Have you come to this subreddit out of desperation? Does your little one need to be assisted to sleep through feeding, rocking, bouncing, etc? Is your postpartum anxiety overwhelming, and leaving your baby to cry is too painful for you to do, but you know that you have to sleep train for the health of both you and your baby? Is your baby between 4 and 7 months old? Then this sleep training method may be for you.

(Disclaimer: no hate to anyone who does cry it out or other methods! You need to do whatever works for your family! I also can understand how the methods that work quicker might be considered more “gentle” by some, and that’s totally valid. This one is just for the mamas/parents like me who needed something that worked for anxiety over their baby crying)

This method is a combination of pick up/put down, Cribside comfort, and Fuss it Out using something called the 333 method. You’ll need a stopwatch for this (a stopwatch app on your phone will work fine)

Basically what you do is hold baby for no more than 3 minutes. If baby calms down before the 3 minute timer is up, you put them down in their crib (or bassinet) as soon as they are calm, even if it's only been one minute. But no matter what at the end of the 3 minutes, you put them into the crib (yes, even if they are crying). Then you can give Cribside comfort for 3 minutes (this may be cheek rubs, bum pats, shushing, vocal comfort, whatever works as long as they are in the crib and you're not physically holding them). Then after those 3 minutes, you leave baby alone for 3 minutes. No touching or contact at all. If baby is just lightly fussing, you let them fuss it out until they go to sleep. If baby is still crying after 3 minutes of being left alone, or if they escalate from fussing back to crying hard, you go back to Cribside comfort for 3 minutes. If baby calms down after those 3 minutes, you leave baby alone again, but if they're still crying after 3 minutes of Cribside comfort, then you pick them up for no longer than 3 minutes and start the process again. So it's basically a tiered approach. The first night might look something like: pick up, put down & Cribside comfort, leave alone, Cribside comfort, leave alone, Cribside comfort, pick up, put down & Cribside comfort, leave alone, Cribside comfort, leave alone and baby fusses it out until they fall asleep… and so on and so forth. You *follow your baby and what they need*. The key with this is that you don’t allow them to fall asleep in your arms, they MUST fall asleep in their crib on their own, but you are still there with them if they need you (or if, like me, your anxiety prevents you from leaving them). Also an important note, when you are holding them, you are not bouncing them or rocking them at all - just simply holding them in your arms and using your voice if needed to shush/comfort them.

This method teaches baby that the crib is a safe place to fall asleep, but it works well for babies (or parents) who can't do cry it out. I personally was not able to do cry it out because of my anxiety (I was an owlet mama too lol). It only ever involves letting them be to cry for 3 minutes, no longer! And you are still right there by their side the whole time.

The first night I did this method, it took about 40 minutes before my baby fell asleep. But he fell asleep in the crib on his own! For the first time ever! The next night it took about 20 minutes. The following night it took 30 minutes, then for a couple nights I was able to get him down in less than 10 minutes of this method. Finally after about a week, he just would roll over on his own and go to sleep the second I put him in the crib.

Once he started doing that, I would use this same method during his nighttime wake ups, in combination with the 5-3-3 feeding schedule (information about that schedule here: https://www.reddit.com/r/sleeptrain/s/nSZDKHV9Ri ). Then I was able to nap train, which I was able to do in a few of days, and I literally had only done contact naps before this! I also was still able to roomshare until my baby was 7 months old, another thing that was fueled by my anxiety (as a side note, I found that once I was getting more sleep, my postpartum anxiety improved tenfold). Though babies do tend to sleep better if you are not in the room with them, but again… anxiety lol.

If you’re new to the subreddit, be sure to read the pinned resources from the mods! They can be found here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/sleeptrain/s/vBAwkZaHXN

This method works best when it is in combination with a bedtime routine as well as the recommended nap schedule and night feeding schedule appropriate for your little one’s age. Please note you will probably still need to do a night feed until your baby is old enough to be night weaned (usually between 6-9 months). But this method helped my baby go from waking up every 45 minutes to only waking up 1-2 times a night for a feed in about one week. After a month, he went down to one night feed on his own and then ended up weaning from night feeds altogether around 8 months, which is when he started fully sleeping through the night.

Now, of course he occasionally wakes up in the middle of the night. But now I set a timer on my phone for ten minutes, and 98% of the time, he will put himself back to sleep before my timer goes off. If it’s a bad night, like say with teething or sickness, sometimes he will cry for the full ten minutes, and in those cases I go in and give him Cribside comfort again. Usually he will calm after about a minute of Cribside comfort, and put himself back to sleep. But this has only happened a handful of times since sleep training!

If you choose to use this method and have questions, feel free to comment them here or message me! I’m happy to help. I did NOT invent this method, I was able to learn about it through comments on this subreddit, but I thought it would be good to have all the info that helped me in one post :) I sincerely hope this method will work for you like it worked for me! Of course every baby is different, but this one worked for us :)

Best of luck - I am wishing you all a good night’s rest!!

