Sharing a success story (so far, Day 5) from a highly skeptical parent. On day 5 of Ferber.

Read this story if your baby is a shitty sleeper, has several sleep crutches, and you want some inspo!

4 month baby girl, 1.5/2/1.5/2/2 - 4 naps) Ferber

I was sold on the idea that sleep training caused attachment issues. Then, the 3.5 month sleep regression hit and I faced major sleep deprivation. My girl was never a great sleeper, up every 2-3 hours since birth. But then she was waking every hour and I was exhausted.

Decided to try Ferber.

Background: we used to pulled out ALL the stops to get her to bed. Paci, rocking until our backs hurt, dark room, white noise, contact naps, cosleeping at night and feeding to sleep when she woke up.

She would literally wake up at night with her head turned toward my boob and mouth open!

Right when she turned 4 months I started with a transition week. I did the Pick up Put Down method, which worked surprisingly well. Definitely a few naps where I picked her up/put down like…40 times…but it worked.

After a week of that, I stopped giving her the paci. Instead I would sing and pat her stomach and shush her.

Within 2 days she could sleep (mostly) without the paci. I say mostly as some naps I needed to save to keep the wake windows intact leading to Ferber.

Once this worked…we dove into Ferber.

Night 1: put down at 7:30 cried for 2 check in’s (3+5) =8 mins of crying. Then woke 2 hours later and took another 8 minutes to go down. Then woke at 1 am and this one was tough, took 3+5+10+ 5 to fall asleep (fell asleep halfway through the 4th cry). Then woke up at 3 am and as tough as it was (as I wasn’t sure if it was a hungry cry) but I didn’t want to offer my boob to reward the crying so I waited 3+5+10 for her to sleep again. About 5 mins after her being asleep I did a dream feed.

Then she woke at 6 am and I brought her into our bed and fed her/coslept until we woke up at 8 am.

Btw she was totally smiley and adorable the next day.

Day 2: worst crying this night for the first put down around 8 am 5+10+10). Dream feed at 12 then she woke at 1 and since I had just fed her I tried Ferber. Rough again 5+10+ halfway through the next check in. NGL really hard to do in the middle of the night. I was super tempted to just rock her but I kept strong. Slept until 6 am.

Day 3: MASSIVE IMPROVEMENT HOLY SHIT I
FINALLY GOT SLEEP. Put down at 8 pm ZERO CRYING. Dream feed at 11 am and slept until 3 AM. Mini feed and slept until 6:30 AM.

Day 4: a little struggle going to sleep at 7:30 PM about 3 mins of crying. Dream feed again at 11 ish and she slept until 3:30 AM. Same as prior day pretty much.

From waking up every hour or so, trust me, getting 3-4 hours straight is a massive improvement. Looking forward to getting to 4-5. And then maybe 5-6?? A girl can only dream

I wanted to take the time to write this because I feel like there is a lot of BS on social media or the several podcasts I listened to. I’m not saying she went from waking every 2 hours to sleeping every 12 hours. She is used to feeding at night and I think this will stay some way for some time. Even getting 3-4 hours of sleep will be a huge win for me. It takes a while for me to fall asleep sometimes and getting up only once or twice is much better. I’m starting work in December so I’m hoping this will only improve before then.

Daytime naps aren’t perfect. We try our best with wake windows but they aren’t either. Sometimes she gets tired at the 1.5 hour mark and I have to put her down early. We do lean on some sleep crutches (light rocking, ocassional paci) to make sure she gets her daytime sleep.

Should mention we went cold turkey from sleeping in my bed to a bassinet during Ferber.

Yes it hurt to hear my daughter cry, sometimes she would cough from crying hard.

I’m also lucky she didn’t cry for like…30-45 mins to more than an hour! Gosh I would have been so upset. I don’t know if I would have kept up with it.

I do think sleep training will have to be maintained as she goes through developments.

If anyone has any questions please leave them below and I will answer.

My twins are almost 5 months (4m adjusted) and when they were about 2m old we hired a night nanny when my husband had to go back to work. She came highly recommended by my OB who used her for her twins. She’s been great and so helpful to me as a first time mom because I still feel like I have no idea what I’m doing and my PPD and PPA were pretty bad in the first couple months.

