What age did you sleep train

[SassyPants87]

I’m honestly losing the will to live and my anxiety is through the roof with lack of sleep! DS has just turned 4 months and for the past two months his sleep is just AWFUL!! It’s takes us 3 hours to put him to sleep at night, he will wake two hours later for a feed and then he is up every damn hour of the night!! I am just FLOORED!!! He’s also waking our toddler up and I just cannot cope anymore!! Me and hubby are trying to split the nights but I can’t ever sleep hearing the baby crying and then toddler is being woken up too. He’s got a dummy but to be honest I think it’s made it so much more worse!! He’s so dependent on it. I’ve tried to go cold turkey but I end up giving in because it’s just hell on earth otherwise!

i’m 100% going to sleep train him but I don’t know if he’s too young yet. Can I ask at what age you sleep trained your little ones and what methods you used?

please no anti sleep trainers! I’m BROKEN and I will definitely be sleep training as we did it with my first (albeit a bit too late) and it saved my sanity although she was nothing like this!

Six months, and it worked instantly. The first night was the longest stretch my DS had ever slept for.

Some babies naturally start linking their sleep cycles - some babies can only do it once they learn go to sleep on their own (sleep training).

Highly recommend reading Dr Ferber’s book.

6 months. I did a more gentle method based on babies temperment. Got the guides from Baby Sleep Consultant from Instagram.

I had hourly wake ups for at least 12 months with both DC so for me that was normal. Sleep trained DC1 at 18months. I tried sleep training DC2 at 6 months and it made it far worse. DC1 slept through most of the noise of DC2 though.

Turns out DC2 has ASD and still wakes up at least twice every night aged 5, and probably will for many years to come. Not DCs fault, and no amount of training will help so we just live with it.

Which is absolutely normal. Sleep train if you want to, but hourly waking is completely normal. Hard, but normal.

This just isn't true. I work with lots of families using gentle sleep training from 8 weeks. In my experience it is better to start gentle sleep training at 8 weeks than wait until 6 months.

Honestly everyone thank you so much for all of your responses and interesting to see a mix bag of age ranges that people have sleep trained with. I have to do something because there is just no way I can carry on like this. I have a consultation with a baby sleep coach who works with babies from 3 months old and has multiple different approaches that can be taken. I have to do something because I just cannot ride this out anymore. but thank you for some of the helpful tips there are some things I might try e.g introducing a comforter instead of dummy to see if that helps

Sorry but sleep training at 4 months is incredibly cruel.

Comments like this really lack understanding of what sleep training actually is. You do know there is multiple methods of sleep training don’t you? Gentle training methods can be used to help babies sleep better which makes them as a result, happier, more content, feeding better. So much is linked to good quality sleep.

He still does it now at 6 months, started after sleep regression.

Wake up 7:30
1st nap 9:00-11ish
2nd nap 1-2:30ish
3rd nap 4-530ish
Then either bed around 8, or if we're out he'll have another nap then down to bed whenever we're home say 10/11.

@Youcancallmeirrelevant, I'm impressed!! Right, so more than 40 minutes is possible. I can only hope we get there one day & able to leave the house at night!

I’ve had three kids and sleep trained them all.
The easiest and kindest sleep training was when I night weaned them first using Ferber’s gradual method (there is chapter on this in his book).
4 months is a good time to start.

The data shows that, when done right, all the methods work (although they take different lengths of time on average) so the best method to choose is the one that YOU feel you are able to be most consistent with.

Experts all have their own opinions on when to start. Some say 6 months, some say 4-6 months and others say the earlier the better. I don’t imagine there is a ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ answer…

if you’re feeling you really can’t go on like this then that’s when YOU need to start!

I’ve just started night weaning my baby and will move him into his own room after. If that doesn’t significantly improved things then I’ll start sleep training. This is a plan that suits me and my personality/lifestyle best.

keep us updated about what the consultant says - I’d love to know!

Put in the cot /room at 3 months.

Sleep trained for day naps 4months, so DC learned to self-soothe. Also got rid of sleeping props (e.g. dummy)

Started weaning night feeds at 5.5/6months.