ETA: Be sure baby is on an age-appropriate schedule before sleep training! This is a very important piece of the sleep training puzzle :) if you need help figuring out what schedule would be best, you can comment here, message me, or make your own post in this subreddit! :)

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”

My baby used to sleep in 5 hour chunks. Now she wakes up every 45 minutes like she's being paid to ruin my sanity. We tried fuss it out, check and console, even just staring at her until she falls asleep from sheer confusion. Nothing works. I'm currently running on two hours of broken sleep and a cold brew that stopped working three cups ago. Please tell me this ends. Also if your baby slept through the night at 4 months please keep that information to yourself right now. I am fragile.

My LO turns 5 months tomorrow. He has been sleeping from 7:30pm to 7:30am straight through, no night feeds, for just under a month now and it has been completely life changing. He’s happier, I’m ecstatic.

He’s exclusively breastfed and initially when he was born he was going about 2 hours between feeds overnight. Then at 5 weeks he started doing 5 hour stretches, at 7 week he did a 7 hour stretch, and at one point he even did a 10 hour stretch a couple of times. Then, his sleep regression started a bit early. Right when he was 3.5 months, he started going back to 3 or 5 hour stretches overnight max.

I couldn’t take it anymore and decided we were doing modified Ferber.

2 nights. Two nights is all it took. After that, he was not only sleeping 12 hours straight (he basically self weened the night feeds altogether), but even his daytime naps were great. We’re still perfecting a schedule and sometimes his daytime naps get thrown off, but his nights are down to a science. The best part is that HE seems so much happier.

I’m so grateful for the modifier Ferber method and I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to sleep train. I realized through this process that the training was more for me and my husband than it ever was for baby.

If you’re on the fence, I can confidently say sleep training made me the happiest possible mom I can be.

My tiny 2 year old (just hit 20lbs) fell asleep in my arms watching TV (nothing about that is typical for us). My word he is heavy. My arm is dead. But also I'm savoring this cuddle.

Edit: Reading these is really making me smile! I'm so glad I posted this :)

I can’t believe it.

For ref:

- baby is 5.5 months

- routine is 2/2/2/2.5

EDIT: Now baby is sleeping more overnight his wake windows are longer. Routine is usually 2.15/2.5/2.5/2.75

All naps were contact naps. At night baby would sleep no more than 40 mins at a time. I would feed to sleep or husb would rock to sleep and then we transfer to his bed. It was becoming almost impossible to transfer him as he would immediately wake, regardless of how asleep he was.

The last straw was when he refused be put into his bed at all at night and would only sleep in our arms. One night of that and we decided to sleep train.

My husband and I were so exhausted I don’t even think we knew how bad it was.

We are only on day 3 and have seen immediate success with Ferber.

Night 1: Baby cried for about 20 minutes total (with appropriate check ins) and then went to sleep. He still had multiple wake ups during the night but he did 2-3 hour stretches of sleep which felt like a miracle in itself.

Night 2: Baby cried for total of about 35 mins (with appropriate check ins). Baby then slept from 7:30pm to 7am. I even woke him for a feed at 3:30am and he went back to sleep after without any crying.

Maybe it’s too early to be this confident - but I feel like a new person. I am now so relieved and excited for the next part of parenthood. I’m so happy to have some of my life back and some personal space back. I love my baby so much but I breastfeed too so he was attached to me all day and all night.

He’s currently napping in his bed, for over an hour.

If you’re on the fence about trying it (we were deciding for a few weeks) I honestly can’t recommend it enough.

I wrote a post a year ago with an update of how things were looking in my family and people here seemed to find it helpful.

Just dropping in again to share a further update of our experience now that the formerly-terrible-sleeper is now a high energy 3yo. Three main thoughts:

1) Solid sleep habits mean you weather disruptions far better. An example: recently my toddler and I went on a full day outing organised by the preschool and on the coach back into town, he (like everyone) was exhausted. Napped for half an hour at 4pm. His bedtime is 8pm. I thought that night would be a wash. But when we started the bedtime routine as we'd done all these years, he just followed through and fell asleep at 8pm as usual. Slept well and through the night. I doubt this would've been possible without sleep training and having built some strong, independent sleep habits. Friends on the same coach (no ST) said the night was chaos in their house and only managed to get the toddler into bed at 9pm+.

2) An independent sleeper makes it much easier when you have another baby. With a new baby in the house, life is naturally a lot busier now. It's sooo nice to be able to put the baby to bed, then just hop into the toddler's room for our nightly snuggle in bed (we bought a single-sized bed, not a toddler bed, and I'm so happy we did this because I can fit on it too!!) Most nights we just lie there together in the dark for a few minutes before I pop up to leave whilst he's still awake. No fuss ever. He just asks to touch my hair then goes right back to sleeping on his own. Other nights I hang around a bit more, but he almost always falls asleep within 5 mins anyway.

3) The most gratifying thing is to see how this kid, who was a TERRIBLE sleeper as a baby (typically woke 5 times in the night pre-ST, and took at least an hour to fall asleep again even after we tried everything in the book) now has such a happy, healthy relationship with sleep. He still happily does his midday naps at 3yo+ and we never need to coax him to sleep. Naps are literally: "Into bed you go. Have a nice nap! See you later!" Exit room. He sleeps so well at night and wakes up rested and happy.

