Sleep training advice - feel burnt out.

[Hoplittlebunnyandpleasepleasestop]

Hi ladies
those who have sleep trained their babies - truthfully how did you find it and what methods did you use?

my DD is 6 months this month. She has only ever contact napped. I have tried for a while to get her to nap independently and for a long time I just felt mean and as though I was going against what she needs but it’s taking its toll on me and I need to make a change.

health visitor came round for a weighing and check in, and explained that even though you shouldn’t sleep train before 6 months, DD needs to learn to settle herself which is something she’s can’t do. HV advised me to lay her down in her bed during the day and hope that she’ll nod off. However, this isn’t something my DD will do. She needs to be rocked, sang to, and patted, before she’ll nod.

i have tried the following:

• habit stacking (hasn’t worked still have to rock)
• laying down with me next to her doing pat and shush
• putting down when drowsy
• putting down when asleep

at the moment I rely solely on the sling. However, I can’t sit down when she’s in it as she wakes up, so it takes me a while to get her down and then it’s just not worth the risk of sitting down and having to do it all again just to get her back down I’m all caught up on house work etc as it’s all I can do while she’s in the sling.

she doesn’t fall asleep in the pram anymore and doesn’t fall asleep in the sling if I’m out for a walk - she only sleeps in the sling when I’m rocking back and forth, bum patting, and singing Snow Patrol songs.

to be completely honest I feel utterly burnt out. My DH works away from home so I do everything on my own. DD is completely reliant on being on me and being rocked. Even my parents can’t get her down and they were the only other people I relied on. A lot of people said to me it’s a phase and developmental and she will grow out of this but she’s actually gotten worse - she doesn’t even sleep in the car anymore, she would rather rub her eyes and cry uncontrollably when in the car or pram, than she would sleep. She will only sleep when I put her in the sling.

I know I probably sound awful for moaning but honestly I just want to be able to sit down for 2 minutes. I’m on my feet from 6am when she wakes until 7pm when she goes to bed - then it’s a case of doing myself dinner, getting showered, and straight into bed. I know this is expected with children to be on your feet all the time, but I expected this when my baby is a crazy toddler running around, not at 6 months when she’s so evidently tired but just refuses because she wants cuddles.

I have never been someone who wanted to sleep train - I’m actually a bit of a soft touch and I give in extremely easy. But I just feel so burnt out that I think it is time to at least think about sleep training. Every time I have managed to get her down without being on me she works out in a few days that she’s napping somewhere else and will then start to refuse, so all the effort goes to waste.

advice is completely welcome (even if it’s not something I want to hear lol!) but please for the love of god no one tell me to carry on with sling naps. It’s fine when someone doesn’t make you feel burnt out, but I can’t keep up with something that is really affecting me.

Heya

Yeah, feeling stressed is part and parcel of having a new one I'm afraid. Whenever I'm stressed I like to do a small thing I like (maybe having a coffee, which actually helps get things done ironically aha). Sometimes I'll flick a few pages of a book too: Here's a good one slightly relevant to your situation:

www.keeping-composure.modernparentingtools.online

Goodluvk!

I guess the good news is that based on the night time sleep, your baby can self-settle and link sleep cycles which is often a problem at 6 months! I agree with the other posters that who are saying persistence is the answer plus cracking the timings. I think at that age we had 7am wake up, first nap 9-11, second nap 2-3:30 then 7:30 bedtime. But I just went by the clock because my kids didn't have early warning tiredness signs or do drowsy but awake - they went straight from happy to over tired and furious. So there was a bit of crying at the start of naps but very little once they got into a routine.

Your HV is full of shit. No 6 m/o 'needs' to self settle. Please don't sleep train a baby this young. If she sleeps well at night that's absolutely amazing! You run the risk of creating negative sleep associations if you stop your nap routine. Don't ruin a good night's sleep just for the sake of naps. My baby has never been a great napper but she's good overnight, though we cosleep so that helps. Some babies just nap less or need more support to nap.

