Sleep training a baby that... goes to sleep.

[Madbee]

Bear with me, I know it sounds ridiculous. DD is 6 months and a terrible sleeper. As in up every 1.5 hours at the moment and takes ages to go back to sleep. I have just gone back to work and am feeling pretty desperate about it. I know there are differing views on when sleep training is appropriate but she is in general a bright, happy and lovely little person and I don’t see why some gentle training wouldn’t work for her...except that I don’t know how to do it because she goes to sleep beautifully at the start of the night! We have a simple routine - bath every other night, into sleepsuit, feed (she is BF) and into crib with a dummy and Ewan while textbook drowsy but awake. I usually stay in the room until she is nearly asleep but don’t interfere and I can equally just leave her there and she’ll go to sleep (occasionally with one little squeak, which is solved by popping back and putting her dummy back in, or giving her a little stroke.). So I’m really not sure how to go about the sleep training as clearly she can self-soothe - she just doesn’t during the night. Do I try the standard methods at 2am (I prefer no cry but would do CC if desperate) or is there a better way to do this?

Try secrets of the baby whisperer.

Op I could have written your post! My DD whose 6.5 months goes to sleep beautifully by herself for all naps and bedtime but is up multiple times in the night.

I'm about to start work so really need to teach her to self settle. Also trying to wean her off boobfeeds at night too as she's definitely feeding for comfort (I can tell by the sucking action)

Most nights she sleeps for a big chunk (4-5 hours from 7:30/8pm) but I go to bed at about 9:30 so don't get the lovely 5 hours sleep! Then she's up at least twice then up for the day at 6:30am.

DH has tried giving her a bottle in the night but she refuses it from him but takes it from me...!

Im so sleep deprived I don't really know what to do. She can self settle so I think it's habit waking her up.

No advice but just wanted you to know you're not alone!

Yimmini are you talking about the pick up put down method? Does that work for night waking only if your baby self settles easily at night and for naps?

It's about a lot more than pick up put down. Quite often it's about knowing when nor to pick up. It's about learning to pause, listen and understand. Honestly, some cries really do not mean "pick me up and cuddle me". But I can't possibly summarise a whole book in a mn post. It worked for me and it might work for op.

My daughter was the same. I just started the gradual retreat method (IE starting with patting, shhing etc) when she first woke, instead of at bedtime as she already went to sleep alone then

For us it was more sleep training during awakening. So if DD wakes during the night, we give her maybe 20 seconds to self sooth (unless hysterical), then we comfort her in the cot. She's sleeping much better now and we are day 4 :)

What about a white noise machine? She might just be a very light sleeper!

Hello, you're not alone. I think it's very easy when you're in the middle of it to feel desperate and like there is no light at the end of the tunnel, but your baby isn't a terrible sleeper, she is well within normal behaviour for her age. And the first block of long sleep is good, but it doesn't mean she "should" be able to do more over night, or sleep later than 6:30. Waking up twice between about midnight and 6:30 is very, very normal, even if it's knackering. There are many reasons they might wake: thirst, temperature, or just feeling alone. She's also still very little in the big scheme of things, and has a lot of big growth/development phases going on.
I advise you try and have an ultra early bedtime yourself once or twice a week, it does make a massive difference, even if losing an undisturbed evening is annoying. And consider looking into safe bed-sharing, as being close to you when she wakes may help her settle more, and at the least it will mean you don't have to get up out of bed yourself.
Hang in there, this is normal, it's tough, but it gets better over time. Try looking into Sarah Ockwell Smith's Gentle Sleep book or Elizabeth Pantley's No Cry Sleep Solution.
Good luck

Everything @InFrance2014 said. My daughter woke hourly for the first 12 months of life, she’s 15 months now and it’s very different. We have a very unnatural view these days of how babies ‘should’ be sleeping when they’re actually not doing anything wrong :( it’s so hard but maximise rest where you can and look after yourself.

My DS was exactly the same at 6 months - great at going to sleep with dummy swaddle and white noise, had a first stretch of two or three hours, then waking every 45 mins to an hour and ages to resettle. I did controlled crying and within two nights he was sleeping through with one feed, with no dummy or swaddle (the dummy he'd started to get rid of himself anyway). He got ill recently so I went back to feeding every couple of hours, when he got better I did CC again but he barely cried at all the second time around and now sleeps through with no night feeds. I really didn't want to have to do CC but the lack of sleep and more horridly the anxiety and despair was wrecking me and and my relationship, I'd reached total desperation point, and DS was so grumpy from overtiredness. Now we are all transformed and DS is such a happy happy baby!

Also is he sharing a room with you? As having DS in his own room with cot really helped, when he was still sharing with us he would always stir when we came to bed or when we rolled over etc. I really didn't want to put him in his own room, made me feel really sad, but he sleeps so much better in there.

Is she feeding each time? We found that d's who did similar was using me to fall to sleep so every other wake id feed and the others dp would go in and sooth, after a few days he only woke every 3 hours for the feed. It was more breaking that habit.

q

Duck .
The hippy parents will be out to get you !

