Advice pls - how to sleep train for this baby?

[hairRaising]

Hi please can I get thoughts from others who have sleep trained before on how best to go about it for my baby DD?

Am posting all the details to describe situ, tia for reading through.

DD is 6 months, sleeps in a co sleeper cot. from about 6 weeks old she slept through the night with no engineering from us (she would breastfeed masses in day then sleep 10-12 hrs at night).

Then at 4 month regression her daytime naps took a hit, she can now only nap max 45 mins but gets overtired v quickly & when overtired she screams continuously for up to 2h, it's awful for her plus my nerves are in shreds & DS1 (5y) can't bear the screaming.

so now our whole day is spent trying to get her to nap with wake times of 1h15 to 1h45. Problem is she is resisting sleep harder & harder, so we've slipped into trying everything possible to induce sleep: dummy, white noise, buggy on move, snoozeshde, sling. Nothing works reliably & her naps are getting shorter, sometimes just 20mins.

Night sleep is also going downhill: she can no longer fall asleep on her own & needs dummy and rocking. Then wakes throughout night for dummy to be replaced / cuddles. She never needs feeding (still feeds masses in day) but I've started to bf her at around 6am just to get her to sleep again til 7am so I can have an hour with DS1 between 6am and 7am.

I know we need to get rid of dummy, teach her to self settle at night, then try to extend naps.

But how? What order to work on things, given how sensitive she is to overtiredness?

DH has taken a week off work so we can do it together. We just need to get a plan together.

We're willing to try shush pat, pick up put down, and 2min timed comforting/controlled crying. Not willing to do full extinction cry it out.

She has to stay in the bedroom with us for next 6 months as DS1 is v light sleeper & shouts loudly in his sleep. Plus I wouldn't feel comfortable being in a different room to her yet.

Please help! Thanks v much in advance

And sorry for such long post!

Sleep training is not advised before 12 months. Even after 12 months many people don’t agree with sleep training.

It is very rare for such a young child to be able to self settle.

I suspect she is undertired when you first try and make her nap so tights sleep but then slips into an overtired meltdown.
At 6 months I would expect a 2 hour awake time at least. So
7am wake
9.15-10 nap
12.30-2.30 nap
4.45-5 nap (if needed)
7pm bed
Choose one settling method and stick to it like glue

Are you getting her down on her tired cues and not the time you think she should be asleep. Being not ready for a nap can also make for short ones. You can try sleep training but it's likely she will have another regression and everything will go tits up again, sorry

I would not go by tired cues as often they are too subtle or come when the baby is already overtired.

I do go by tired cues but everyone is different. Whatever works for you to get maximum sleep. Little bloody sleep thiefs 😴😴

Thanks so much Lapin and Banana - how interesting, I'd never considered I might be putting her down too early.

Re sleepy cues / clock watching- she used to be yawning after 1h15 awake. Now she doesn't yawn, there are no sleepy signs except suddenly crying & melting down. But, of course if she has only had a short nap then she will get tired quicker ...

Right I will try a 2h wake time and see if that helps, thanks v much.

Lapin re methods -- which do you think might be best suited for our situ? Thanks so much

Lapin's timings are what we followed for both of our boys. Worked brilliantly except when they were teething.

I'd go with the schedule she outlines.

My 6 month old has awake times of 2-3 hours now, and definitely naps longer after a longer awake period.
Usually at the moment she wakes at 7/7.30, first nap 9/9.30
Today she woke from her first nap at 10.30, I tried putting her down at 12.30 but she wasn't ready so tried again at 1pm.

I have never liked to leave mine to cry but have always found shush patting works for settling.

Self settling can't be that unusual as all three of mine have managed it by 9 months. One of mine always settled himself from birth.

I bought the book ‘teach your child to sleep’ written by the millpond clinic. It has really good factual information, suggestions for routines and options for different types of sleep training. Best book I ever read!!!!

Get naps sorted before you work on nights. DD is 7.5 no and was definitely awake for 2hrs between naps at 6mo

Good luck with this, hairRaising. Tough, tough stage. The main thing to remember is, every parent's been there, and it doesn't last forever. And, yes, I know how annoying it is when people tell you that.

For longer daytime naps, I always put them in the buggy. They would sleep for ages in the buggy, so I'd often park it in front of the kitchen window and leave them to it, get on with stuff where I could keep an eye on them. Admittedly it depends where you live whether that's possible.

Ideally, no long naps after 2pm.

For short naps, I used to breastfeed then put them down somewhere safe and quiet when they conked out (or let them sleep on me, if I was really desperate and sure it was only going to be a short one).

For actual bedtime, it's all about routine, same time, same system every night. And if they wake in the night, back patting and offering a drink of water NOT breastfeeding... but, saying all this, I did this at around 10 months.

At 6 months I was usually still doing a bedtime breastfeed to initially go down around 7.30pm (no napping after 3.30pm!) and then a nightime breastfeed/dreamfeed around 11pm. Then wake up at 5am, bring baby into bed with me for another breastfeed and hopefully another doze, on a good day... morning nap in the buggy around 9am... maybe another one or 2 later, depending how long it went for.

In my (probably annoying) personal opinion though, your baby's still quite young (in fact, I'd say at this stage, it's still in mini-stages and routines can be total bollocks for some babies) and you may just have to suck it up a bit longer... Sorry.