Long story short, ST is still the best thing we did for our kid. 100% would recommend it for anyone who's struggling through the nights right now!! Stay the course! It's sooo worth it!

We’re on night 10 of sleep training our 4.5-month-old, and he has become a completely different baby.

Before sleep training, he had daily meltdowns and wanted to be held basically all the time. He seemed frustrated and uncomfortable throughout the day. He needed to be rocked to sleep for every nap, which usually involved crying.

After weeks of a brutal 4-month regression (which he hit about a month early), we finally sleep trained about a week after he turned 4 months. Within a night or two, he learned how to put himself to sleep (and back to sleep) and it’s been game-changing.

He’s suddenly so much happier. During wake windows he’s playful and delighted instead of fussy and explosive. He smiles through tummy time. He no longer cries during and after feeds. His naps got longer. He’ll play independently for long stretches of time. At his last appointment, our pediatrician said he was a “joyful” baby.

I think he was just getting crappy sleep and felt lousy all the time. Once he learned how to sleep, that changed.

Not every night is perfect. We still get some MOTN crying, and sometimes he cries for a few minutes at bedtime. But the difference in his overall mood and comfort is palpable. I was terrified of sleep training - I cried the first night - but it ended up being one of the best things we could have done for our kid.

This sub has been a great resource, especially in terms of refining our plan along the way. For those about to embark on this journey… you’ve got this, and it’s worth it for those brighter days ahead!

I sleep trained with my first baby around 5 months and then at 1y using extinction method and it save my sanity. Fast forward, I had my second child but for the first year of her life she was always sick, so I always deferred sleep training her because she was so miserable. Then when she was 18 months, we ended up staying in the hospital for 3 months and I had to stay every night with her since she only wanted me. That experience broke me since I could barely sleep for 2-3 hours at a time.

Once we got home and she was as healthy as could be I decided to sleep train her for my own mental health. I knew I wouldn’t last if we kept going like this. So at 22 months, my child (and me) finally slept through the night. I thought it will take at least a week like my first child, but the cried only for 5 mins on the first night and the barely cried for the next nights. Now I only hold her for 5 mins, put her to her crib and she put herself to sleep. I’m was scared to even writing this post in case I jinx this but I need to let out the joy and happiness I have from having a good’s night rest.

So if you are barely surviving and hanging on like i was, give sleep training a try. You and your kid can do it and it will definitely improve your relationship.

*Reposting because the last post was locked. (I'm assuming due to unsavory comments) I still wanted to have discussions and answer questions about this topic.*

After seeing 3 success stories in the past month and getting the "okay" from a therapist, we finally got the courage to try sleep training. Our baby is 10 months old and has always been a super fussy/clingy child. And because we waited until he was older, we didn't have high hopes for success. We thought the process would be long and painful, I'd heard the dreaded stories of babies crying for hours at a time and hoped that wouldn't be our situation.

After reading PLS, we decided to try out extinction method. We did boob, bath, book and then rocked him until he seemed to settle down. We put him in the crib, told him goodnight and that we loved him and hoped for the best. The first night, he only took 25 minutes to fall asleep while crying the whole time. Hearing him cry was hard to endure but.. only 25 minutes!!! I was shocked at how quickly he was able to get himself to sleep.

The second night, 10 minutes with less crying. The third night, 5 minutes and almost no crying. Two weeks later and he doesn't even fuss while being put down. He happily lays himself down and sleeps throughout the whole night. After spending so many nights rocking and feeding to sleep and waking up multiple times a night every night, I'm feeling so relieved. We are all finally getting good rest.

I almost feel guilty for entertaining those people who had said sleep training/cry it out was damaging to babies. It's like I didn't have faith that my baby was able to handle and overcome hard situations. He was and is completely capable, he just needed to be given a chance to try.

For those people thinking my baby now suffers from psychological damage, it's quite the opposite. He is in an even better mood during the daytime because of getting good consistent sleep at night. And our bond is stronger than ever before. He hits all of his milestones early, breastfeeds 5 times a day and eats 3 solid meals with snacks. He has a ton of energy and loves playing with us and going on outdoor adventures and meeting new people. He's absolutely thriving. And I feel good knowing that we are helping him to gain a little independence when it comes to sleep. I honestly feel bad for those parents who don't believe in heir babies, and as a result make them completely co-dependent on them.

We used to bed-share even though it was a risk. He would never be allowed to sleep next to my husband, because he's a heavy sleeper and moves a lot in the night. So the three of us would be crammed in bed, with the baby waking multiple times each night next to me. He's a very light sleeper and any little movement or sound from us would wake him. He would also suckle to help soothe himself back to sleep. (He's never taken a pacifier but will gladly use me as one). And he would also end up being super sweaty because of the body heat from all three of us. When I returned back to work on night shifts, we knew something had to be done. Sleep training was one of the best and safest choices we could have made for our family.

