3 weeks after doing nights. After a month, we went down to one feed a night, so more like 8/3. We are still on that schedule and it’s glorious.
I was scared it wouldn’t work as well, but it did and I’m so glad I did it.
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u/AggroCragMountain Mar 20 '26
We sleep trained at 5.5 months. The first few nights were ROUGH, but since then, she has slept through the night (unless she is really sick or in pain from teething). She is 14 months now. It was so worth it, we are so glad we did it! Prior to that, she was waking up twice a night to nurse.
We slowly weaned the night feeds using the book “the sleep easy solution”. My sister swore by it, and it genuinely worked for us. I also only had to read a few chapters, which was so helpful when I was exhausted.
We felt like monsters the first 2 nights, but she woke up happy to see us, and is a very happy little girl! I try to frame it less like it’s solely for us, and think about how it’s a skill for her to learn, and having interrupted sleep isn’t great for her either. Once I thought about it that way, that it helps her, it made me feel a lot better about it.
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u/Ok_Active_675 Mar 20 '26
My baby was waking multiple times a night and was having troubles falling asleep without a feeding association. I was exhausted and desperately needed more sleep. We started at Ferber at 4 months. It took a week and they’ve been a great sleeper ever since.
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u/anxietyamirite Mar 20 '26
In the middle of sleep training now. We’re on week 4, I believe, and started just after she turned 6 months. We started because she was waking up every 1-2 hours and the only thing that would usually get her to sleep was nursing (EBF). She’d been cosleeping with us most of her life due to some issues with reflux, but was mostly sleeping through the night until the 4 month regression hit.
I’d say I have mixed feelings. On one hand, I love that I can sleep in bed without worrying about waking her up. On the other hand, she’s still waking up to feed and is cranky some nights because of the new teeth she’s getting, so I feel like our results have been mixed. BUT she did finally put herself to sleep last night without a single tear, so I’d call that a win!
We’re using the give baby a chance method, I can’t stand to let her cry longer than a few minutes at a time. She also gets really worked up to the point of vomiting if we leave her to cry for too long. Id rather progression be slow and steady imo.
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u/Efficient_Internet13 Mar 20 '26
We started with sleep hygiene from the very beginning! Fueling up the tank during the day, not letting any individual nap go longer than 2-2.5 hours, differentiated between day vs night sleep, created a consistent bedtime routine we have been following since 2 weeks old! Also stated taking opportunities to put down awake very early + leveraged the Snoo at night.
We did FIO (would give him 5-10 minutes of fussing) around 2 months and he very quickly starting falling asleep independently. We never had to do CIO. He’s been STTN since he was 12 weeks and I am so thankful we started it in the early days (in an extremely gentle way) because we never had to do CIO!
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u/The_Chilled_Arvo Mar 20 '26
Sounds like you got yourself a great sleeper ! What was he like before FIO?
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u/Efficient_Internet13 Mar 20 '26
We started putting down awake but drowsy around 2 weeks. During the day it was in the bassinet and we would have to do multiple soothing rounds (paci, giggle giggle, SHH, or rock and put back down awake) and he would go to sleep. At night we used the Snoo so we would Put him down wide awake and let it do its magic!
Overall I think a better than average sleeper but we also were so consistent. I don’t do well without sleep so I knew I had to establish good sleep hygiene as early as we coukd!
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u/Friendly_Item248 Mar 20 '26
Hi, first time mother of 2 month old here. How did you please differentiated between day and night sleep? I feel like our little girl has issues falling asleep without calm dark environment especially for the third nap of the day. Can't it confuse her day/night nap differentiation?
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u/Efficient_Internet13 Mar 20 '26
When he was a newborn, until 5 weeks, he sleept pretty much anywhere but at night he was in our room in the snoo. We started crib naps in his room at 5 weeks and we let a little natural light in vs pitch black. Also pre nap time routine is different than bedtime routine.
Naptime- into nursery, diaper change, read a book, sleep sack, into crib
Bedtime- bath, lotion bottle, pjs, book, bed (was snoo in our room but now it’s in his crib in his nursery)
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u/ClippyOG Mar 20 '26
6 months, Ferber. Was desperate after the 4 mo regression (which landed at 5 mos). Best parenting decision I’ve ever made. Worked in 1 night. She’s been an amazing sleeper in the 3 years since.
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u/Fun-Diet4980 Mar 21 '26
Sleep trained at 4 months because prior to that, our daughter would not sleep without being held. It worked, but we engaged a sleep consultant.