This is our last few weeks with her and the plan was to have her sleep train them when they were 4m old. We started about a week ago and it hasn’t actually been as bad as I thought it would.

My issue is that Twin A started showing signs of rolling this week. I’ve discussed transitioning them out of swaddles with her before and she kept recommending keeping them in their swaddles. Twin A has been waking up more than Twin B and I think it’s because he’s trying to practice rolling. It was making me so nervous I just decided to put him in the sleep sack last night. When she arrived in the evening we talked about it and she basically told me that it was unsafe to do until he was rolling both back to belly and belly to back. She said that the swaddle is what was keeping him from rolling back to belly and it would be unsafe if he couldn’t roll belly to back. Everything I’ve read says the opposite. That it’s unsafe to keep them in their swaddle even if they haven’t rolled yet, that you should put them in a sleep sack even if they are just rolling on their side because if they roll while they are sleeping in the swaddle that they can’t use their arms to push themselves up.

Has anyone heard this before? Or has anyone experienced this? When my OB recommended her she told me she’s been doing it for 17 years so she obviously has more experience than me but I’m not seeing anything anywhere that says this. I’m so freaked out now. He woke up so many times last night and she thinks it’s because of the sleep sack. I’m sure it will take him some time to get used to it right? I’m trying to use it during naps to get him used to it but he’s crying when I put him down for his nap and waking up multiple times crying during his nap. I’m not sure if I’m doing the right thing. Help.

We've been stuck in this loop of 530 bedtimes that we can't seem to get out of.

5 months old. Following 2/2/2.5/2.75. She typically is up for the day between 6-630 but to be honest her sleep is very restless from 4-6.

Most days she takes crappy little 30 minute naps with maybe one 50 minute. Today she surprised me and her first 2 naps were 1hr15min. I thought, fantastic! One more little cat nap and we will have a perfect 7pm bedtime! .... nope. Refused her last nap. Fell asleep for like 5 mins and was wide awake! So here we are with a 530 bedtime AGAIN

What am I doing wrong here?

My nearly 7 month old baby has woken up at 5am for a bottle since he was 3 months old. He has the bottle and then goes back to sleep after till about 7.30am.

Should I drop that feed and try and get him
back to sleep?

He goes to sleep around 7pm and sleeps through till 5.

I need help! My baby is 6mo old and is the definition of a Velcro baby. Does not like anyone but me, dad and grandma. Does not let me put her down for anything unless I sit or lay down with her. We nap together, shower together, and sleep together. If I get up while she’s sleeping she’s awake within 10 minutes during the day. I have to snuggle her, pat her butt and make shushing noises for her to go to sleep. She wakes up 1/2x in the night to feed. I can scoot away from her and create some distance between us most nights when she sleeps but she usually finds her way back into my armpit.
I want to sleep train her but I’m scared I won’t be able to handle any kind of crying. Her tears break my heart. I know crying is inevitable but I’ve read that unfortunately the best way to sleep train a Velcro baby is CIO method and idk if I can handle that. All my friends and family who are around my age with kids have all happily co slept with their kids till they were toddlers. I can’t do that. I love the snuggles so much but I miss my bed, I miss my husband, and I want her to get good consistent sleep to. Can someone help me?

My eighteen month old has been waking up multiple times through the night and also wakes up ready for the day at 430-5 am every day. We are transitioning to 1 nap a day at home. He was doing 2 naps at home but, again, transitioning. He currently goes to daycare 3 days a week where he only takes 1 nap from 12-2. At home we are aiming for 11 or 1130 am nap and he only wants to nap for an hour and a half at home most days. He typically goes to bed/falls asleep around 730 pm. We would like him to stay asleep until 6 am if possible. We’ve tried pushing his night sleep back to 8 but it doesn’t seem to change the early waking. Any help would be appreciated!