The moment it really hit me was when he was playing in his big padded playpen in the living room, when all of the sudden he laid himself down and closed his eyes to try to put himself to sleep. I was amazed. He has always heavily relied on us to sleep - whether it was through feeding, bouncing, singing, shushing, holding, etc. This was the first time l'd ever seen him try to put himself to sleep outside of his crib and during the day. was so proud and happy knowing we had helped him learn a new skill, and now his life was going to be better and easier because of it.

Just wanted to make this post to encourage anyone who is hesitant to try, it is so worth it!

It was our first night of sleep training.

He is a very clingy baby and all day I was beating myself up about how he is going to think I don’t love him anymore. I had all these fears that nothing would work for him, and he’ll need to sleep latched onto my boob until he’s 10. I was afraid we’d never make any progress, and i’d sooner go cazy from sleep deprivation ruining my mind.

I cried as I nursed him. I paced around the room singing him our nighttime song. He cuddled with his dad while we said words of affirmation and read him a book, then we set him in the crib and walked away.

He cried. a lot. for 58 minutes exactly.

But he’s finally asleep. we made it through the hardest part of sleep training, the first night. And all of those scary stories I told myself about how nothing will work, have quieted.

I’m just looking at the monitor seeing how peaceful he looks. He’s not waking up every second frantically looking for my boob. He’s doing great all by himself.

This is your sign to do the hard and scary thing because your baby can and will be fine! And you will get your sanity back when it’s all said and done <3

edit:

it is now 2:30 and am and baby is waking alot with another screaming fit. lasting from 5-30 minutes everytime.

this is the hardest night of my life. but we will get through it

edit #2: he did amazing the 2nd night! quick bedtime, 5 hour chunk of sleep, feed, 3 hour chunk, feed, 3 hour chunk. total time crying from bedtime to morning was about 45 minutes including putting himself to sleep after feeds.

the first night was horrendous. i’m so proud of him

I was you. I was actually more in the "don't believe in it" camp. I live in a country where it is considered cruel and I also saw it as a way to fit my baby into a capitalist way of living that depended on me being sharp at work...which also did not sit right with me. I did not judge my friends who did CIO or Ferber, but I knew it was not for us.

We tried everything. Cosleeping, bedsharing, every schedule tweak imaginable, but nothing was working. Then, after months of my baby waking up every 1 to 1.5 hours, I almost shook him in desperation in the middle of the night. I immediately stepped back and we committed to CIO that following night.

Well, one week later my baby just got placed in the crib and drifted off to sleep without a sound. He wakes up 2x to feed and goes back down easily and wakes at 7:30 with a huge smile. He's happier during the day, eating better, and my partner and I now are infinitely better parents than we were before. If you are on the fence, this is another success story to help get you there if you need it.

After seeing 3 success stories in the past month, we finally got the courage to try sleep training. Our baby is 10 months old and has always been a super fussy/clingy child. And because we waited until he was older, we didn't have high hopes for success. We thought the process would be long and painful, I'd heard the dreaded stories of babies crying for hours at a time and hoped that wouldn't be our situation.

After reading PLS, we decided to try out extinction method. We did boob, bath, book and then rocked him until he was drowsy and put him in the crib and hoped for the best. The first night, he only took 25 minutes to fall asleep while crying the whole time. The crying was hard to endure but.... only 25 minutes!!!

The second night, 10 minutes with less crying. The third night, 5 minutes and almost no crying. Two weeks later and he doesn't even fuss while being put down. He happily lays himself down and sleeps throughout the whole night. After spending so many nights rocking and feeding to sleep and waking up multiple times a night every night, I'm feeling so relieved. We are all finally getting good rest.

I almost feel guilty for entertaining those people who had said sleep training/cry it out was damaging to babies. It's like I didn't have faith that my baby was able to handle and overcome hardship. He was and is completely capable, he just needed to be given a chance to try.

The moment it really hit me was when he was playing in his big padded playpen in the living room, when all of the sudden he laid himself down and closed his eyes to try to put himself to sleep. I was amazed. He has always heavily relied on us to sleep - whether it was through feeding, bouncing, singing, shushing, holding, etc. This was the first time I'd ever seen him try to put himself to sleep outside of his crib and during the day. I was so proud and happy knowing we had helped him learn a new skill, and now his life was going to be better because of it.

We also share a room with the baby. So for the first two weeks, we camped out in the living room and let the baby have the bedroom to himself. But now that he's good at sleeping, we have moved back into the room without any issues. We have just had to make sure to stay out of sight, so he doesn't get upset if he wakes up and sees us lying there.

The next thing I have to figure out is naps. He still relies on us to fall asleep for naps and I haven't figured out how to start that process. But I think I'll give it a little while longer before trying. I just wanted to make this post to encourage anyone who is hesitant to try, it is so worth it.

Do it. Do it do it do it. If it doesn’t work, try again later, but how will you know if you don’t try?

This post is two parts: success and a warning to using ChatGPT to train.