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u/The_Chilled_Arvo Mar 21 '26
How did you manage to survive the nights? How can you sleep when holding her ?
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Mar 21 '26
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u/sleeptrain-ModTeam Mar 21 '26
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u/Fun-Diet4980 Mar 21 '26
It was a rough 4 months lol. Me and my husband took turns. But many nights, I would sit up and a pillow propped up and she would nurse on and off all night. That’s why I got a sleep consultant. I couldn’t fathom figuring out and tracking myself. The sleep consultant was the best money we ever spent. She’s 16 months now and she’s the best sleeper in the house. Shes our 2nd and we didn’t really “need” to sleep train our first because she only woke up 1-2 times per night. But in hindsight, I wish we had sleep trained her because she didn’t really start sleeping through the night until she 4.5 year old.
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u/pretty-peony- Mar 21 '26
LO one born early at 36+4 in August. We always said we would sleep train when it was time.
We were 95% contact sleep day and night until about 5.5 months and for 2 long weeks + 6m shots, LO was back to 100% contact sleep and also woke up every hour. (We think late regression)
Sleep trained using gentle Ferber. We used the timing as a guideline but ultimately chose our own timing after the first night and following what worked best.
First night, awful. So awful. Gradually got better and by the end of the first week LO was sleeping under half hour. We were expecting 3-4 weeks before we could train naps. But to our surprise, LO nap trained themselves. Now, barely any rocking. Follow all sleepy cues (and rough wake windows, but not by any sleep experts approval cause most said our LO was broken basically haha).
We have our evenings back, our bodies back. LO is thriving more than ever. We are all much happier
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u/Ocean_Lover9393 Mar 20 '26 edited Mar 20 '26
Progressively got earlier by a month with each kid I sleep trained (6,5, then 4 months lol). My only goal was ever to teach independent sleep at bedtime to help me figure out why wakes a night were happening
My middle child was the only one who was really waking multiple times at night beyond the newborn stage. Turns out he is low sleep needs and just needed a lot more awake time. Sleep training didn’t solve this, but it did help me figure out the problem. Along with the help of a friend who also had a lower sleep needs kid at the time.
And also, willing to accept the downvotes on this, idc, but I firmly believe that it is absolutely not normal or healthy for any human 6 months and older to be fully waking multiple times at night needing help to go back to sleep. Sleep deprivation is detrimental to all. I don’t care what social media says, I believe in science.
All my kids were sleeping 9+ hours straight by 7 months old and I wouldn’t trade that for them (or for me tbh) for anything. Good sleep is foundational.
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u/wineandbooks99 Mar 20 '26
I totally agree with this! The anti-st on social media is what deterred me from doing it for so long and what made me give up on our first attempt at 6 months. My daughter turned into a much happier baby once she was getting proper sleep.
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u/boycott_tuesday Mar 20 '26
I uninstalled my social media for this exact reason. Someone’s always anti-sleep training, anti-co-sleeping, anti-formula, anti-baby led weaning…etc etc. . It started wearing me down rapidly
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u/boycott_tuesday Mar 20 '26
I agree!! I think not enough people consider the effects that poor sleep can have on a child’s development and they’re more worried about babies getting calories+comfort during the night. Babies need sleep just as much as food, sorry not sorry
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Mar 20 '26
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u/sleeptrain-ModTeam Mar 21 '26
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Mar 20 '26 edited Apr 17 '26
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u/The_Chilled_Arvo Mar 20 '26
Wow ! Does she sleep though the night regularly now ? Do you feel rested yourself ?
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Mar 20 '26 edited Apr 17 '26
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u/Tough_Employer_2652 Mar 20 '26
4 months! we did 10 minute check ins as long as there was consistent crying! i think 4-6 months is the best window to do it! as others mentioned - schedule and 10+ hours awake first then sleep train!
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u/The_Chilled_Arvo Mar 20 '26
I really can’t wait, only 2 more months for us ! Only thing is that we really have almost no schedule now haha, baby is 7w and only schedule is wake feed poop play sleep
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u/Tough_Employer_2652 Mar 20 '26
hahahahah we were the same, we also did wake-eat-play and followed sleep cues at that age. i found it super hard to get a (very rough) schedule in place till around 3-3.5 months so do what works for now! I always tell people it’s just survival and what gets you the most sleep possible till you sleep train.
