Preparing for sleep training

[Reset900]

My 19 week old has been going through the 4 month sleep regression for 4 weeks now and it’s getting worse. He’s never been a great sleeper but we’re now on 5 wake ups per night and he’ll only nurse back to sleep, refuses to be comforted by me or his dad any other way.
I’m not planning to sleep train for at least another month or so but I’m struggling to find good info about how you sleep train but still keep a couple of overnight feeds (baby is EBF). I’m not expecting him to sleep through the night but a couple of 3 hour stints would restore my sanity.
Would love to hear others’ experiences, and also anything you’ve done earlier to set up for success - we already have a bedtime routine, white noise etc.

I'm sorry but I don't think you can. We sleep -trained and I'm a big fan of it. But later, at 8 months, when I was happy DC didn't need night feeds anymore. Carried on breastfeeding both children to 14 months but night weaned around 8 months and could only have made sleep training work by night weaning at same time.

It's really hard, OP. I know different solutions suit different families, but I really hope you've looked into what sleep training really is.
Some families have success stories, e.g. baby whinged for a bit and settled, but that's not the case for the majority. In many instances parents have to redo the sleep training after illness, teething, developmental leaps etc.
There is also evidence that babies continue to wake through the night, but don't cry because they've been trained that no one will come to soothe them.

I mean current advice is not to leave young puppies alone in the night, it's shocking that human babies deserve less comfort than dogs according to expensive 'sleep consultants'.

Hi Reset900! We went through the exact same thing with the 4 month sleep regression! Like you, I never had a good sleeper but it was manageable until around 14 weeks when the sleep regression hit us like a ton of bricks and he started waking every 45 minutes-1 hour, if I was lucky he would do one 2 hour stretch every second night! It was brutal. He would only be settled by breastfeeding and would take at least 40 minutes to get him back down everytime he woke. I had always fed him to sleep and that really strong feed to sleep association was causing massive problems.

I sleep trained at just under 6 months and for bedtime only, I never wanted to night wean because I had such a hungry little boy but I wanted to remove the feed to sleep association so he wouldn't need it everytime he stirred. It was tough the first 2 nights but so so worthwhile. Right away he was waking only 2-3 times a night to feed, I would go to him as soon as he cried, feed him and put him back in his cot. The first night I was bracing myself for tears all over again when I put him back down after the first middle of the night feed but no, he rolled over and went straight back to sleep - this is a baby that I used to have to hold for 20 minutes after feeding him to sleep before I could even attempt to set him down. So not only did I have less feed but they were now a 10-15 minute job instead of a 40 minute job. Can't tell you how much my mood improved and my relationship with my husband. My baby was also much happier when he was getting undisruptive sleep - its so exhausting for them too.

He's 8 months now and dropped those night feeds by himself over the last couple months so he is now sleeping through the night. I'd recommend weaning for bedtime only and you'd be surprised how removing that feed to sleep association will reduce night wakeups on it's own. Not true that your baby won't cry if he needs you during the night, if he is hungry, in pain, just can't get back to sleep by himself then he'll let you know!

Just to add that I highly recommend the book Precious Little Sleep, actually the Facebook group even more so than the book but you need the book to join the group. They give amazing unjudgemental advice on there.

Sleep training is not recommended before a year. Even in the 60s Feber was recommended from 6 months.

This isn’t true, 6 months is absolutely fine

So we did the same as you OP, exactly the same in terms of wake ups and baby would only be fed back to sleep

we night weaned at the same time as sleep training, the way you do it is this:

• time when the usual wake ups and feedings are and how long feedings last


• pick 3 feeding times which occur 15 mins or so before the baby wakes up - ie 10pm, 2am, 5am


• give dream feeds at those times - pick baby up, feed, put back down. This will slightly wake the baby but this is ok


• time the night feedings - and then gradually cut them down. Ie you might do 10pm - 10 mins, 2am - 8 mins, 5am - 10mins. The next night you cut down the 2am feed by another 2 mins


• if the baby is 6 months I’d really advise keeping the 10pm dreamfeed until they’re about 10 months just to make sure they’re not waking up hungry

a 6 month old baby should be able to go 8-10 hours without a feed overnight but I didn’t feed 100% comfortable with that and would have felt awful if she was waking up out of hunger, so I kept the 10pm dreamfeed in for a while

you can then edit the above to suit you - you could drop the feed by as little as 1 feed for 30 seconds each night or even every few nights to be sure you’re doing it really gradually. You should drop the middle of the night feed first, then the early morning one, then the bedtime one last

if the baby wakes at any other time then you do standard sleep training but you’ll know it’s not because they’re hungry!

