Sleep training

[GallowwayGirl88]

I have so many questions.

How do people do it? Do people have a cut off for how long they let their little ones cry for? Do people sit outside the room with a timer and go in after x amount of time? Are we going downstairs and ignoring baby? Do you do it for all naps too or only bedtime? Do you ever rock/ hug to sleep once you start? How many nights/ days till you seen an improvement?

What happens when/ if they wake during the night? Do you feed?

I followed the Ferber Method, and used their timings. If the child was in hysterics I obviously went in. I also used parts of Lucy Wolf's advice, rocking with a hand on their chest, etc. For one baby I started it at night times and the nap times worked themselves out, for the other I did it at nap times and night time figured itself out. They were different babies so it's just what worked for us. We had one baby who would not nap and went to 2 hour naps following the ferber method.

@Heidi2018 what did you do if they woke during the night?

@Heidi2018 how was your older child when the little one was getting trained?

Ferber for bedtime and naps. At 5 months. He was already self-settling here and there.

My cut off for crying was 30 minutes.

We tried more gentle methods first but he was very overstimulated, putting him down and leaving the room was best.

Cried 20 minutes on evening 1. Then 10 minutes on evening 2. 5 minutes on evening 3. Never cried again at bedtime.

Sleep trained for naps at same time. He never cried more than 15 mins.

I responded in the night as I was breastfeeding but he went from waking every 2 hours to only twice a night so he was waking for genuine hunger.

Weaned himself off night feeds completely at 11 months.

Friends who waited to sleep train later had a lot more problems. 6-12 months is prime separation anxiety and teething too so it's tricky to sleep train later.

The key for Ferber is also that you follow a routine so baby knows what to expect. A solid routine. All naps in the crib is essential. Otherwise it's confusing and cruel to expect them to fall asleep randomly in a push chair but also in a crib when you want. So you will be tied to his nap routine. I am very routine driven and I like what to expect so that worked for us.

Did the Ferber method and said I would have a 30 minute cutoff but never needed longer than 5-10. No crying at all by night 4. Yes, sat outside with a timer. Did bedtime first and then naps. Never rocked to sleep afterwards but that never worked to begin with. My method of walking and bouncing to sleep involved 30+ minutes of crying when I decided to sleep train, which wasn’t sustainable. I still breastfed when there were 1-2 night wakeups afterwards until those dropped off.

How does all naps in the crib work in real life? Like if you were in the car half an hour before nap time wouldn’t they fall asleep? Did you just stop going to groups/ out for lunch/ walks etc? That sounds very restrictive. At 5 months are they still on 2/3 naps a day? Did/ do you never have naps out and about?

@AnimalFarm567 also what kind of routine did you have? Wouldn’t they fall asleep in your arms getting a book?

Extinction method at 11 months, she had gone from waking once/twice in the night after being rocked to sleep, to waking every 20-45 minutes and crying for me to put her back to sleep, if anyone else settled her she would cry and scream, but as soon as I walked in she would calm and go back to sleep then wake up minutes later only to start the cycle again, after a week of that I was so sleep deprived I just decided to do it one night.

I though ferber would be confusing, so just went downstairs and watched her on the monitor. She cried for 15 minutes the first night, then went to sleep and slept through the night for the first time!, same for the next 3 nights then the fifth night was 35 minutes before going to sleep.. I looked it up and it's common as a last ditch effort to get you to relent.

The night after she went straight to sleep no fuss or tears, and she's been the same every night since in fairness, she goes to bed happy, we say goodnight and she looks at her books before falling asleep. If she woke up in the night we'd see to her, get her a drink etc, and we still do if she ever wakes but it is very rare, and when she does she goes straight back to sleep, it seemed to reset her whole sleep requirement.

Before we did it I thought the process sounded barbaric, but I couldn't believe how well it worked, and how much better off she was for it, she went from crying for at least an hour a night (every time she woke, multiple times a night and resisted going back to sleep etc) to not crying at all, nothing.

I think age is massively important thought, at 11months I just knew it was going to work for her for some reason.

I scheduled my outings according to his schedule. I still went to baby groups and baby classes every single day Monday - Friday but I only went to those that fit our schedule. Tbf most of them did.