Hi all,

I didn’t actually sleep train formally, but over some time my baby (just turned 9mo) has slowly learnt to fall asleep on her own at bedtime and even occasionally for naps, so i feel like this sub was appropriate to ask.. she has been in her own room for the last 3ish weeks which helped a lot with motn wakes (used to be 4-6x wakes when we room shared)

She still wakes usually 3x a night, so about every 3-4 hours for a feed. Occasionally her first stretch will be 5ish hours with only 2 motn feeds, but it’s not consistent, maybe once a week. When i’m lazy, my husband can get her back to sleep with bum pats or rocking, but he works long hours so i usually won’t wake him and i’m too lazy to do anything other than feed tbh.

I want to try to help her get more consistent with 2 wakes/feeds rather than 3. If i were to routinely use a different soothing method for her first wake (bum taps, for example) would I be able to get her to drop the feed? Or does this only happen when you formally sleep train?

To add, i don’t believe the wakes are a schedule based issue, but feel free to give me advice about it if you see fit: 2-2.5 hours daytime sleep, 3/3/4 wake windows, pretty consistent bedtime routine, nursing about 15-20mins before going into crib. no paci, ebf.

I started transitioning my daughter (sleep trained) to 1 nap when turning 13M since she started to fight her 2nd nap and has more false start at night time. Her WW used to be 4-4.5/3.25/4 and now is 5.5-6/5.5-5.75. She wakes up at 6am but stays in the crib til 6:30am. Bed time is between 7-7:30pm. Her nap time is 12-1:30pm. She rarely sleeps more than 100 minutes though I would hope she could nap til 2pm.

I offer lunch at 11am so that she can last til 11:45-12pm. She gets an energy boost after food. But she seems overtired as she cries/protests a bit for nap. Should I put her down earlier or give her an earlier bed time? Or i just power through and she would get used to this? I know 1 nap transition takes time but I just want to make it right. Thanks!

I'm starting to get serious nighttime anxiety because every bed time (and occasional nap time) is a nightmare. I'm hoping for some advice on what we might be doing wrong and how to stop having a death match before bed every night. Once she's asleep, she sleeps 6-11 hours without needing intervention. It's about 50/50 whether she needs a night feed, but I put her back in her crib awake after her bottle and she goes back to sleep with no problems. It's just the bedtime fight that I can't figure out. She used to be so easy to put to bed and I'm wondering what bad habits we've developed that have created this nightmare. We've never sleep trained her because she's always been an amazing sleeper. I'm interested in sleep training but there are so many methods and different schedule tweaks that can be done that I find it overwhelming.

She's 9.5 months old. Has been sleeping in her crib in her own room since she was 2 months old. All naps and night sleeps are in her crib (with a few exceptions like car naps or stroller naps).

Approximate daily schedule:

6:30-7:30 approximate wake time (we wake her at 7:30 if she hasn't woken on her own)

Wake window 1: 2-3 hours (we try to push it but she's always so exhausted and gets very grumpy)

Nap 1: 1h 15 mins (capped)

Wake window 2: 3-4 hours

Nap 2: 1h 15 mins (capped)

Wake window 3: 4-5 hours

Bedtime routine: bath, hanging out in room with dim lights and low sensory play, held in rocking chair and lightly rocked (sometimes not rocked at all) with bottle. Often falls asleep with bottle and placed in crib. Sometimes placed in crib awake after bottle. Used to fall asleep but now it's 30 mins - 1.5h of fighting. Not straight crying but every time we leave the room she screams. On and off crying, standing in her crib, etc.

Bedtime is usually around 8 pm.

Please help me troubleshoot. My son is about 20 months old (he’ll be 2 in Feb). For the last several weeks we have been going through it for sleep.

Originally he was going to bed at 6:30 and waking around 8, plus a two or three hour nap during the day, usually from around 11-1/2, give or take an hour or so. We’re kind of loose on the schedule. This is our second kid. Our first was apparently really weird and slept a ton and didn’t need a schedule - he just slept when he was tired and it all worked out. When my youngest started waking up around 5, everything I read said to push bedtime back and cap the nap, so for the last several weeks that’s what we’ve been doing. Bedtime at 7, wake up around 7/8, 1.5 hour nap max. It’s not working. He’s still up screaming around 4 or 5 every morning. If we go in and hold him, he falls asleep easily, but if he’s in his crib he just yells. He’ll randomly go quiet for 20 min or so then scream again. It’s just intermittent yelling until 7 or 8 when we get him out of the crib. We don’t hold him, feed him, etc in the middle of the night. I also don’t think it’s teeth since the sleep issues have been ongoing for months and Tylenol doesn’t seem to make a difference.

