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!

6 months. Its the minimum

@Blueyfan1234 we ended up sleep training at 5 months and it’s the best thing we ever did! We would have done it at 4 months but he had jabs then had a couple of bugs. Now he sleeps amazingly and his development has come on leaps and bounds since having better sleep! He’s also feeding so much better.
people who are so anti sleep training don’t understand how much good quality sleep does for a baby!

@SassyPants87 Ah that’s good to know! Pleased it worked out well and you are all getting so much needed rest! We will defo be doing it around then if sleep still an issue

@Blueyfan1234 i highly recommend it. We paid for a sleep coach, not that you have to. But we saw results after 3 nights and then he’s been pretty consistent with naps and bedtime sleep since then

I’ve had two rubbish sleepers. I’d focus on putting him his cot awake so he knows where he is when he wakes and will start to learn to go back over.

with my first I did pick up put down. With my now 6 month old I can stoke his head, pat his back (altho I do pick him up if he cries). In the night I try and stroke his head, pat his back if this doesn’t work I’d pick him up for a cuddle and if he’s still crying I’ll feed him.

We did some very gentle sleep training from about 6 months which helped but wasn't perfect , sleep continued in peaks and troughs, went at it with a bit more effort at 14 months to get to consistently sleeping through

I have a 5yo that still needs me beside him to fall asleep each night. Hopefully he will grow out of it before he is a teenager 😂

Glad you have had results OP. Everyone needs their sleep.

About 9/10 months both children.

We cracked at 7 months. It worked within 3 nights. And the 3rd night was about 30 seconds crying… wished I’d done it at 6 months. Not entirely sure I’d go earlier but if you’re broken you have to do something …

OP what method did you use please? We're at breaking point here with 6.5 month old DD. Glad to hear of your success!

@SassyPants87 I’d be interested in your method too - about to enlist a sleep consultant who has suggested a gentler form of controlled crying which we’re happy to try if it works x

@MooMaa83 @poppet131

So you do your norm bedtime routine, no feeding to sleep so we did milk before bath. If baby has dummy you will just get rid. We also made sure his room was completely blacked out and we used a white noise machine too. The sleep training method is applicable for day naps too

First 3 nights chair right next to cot, put baby down awake and say your sleepy phrase e.g its sleepy time. If they start crying wait 2 minutes and then shush and pat/rub until the calm down. Once they’ve stopped crying remove your hand, you don’t want them to fall asleep whilst you are touching them. If they start crying again wait the 2 minutes before intervening. Keep doing this for asking as it takes for them to fall asleep.

Following three nights the same as above but you move chair to the middle of the room and wait 5 minutes of full crying before intervening. If they start to calm down before the 5 minutes is up but then start back up again shortly after you need to reset the 5 minutes. It should be 5 mins of non stop crying

The final 3 nights you put baby in cot after doing bedtime routine and walk out of the room. This time you wait 10 minutes of crying before going in. This time you do not shush and pat until they calm down you just go in say the sleepy phrase, give a quick shush and pat and walk out of the room even if they are still crying

My little one never got to 10 minutes of crying he pretty much cracked sleep training within the first 3 day and on the final 3 nights he never got to 10 minutes of crying. Now when I put him down he doesn’t cry at all, he might stay awake but will fall asleep within 5 mins

Also his day naps used to be horrific but he now has an hour nap in the morning, 2 hour nap for lunch and a quick 20/30 minute Power Nap in the afternoon and now sleeps 10/11 hours at night with no wakes 🤞🏽

@SassyPants87 That’s amazing! My one doesn’t calm down even with 45 mins of ssh pat - how long did it take your LO to fall asleep on the first night? Did you focus on just nights and night time wakes at first then apply the same to naps after the first 6 days? X