I thought this method wouldn’t work but it was excellent for us, she was night weaned within about a week

@7Worfs please can you provide evidence for this:

”There is also evidence that babies continue to wake through the night, but don't cry because they've been trained that no one will come to soothe them.”

do you really think that sleep trained babies never ever cry ever again?!

Perfectly possible to continue night feeds and sleep train. I might be tempted to hang on till 6 months if you can. We did sleep training then at the same time as moving my son into a cot in his own room which worked really well.

Did similar to the gentle retreat method (info on google) but with the guidance of a sleep trainer (happylittledreamers.co.uk)

Still fed in the night but had a minimum amount of hours between feeds and the key was to put him back down in cot awake after.

It's not regression, it's a baby naturally waking to check they are safe.

You can't train them to realise they are safe when you're not there. You can only train them to realise no one is coming to make them feel safe.

I remember with my DS he was up every hour
I just brought him in bed with me, kicked DH in the spare and coslept for a few months
It was hell, and it didn't get better at 6 months when he started solid food (like everyone told me), he just slowly grew out of it, the sleep would be longer so he went from every hour wake ups to every 1.5 hour wake ups to every two hours ect

I would actually start some gentle sleep training now. Do you use white noise and a dummy already? If not I would start as will make the whole process easier. I woukd start trying each time to put baby down awake and listening for a minute to see what baby is saying. If baby is distressed then go to them and see if you can settle just using your hand, if baby I still distressed then you can pick up and settle as normal. If baby is fussing but not distressed then give them a little while to see if they settle.At first you will probably find you have to do a lot of going back in to resettle but usually they will start to settle themselves more and more. This is easier the earlier you start. The once they can settle themselves at bedtime you can give them a couple of minutes to see if they will settle in the middle if the night too.

@ShirleyPhallus
Sure, here is one example, Wendy Hall, followed 235 families, babies were 6-8mo old - first she asked parents to self-report via sleep diaries how often their babies woke in the night, then they used actigraphy to actually monitor the babies at night, here is an excerpt:

As well as asking parents to record sleep diaries, Hall's study included actigraphy, which uses wearable devices to monitor movements to assess sleep-wake patterns.
When the researchers compared sleep diaries, they found that parents who had sleep-trained thought their babies woke less at night and slept for longer periods. But when they analysed the sleep-wake patterns as shown through actigraphy, they found something else: the sleep-trained infants were waking up just as often as the ones in the control group. "At six weeks, there was no difference between the intervention and control groups for mean change in actigraphic wakes or long wake episodes," they wrote.
In other words, parents who sleep-trained their babies thought their babies were waking less. But, according to the objective sleep measure, the infants were waking just as often – they just weren't waking up their parents.

The last 5-10 years especially there is more research into the harmful effects of sleep training, I hope sleep consultants become more honest and up front that it's for the parents' benefit, because it sure as heck isn't in the best interests of the baby.

It’s not sleep regression, it’s babies doing what they do - waking often in the night.
I never sleep trained three babies, I’m amazed when people seem to think letting babies cry is the answer

Thanks all for the replies.

We are currently largely co-sleeping and I’m hoping it might start to naturally improve a bit over the next 6 weeks or so, so useful to hear it did for you @MoodyTwo. I’m not planning to do too much more til 6 months and had the same thought about it being easier when he’s in his own room @tulipsunday

@3WildOnes we do use white noise, sleep bag, bedtime routine etc now. He won’t take a dummy - I’ve tried many times! Also trying to leave him to work it out for a minute before intervening, then soothe using something other than the boob before resorting to feeding again but it hasn’t been successful so far. Will keep trying though.

@shivawn - what method did you use? I’ll get Precious Little Sleep

I know some people feel very uncomfortable with any form of sleep training but having reviewed various sources, I don’t think there’s any evidence for long term harm. I’m not talking about leaving him on his own all night so not sure how the puppy analogy is relevant @7Worfs - just how to transition him to being soothed in ways other than being fed back to sleep 5 or 6 times a night which means we’re both up for hours every night & then both grumpy and tired all day!

Ferber. It was tough, very tough, the first 2 nights. No one wants to hear their baby cry. But, it also wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I think it took 25 minutes the first night, over 40 minutes the second night but it was much easier from then on. Within a week he was happily babbling and rolling around his cot for 4-7 minutes after I left the room before falling asleep. Honestly I had hesitations but I'm so glad that we did it.

@7Worfs I think your conclusion from this study that babies therefore have learnt that their parents won't come if they cry is a big leap

Wendy Hall herself is an advocate of teaching self soothing and her take out from this study is that as she expected the babies are waking the same amount but have learnt to self soothe and link sleep cycles themselves

In fact a slide form her own lectures shows how important she thinks teaching this skill is to babies: her only stipulation is that it should be plus 6 months.