My guy is just over 18 weeks and a terrible sleeper. Ever since 3 months, his sleep has been chaotic, his crib has been lava, he is truly displeased with any sleeping arrangement that isn’t ME. There’s the babies that struggle to transfer, there’s the babies that wake every hour, and my guy was BOTH. I envied people whose complaint was that their babies woke up every 2 hours - that was my dream. I was spending an hour trying to transfer a baby to get a 30-45 minute stretch of sleep.

I had said I was going to wait until 5 months to train. My Ped had recommended 5.5-6 months for training, the notorious TCB recommends 5 months. I could make it to 5 months! Except this last week I got the flu and my guy wouldn’t even sleep with my husband in the chair. I was forced to bed share or else stare at the wall while sitting in a nursery chair. It was literally so mean, and my guy was also pissed that he couldn’t stay asleep. ENOUGH!

I spent hours going back and forth with ChatGPT trying to work a plan to sleep train. I had been using chat since transitioning out of the swaddle at 10 weeks for sleep - and while I caught chat being inconsistent sometimes it “assured” me it was only using sleep clinic and pediatric studies to provide me advice. Chat was very sure that my guy wasn’t ready to train because he wasn’t showing decreased false starts or a consistent first stretch of at least two hours. I am now convinced that was made up.

I started a new thread with the same information and it gave me totally new recommendations. Staring my guy was in “tier two” and not ready for Ferber, giving me advice on how to do a “gentle” Ferber that was totally in contradiction with prior advice. I felt so stupid.

I consider myself to be an intelligent person. I am a lawyer and graduated top of my class. I pride myself in being evidenced based and a critical thinker - and here I was blindly following chat just because chat told me it was credible. Absolutely stupid. I re read PLS, bought the Ferber book, and didn’t come across any of the terms it had been using. I know chat hallucinates to give you what you want to hear, but since it wasn’t telling me what I wanted to hear I thought I could trust it more, especially when prompted to only use evidence based pediatric sleep studies.

The success:

Tail between my legs, I decided this weekend to just go for it. My oldest, who I never had to train because he loves his thumb so much, was staying at his grandparents. Two nights ago, I fed thirty minutes earlier and his dad and I kissed him goodnight before laying him in the crib. I reminded him the crib is a good and safe place to sleep and that my bed is not. He grumbled for 15 minutes, no full crying, and fell asleep. He woke an hour later at 9 pretty pissed off, but after crying on and off for 40 minutes slept until 1AM. I did a quick feed, and he slept until 4. Another quick feed and he slept until 6. He definitely struggled more between 5-6 but I left him to grumble. My plan had been to use Ferber, but I only did one check during his 9PM stint because the crying was never consistent. I agree now that CIO can be more gentle because he needed me to get out of the way. The next day, he slept independently for a nap for almost 2 hours - the longest he ever had.

I can’t believe it. Last night, similar situation. Grumbled for a few minutes before going asleep, struggled at 9PM for about 20 minutes, then up at 11:30 to eat, 2:30, and up for the day at 5:50. The mornings will get better - he’s only four months old.

I won’t be night weaning anytime soon. My eldest weaned himself at a good pace and was sleeping through the night around 10 months so I’m hoping this one does the same. Until then, I’m fine with getting up once or twice to do a quick feed (EBF so it’s easy) and snag a snuggle. Open to advice about the mornings, but I am hopeful it will resolve in time.

I literally sat in bed at 8PM yesterday unsure of what to do with myself. It’s the first evening I’ve had to myself since my guy was born in September. Slowly I will return to being human and no longer in survival. Until then - I am proud of myself for making the hard decision to begin training. The gift of good sleep is a lifelong one and I’m hopeful to set up my guy with good hygiene that will benefit him for years to come.

My now 10 month old is finally sleep trained and I feel like a new human!

We did modified Ferber? after talking to my mom about what she did with us as me and my brother are still very attached kids and so I know what she did didn’t damage us long term because that’s what I was worried about.

She said she’d lay us down and walk out then wait about 15 minutes and if we were still crying she’d go in and pat us then repeat.

We have a consistent night time routine. Diaper, lotion, pjs, snack, milk, quiet play, diffuser, brush teeth, book then bed.

We say “it’s time to sleep, I’ll be right outside, goodnight, I love you” put her in her crib the the light out and walk out. It’s been probably about a week or a bit longer of this and she no longer cries when we put her in her crib and is asleep within seconds. Sometimes she’ll wake up and cry out in the middle of the night but it’s like a 2 second cry and she’s back asleep.

Hi everyone if you are having a hard time deciding if sleep training is for you, let this be your sign. My LO just turned 5 months since birth we've had a routine and sleep with my baby has been one big rollercoaster. I never thought I'd sleep train but here we are. The four month sleep regression hit us hard and early around the time my baby was 3 months.she woke up every 30 min to an hour and I felt like I was dying. We tried fuss it out which worked for awhile but seemed to stop working when my LO turned 4.5 months we tried ferber but the check in’s seem to make things worse and my LO even mad. I stuck with these methods for a couple of weeks before deciding to move on to the next method and so we landed on full CIO. I'm not going to lie it was hard hearing my baby cry but I knew it was something I needed to do.

