Help with sleep training - had to give up last night

[Eumy]

Hi all. I’ve got a 6month old DS, who has been waking 3 or so times a night after the 4 month sleep regression. He’s breastfed, and is waking up to feed then goes back to sleep. He does take a bottle, but I do 100% of the night wakings and I have since my OH went back to work (they need to be well slept for their work or people could die). I don’t think he needs the night feeds, as when he wakes up he’ll barely feed? He sleeps in his crib, but we need to move him to his cot. All his naps are either in the carrier, pram or on me. He usually feeds to sleep, for bedtime or when he falls asleep on me. However, I want to stop this as I plan to phase out breastfeeding soon.

Anyway, we thought we’d try sleep training him in his new cot. We tried last night, with the fading/chair method. It did not go well. We tried for 3 hours. If he got too upset we’d pick him up and soothe then put him down. I tried an extra feed to see if he was hungry, but he pulled off when he realised he wasn’t going to feed to sleep. He nearly fell asleep several times, but seemed to jerk awake and then start grizzling again.

In the end we gave up and brought him back into his crib - which is getting way too small for him!

We want to try again tonight, but I’m wondering if we’re missing something? It was my OH doing the settling, should it have been me? We were in the dark, so we need a nightlight so he can see us? Is it better to keep feeding to sleep for now, and focus on the move into the cot?

Put him in the cot for naps first, and move the crib out, then put the cot where the crib was.

It’s normal for a 6 month old to need milk over night.

why does he need to be in a cot? If you really don’t want to cosleep then consider putting him on a mattress on the floor. It’s easier to settle and then move away.

When you put him down to sleep, do not pick him up again. You can lie him down if sitting/standing though.
You can shhh him but do not speak to him. Do not make eye contact.
Sit on the floor with your arm through the bars and pat/rub him.

Decide your method and stay consistent. It will only take 2/3 days of consistency for it to work.

if he’s not used to napping in his crib during the day, he won’t be too fond of it at night. Could you manage one nap in his crib a day. Full sleep routine, close curtains and blinds then into sleep bag then put him down when he is settled but still awake. Stay with him rock his crib, sing nursery rhymes and as he relaxes, start to leave.

a little upset is ok, if you do want to sleep train it’s the only way. Or try a dummy for nap times only?

Does the crib fit in the cot? We put the Moses basket in the cot when we transitioned and took it away after a night or two and he was ok.

It's still early days! I'm not familiar with your method, but for overnights I would always try and resettle my boy without a feed. Initially it didn't work every time: maybe he would resettle once a night without being picked up. But gradually the times would increase and the wakeups decreased.

Just keep doing it. Remember, baby doesn't know the end goal; he's just being made to go along with you. If you stay consistent he WILL get it!

I got my DD used to her cot for naps prior to bedtimes there. Seemed to work.

Ah our crib would fit in the cot, that’s a good idea! As our cot won’t fit in our bedroom so we’re not able to try and get to him used to it before he’s in his own room.

Unfortunately co sleeping isn’t something I’m comfortable with really.

i don’t mind some upset, it’s just DS can escalate his crying and at his top volume he can be heard outside the house! So I’m hoping to minimise as much of that as possible!

3 times a night sounds pretty good for his age tbh.

Waking 3 times a night is completely normal at 6 months. I'm fact, mine mostly woke a lot more than that until over a year.

I think that amount of waking is pretty normal at that age. I think the fact he goes back to sleep after a feed is the sign that hunger is what was waking him? Mine only started sleeping through the night when she was about 13 months old. She always settled easily after a feed in the night, so I just figured she needed it and went with it. And bought myself some extra nice fancy coffee to have in the mornings to cope with it and rode out the phase.

Total consistency is key, and also you and your OH need to try to project calm and confidence, even when your DC is getting worked up.

We did the Ferber method with our 3 DCs. Our paediatrician suggested getting night sleep down first, because there’s a stronger sleep drive at night, and sort out naps a few weeks later.

We talked about the plan throughout the day with our DCs, saying “night is for sleeping, not for eating. I love you sooooo much. If you wake up, Papa is going to come to make sure you’re ok, and then you’ll go back to sleep.” I’m convinced babies understand more than we give them credit for at that age.