@Mamoun all Emily Oster's book says is that there's no current evidence that sleep training won't harm baby, that doesn't mean it won't. A bit like during the pandemic we kept being told there was as yet no evidence that masks worked.

They can't easily set up a control group of sleep trained and non sleep trained babies due to all the complicating other factors in any baby's upbringing, and they can't measure a baby's brain activity and stress response while being left to cry because the experiment would be cruel and ethically wrong. (Oh, but fine and not cruel to leave your own baby to cry... going against all your natural instincts... OK then )

I agree
she sleeps through the night at 6 months!!
what’s the problem?
you have hit gold
just get a more comfortable sling and go about your day

100%
read the reviews of Oster’s book on Goodreads
There are great explanations by other academic researchers who explain why you can’t apply her analysis to stuff like sleep training
listen to your instincts! They are the best parenting tool you have and you are the best mum for your baby. Don’t break that trust.

Alison Scott wright is a genius sleep trainer www.alisonscott-wright.com

Is this a joke post? You're considering controlled crying with a 14 week old baby that "doesn't need it yet"? And trying to reduce already limited night feeds? Feels sadistic.

Thank you. I can definitely try the times. My DD is the same it goes from 0-100 very quickly with overtiredness!

just out of curiosity what did you do when your LO’s woke up too soon from a nap, meaning the routine fell off? Or if they didn’t go down in time and then the next nap is too close for example.

The reason I ask is because my DD will fall asleep on me and on a good day might sleep for an hour but on a bad day like today, she’ll sleep for 20 minutes and then the whole day is thrown off as she will be overtired throughout the day. It’s an impossible to stick to 3 good solid naps as she will end up doing lots of little catnaps through the day.

No CC before 6 months. Just actually manipulating nap times, set feeding schedule and jiggling around night feeds. This baby was only ever on 1 night feed between 7-4am but doesn't settle after 4am so we introduced an 11pm dreamfeed and obviously still waking at 4am from habit so working on weaning that one down. It's not sadistic at all! This mum has persisted daily with naps in sling for a few days then moved to cot and resettles him when wakes early from cot and now in last few days has clicked so getting really good stretches of day time sleep, settling himself at bedtime. Very little crying, more settled and rested than before and now working on weaning out feed (and increasing daytime feeds to back it up) if he is still doing this after 6 months we will do sleep training

If mine woke too early from a nap then I left them a bit to see if they'd go back to sleep. If they slept longer than usual I just carried on with the usual routine as I figured they needed more sleep that day for whatever reason. Maybe things would be pushed back slightly so that meals or baths weren't rushed.

We did the Ferber method with my DS when he turned 6 mo. It was difficult for a few nights (about 60-90 mins crying) but by the 4th night no tears. I did the training for morning nap and night and had afternoon nap as a contact nap as this seemed to work well for him.

There’s a group on FB called Ferber Method Sleep Training Support which was great for advice and support. It is difficult for a few nights but the Ferber method means you go in still and baby knows you’re there but learns to self soothe.

I’m so glad I did it. Many of DS’s friends who weren’t sleep trained are still rocked or fed to sleep and wake several times a night and their parents are exhausted. For us it was completely worth a few tough nights to get DS to doze off on his own and sleep through so we’re all rested. Also means DH and I get child-free time together in the evenings which we find so important!

I can't believe the comments about being cruel letting a baby cry? Did you read, went in every few minutes to resettle, nobody was harmed, baby's cry regardless not everyone can hold a baby 24/7 I certainly can't, I have other children one with additional needs, and there will be times a baby has to wait a moment? Is this cruel, or is my child that is disabled supposed to wait? A baby will cry and sometimes can't be helped, a few minutes crying is not harming a baby, and if a routine is then set a few days later? Then clearly it worked? And nobody was harmed? My baby went from co-sleeping to his own cot, day and night! And now goes down alone every nap and every night straight to sleep, do not tell me it doesn't work cause I'm 6 months in 😂 and it worked!!!? * *

Still think this? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce84e1vn1l2o