If a friend wanted to meet for lunch, I told her what times I could do, I did not try to fit baby's nap around that.

I was flexible with the third nap, sometimes that was in the car but no more than twice a week.

But I would try and sing really loudly and gave them a toy they really loved to keep them awake.

Some find that restrictive. I found it amazing. Knowing I have 1.5 hours mid morning to workout and cook lunch, I got incredibly fit by 7 months post partum! And I was much happier.

We also stopped going out with the baby in the evenings completely. I did his bedtime routine at 7pm sharp and paid the nanny extra to come stay in the evenings so we could go out.

No, the key is to NOT let them fall asleep on you. You put them down awake and they figure it out. We do bath, stories, dim the lights, breastfeed and sleep sack. Then I put him down.

If they woke during the night, I assess the situation. I try settling first, dodee, lullaby, patting and then if they arent settle I'll get a bottle. I also kinda judge by if I think they've had enough food during the day and need a bottle or are just using it for comfort.

We are down to 2 daily naps now. I make sure 1 nap is in the crib, a decent nap. The other one can be in the car sometimes if we are out and about, in the buggy on a walk or sometimes in the crib too.

My older child was fine. She didn't wake or anything once she was asleep if they baby was crying.

I'd never let a baby cry for 2 mins never mind that long
You knew babies cry for a reason before you had them.
Why be so cruel.

Out of curiosity how do you children/ child sleep?

There are gentle sleep training methods that don’t require leaving your baby to cry. There’s research that shows that cortisol levels remain high in babies who have been trained with cry it out/ferber methods, even though they no longer cry when going to sleep on their own. Which basically means that they just give up crying because they know no one is coming, not because they are comfortable falling sleep on their own.

Look up gentle sleep training methods, yes they take longer but it won’t leave your baby feeling that they’ve been abandoned.

If only babies were that simple, hey?

My baby was crying in my arms and getting extremely overstimulated. It would take 1.5 hours of rocking and swaying in which time he would fall asleep briefly then wake up again. Putting him down and letting him cry a bit resulted in LESS crying and MORE sleep.

I can see him on the Nanit wake up in the middle of the night, babbling and cooing, and going back to sleep. That's not a child that has been abandoned, that's a child who knows how to settle himself back to sleep. He cries when he's actually hungry or thirsty or wants a cuddle but no longer needs my nipple in his mouth to fall asleep.

As an adult, I cannot sleep unless I am in a quiet dark room and I need a bit of time to fall asleep. It seems my baby is the same.

As parents, our job is to teach them life skills, and I count sleeping as one of them.

And some people, myself included, cannot live on 60 minutes of sleep. Constantly being woken up every 60-90 minutes was torture. I also had to go back to work at 7 months, I didn't have the luxury of sitting at home contact napping all day into toddlerhood.

Different things work for different babies.

I really tried with various ‘gentle’ methods over several months, but having me near, but not holding, DD made her absolutely hysterical.

At this point she was about 10 months, waking hourly, and I was so tired I fell down the stairs holding her. I wasn’t safe looking after her and I was losing my grip on reality, and the GP wanted to give me antidepressants.

@AnimalFarm567?

I did Ferber, and the results were amazing (almost identical to the first reply you for OP). DD is now 6, has slept brilliantly ever since, and shows no sign of being abandoned.

I didn’t say that these methods don’t work, I’m sure they do. I said that there is research that shows that these methods leave the baby stressed, as shown by increased cortisol levels even though they do stop crying and go to sleep independently.

I do understand that sometimes mothers reach a point where this is the only way forward, for the sake of their own wellbeing, so it’s the lesser evil. But also wanted to point out that there are other methods that OP might not have been aware of as they are less known.

OP, it’s up to you of course to decide if or how to sleep train your baby. I just wanted you to have the full picture and know that there are other options you could explore if you wanted to.

I genuinely appreciate you coming back to me - perhaps next time think about and perhaps acknowledge the potential context when you post things like this.

Lack of sleep can be awful and the judgment associated with it (including in your post) can be devastating to people in the depth of it.