How dare you only feed your baby once every 3 hours.
Don't you know you should be up hourly until 12 months !!

Sarcasm BTW

Am talking about all the rubbish spouted on here recently

Haha quackers luckily I do not require an obvious light hearted klaxon.

Even now at 2 dp can give him a cuddle and he falls asleep whereas he has my lofe asling for story after story - they obviously made an agreement in those early days while I slept.

Life asking

I should think it's the dummy reliance that could be the issue tbh...

crackers My phone actually converted that to Quackers

Is it just waking from habit? Always around the same time? If so, wake to sleep might work to break that habit but less likely with every 90 minutes - that sounds more like a sleep cycle type issue.

I’d ditch the dummy, unless she can find it and stick it back in at night.

I’d move the bf to earlier in the routine. Ideally feed downstairs and then upstairs, brush teeth if she has any, gro bag, book (the same one every night) and into bed wide awake. It’s likely that although you’re not directly feeding to sleep, there’s still a strong association.

Controlled crying is not advised before 12 months. Sleep studies indicate they still wake up and experience elevated stress hormones, they just stop making any noise.
Sleeping in the same room as your baby until at least 6 months is protective against SIDS. Waking frequently may itself be protective.

Not hippy just science

Sleep studies indicate they still wake up and experience elevated stress hormones, they just stop making any noise.

Not hippy just science

Actually, it is not science.

I am aware of a single (very poorly conducted) study that claims to support the above hypothesis - MIddlemiss 2012. It covered a tiny sample of babies (25) across a wide age group (4 to 10 months), over a short time period. Babies were settled to sleep by nurses rather than parents and they were left to cry until they fell asleep. I know a lot of sleep training opponents tend to refer to this piece of research but it is not particularly helpful. I do not think any sleep trainer will ever recommend leaving a 4 month old baby to cry.

Thanks Yimini for the recommendation, I think you're probably right that it's about knowing when not to intervene - I have tended to just take the line of least resistance and scoop her up to feed straight away, as so often in the early days I was a bit thick and tried everything apart from feeding, believing she couldn't possibly be hungry half an hour after the last feed and both of us becoming increasingly upset by the time I actually worked out that yes, she actually could...

Cheeky, sorry you're in the same boat. I'm pretty sure mine is sucking for comfort a lot of the time too. If we crack it I'll let you know

Momo, 20 seconds sounds very short, can they really settle themselves that quickly? What do you do for comfort in the cot? Shh pat type thing? That just doesn't seem to work for us at all, I have to practically climb in the cot with her for comforting her in there and that only works about 25% of the time (we have a sidecar type thing but she's close to growing out of it).

White noise - we have a Ewan which sort of helps a little bit, but again, not very often.

Dummy - interesting that people think this might be a problem. I'm not convinced really, as if it were dummy reliance then shouldn't popping it back in solve the problem? She is just starting to be able to do it herself but to be honest I don't think she's overly fussed - it helps her fall asleep initially if she's already fairly relaxed, but if I try giving it to her when she wakes she just spits it out again. I could give doing without it a go though.

InFrance, thanks, I like what I've seen of Sarah Ockwell Smith. May check that out. We do end up bed sharing most of the time after her first or second wake-up, she sleeps a bit better that way but I assuredly do not... I thought the co-sleeper crib thing would be just as good but it does not fool her!

mswales, interesting. She is still in with us, I thought moving her into her own room was one thing too many with me going back to work and starting weaning as well. I think we may try moving her in a couple of weeks, though the thought of having to actually get up the number of times she wakes at the moment is...unappealing! Did you do the CC when he woke up in the middle of the night then? I think I would need to mentally gee myself up a lot for that but if nothing else works I may give it a go.

Q, yes, she does feed pretty much every time and I think you're right - but DH comforting her doesn't seem to really work, perhaps because I am also right there and she knows she could be feeding? May work when she moves into her own room?

RockinRobin, you might be right - we definitely do have feeding as integral to the end of bedtime, which makes it really hard for DH to put her to bed too, which is quite limiting for us. Maybe we need to pick a time when DH is feeling brave and let him do bedtime for a week so she doesn't continue associating feed and sleep.

Thanks everyone for suggestions, I think it boils down to me needing to be a bit more persistent in not taking the line of least resistance by feeding and scooping her in with me straight away! Will have a look for some of the suggested books and have a think abut what we can cope with trying

It sounds like she wants the whole routine to get back to sleep - feed, dummy etc...

One reason there's few studies that measure cortisol in controlled crying is because it's unethical. How many do we need before we accept that it's horrifically distressing and potentially damaging?

I think some sleep trainers do recommend it for very young babies, and some parenting books too. Plus a fair few people on here, whether it's CC or CIO.

I never really like the cortisol arguments - breastfed babies have higher levels of cortisol but no one suggests that women shouldn’t breastfeed.