He’s also exhausted. He’s cranky all the time, tantrums, rubbing his eyes, etc. he’s clearly not sleeping enough, but we also can’t keep him asleep. He’ll stay awake in his crib sometimes for an hour or more after we put him down. He’s quiet but moving around, readjusting, sitting up, etc. We did sleep training over a year ago and he’s been fine with that until now.

How can we fix this? What even needs to be fixed? The broken sleep is getting really difficult for all of us. Thanks!

I’m information gathering as my LO is getting closer to moving to 1 nap. She’s still happily on 2 naps at 13 months old, which is fabulous, but I’m curious:

When you drop to 1 nap, and did you do it cold turkey? What were the wake windows you had on 2 naps and what did it switch to on 1 nap?

Did you transition incrementally? If so, how? What did your days/wake windows look like?

Did you do something different? How did it go?

Basically, tell me what you did for your LO from 2 naps to 1 nap. Any and all information is great! I’m just trying to learn different possibilities.

Thank you in advance! This subreddit has saved my life (and by that I mean sleep) more times than I can count.

My almost 7 month old has been sleeping terribly for about a month. Our current schedule is about 3/3/3.5. She usually wakes up for the day around 8 am, naps around 11, sleeps around 2 hours, goes down around 4, sleeps about 1 hour, then goes down around 8:30 pm for bed. She is waking 2-3 hours after bedtime, always before midnight. She then subsequently wakes every 1-2.5 hours, and is inconsolable unless I nurse her. Please help and give any advice you can think of. I am incredibly exhausted and don’t know what to do. Thank you!

I try to keep wake windows for our 6 month old to about 2.5 hours, 3 naps per day. However, these naps will vary from 0.5 - 2 hours. With this being the case, how do I get a consistent bed time when the last wake window can end anywhere from 8-11pm? At least she consistently sleeps 10 hrs each night so I think I can get a schedule if I fix the sleep time.

My 10 (almost 11) month old won’t sleep for more than 10 minutes independently and I’m truly at a loss.

We have tried Ferber, chair, pick up put down, and even cio (only tried this for 3 days bc it was unbearable). Each method besides cio we tried for at least a week. I can transfer him after he’s asleep but he wakes after 10-20 minutes.

Currently co-sleeping and still wakes minimum of 2x a night but can be up to 10 times.

He takes a mix of formula and breast milk averaging 20 oz during the day. At least 2 full meals with snacks in between.

He naps for around 2-3 hours per day over 2 naps.

He has a bedtime routine (dinner, bath, song, pjs, bottle, curtains closed, sound machine, lights off)

He falls asleep with his pacifier while being rocked. But I usually take the paci out once it falls out.

He is completely happy and healthy besides his sleep. I truly feel like I am doing everything “right” and still NOTHING has changed his sleep. Me and my husband haven’t spent an evening together since he was born. I am at a loss truly. I just don’t feel like it is “normal” for a 10/11 month old to not be able to sleep more than 10 minutes by himself.

My daughter is 5 months old and we’re planning to start Ferber, but I want to make sure her daytime schedule is appropriate before we begin. I’m worried she’s not getting enough total sleep and that we might be dealing with an overtired cycle on top of some pretty strong sleep associations.

Current schedule:
2/2.5/2.5/2

Wake windows: Generally 2–2.5 hours

Naps: Inconsistent, ranging from 20–30 minutes to over an hour

Bedtime: Varies, usually between 6:30–8:00 PM

Daytime sleep: Not always fully tracked because she’s with a nanny on Wednesdays and Thursdays. She typically takes two naps while there.

Morning wake time: Not particularly consistent because of the frequent overnight wakings

Sleep environment:
Pack n play
Arms-free sleep sack
Blackout room
White noise machine
Pacifier

Bedtime routine:
Our routine is pretty minimal. We usually put her in pajamas around 5 PM, dim the lights, turn on the white noise machine, and nurse her to sleep when she’s ready for bed.
She currently falls asleep nursing rather than independently.