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u/Immediate_Reach_1663 Mar 20 '26
We sleep trained our first at 4 months, he’s 18 months now and has had maybe 10 nights total since then that he’s needed us in the night. He sleeps 7am-7pm and naps for 2 hours midday, will definitely be doing the same with our second! I was also worried it wouldn’t work, but it’s generally science backed.
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u/Cool_Doubt2152 Mar 20 '26 edited Mar 20 '26
Night wakes increased from 3 to 5/6 and sometimes every hour of the night at the 4m regression stage.
My baby had a feed to sleep association and I was mostly breastfeeding at the time so only I could put him to sleep for all naps, bedtime and night wakes. So I was losing my mind.
I did Ferber at 4 months, baby slept in a next to me in our room. I reduced the check in intervals to 3/5/7 minutes. It worked for the first few days, he would cry always for the 3 minutes but usually fell asleep during the 5 min window, then it started stretching into the 7 minute window and I found my presence was making him more frustrated because I was going in to check on him and wasn’t giving him what he wanted (feeding to sleep, even though he’d had his night time feed 30 minutes before bed).
So in the end I thought, I’ll leave it a bit longer before going in the first time and see what he does, and this time he just whined and went to sleep. That was after a week of 3/5/7 minute Ferber.
Ever since he has gone to sleep by himself without me needing to do anything, other than follow his usual bedtime routine. I put him in his sleeping bag, white noise on, say night night and put him down and he’s out within a minute or two. Night wakes reduced to 3, so I treated all of them as night feeds, and put him down immediately after feeding when he was still awake (so no transferring after falling asleep) and he’d roll over and go to sleep. If he woke during the night and wasn’t hungry, he’d go back to sleep after a minute of leg slamming and whining
We did bedtime first, let it set in for a few weeks and then did naps all in one go and had no issues.
Moved to his own room at 6 months and he sleeps even better because we’re not also waking him up by turning over or rustling the duvet or creaky floorboards! Down to 2 night feeds now, the first one 6-7hrs after bedtime, and he’s taking very little in quantity so we’re going to wean down to 1 feed soon. We have the new added dilemma of him rolling on to his front, and banging his head on the cot when trying to roll back over (which is really fun) and I think is mostly the reason why he wakes up at all, so other than that we are all getting far more sleep
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u/motownmods Mar 20 '26
We didn't put a date on it. We waited until he was getting a lot of his calories w solid foods. That was probably around 12/13 months. Probably will start earlier w next one.
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u/Secure_Particular303 Mar 20 '26
We sleep trained (ferber) around 7 months, but started a strict bedtime routine/bedtime/nap schedule around 4.5 months which greatly improved things. I waited until my son no longer needed overnight feedings and was about to stop nursing. It was super successful for us! Really hard (on me haha) for 2-3 days and then totally changed our lives. He’s still an awesome sleeper (11 hrs a night) at 22 months! Pregnant with my second now and will prob sleep train at about 6 months this time.
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u/Fickle_Tap_5863 Mar 20 '26
We are 3 weeks in today. He was 4.5 months when we started and it’s been life changing. We went from almost hourly wakes for pretty much since he was born to sleeping through the night in under a week. I feel like a functioning adult again.
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u/The_Chilled_Arvo Mar 20 '26
I’m so glad for you ! Do you mean it’s taken you 3 weeks to sleep train?
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u/Fickle_Tap_5863 Mar 20 '26
Sorry, no. We started 3 weeks ago. Within 3 nights he was sleeping through the night. Within a full week he was consistently sleeping through the night.
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u/EducatorOk5759 Mar 20 '26
We sleep trained at 5m to break a strong pacifier dependency. We used the Ferber method and it took 3 nights. Now at 8m, we do have some middle of the night wakes which I will give a pacifier for to help her continue sleeping. We sleep trained because nights were terrorizing everyone and I was losing my marbles and so stressed out.
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u/Remarkable_Mango7588 Mar 20 '26
We sleep trained a week shy of 5 months (tonight will be night 9 so still solidifying the skill!). We had just gotten back from Japan a week before this, and my LO’s jet lag was way worse than when we were there for 10 days (14 hour time difference). I was contact napping during the day and sleeping in the rocking chair with him on my boob all night, so I was at my wits end. We always planned on sleep training, but just wanted to make sure he was over the jet lag first (we also had to co-sleep in Japan since the hotel we stayed at don’t have a crib). I think he was over the jet lag by the time we started, and we just had to get rid of the co-sleep habit we gained in Japan. I’m SO happy we did it (we did Ferber). We have our nights back, he’s in the crib at 7pm and falls asleep within 5 minutes since night 6. Night 1 was the worst, 1 hour of crying with 7 check ins, night 2 took 30 minutes of crying with 2 check ins, 1 check in night 3 and 4, no check ins starting night 5. He sometimes wakes up for a night feed, some nights he sleeps 10+ hours. Only struggle now is the 5am wakes but I really can’t complain, it’s really not bad when he does such a long stretch anyway! I just get up to feed him, and then he usually rolls around in his crib until about 6:30am after that.
