When will it get better?

[Nellle]

Baby is 10 months old and we have no improvement since newborn days - 3 wakes in the night, needing BFing to sooothe.

When will this improve? Is sleep training essential?

What's your experience?

Sleep training was essential for us with both children. There was no signs of improvement, so I did a mixture of controlled crying/ gradual withdrawal and it worked very quickly. I know lots say it improves as they get older and it’s developmental but we were seeing no improvements, I did it at 11 months with one of mine and 14 months with the other.

I sleep trained too. Control crying. I know the judgement from control crying. But worked for us.

It only got better for us at 14 months when we sleep trained (controlled crying). Until then it was 4 wake ups a night and I was depressed as couldn't function. It only took one night of me not giving DC milk (I went in to reassure every few mins but didn't pick them up) for sleep to dramatically improve. I don't know if it would have worked as well if I'd done it sooner or not but if I have another I would sleep train earlier as it's so horrible not getting any sleep.

I nightweaned all 3 DC before they were 10months old. It improved sleep a lot for 2 of them, no need to sleep train. One kept waking up loads even once he was off milk at night, so ended up sleep training.

Things do improve by themselves but in most cases we're talking years, not months.

When will this improve? I don't think anyone can answer that for you. Each baby is different. They will sleep for longer stretches eventually whether you choose to sleep train or not. Even if you sleep train, you aren't guaranteed no wake ups.

Is sleep training essential? Absolutely not.

What's your experience? My little one is a year old and I'm still patiently waiting for natural improvements. We don't get more than a 2 hour stretch every night. We co-sleep and she nurses herself back to sleep when she wants. I'm just holding on for as long as I can until I feel that I can't take anymore and need to do something about. I'm hoping by the time that day comes, things will have improved naturally on their own. Who knows though!

I would definitely night wean in your situation first. Won’t be the same for everyone, but it was the magic bullet for us.

Another one saying it improved when we sleep trained.

In my experience, there are families who sleep train; and families who are co-sleeping or dealing with wakes at three (and the odd unicorn baby who has always slept).

No shade to whatever people choose to do, but I've never encountered a baby who had no training but then became fine on their own before they were mid toddler.

I had some mild improvement with my nine month old who was until recently feeding to sleep three times a night by reducing the length of all feeds except the first by a minute every couple of nights and unlatching him the second he stopped feeding heartily. He’d gape and I’d latch him back on then unlatch him again a few seconds later when he stopped sucking again. Now he seems to unlatch himself when he’s done and has gone down to one wake most nights which I’m happy with. However he already had good self settling skills at bedtime and nap time so maybe it was quicker for us - it might be a bit different as he only seemed to want to feed to sleep in the middle of the night - we don’t co sleep. It’s only been a week or so of better nights though so let’s see if it holds. It only took about 2 weeks to see an improvement.

We also always leave him 5 minutes to see if he self settled first. I think if you’re not willing to let them cry at least a little bit there’s basically no way they’ll suddenly sleep well until pre school age.