What would gentle sleep training typically involve?

[Aliceandthemarchhare]

I am concerned about my four month old and would appreciate some advice.

He typically sleeps from about 9 pm to 5 am and wakes up once to be fed (usually) so that’s fine.

During the day though his naps are so short that when I total it up he usually only sleeps about two hours, sometimes less. I try not to worry about it but he does get so overtired by evening it’s not much fun.

Is there a gentle way to get him to sleep a bit longer?

If his sleep is like that on an evening I won’t change a thing.

Not helpful.

I’m sorry you feel that way about my opinion but honestly I would worried that changes to day night sleep might have a negative impact on evening sleep.

Do you experiment with naps in pram, in car, in cot/basket etc? I agree it's very difficult as that's an amazing bedtime stint and you don't want to sabotage that

A long walk in pram in the morning?

He is getting less than ten hours a day some days. I’m not seeing this ‘amazing’ thing some of you are sorry. I’m not trying to be rude but he is going to bed at 9, usually waking between 2 and 3 then up for the day at 5. It could be worse but that’s not what i am about here. It’s the fact he’s tired.

But you're not really explaining what you've tried or much about your daily routine so other than ask you experiment with method to sleep there isn't much more we can suggest.

He doesn’t sleep for long is the problem, unless it’s a long car journey which obviously isn’t ideal. So he might nod off in the pram but the problem is he might not and then you have a grumpy baby needing to be carried.

He can generally get to sleep. The problem is he wakes after just twenty/thirty minutes and then you can’t get him back to sleep until the next nap is due in about two and a half hours.

So as things stand I’m going to bed at 9, being woken about 230, then it takes me an hour to get him back down, then woken again at 5, and getting no real downtime on the day and it is getting me down a little bit, I agree he has a good stretch but it isn’t enough and we are both feeling it.

Honestly, if he's sleeping well at night, don't mess with it!

I don’t want to be rude but I don’t think you appreciate that I have a very overtired, clingy, crying, stressed baby to deal with for many hours in the day before I get 5-6 hours sleep at night.

Please could people only comment with helpful suggestions now? Thanks.

I understand your frustration but it’s very typical of babies that age to only have short naps. My DD didn’t start sleeping longer than 30 mins until she was 7 months.

If she woke after 30 minutes I could sometimes rock her to sleep for another sleep cycle but I had to catch her at the right moment for it to work.

4 months is too young for any type of sleep training, but you could try the ‘wake to sleep’ approach which involves gently rousing them before the end of a sleep cycle so say at 20 minutes in the hope it sends them into another sleep cycle. I could never pull it off though, timing needs to be perfect.

I think your expectations are a little out of line with reality which is why you are getting the responses you are

My DD was similar for day naps at 4 months - four x 30 minutes. (We didn’t have the long night stretch though sadly as the regression hit hard. At 5 months things are now a bit improved.) I decided to always try to resettle at the first two naps, however necessary (for us it’s in arms and bouncing) and it’s gradually got easier, so that we’ve moved into a nice three nap pattern with the first two at least an hour - but that could just be a developmental thing. It’s really normal to have naps of one sleep cycle till around 6 months. I appreciate you’re saying he’s tired though, which is really hard. How did you settle on the 9pm bedtime? Could you bring that forward if he’s struggling by the evening?

Anna yes I am user to people being told they are ridiculous for expecting their babies to sleep.

I don’t expect him to sleep but I want him to. Because he’s overtired and crabby and fretful and very difficult to look after.

Thanks for the advice about sleep cycles.

The thing with his bedtime is he always feeds to sleep. So if you ‘miss’ the feed where he’s tired enough you have to wait until he’s hungry enough to feed again. It’s usually around 9. But the point is he’s quite a bit under the amount of sleep he should be having. Last week he slept for less than an hour in the whole day! I mean he’s that was a exceptionally bad one but there’s no way that’s enough and it does worry me.

What happens if you keep walking with the pram, and sit down outside a cafe and rock him? I know not ideal as you can't have a sleep yourself but I suppose the hope is if he gets a decent sleep and doesn't end up overtired he will go down more easily

My baby is almost 4 months and also a very good night sleeper. Naps were difficult but got easier when I tried not to stress about them. She gets one sleep cycle (40 min) in the morning and then around 12/1 she’ll usually do another nap which could be 40 min or two hours.