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u/Triette Mar 20 '26
8mo, did talking Cara babies method. Took her two days. One night took us 30mins to get her down, night two 5 minute, by the third night she was out within a minute and has slept through the night without us having to go in there, a.k.a. she might get up and cry a little bit for a few seconds and then go back to sleep. Now she sleeps from 7p-7a
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u/Genuine_Strategy_9 Mar 20 '26
We sleep trained and it was 100% worth it! Actually night weened at the same time. Getting back my night time rest was great and I felt confident my LO was getting the rest she needed. She was sleep trained by 4 months, but we did go through a regression caused by me checking on her arm getting stuck in the crib every night around 5 months.
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u/pezeater805 Mar 20 '26
Around 4 months because she was waking every hour. Took to it the first night. She’s an amazing sleeper at 16 months
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u/monstromyfishy Mar 20 '26
Sleep trained at 5.5 months using happy baby method that became full extinction. Her 4 month regression didn’t seem to get better and the sleep deprivation was really affecting us. I was also going back to work. She completely night weaned about 2 months later. She’s 2 now and still sleeps 11 hours through the night.
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u/kerwon 9 m | sleep wave | complete Mar 20 '26
7.5 months with sleep wave, was getting 4-5 wakes a night and only two of them were for feeds. It took half a week, naps a bit longer, not much crying at all. Now baby settles themselves for naps and bedtime and is able to re-settle if there are disruptions or wakes between cycles. I only get up to feed or deal with dirty nappies now. Everyone is sleeping better!
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u/kowaluuh Mar 20 '26
Decided to sleep train because our LO was a Snoo baby and started rolling both ways early at 3.5 months. She needed more room to sleep so we sleep trained with crib transition at 4.5 months. She still cried for up to ten minutes every bedtime until a couple weeks ago. She’s 6.5 months now and only cries if the wake window is clearly too long. Other than that she quietly falls asleep.
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u/Icy_Lettuce_7383 Mar 20 '26
Currently 1 week shy of 5 months here. Idk what we did, but we started putting him in the crib and letting him fall asleep on his own (fussed and babbled, never cried) and it must have worked? We started like 3 days ago and today he’s done amazing. We didn’t expect it to fully work, and we had planned to Ferberize him at around 6 months. Oh well, hopefully we didn’t screw our kid up.
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u/Clarabel1994 Mar 21 '26
God I am jealous haha
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u/Icy_Lettuce_7383 Mar 21 '26
I have no idea what changed, the first two months we tried putting him in the bassinet drowsy but awake and it was an absolute nightmare. Maybe the universe is rewarding us for getting zero sleep the first 8 weeks lol
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u/Princess_sloth_ Mar 20 '26
I sleep trained at 4 months and it’s been the best decision for all of us. The 4mo regression was brutal and she was waking every 30-45 min for weeks. Nailing the day schedule is the key otherwise it’ll all go awfully. She took to it so quickly in a few nights, barely cried and didn’t need many check ins. Naps followed quickly after. She immediately became so happy in the day, in a matter of days was doing so many new skills with all her new sleeping! It’s the best thing ever waking her up and she is all smiles and babbles. She was waking 1x a night for a quick feed and back down easily usually. I had to retrain when she was sick once and after having visitors but it only took 1 night. Night weaned at 7mo easily and has slept through since (9.5mo).
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u/The_Chilled_Arvo Mar 20 '26
Amazing ! Do you yourself feel rested ?
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u/Princess_sloth_ Mar 20 '26
I do! It took a bit to readjust to sleep and not keep waking to check her but longer chunks were amazing and now I’ve never felt more grateful for a nights sleep and feeling good most days.
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u/imnichet [mod] 2y |Snoo/schedules| Complete Mar 20 '26
We established somewhat independent sleep in the Snoo at 6 weeks then "sleep trained" at almost 6 months. But she was already sleeping through with only 2 feeds and didn't even cry at all so I don't know that the sleep training really counts haha. It worked amazingly well.