Night wakings:
This is where we’re really struggling. She frequently wakes every 30–90 minutes, although she occasionally gives us a 2–3 hour stretch, usually earlier in the night.

Most wakings require nursing back to sleep. Sometimes rocking works, and occasionally she’s able to fall back asleep if we just replace her pacifier.
I’ve attached screenshots of her sleep logs from the past week so you can see how fragmented her nights have become.

What I’m hoping to figure out:
- Do her 2–2.5 hour wake windows seem appropriate for 5 months, or should we adjust them?

- Does her sleep pattern suggest overtiredness, undertiredness, or primarily sleep associations?
- Should we establish a consistent 3-nap schedule and bedtime before starting Ferber?
- Would you recommend separating nursing from bedtime as a first step?
- How should we approach the pacifier during Ferber? Should we eliminate it at bedtime?
- How do you distinguish genuine overnight hunger from waking because of a nursing-to-sleep association, especially with an exclusively breastfed baby?

I’m not expecting sleep training to eliminate necessary night feeds. I just want to help her learn to fall asleep independently and hopefully connect more sleep cycles without needing intervention every time.

We’re hoping to have her wake up time be 7:30am but rarely, if ever, make it there. She consistently wakes up at 5am, but we can sometimes stretch to 6am but usually her first nap ends up being at 7am.

My biggest concern is starting Ferber when her daytime sleep might already be inadequate. Would you work on the schedule first, or does this sound like a situation where independent sleep at bedtime is the most important change?

I’d love to hear what adjustments you’d make before starting!

My girl is about to be a year old and I still feel like I haven’t figured out her sleep.

3/4/4.5
Sleep is always in her crib or in the car. No pacifier.
Nap total is 2 hrs (capped)
Bedtime is 8:30, start the day 7am (capped)
She doesn’t fight either nap, goes down pretty easily for both. If she puts up a fight, it’s less than 5 mins usually. Put in fully awake, occasional shushing and hand on back.

Bedtime: feed, bath, book, song, sleep.
Put in crib awake, maybe fusses for a few mins but with an occasional shush or hand on back she falls asleep.

For basically her entire life she has false starts more often than not. Anywhere from 30-60 mins after falling asleep she wakes up crying. Sometimes she’ll fall back asleep on her own (10%) but usually I have to go in and she settles within 10 mins.

After the false start, she’ll sometimes wake anywhere from like 11-3am, and needs a feed to go back down. I’ve noticed that if she eats closer to 3, she’ll sleep no problem to 7. If she sleeps past that, she’ll wake 5-6am and eat and go back down no problem. I wake her up in the morning at 7 pretty much 99% of the time, so I don’t even know late she would sleep to if I let her. But I need to keep her at this time since I work.

Does it sound like she’s just hungry or I’m missing something here?!

To add: I would love to have her in bed by 8 to give her the opportunity to sleep longer than 10.5 (since as of right now I almost always have to wake her at 7 and she’s often difficult to wake), but I don’t know how to manage that without losing the 4.5 hr last wake window which I do think she needs!

We’re on day 6 of Ferber training and it’s been going amazing, we haven’t had to do any check ins since day 1.

My question is, after tomorrow (day 7) what happens? How long should we wait before we check in on her if she’s crying? Do we continue with day 7 timing (20 minutes before first visit, then 25, then 30) or do we go back to day 1?

Hey Sleep Fairies!!

My LO is turning 5 months this coming week and it’s time to get her schedule right so that I can get back to working on independent sleep and then sleep training. I was having success with PUPD for independent sleep but sickness erased the hard work we put in so we are starting from scratch.

Let’s just say, we have a lack there of in the sleep schedule dept. Some days 4 naps and some days 3 naps depending on how late she takes those naps. ATM, majority of naps are contact naps. Due to lack of independent sleep crib naps are only 20-30 mins. We’re dealing with multiple false starts daily and split nights a few times a week. For the past few weeks her WW have been 2 hours and daytime sleep 3-3.5. DWT 7-7:30 am and bed between 7-8pm. Huckleberry shows average night sleep of 10 hours.