1st night she cried for 25 min, woke up 2 hrs later but cried for about 3 min

2nd night she cried for 15, woke up two hours later cried for 40 seconds

3rd night no crying, and a wake 2 hrs later fussed a bit then went back to bed.

Its been about 2 weeks and some days their is a bit of crying and some days not but all times my LO put themselves back to sleep.

For the past couple of days we went from her waking up 2 times to feed, to one and last night was the first night she slept through the night. She did wake up at the usual time but would put herself back to sleep within a second. I'm not saying that this might be a forever thing, because lets face it babies are unpredictable. At least I know I'm moving in the right direction.

I'm still trying to figure out WW and naps are still a struggle but at least I know I'm in the ballpark to know I'm close for it to work.

What I'm trying to say as many times I wanted to give up I didn't, babies are a learning curve and is always changing so keep at it.

I've been feeling down and hopeless but I'm so happy for once and finally have gotten to rest. Also no every baby would drop the feed this could of been a one off but at least I know how to answer my baby if night wakes occur. Just wanted to say you got this.

If you’re on the fence about sleep training like I was, just do it.

I wanted to share our experience because I was absolutely terrified to start sleep training and reading other people’s stories helped me a lot.

My daughter is 15 months and had gotten into a pattern of waking every 2–3 hours overnight. I was nursing her back to sleep almost every wake-up and I was completely exhausted. We finally decided to try cry it out.

Night 1:

I nursed her but made sure she didn’t fall asleep. She actually started crying before I even put her in the crib which made me feel awful. I put her down awake and left the room.

She cried about 22–24 minutes and then fell asleep around 8:30 pm.

She woke up around 12:45 am and cried for about 30–40 minutes before going back to sleep. Then she woke again around 4 am. My partner insisted I check on her so I went in briefly, didn’t pick her up, and left. She was mad but fell asleep again within about 10 minutes.

She woke for the day around 6:30 am.

The next morning she was a little clingy at first which made me feel really guilty, but after a bit she was back to playing independently and acting like herself.

Day 2:

I was nervous naps would be a disaster, but I put her down and gave her up to 10 minutes to settle and she actually fell asleep before the 10 minute mark.

Night 2:

Bedtime crying was less than 10 minutes and she was asleep by 7:45 pm.

Around 8:45 pm she woke briefly, fussed for maybe 30 seconds, sat up in her crib and looked around quietly, then laid back down and fell asleep within about 3 minutes.

After that she slept until 6:00 am.

I honestly can’t believe how quickly things improved. I know it’s only been two nights so I’m not declaring victory yet, but compared to waking every couple hours this already feels life changing.

My partner was really uncomfortable with the crying at first so that part was tough emotionally, but seeing her settle herself and sleep a long stretch helped a lot.

If anyone else had a start like this I’d love to hear how the next few nights went.

Can’t believe I’m writing this so quickly after my despair last week.

My LO is 5.5 months old. The 4 month sleep regression hit us pretty hard. It wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t great. All naps were contact naps - those that were transferred into the cot ended after 45 minutes every single time. At night it was tough to get him down and he would wake every 2-3 hours. We had to co-sleep from 4/5am until morning. Sometimes we would have a split night and he’d be awake for over an hour at 2am. He was cuddled to sleep for every single nap and night sleep of his life.

10 days ago we decided to start PUPD. My tolerance for crying is extremely low. I picked him up at every cry and popped him back in his cot to settle himself to sleep. We started this with naps and it took almost an hour for the first one before he finally settled to sleep with me shhhhhhing loudly and patting him. We did this for every single nap and night sleep. It got easier with each one.

Until it got worse! I wondered if I’d taught him if he cried hard enough, I’ll just pick him up. I was in tears, he was in tears. It was awful.

We stuck with it. 4 days ago, I popped him down in his cot for his night sleep and he rolled over and fell asleep. No fussing at all. Every night since he’s put himself to sleep without my help.

He has now self weaned from his night feeds and sleeps from 7:30pm-6:30am. This wasn’t my intention - I was happy to continue with a feed or two overnight. But it turns out those wakes were for comfort rather than hunger!

I’m now able to place him in his cot for his naps as well and leave the room. Game changer. He falls asleep in his own time, happy as can be, and needs to be woken from every nap.

Thrilled this gentle version worked so well and so quickly!!!