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u/KiwiBanana_ Mar 20 '26
What did you do to establish independent sleep at 6 weeks? How was she sleeping before that?
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u/imnichet [mod] 2y |Snoo/schedules| Complete Mar 20 '26
We had a Snoo. Prior to 6 weeks I would usually put her in the Snoo already asleep but at 6 weeks I started putting her in it awake. Naps we did a mix of contact and Snoo.
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u/mint_7ea Mar 20 '26
I did Ferber method because my 6mth old was waking up all night. Like up to 12-15x. I felt i was losing my mind and nerve. So i had to, although I never planned or wanted to!
Outcome was very good, although early wake ups still happened, we still all got to sleep 'through the the night'
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u/The_Chilled_Arvo Mar 20 '26
Totally understand, 15x sounds extremely rough.. Why the air quotes? Did he not sleep through after Ferber ?
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u/pantoponrosey Mar 20 '26
We did it at about 7 months, after a month or so of him waking up every 45ish mins to eat. We combined it with adding a bottle of formula at night, and slowly transitioned to formula after ST as well. We tried Ferber and it went super poorly so we did full extinction, and after 2 nights our guy was sleeping 7-5, waking up for a feed, then going back to sleep for another hour or so. He’s remained a good night sleeper and napper (19months old now) and I’m so glad we did both ST and switching to formula! In our case, I just don’t think he was getting enough from my milk (and some solids at that point ofc) and wasn’t used to putting himself to sleep at night. He’s always been a fairly good napper, so we knew he had the capacity to get to sleep on his own.
Multiple people in my family have struggled with sleep, and I did for a time in my life as well. I’m a firm believer that knowing what to do to get oneself to sleep (lying quietly, relaxation, self soothing, whatever you want to call it) is a key life skill and by the time we sleep trained our little dude was really in need of learning it for nights. I feel like we got really lucky in that he has a chill temperament and took to ST well; I can’t take credit for that part!
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u/Expert91 Mar 20 '26
We started sleep training at 4months. I read Precious Little Sleep to prep myself and learn more about it.
We started at 4months because he seemed to have a circadian rhythm (had one longer stretch at night consistently since 3month old). We did CIO but capped it to 20min (if continuous crying) and 40min (if interrupted crying)z we realized that Ferber method didn’t work with us or our baby lol. He just got more pissed when we checked in.
I will absolutely do it again with my second baby (3months pregnant right now). It helped all of us get better sleep at night specifically after we moved him to his room at 6months. However, sleep training never truly ends tbh. We go through regressions, sick days, tummy aches, teething etc. and he would need more support so we have to sleep train again. However l, it does get better. He is 15months now and it takes us barely a night to get back on track after regression.
A few things we haven’t figured out yet with sleep training - 1. Sleep training while traveling- i have read that keeping the environment same helps a sleep trained baby thrive. When we travel, we stay in new places, how can I just leave him alone to figure out how to sleep in a new place. 2. Because he is sleep trained for a while now, he doesn’t know how to sleep on our bed or even just lie next to me and sleep. This becomes a problem when he is going through a phase and I am extremely tired to keep checking on him all night. I want to just get him to my bed so that we can all sleep but he looks at it as play time.
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u/got_em_saying_wow 21m | CIO | complete! Mar 20 '26
Hi! I just wanted to respond to your sleep training while traveling! We have traveled a bunch with our ST baby. It's never perfect. BUT the key is the following:
Environment: if your baby is in a dark room with white noise and a certain temperature at home, do your best to recreate that when traveling. Use tools like a portable white noise machine, blackout curtains, slumberpod, fans, etc.
Sleep items: if your baby sleeps with a lovey or a certain type of crib sheet or certain sleep sack, bring it with you!
Responding while away: we wait much longer to respond to night wakes at home, but when we are away we cut that time almost all the way in half. She wakes up nervous about being in a new environment even if we bring her comfort ites because she knows it's different. We still have her sleep in her own space, but go in to do a lot of check ins/reminders that she is safe and mama and dada are here.
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u/Expert91 Mar 21 '26
Thank you so much for sharing this. We haven’t figured out the slumberpod situation yet but will try your suggestions in our upcoming trip.
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u/notorious_ludwig Mar 20 '26
The “sweet spot” for sleep training is shown to be between 4-6 months. We sleep trained at 4.5 months and it worked great. Initially I was dead set on a gentle method and they failed SPECTACULARLY as we discovered being in the room like that only escalated our son’s crying, he wouldnt attempt to self soothe or allow us to assist unless he was held. We eventually graduated to Ferber and within a week we were all sleeping, with only one wake a night for a feed.