Now, I’ve taken the time to read all of the resources posted here, done the math and have found the err in my ways! I’m asking for too much night sleep and not enough wake hours.

If my calculations are correct, we need 11 awake hours, 3.5 nap hours and 10 hours of night sleep. So I will move to DWT 7am and bedtime 9pm.

Now my question is, since my LO has been doing 3 nap days a few times a week should I push her to a schedule of something like 2.25/2.5/2.75/3 or should I ease her into the new schedule with 2/2/2/2/2.5 and drop the 4th nap when she adjusts? She usually gets fussy around the 2 hour mark but I can’t say it’s the WW itself as our schedule is messed and night sleep terrible lately.

Your help is greatly appreciated!!
- One tired mama!

My 9 month old has always fallen asleep easily, 8/10 times he’s put down drowsy but awake and rolls over and goes straight to sleep, the other 2/10 times his eyes are closed and he’s asleep before I even finish his book and cuddle so I put him down asleep (not too gently because it’s better if he wakes a little and rolls over to get comfy himself). Never any false starts, goes to sleep in less than 5 mins every time.
However, we just can’t get rid of the night wakes! Sometimes they seem like he’s about to naturally stop them but every time they come back with a vengeance. Usually 2-3 wakes, sometimes a little more, very rarely only 1. Slept through from 7weeks - 4.5 months and has never done it since.

His usual wakes are 11:30pm / 3am / 5-6am. We leave him fuss for 5-10 mins to see if he will put himself back to sleep, we’ve noticed that he will put himself back to sleep sometimes within 1-2 mins of waking, but if he’s left to fuss any longer than that he gets increasingly heightened and never falls back asleep independently, yet we still persist. Can sometimes be soothed in the cot for the early wake, just patting and stroking, but this is most successful if we do it immediately and don’t give him a chance to wake fully. Will often need to be taken out the cot and cuddled for a minute before being put back down and will go to sleep.
For the later 2 wakes, he absolutely will not under any circumstances go back to sleep without a bottle. We’ve been slowly reducing the milk amount, we are down to 100ml atm and he will still wake to drink, sometimes he drinks it all, sometimes he doesn’t, regardless he won’t even try to sleep unless he’s offered it. We can try for over an hour and he will not go down, even if we manage to get him in to a deep sleep and transfer, he will wake within 5 mins wanting the bottle.

We always try to follow the soothing ladder during wakes, hands off is never successful, hands on is sometimes successful for first wake only, 95% of the time he needs to be picked up, even if it’s just for a minute or two.

Set sleep schedule:
7am - wake
9:30 - Nap 1
2:30 - Nap 2
7:30 - bed time

About 2.5 hours day time sleep when home, 40mins - 1hr on day care days (if we’re lucky 🙄) which is 3 days a week. Doesn’t seem to sleep any better on daycare nights than he does on other days.

Eats GREAT, 3 full meals, plus 4 bottles during the day. Does have a bottle before most sleeps but definitely doesn’t need it to fall asleep, he refuses it before naps sometimes and it doesn’t create issues falling asleep at all. We used to do bottle upon waking instead of before nap, but he was waking up early from the naps and then would want to go back to sleep after we gave him a bottle so we switched it back around. Didn’t make a difference to his bedtime sleep anyway.

Tried bringing bedtime forward, pushing it back, capping day sleep at 2h, bringing nap 2 earlier, getting more food in to him, bigger bottle before bed, none of it made a difference. Only thing that’s helped a little is ensuring wake window before bed is minimum 3.5 hours.

Consistent bedtime routine since birth. Bath, bottle, book, bed.

Sleeps in a cot in his own room since about 5 months

Uses a pacifier most the time. Takes this in and out as he wishes.

Sorry, I feel like this is a lot of info but I just want to cover all bases!