I have 4 kids, ranging in age from 6 months to 6 years, so I’ve been living the sleep training life for some time now. The holidays have always been the hardest time of year, between traveling, late night parties, and the inevitable sicknesses, it can feel like your LO will never get back on schedule. So I wanted to share what I call the “2 yawn rule” (or alternatively the “put your money where your mouth is” rule 😆)

If your baby has been missing sleep due to unusual circumstances (not because they’re growing into a new developmentally appropriate sleep range), trying to keep them on their regular schedule the next day can unintentionally lead to an even more overtired baby and land you in that vicious “too tired to sleep” feedback loop. If you’ve had a rough night or if your baby is struggling to make it through their usual wake window, don’t be afraid to just pop them back in bed! My rule of thumb is if baby yawns twice or more within 20 minutes or so, they’re tired enough to at least try a nap. Doesn’t matter when their next nap is supposed to be, just let them try to get some sleep and then re-work the schedule from there. You might try to wake them up in time for their last wake window to be close to normal, or you might just say “fuck it” and let them sleep as much as they want. After one or two of these catch up days it will hopefully be a bit easier to get back onto their usual schedule.

And while we’re on the topic of getting off schedule… during the holidays it can be a real struggle to fit in your kids’ sleep in between all the festivities. Naps and bedtime can be an excellent excuse for getting out of invitations and obligations you don’t want to go to! But, as someone who is a strong believer in the importance of sleep and the sanctity of the schedule… I would gently challenge you to let things slide a little bit this season. Yes, I know that skipping a nap can turn into a meltdown and/or a sleepless night. But there are some things that are worth a sleepless night (or even a sleepless week.) If you don’t want to go to the office Christmas party anyway, absolutely use your kids bedtime as an out! But oftentimes the connections and relationships built between your baby and your village this time of year are far more beneficial than a good night’s sleep.

Christmas of 2019, I had a 2 month old and a 20 month old. The 2 month old only slept while being held, and I had to be very strict with my 20 month old’s schedule, or else she’d turn into a total gremlin by sundown. That wasn’t going to be possible with the Christmas schedule we had planned out, and I was dreading it. But I did it anyway. They barely slept at all spending the night at my parents’ house. The baby cried through the whole Christmas party with my Grandparents. The toddler cried the whole drive home. The next few days were rough to say the least! I didn’t know it at the time, but between Covid and my grandparents getting older, that was the last Christmas we’d ever have at the farm. Now when I look back at the pictures we took of Grandpa with all his great-grandchildren, my 2 month old crying in Grandpa’s lap while my 20 month old sucked her thumb for dear life, I thank my lucky stars that I didn’t let their nap schedule keep us away from that party.

Sleep training and getting my babies on a routine nap schedule has been one of the best parenting moves I’ve ever made. I’m sure a lot of you feel the same! But don’t let the schedule hold you and your babies back from experiencing the holidays! Sometimes you just gotta embrace the suck.

My baby was a cat napper. She needed movement to sleep, specifically a yoga ball, and was a contact napper and cosleeper. This wasn’t really an issue for me until I had to go back to work and the 4m sleep regression hit. She started waking up every hour on the hour, from 8pm to 8am, needing either to be bounced to sleep or nursed. After 2 weeks of this, I was of course feeling like I was dying.

I decided to sleep train on a random tuesday and was terrified. Fast forward 7 days later and my baby falls asleep within 5-10 minutes of being laid down. Sometimes she fusses a little, sometimes she falls right asleep. She slept through the night last night but I woke her up to feed her once (because I was engorged) & she fell right back asleep afterwards. Her naps have also improved from being 25-30 minutes to 40-1 hour.

Pls take it from me, a mom who never thought I could do it or I was capable, and felt my baby would always need the bouncing or a perfect crib transfer.

We had what I think a pretty severe situation. From the point that my son turned 4 months, he hit a sleep regression and never recovered. From that point on he only slept 30-45 minutes until he woke up crying.

Needless to say, our life became quite difficult after that. We had to sleep in shifts. At 8 months (i.e. after 4 months of hell) we decided to try sleep training via a variant of Ferber, this is what happened:

Day 1: he screamed quite vigorously for about 20 minutes after which he fell asleep. I went in the room every 5 minutes and verbally calmed him. After which he proceeded to sleep for 7 hours straight. My mind was completely blown. When he woke up I fed him and put him back. He only cried for a couple of minutes and then proceeded to sleep another 5 hours. Mind blown again!

Days 2-7: crying with varying degree of severity, but always falling asleep after 5-10 minutes. Still wanting to be fed in the middle of the night, but easily falling asleep after. Because I increased the check-in time to 10 minutes by night 2, I’ve not had to check on him again since Day 1.

Days 8+: This is where we are at now. Now he has fallen asleep sometimes only after 2 minutes. And no night feeding! Sleeps 10 hours through the night, sometimes waking up for a couple of minutes, but able to soothe himself back to sleep entirely on his own. Mind freaking blown!

Conclusion: sleep training is amazing. It’s hard to watch him cry, but amazing to not have him struggle the entire night with sleeping, and for us to get a few hours to ourselves in the evening. Strongly recommend

TLDR: Sleep training works // all methods are essentially some version of cry-it-out

Our 5.5 month old is now sleeping from 7pm - 4am consistently. We credit it all to sleep training. He was never a good sleeper - always up every 2-3 hours. The 4 month regression hit HARD and lasted 5 weeks. We were told you shouldn't sleep train during a regression, and to start at 5 months.

