When to start sleep training

[abadoo]

DD2 is 12w. She had weight issues to start so has been tucked up in my bed. Now she is gaining well I'd like my bed back but she never sleeps for longer than 45-50 mins before she wakes unless tucked up with me. This means it's impossible to kick her out until she can resettle after 1 cycle.
I successfully used Andrea grace gentle sleep solution with ds1 but at 8m.

Has anyone tried sleep training a 12week baby? Most of what I've read suggests 4 months at the earliest for sleep training. Is there anything I can do now?

I know just need her to learn self styling but have no idea how to do this. Have tried the sleepy into cot idea but it goes from fussing to full blown hysteria and I don't want to do CIO. Naps are the same (in a sling she is great, in the cot 45 mins unless I go and resettle her)?

[solenneguest]

I would like to know as well! why are most techniques recommended for babies over 6 months?

[abadoo]

I think it's to do with sleep maturity ie they are able to doit?

[mrsmugoo]

Out of necessity I had to get my DS out of our bed (he was rolling and it was un-safe and I was unable to transfer him to the cot without waking him) at 4 months so had to "sleep train" at that point. The reality of it was he had to "grizzle it out" (he never really properly cried) with me in the room, until he learned to suck his fingers and self-soothe (took 2-3 nights).

We've never looked back.

[solenneguest]

Thanks mrsmugoo useful to know!

[solenneguest]

Mrsmugoo have you got a website detailing the method you used at all? Did you sit in the same room only or did you pat or shush or anything? Thanks!

[Greenstone]

Marking place. Dd2 is the same age. So far it's been the path of least resistance because she was in hospital for a few days some weeks ago and it took her a while to recover from all that, and now she has a cold and a stuffy nose so not much to be done. However I have The Fear about the future. I'm so tired existing on 4/5hrs sleep a night. Cosleeping doesn't work as she pukes milk everywhere from drinking too fast. But any time we try the drowsy but awake malarkey all hell breaks loose.

[Annarose2014]

Ewan the Dream Sheep has helped us (10 weeks). I put it on when giving last feed and he falls asleep to it so he's pretty limp to transfer. I change the nappy first and pray for no blowouts. Then if he grizzles I put it on again. He self-settles to the white noise now.

With waking after 45 mins, I'd just make sure he's warm enough. Your warmth is possibly why he keeps sleeping on you.

[Annarose2014]

(That is to say I change the nappy before giving the feed)

[mrsmugoo]

I didn't use any specific method - just stuck to a set nap and bedtime routine so he would associate the sleep cues. I would feed him to a drowsy state and place him in the cot.

I'd stand or sit at the head end of the cot so he couldn't see me and he would wriggle and roll and generally grizzle for as long as he needed. He put his own fingers in his mouth on day 1, after about 35 minutes of grizzle and sucked until his eyes drooped and he was off.

After 3-4 days/nights (I decided to tackle naps and night sleep together) he would put his fingers in to suck straightaway with no grizzling.

I tried pick-up/put down and shush pat but he found them too stimulating and preferred minimal intervention from me.

[solenneguest]

Thank you, so helpful :-)

[MrPop]

I'm in a similar position - my DD is a bit older though (17 weeks). Sleeps okay when in with me, wakes every hour (or more!) if not.

The difficulty is I doubt she would grizzle it out! I think all hell would break loose.

I am thinking of doing 'pick up put down' though as I think she would be happy to be comforted and then put down. Not sure how she would then fall asleep though??

I am happy to report back but I might chicken out and take the path of least resistance

[Greenstone]

The grizzle to sleep thing does not work in this house. Been there tried that with both dds. Grizzling to sleep only works if rocked in pram sling or arms. White noise alone doesn't cut it if the bed is stationary! I'm rereading no cry sleep solution for tips.

[solenneguest]

Ooh a report back would be good thanks mrpop! I'm chickening out until my little one starts solids, planning to start around 20 weeks. (Although I may change my mind and try sooner if sleep gets worse!)

[abadoo]

Thanks for the input everyone. It sounds like 4 months rather than 3 months is the starting point so I shall bide my time.
I suspect I have a hell breaks loose sort of chid rather than a grizzler but perhaps the month ahead will change that.
Fingers crossed (for me and the others with the same problem!)

[FATEdestiny]

A dummy is an excellent tool for allowing comfort sucking to sleep.

[777emm]

maybe settle of in arms then put in cot afterwards. what do you do at nap times when my daughter was born i use to put her in moses basket then place the basket into her cot then in the day time whilst i was upstairs i use to put her in her cot just her cot with her cot toys to look at, as she grew out her moses basket she was fine on her first night in her cot although 2yrs old and we took her sides off her cot she screamed like we was trying to kill her so we decided to put them back on... she will be 3 in may so trying again soon with bed guard hoping that will make feel better lol

[abadoo]

So I am definitely going to wait until after the vaccines but have tried warming my room up a bit and she definitely slept better last night so maybe I need the same in the nursery.
Fingers crossed for later in the week. Thanks all

[abadoo]

777em - we've move out son to a big boy bed (needed to as Ds coming along). After much hyping up about being a big boy and how exciting etc, then doing a 5 day count down, he loved it and has never looked back. Might be worth a shot to talk lots about it and do a countdown. Maybe with a chart you put stickers on for each day it gets closer? Hope it goes well.

[solenneguest]

@abadoo how is it going?!

[kmini]

Op I wished I had started to reduce down the amount of rocking and bf'ing to sleep around 3 months. I think both are now quite entrenched (5 months now), particularly the rocking. I've been trying to stop rocking for a few weeks without much success. The bf'ing has just been replaced with rocking or shushing. That's my only tip, be aware of the props you are using to get them to sleep and how they might impact her ability to self sooth in time.

[solenneguest]

Kmini I completely agree with you - I think cc might be the only option as otherwise you risk replacing one association with another...

[AgnieszkaWhitaker]

I have 15 weeks old Baby Girl. I think that all of us have exactly the same problem and questions : when to start sleep training, how to do it etc?
We started few weeks ago by just sticking to a routine with day naps and evening bed routine. We found that after around a week she fell in to a routine (we been looking at the signs of when she is tired and went from there). She has struggled with falling asleep in her moses basket (in my opinion because she was so small and useed to fall aslep on my arms or breast) so we gave her dummy to help her with self smoothing which worked for us.
I do thing that you need to stop having her in your bed as it will become harder as she gets older. They say that apparently up until 4-5 months old babies don't get use to things and have a very short memory so it should be quite easy to stop it and it shouldn't take longer than few days.
Did you try swaddling ? it helped us.
All best Im sure you will be fine.

[abadoo]

Thanks for checking sollene we seem to have made some improvements. She won't fall asleep in her cot but out of nowhere last weds she decided to sleep for 1-4 hours in her cot over night! I have no idea why but not going to argue with that.

Plan for feb is now to keep trying to encourage self settling, release her arms one by one from the swaddle sleeping bag and pray that teething doesn't throw a curve ball. She's put on a good amount of weight now too so I may even be able to get longer out of her once she self settles more... Don't want to get ahead of myself though! That way idea madness.

[solenneguest]

Awesome that's great :-) as long as things are better then that's the main thing!! I'll keep you posted on our progress too!