We retrained after sickness and travel because we stop sleep training boundaries during those times and it’s only ever taken a day to retrain.
Currently he has been teething since Feb 20, so every night he has gone to bed with pain relief with no issue. Then around 4 hours later he wakes, doesnt calm, will start hyperventilating if we do any form of sleep training or rocking and transferring back to the cot so has to be brought into bed to cosleep. I dont think teething is as intense for others, it just fucks my son up bad. But the final tooth bud is about to cut through, once that happens we will begin to retrain. Hopefully it goes well after so long!
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u/Bing-Crosby23 Mar 21 '26
Started to sleep trained at 4 months, then she got sick and it’s been 12 steps backwards since. Not going to do it again, it was very tough for her!
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u/Suspicious_Hunt_1995 Mar 21 '26
I was also convinced it wouldn’t work on mine. She was a week before 6m and cosleeping and waking all night every couple hours to BF. It took only 2-3 nights before she was sleeping through the night in the crib. I did check ins at 3-5 8-10 intervals and it never took more than 30 minutes total for her to fall asleep but usually under 10. I’m glad I did it when I did because she started teething right around 6 months and i probably would’ve given up on sleep training if I knew she was actively in pain while teething and crying because of that vs just not wanting to be alone. Shes 9 months now and has definitely had some regressions, lots more teeth and stopped STTN, but goes down into the crib easily every night af 7/7:30 and usually only wakes 1-2 times a night.
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u/Fin_Elln Mar 21 '26
LO is 7 mo and I refuse to sleep train in a classical way. We cosleep and feed to sleep, nighttime boob, daytime bottle w nanny as I am working. I just teached him to connect sleep cycles and follow the sleep guidelines of this sub. LO was a very difficult sleeper and now sleeps like a hrro w just 1-2 night feeds which he really needs (drinks for about 10 mins).
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u/M0mma0fMany 5 m | fading out method | complete Mar 21 '26
Mine at the time was 5.5 months old would not sleep, maybe an hour in total daytime sleep and was up every 45 minutes to 2 hours at night. I used the fading out method, I was already seeing major progress by day 3 or 4 but continued the process until we fully went through every step which was 3 weeks. He now sleeps a total of 2.5-3 hours during the day and sometimes sleeps through the night but usually just wakes up once to eat and falls right back to sleep, he’s 8 months old now
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u/Clarabel1994 Mar 21 '26
could you say a little more about the fading out method? Interested to hear!
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u/M0mma0fMany 5 m | fading out method | complete Mar 21 '26
The first couple days I rocked him until drowsy then put him on his floor bed and patted him until he fell asleep, the next couple days I just held him with no rocking until drowsy and then placed him on his bed until he fell asleep, this step took the longest to get him to drowsy but he would go to sleep within 5-10 minutes of me patting him. Next couple days I skipped rocking and holding and just placed him on his bed to pat him, he was falling to sleep within 10 minutes at this point. The next couple days I just kept my hand on him while he settled himself to sleep, no patting, he would move around but I just kept my hand softly on his back or stomach whichever way he was laying. Next couple of days I just sat next to him while he fell asleep and we had no issues at all, he never really paid attention to me being there at that point, I’d put him in bed and he’d turn on his side and play with his fingers until he fell asleep which he was doing within 5 minutes. After that I would just place him on his bed and walk out
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u/M0mma0fMany 5 m | fading out method | complete Mar 21 '26
From what I’ve read about it, you can do whatever will be easiest on both of you, some people start with laying them on their bed from the start but we wanted a more gentle method and knew this would be better on him. Also you can do each of these transitions for however long you feel necessary. Holding him with no rocking seemed to slow progress down so I went to the next phase quicker than the others.
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u/brieles Mar 20 '26
With the right schedule, most babies can be sleep trained. I sleep trained my baby at 8 months old, I was putting it off because I had seen so much anti-sleep training content on social media but I just couldn’t do the every 2-3 hour wakes anymore. I’m so happy I did it. My baby started waking just once at 3-5am for a brief feed after going to sleep around 8pm.
I think it helps to remember that most babies need 10+ hours awake starting around 4 months and sleep needs continue to drop over time. If you have less awake time than your baby needs, no amount of sleep training will fix overnight wakes.