The day he turned 5 months we started. We used the Taking Cara Babies approach (dark room, loud noise machine, in crib (not bassinet), put down drowsy/not asleep). However, her method of checking and coming into the room did not work for our LO. He would scream when he knew we were there but not picking him up. So we moved to Ferber in 5 min increments - let him cry 5 min, then 10, then 15 and up to 20. The longest stretch he cried was 24 minutes, we let him go that long because we could tell he was putting himself to sleep. It took us around 7 nights, and now he is consistently sleeping. Even if he does wake up, he will put himself to sleep within 5 minutes. He wakes up after 4am for a feed (he still needs it and is really hungry by that time) and then will go back down until around 7am.

*It was SUPER hard for me to hear him cry for up to 20 minutes. I saw all those insta posts about "when your baby cries he needs you etc etc." But this has not affected his attachment to us AT ALL. I'm better rested, my husband and I have a better relationship (and we def struggled when we were both sleep deprived), and our LO seems happier too. It's SO HARD (especially for mamas), but necessary.

* Bassinet to Crib transition was needed. Turns out our guy likes to sleep on his stomach and sleeps better that way. Scared us half to death the first time we saw it but we got the Newton breathable mattress which makes us feel better. Also, once they can turn onto their stomach they can turn their head to breathe. He needed the room in his crib to find his ideal sleep position.

*We needed to sleep train for our lifestyle. My husband and I both work and will continue to do so to give our guy the best life we can.

*I got a text from a friend who has a 10 month old that won't go more than 1-3 hours in his crib at night before crying and wanting to move to the bed. She asked for advice of how to have him sleep in his crib without sleep training. I had none to give her and couldn't imagine 5 more months of sleep deprivation. We never had our guy in our bed because were too freaked out and were really into safe sleep. I now believe there has to be some type of training, which will always involve some crying (unfortunately).

What are your success stories? What does independent sleep look like for you now months or years later?

Help me picture it. Tell me why you’re glad you did it. Help me re-focus on my “why”!

FTM with a 3 month old working hard towards independent sleep. Im sleep obsessed and it all has me feeling a bit crazy!

My husband and I started sleep training our 5 month old (turned 5mo today!) 2.5 weeks ago. At about 10 days, I was feeling so defeated because it just wasn't seeming to work. He was still crying for over 30 mins every night and I felt evil putting him through it. But I needed my evenings back - and my bed (we were cosleeping and waking every 2 hrs typically). We decided to switch from Ferber to CIO for the last few days to see if it made a difference, otherwise I was planning on giving up and assisting to sleep at the 2 week mark.

And then 3 nights ago, he cried for 30 seconds. And he slept through the night. I thought it was a fluke, but he's been going down within about a minute of fussing since, AND he seems to enjoy his crib. This morning I heard him talking and giggling to himself in the crib - he was content and didn't wake me up.

I think the key was locking in the final wake window and pushing bedtime up. I really wanted a 7:30/8pm bedtime, but my son was showing that he needed something between 6-7pm. He still sleeps until 6/7am the next day too, with 1-2 wakings.

Extending our last WW to 2.75-3 hrs seems to have been the missing piece - he needed more sleep pressure than he was getting.

It's only been a few days, but I have a much happier and rested baby. Getting time back with my husband has also been a fantastic bonus.

My 4 month old has been a terrible sleeper since birth - she required being rocked to sleep then transferred to bassinet after holding her for 20-45 mins with frequent false starts.

She slept 3 hours for her first stretch on a good night, and then waking every 45-90 minutes after that, so 6-8+ wake ups a night

My husband and I have been taking shifts and sleeping separately purely to survive. I’ve been counting down until 4 months and sleep training.

We read Precious Little Sleep and I’ve read sooo many posts on this sub, so we were very ready.

My daughter is on the low end of average sleep needs, about 12.5 hours. She’s quite a fussy and alert baby, she’s never shown typical sleep cues.

We decided to go full extinction and CIO, as I knew check ins would rile her up.

In the lead up to sleep training, we followed a 2/2/2/2/2.5 schedule. All naps are contact during the day, usually no more than 2.5 hours total

Routine is top up feed, bath, pjs and sack, book and put into crib awake (we moved her into her room the first night of sleep training).

night 1: 20 mins crying, 4 wake ups (incl 2 feeds)

night 2: 8 mins crying, 3 wake ups (incl 2 feeds)

night 3: 18 mins crying, 3 wake ups (2 feeds)

night 4: 6 mins crying, 2 wake ups (2 feeds) our first ever 6 hour stretch!

night 5: 10 mins crying, 1 wake up!!! And a huge 7 hour stretch

Since then we’re getting 2-10 mins of crying (I think she’s a power down baby) and 2 night wakes usually . The night before sleep training, she woke 10 times overnight - I’m still in disbelief at how much our lives have changed for the better literally overnight.

thank you for the resources and knowledge of this sub - I see the same posts over and over of people trying to sleep train their under tired babies and not taking the time to read other posts or the pinned mod post, these are so useful and honestly once you get the schedule right, sleep training really works.

Next step is to conquer naps!!