Which is totally normal. Both my babies were like this

I'm sorry I honestly can't remember, I just remember that this is the minimum age. A routine is everything, and day sleep effects night sleep, if a baby is overtired or undertired then it will affect their sleep at night. I think also after y months they can sleep longer as they start eating solids. When you get to that age, don't give them meat at night as this can also affect their sleep, give them lots of protein like egg, cheese but not red meat, ita something about processing it. I'm sorry as I'm telling you this from memory and it was awhile ago now.

I cannot for the live of me understand while people come on threads like this and say “it’s normal, I didn’t sleep train and I only slept for three minutes at a time until my child was 5 and I’m FINE HONESTLY JUST FINE”. 😂 it’s like they want everyone to have as shit a time as they did and anyone who tries to get themselves plus baby more sleep is not sacrificing themselves on the altar of parenthood hard enough. Just jog on yeah?

And OP try Emily Oster for a review of sleep training based on scientific data.

I was reluctant to sleep train, then after learning more about it (was pretty desperate as baby stopped sleeping in the cot) and doing it, my baby was sleeping for about 3 more hours a day, I actually felt terrible about it thinking that he'd been missing out on all this extra sleep. Both of us were much better off!

Can I butt in and ask what actually constitutes sleep training? I’ve got a 2 month old and for naps I’ve been putting him in his moses basket after an appropriate wake window or when he seems tired, putting white noise on and patting him. It doesn’t always work but he has fallen asleep like this quite a few times. He does cry intermittently through the process but he would also cry for a bit if I tried to rock him or put him in the sling/ pram/ bouncy chair/ swing etc. The only method of getting him to sleep that wouldn’t involve some crying would be feeding to sleep or him falling asleep on my shoulder being winded after a feed (this is how he gets back to sleep throughout the night but he wasn’t sleeping enough in the day so I decided to try and take a more structured approach for naps). Am I technically sleep training too young and hence being cruel to my baby?

Ferber at 10 months with my first, will be doing it at 6 months on the dot with dd2.

The mumsnet haters who advocate against it need locking up.

6 months with both of mine- worked brilliantly with DS2, DS1 took longer but he was 2 weeks early so maybe that had an effect!

@Creamcakesandpastries any consistent routine is “sleep training” really. Even feeding to sleep is sleep training - as the baby learns that’s when they’re meant to be going to sleep.

But in practice the term “sleep training” is mainly used when someone makes a deliberate change - e.g. has been feeding to sleep and then changes to teaching the baby to fall asleep without the parent in the room.

Your baby sounds happy with shushing and patting, so no it doesn’t sound cruel to me. However lots of 2 month old babies wouldn’t be able to fall asleep with shushing and patting (mine couldn’t at that age). It would be cruel to persist for a long time if the baby simply can’t do it.

@Creamcakesandpastries this is what I call gentle sleep training and 6-8 weeks is absolutely the best time to start. This method works best with babies who have a dummy but sone have luck without. I think it is much kinder to start earlier with more gentle methods than wait until 6 months + and go straight to controlled crying or cry it out.

Hourly wakes until the 4 month regression has passed are normal, and babies do grow out of it and start linking sleep cycles. It's a tough regression though, and usually the longest too (6 weeks or so) as it's a physical change in baby's sleep structure and they never go back to sleeping how they did as newborns, so if baby was sleeping long stretches at 3 months old they might not do that again for a good while (It's actually really common for babies to sleep the best they will in their first year at 3 months old!) That's generally why sleep training isn't recommended until 6 months. 6 months is also often cited as the age babies can conceivably go longer between feeds and not need MOTN feeds so often (although there's a growth spurt around 6 months too so shrug) And there's really no evidence that frequent waking is in any way detrimental to babies (unless caused by a medical issue). Babies are designed to wake, it doesn't harm them, as long as they get enough sleep in a 24 hour period (and this can vary by about 8 hours between individual babies!)

If the hourly wakes continue much past 6 weeks though then you should look into other causes. Mine had reflux that flared up at the same time as the regression started and once we got that under control things got a lot better! If you still choose to sleep train, please rule out any other issues first. It's never a good idea to sleep train a baby that might have medical needs.

@SassyPants87 can I ask what you ended up doing and how it went? My baby is 3.5 months old and sleep has become a nightmare!

Far too young for sleep training.
y r u spending hours fretting about them not sleeping and trying to get them to sleep? Much easier to play with them until they r tried.