At night we would go through the usual routine, then say our “mantra” again and put DC in the crib fully awake. Usually there would be complaints! DH would go in every 3, 5, 7, 12 minutes, give a quick cuddle and say the mantra, then back into the crib, parent back out the door.

Usually the first night there would be 3ish wake-ups, and settling would take between 15 minutes and an hour and a half. Second night, maybe one or two wake ups, much quicker. By the third or fourth night they’d usually go into their crib quite contentedly by themselves, chatter a bit and then go to sleep and sleep through until around 5/6am.

Naps remained a bit of a challenge, but with great night sleep I didn’t really mind, and I’d happily cuddle them to sleep for naps or bring them out for a walk. The naps sorted themselves out by themselves around 9 months. Sometimes they’d fuss for 3-5 minutes in the crib before settling down, but usually not much longer.

Keep on going - no one of any age learns a major new skills in just one night, and learning to string together sleep cycles and to self soothe is a major skill!

I noticed a marked difference in my DCs’ moods after sleep training. Way less irritable and not as tired before their first nap (prior to sleep training they were usually disasters before nap! I think they were just really over-tired).

Re: feeding, I was still breastfeeding when we sleep trained all our DCs. I think there’s a pervasive myth, especially in the UK, that breastfed babies won’t sleep through the night until university. 😝 (I see it a ton on here, but don’t know anyone in my circles in Canada/US/France who didn’t sleep train their DCs sometime between 4 and 8 months, and many of those babies are breastfed)

My DCs noticeably upped their breast milk intake during the day during sleep training. Because they were ~6 months when we sleep trained them, they were also starting solids, so we’d make sure to give them protein-rich foods at dinner time to see them through. They continued to grow along their usual growth curves even after cutting out night feeds, and they weren’t even desperate for breakfast in the morning most of the time. 6-month-olds can definitely do it, as long as there aren’t any underlying medical issues or growth concerns.

move into their own room, bigger cot. put down and leave them for however long your comfortable. then if they're still crying, return and pat them for 30 seconds. leave. then wait longer. wait longer each time. eventually they will simply fall asleep. it's hard for a few days but then it's done. trust me, it works. don't bother with the chair method or having them in your room etc, it's all just delaying things for them and you will wake each other up.
our dd woke up a few times a night when in next2me or cosleeping up to 6 months. then we moved to own room and bigger cot, a few days of 'training' and then she slept through. sleeps through pretty much without fail ever since.

I think waking in the night is normal and sleep training won't necessarily stop that but we found it helped him getting himself to sleep rather than being fed to sleep.

I would avoid picking him up at all - we rubbed back (the ssh-pat method) as we picked him up first night and made him more unsettled.

This.

6 months is very early to sleep train, and to cut night feeds.And alot to do both cutting feeds and transotioning to room/cot all at once.So focus on one or the other first.
Maybe try offering the bottle and cuddles to sleep first at each night feed to try and gradually move away from breastfeeding if that's what you want to do.And put him down drowsy but awake most of the time.I didn't do this with DD1 and she was like your baby, but I did it with DD2 and she still needs feeds in the night but is able to settle sometimes without being literally 'fed to sleep' every time.
With DD1 we took the side off the cot and put it next to our bed when she grew out of the crib but was still waking often and unsettled in her own room.She hated being 'contained/trapped' in it I think.

Try sleep stacking. Worked wonders for my boy.

Oh my lord

hes 6 months old!!! He’s not an alarm clock OP where you set the timer and he wakes up when you want him to

hes a baby who’s been in this world less time than he was in your womb. It’s NORMAL for babies to wake up, it’s normal for them to want feeds overnight. Their needs don’t stop just because it’s dark outside. Even if sleep training does ‘work’ - he will still wake up just as often as he is right now, only he just won’t cry because he will know he’s ignored. That’s the only thing you’ll be training him to do.

in the nicest way possible I think you need to accept you have a baby who may not sleep through for a long time. And that’s normal.

I know everyone’s going to reply that I’m ‘shaming’ you but I’m really not. But sleep training is cruel to any baby especially one so young