Sleep training is massively divisive of course but she advocates that parents don't rush in and intervene every time their baby cries in the night and if they are constantly crying it is likely that they have been set conditions for sleep that are impossible to replicate themselves.

It doesn't mean the baby needs to cry alone for hours, but some help teaching them to sleep without reliance on being fed/rocked/held is an important skill.

That’s interesting @EvergreenForest.

I actually think I was too influenced by all the attachment parenting stuff I read about feeding to sleep not being a bad habit and I’ve not done my baby or myself any favours by getting him so reliant on it!

I think the nuance that the anti sleep trainers miss is that the babies might be “waking up” the same amount of times but not necessarily “awake” the same amount of time, because they are then able to go back to sleep without feeding/another lengthy process (unless they actually need a feed)

What I take from this is that the babies who have been sleep trained might wake up just the same, but they have learnt to put themselves back to sleep without crying for their caregiver to feed them /rock them/ hold them etc

Which is a good thing

Why do babies need to wake their parents every time they wake up? Why do some people think it's cruel to leave an awake baby in the night? They look around, know where they are, put themselves back to sleep.
I sleep trained my eldest (controlled crying) because rocking, shushing, feeding to sleep just wasn't working. She couldn't get to sleep and was waking every 1-2 hours at 10 months old. It took two nights before she slept through and put herself to sleep. She was much happier! The thing is, she's 5 and she would still cry out when she was in pain, ill or her blankets come off and we'd still respond and sort those issues out and we sleep in there when she's ill. She likes going to her bed when tired and knows we will respond to her when needed. Sleep training is just getting them to be able to get to sleep on their own.
I've been putting my 5 month old down awake this week and doing a bit of shush pat / pick up put down and this morning she woke at 4:30 and I fed her until 5, she then woke again at 5:45. I knew she wasn't hungry so I just shushed and tapped her bottom and she went back to sleep.

Sorry, OP - I remember how difficult it was (and am about to experience it again in a few months) - as I said, sleep training works for some with minimum upset, but that's not the case for all. Learning to get to sleep alone is a developmental milestone that babies reach at different ages - some might be able to from a few months old, others need a bit of comfort for a few years.

Sleeping training/controlled trying - call it what ever you like but it’s cruel. Babies needs do not stop needing to be met just because it’s night time.

if you’re upset for whatever reason then being comforted from your partner helps you feel better. If he came in and patted your back with a ‘ssh shh’ then left and said you needed to self sooth it would make you feel worse

babies are still developing. Don’t leave them to cry. I go as far to say if that’s what you want to do, why have babies?? I agree with the poster who said about puppies.

justify it however you want but there is enough evidence out there to prove that sleep trained and controlled crying babies still wake up just as much as every other baby, they just don’t cry because they know they’ll be ignored. Why would you want your baby to not trust you to soothe them?

I think the nuance that the anti sleep trainers miss is that the babies might be “waking up” the same amount of times but not necessarily “awake” the same amount of time, because they are then able to go back to sleep without feeding/another lengthy process (unless they actually need a feed)

This. The goal of sleep training is to teach independent sleeping skills, there's no reason why it would cause them wake less often. I've often seen my baby wake on the monitor 40 minutes or so after falling asleep, he opens his eyes for a second, gives a sleepy little sigh before turning his head and going immediately back to sleep. He's certainly not distressed as to whether or not he's safe. We do it ourselves as adults, multiple little micro-wakes during the night that we don't even remember in the morning....I think there's data from fitbit showing that users wake on average 9-10 times a night.

This is not true. My controlled crying baby slept through unless there was a genuine issue other than being unable to go back to sleep. If she was in pain, ill or whatever we'd respond and we'd know there was an issue because it wasn't normal behaviour. I think that responding to your baby everytime they wake and feeding is not meeting their needs. I breastfeed mine but if she fed 45 minutes ago and wakes again, it's just ridiculous to then shove a nipple in her mouth to shut her up. I'm not responding to her needs if I'm doing that. She doesn't need feeding, does she? In fact, my 5 month old won't even latch if she's not hungry. This is only something I've learnt by EBF two babies and looking back on my first, she was waking every 1-2 hours until she was 10 months (when we did controlled crying) and feeding back to sleep. I wasn't meeting her needs. I think I was being a shit parent for feeding her when she didn't need feeding

justify it however you want but there is enough evidence out there to prove that sleep trained and controlled crying babies still wake up just as much as every other baby, they just don’t cry because they know they’ll be ignored. Why would you want your baby to not trust you to soothe them?

How do you know they stop crying because they know they’ll be ignored and not because they’ve learnt how to get themselves back to sleep without crying? @TiredEyes1991