Peachy and childminding - thank you v much, I will go with Lapins timings

Belly - do you mean I should sort out the nap timings first (i.e. Carry on with dummy and rocking/buggy) and then move onto nights, or get rid of dummy & rocking for naps at same time as increasing the wake times to 2h?

Sorry if I'm sounding obsessed on detail, I just want to get a really clear game plan in place!

Pelly - thanks for all those suggestions- yes it's tough!!! Until a few days ago I was trying to just suck it up & hold on, but I've honestly come too close to the edge with the periods of continuous screaming, I realise it's pushed me past a certain point in my stress threshold & I've felt worried I'm going to lose it. Hence decision to tackle the sleep now.

When you bf to sleep for naps does your baby wake looking for boob to go back to sleep? Mine will only be satisfied with the dummy or boob

Dd was same as yours until maybe 7.5-8 months when all of a sudden went from 30 min naps to 1-2 hour naps, and waking every 2 hours in the night to only usually waking once. Still at 9mo can only happily go 2 hours awake though, 3 at a push before bedtime in evening.

OP I'm in the same boat as you! I have a 6 month DD and also a three year old. I'm going back to work in May and need to do something as baby's sleep is horrendous! I'm trying to sort daytime sleep as that's the worst. So for the last few days (we've just moved house!) I've done this:

7/7:30 awake, boob
8am breakfast
9:30 bottle, sleep (45 mins approx)
11am boob
11:30/12 lunch
1:30/2 bottle and nap (this one is v up and down)
3-4pm she'll have her last nap
6pm dinner
7pm bath, bottle, bed- asleep by 7:30.

Then I dreamfeed boob at 10pm when I go to bed or sometimes she wakes up by herself. Her longest stretch of sleep happens at this time (often I have to resettle her at 8pm) and she wakes up at 1am for more boob. Then again at 3/4, then every hour until I cave and bring her into our bed.

I'm stressed as I can't see how I can function on so little sleep when I go back to work, and DH will be looking after her and I want a solid structure in place for him to take on.

I am gonna try offering water in the night but trying dummy/patting makes her scream. But I think her general bad sleep is making her moany in the day. I am gonna get the day time naps working better first though.

Good luck!

Please don’t cut out night feeds or replace with water until at least 12 months. My twins had to be bounced to sleep and woke up every two hours and demanded milk. Then they got to about 15 months and they no longer needed either. I gave up trying to schedule them before that as they completely refused and everyone got more stressed.

Why wait till 12 months?

Hi again hairRaising when I breastfed for naps, it was only ever a short power nap (25 mins maximum) and when they woke up I didn't try to make them sleep longer. If I wanted them to sleep longer, it was always buggy or car seat. That's just what worked best for me.

I'm full of admiration for people who can get their babies to nap in their cots during the day, I never could with any of mine, although we got there (eventually) with cot sleeping at night.

My youngest is now 16 months, he still has a breastfeed at bed time (7.30pm) then I put him in his cot still awake and he usually conks out straight away (or after about a minute) and then sleeps through til at least 6am, sometimes 7am. Then he has a nap in his buggy around 11am which usually lasts for about an hour and a half - two hours.

Just to throw in my two pennies. My Ds is nearly 15 months and only now has a two hour awake time for first nap. He also sleeps well past 2pm sometimes and it doesn't impact night time sleep. By all.means give it a go but you might need to tweak it. My Ds is also a screaming banshee when he's tired

Hi everyone thanks so much for input.

Today we tried to get 2h wake time before each nap. Poor DD struggled a bit to make it to 2h but didn't actually meltdown. So I think you're all right on this & we should be working on a longer wake time.

However.... she still only napped 45 mins for the first two naps and 30mins for the third nap. Even with buggy, dummy, white noise etc. So she was very scratchy from tiredness due to short naps.

Obviously it will take longer than one day for her to get used to longer wake times, but my strong instinct is that in order to nap longer she needs to be able to self settle so she can fall back to sleep again after a sleep cycle ends.

Which is the same issue as her night time wakings, she can't re settle herself without us & the dummy.

(Just to confirm, there's no issue here of night feeds, because -amazingly- from a few weeks old DD would sleep through the night without waking for a feed. In fact we used to try to wake her after 4h to give her a feed because we thought we shouldn't leave a baby unfed all night, but she would refuse to feed & fall back asleep! She feeds masses in day & is a gorgeous chunker so no concerns that her night waking is hunger, it's about self settling.)

So ...... do I start teaching her to self settle for nights or naps first? Or both together?

And which teaching method should I choose out of: ssh pat, pick up put down, or 2 min timed comforting? Bearing in mind that she is in a co sleeper cot next to our bed & I can't move her to another room for sleep training...,,,

TIA

@Cheekylittlenumber our situ is a bit different because DD isn't feeding during night.

I'm not sure how best you could reduce her night feeds before you go back to work ... I've heard it's key to reduce the feeds slowly, one st a time, which gives baby time to adjust & increase their day feeds to take in more calories during the day .... could you increase the frequency you feed during the day maybe?

Your child needs you to help her fall asleep, and may need reintroduction of night feeds. This is not unusual. She is a baby. It will not last forever, help your child go to sleep while she is asking for it!

I cuddle or rock my dd while patting her bum, then put her (awake but drowsy) in the cot and continue patting. I let her grumble a bit but if she actually gets upset I pick her up and cuddle and pat until drowsy again.
I would say half the time she goes down awake with no shhing or patting now.