If it’s a bad day and she hasn’t had much sleep then I’ll take her on a longer afternoon nap - you could try in the pram but have a sling with you in case he doesn’t sleep in the pram. Also keep the shade down because my one is very interested in the scenery at the moment.

Sometimes she would nap in the pram carrycot in the house. I think it’s also helped putting her down to nap in her pramsuit even if we’re not going out - she seems to love being cozy, but not all babies will.

If I put her down for a nap and she’s really not into it then I’ll get her up for a feed/short play and try again.

Good luck!

It varies hugely. Sometimes he will sleep in the pram but not always and usually he has a 20 minute sleep. I don’t usually dare stop

I stressed about his naps as a newborn then stopped but now I’m stressing again as they are just ridiculous and it’s getting hard in the day because he gets so tired and grouchy. He won’t sleep in the sling any more - it used to knock him out almost immediately but he’s a bit too focused on the world around him now

Why does he not go to bed until 9pm? I think oils suggest 2 hour wake windows with 30 minute naps if that’s all he will do then bed at 7pm.
Will he nap longer if you lie with him/walk in sling/push in pram? All of my children will only do 30 min naps on their own. My youngest is 6.5m and will do longer if in pram/car etc. He wakes every 2 hours at night so the daytime naps aren’t really an issue! He goes straight back to sleep and sleeps from 7-6 so isn’t overtired though.

I get it, it’s worrying when you read the “recommended” amounts of sleep (mine is always under, too) and it’s hard when you can see baby is tired and struggling. How do you do the naps? I mean, how and where does he get to sleep, and how do you decide when to try? And what do you have in the way of bedtime routine?

If you are interested in sleep training than the baby sleep guide by Stephanie Modell was my Bible for both my DDs. Has age specific advice. I ended up doing gradual retreat for both, pretty successfully for my first and very success for my youngest - does depend a bit on the child.

Op have you tried putting down for a nap early morning? I found my twins who woke at 5am for a, long time had their best nap if I put them down to sleep about 2 hours after getting up, sounds counter intuitive but worked for me. Also that probably won't mess with your night time too much.

My baby is 3 months old and the only place she’ll settle in for decent nap stretches is in my arms, otherwise she’s only down in her snuzepod or Moses for 20/30 mins a pop during the daytime and then gets craggy by evening. I give her a long morning nap in my arms and another one later in the afternoon so that she gets decent sleep time during the day, and have bought a sling to free up my hands when I need to get things done in the house, otherwise she’d be overtired by nighttime too. At night she’ll sleep from between 10/11pm, wake around 3am for a feed and then wake again at 6am. Your little ones pattern doesn’t sound too dissimilar. I believe it’s standard for this age range that they’re going through developmental changes that affect sleep and they’d rather be with you. My little one wakes to check I’m still there and then goes back off if she’s in my arms, if she’s not, she’s awake and nap time is super short. Maybe try keeping him on/with you to see if he’ll sleep longer, if you haven’t already.

For a while I had a baby who woke at 5am, big milk feed, but could go back to sleep at 6am (ie treat it as night instead of morning)? Then late morning long pram walk 1 hr or more?

The only sleep training I know is getting to sleep (and it sounds like your lo is ok at this) then staying asleep is due to the circumstances they fell asleep in still being present when they go through a period or light sleep /wakening, so they can go back to sleep.
Ie after 5am keep it dark and quiet and go back to bed too!

To be honest you can’t ‘put him down’ for a nap! This is another concern that he’ll generally only sleep on me!

But yes I do try to watch those wake windows. His isn’t two hours I don’t think - more two and a half to three. But the big problem is if he gets woken you can’t get him back to sleep until the next two and a half hours have passed. So that awful day when he only slept for an hour was because he fell asleep on the car and then I stalled and he woke up after five minutes. Then I had to wait another three hours for him to go back to sleep.

I just think he’d be so much more settled with a good hour and a half nap in the day. On the occasions this has happened it’s made no difference to his sleep at night.