Little ones app

[Brigita1996]

Hi everyone, it's me again with another few questions. I was wondering has anyone tried the little ones app to do some sleep training?

My little one is nearly 3 months old, still eats every 3 hours at night, goes to bed only at 12pm although we try to swing him to sleep at 7pm. He totally refuses to be put into his cot bed or anywhere else . He always is in my arms. I went to try and make him settle himself and try to spend the night in this own next to me crib but I'm unsure what else we can do other than what we have tried . Therefore has anyone tried the little ones app snd has succeeded ?

Honestly, what you're describing is totally normal and it won't last for long - it's so hard when your baby only wants to sleep on you, but it passes. Personally I feel like 3 months is a little early to start any sleep training - we started making changes around the 5-6 month mark. I started using the Little Ones app and I found it very useful in terms of setting a schedule - working out how many naps she should be having and when, how long she should be awake between naps, when she should be feeding etc. It also encouraged me to set a little routine before naps and bedtime (bath, sleeping bag, white noise, story, boob). I think these things really made the most difference - we got our evenings back and I got a bit of a break. I also found that when she slept better during the day, the nights improved. Her sleep also improved when she moved into her own room at just over 6 months.

I found the settling methods they suggested were actually not that helpful. I breastfed my baby to sleep, and although I did try using their techniques, I found it quite stressful - it was basically not that different from 'crying it out', so in the end I gave up, and actually found that over time, I could put her down for naps / bedtime without always having to boob her to sleep, because she wasn't overtired / undertired and she knew what to expect in terms of the routine - consistency is key. She's now 16 months old. She sleeps through sometimes, but usually she'll wake up once during the night for a quick feed and cuddle, which I find I don't mind so much. From about 12 months I relaxed a bit and wasn't so strict with her routine in terms naps and only breastfeeding at certain times, and have found that it suits us better. I think with my next baby, I'll definitely start putting some kind of loose nap routine in place at around 6 months again, but I'll continue to feed on demand and I won't be so hard on myself when I feel like things aren't going as well as they should. Ultimately I've learnt that babies basically do everything in their own time and, whilst you can certainly do things to nudge them in the right direction, there are no easy answers or quick fixes. In hindsight, I'm not sure that the Little Ones app was really worth the money as a lot of the information I found most useful is actually available for free online.

Yes I have and I would say their programme isn't bad at all. I do recommend it. I had my own routine for DD but I did dip in and out of it to problem solve. We had a few regressions which weren't nice but she always went back to sleeping through...

I used it with my son from when he was 8 weeks old. At that point he was waking every 2 hours, not really napping and was a nightmare from 4:30pm with colic. It did help, if only with helping establish a bedtime routine (the best thing we did to get our evenings back) and teaching me about awake times. He’s now nearly 10 months and has never been a fantastic sleeper (never cracked the mythical 2 hour daytime nap) but it’s fine and manageable.
The programme can be quite restrictive with wake times and nap times, that was ok for us because we were in lockdown but it didn’t work for us once things started opening up again. It definitely helped me in the early days though so I’d recommend it.