Mon bébé de 7 mois a une bonne routine de jour; il s’endort de façon autonome et fait des périodes d’éveils d’une durée de 2h le jour et 4 h environ avant de débuter sa nuit vers 19h.
Il est 100% allaité.
Je n’ai pas de problème à le coucher, ni aux siestes, ni pour la nuit.
Mon problème est qu’il se réveil toute les heures ( max 2h) la nuit depuis environ 1 mois ou 2. Il se réveil en hurlant et ma seule façon de le rendormir est de l’allaiter.
J’ai essayé de lui laisser un peu de temps voir si il se rendort mais non.
Il est dans sa bassinette dans notre chambre. Il va rester dans notre chambre jusqu’à ce que son sommeil soit meilleur comme il ira ensuite partager une chambre avec son frère.

Comment réduire ses réveils de nuits? Des trucs? Ou des témoignages que ça va se placer, je commence à trouver ça difficile.

Hello guys. I’m posting to look for advice regarding my 2 kiddos. I have a 20 month old & a 7 month old. Up until maybe a month ago both boys were bed sharing with me and their dad. It was the only way that all of us could be well rested. We then decided the boys needed to sleep on their own, so we’ve been rocking them to sleep in a recliner then transferring to their beds. It was rough but progress was being made. Then both boys had a double ear infection at the same time, so sleep was nearly impossible and they ended up back in the bed with us for a few nights. It started to get better, finally my 7 month old was only waking one time. Then my partner went out of town and I was the one having to wake with both boys and it has been nearly impossible keeping them in their beds the full night. My 7 month old is waking up like 3-4 times, and when I put him down he almost immediately pops his head up. He doesn’t suck a paci so I then have to take him out of his crib and bottle feed him (mostly for comfort) to get him back to sleep. My 20 month old wakes up nonstop, literally because he loses his paci or for comfort maybe??? Both boys wake up about 6 am for daycare purposes, and I try to have them asleep about 7 or 7:30ish every night. We do the same nightly routine — dinner, bath, cuddles/bed. Both their beds are in my room for now. It is pitch black dark, with a sound machine. (Naps are as needed for the 7 month old with 2.5ish hour wake windows, and the 20 month old gets one nap a day from 12-2.) The 7 month old is rocked to sleep at daycare, then transferred to his crib. The 20 month old lays on his cot and does not need help soothing to sleep at daycare. I need all the tips and tricks please. Signed one tired mama 🥲

Our LO is 6 months old and is fully sleep-trained at night. We feed him, walk him for 10 mins, and put him in his crib. He sleeps for 8 hours for the first stretch, feeds, goes back to sleep immediately, and sleeps for at least 3 more hours. Generally, he sleeps from 8pm to 7am with just that one wake-up.

However, his naps still have to be contact naps. His nap schedule is approximately 1 hour of sleep every 2.5 hours. Based on some online advice, we tried to crack just the first nap in the crib. However, even after 2 weeks, he still cries for 20 mins and only sleeps for 30 mins. The crib, room and white noise are all exactly same as the night sleep. However the room is only 80% dark during the day. Because that first nap nap is so short, we’ve been letting him sleep for 2 hours in the afternoon in our arms so he can finish a full nap and catch up.
Our pediatrician suggested going cold turkey and doing all 3 naps in the crib. She was basically like, “Let the baby cry and do not give the baby an option to sleep in your arms.”
I go back to work in 2 weeks, so I would really like him to be able to sleep in the crib for at least the first two naps. For the evening nap, I can still hold him since it is only a quick cat nap.
I am very worried about going cold turkey as it might cause a very miserable week for our LO, but I'm also hopeful that it might finally fix his nap routine and teach him to use the crib for day naps too. What do folks suggest?

My sleep trained 11 month old is suddenly having trouble with his second nap. Typically sleeps 11-12h at night. Windows are 3/3.5-3.75/3.5-3.75. He now cries standing in the corner of the crib looking for me. His naps are typically 60-75 min. Wakes between 6-7, bed between 6:30-7:30 depending on wake time and naps. Note: we had a busy weekend where I was in and out a bit and one messy nap was at my parents and one at home. It’s happened twice this weekend (Friday and sunday) so I want to get ahead of it.

Questions for this group:
- I ended up rescuing with a contact nap. First time was unintentional- he fell asleep while I was calming him down. What is the best response when he won’t settle on his own? Is it okay to just skip the nap? Will the odd contact nap ruin the sleep training?
- why might this be happening?

Thank you!!!