Wits end with sleep & ‘sleep training’

[CL22]

DD is 7 months old. Was a great sleeper at night until four month sleep regression, has always been a shocking napper, with exclusively contact napping/naps on the move until now.

Started a very gentle version of controlled crying 2 weeks ago which went text book. Issue is DD loves to sleep on her side and in the last week it’s like she’s remembered she can roll fully onto her tummy, which she keeps doing. Beforehand she kinda got stuck on her side and fell asleep quickly. Issue is she loathes being on her tummy and now we are having to go in a few times every minute to roll her onto her back, which I think is defeating the object of giving her time to self soothe. The more we go in and she sees us leaving the more wound up she gets.

We try and position her to her comfy position but she arches her back and loses her temper.

Do we give up with the ‘sleep training’ or do we carry on? What’s the longest it’s taken? Any tips to help them learn to roll front to back would be really appreciated too!

I know this will no doubt get a lot of grief for starting sleep training, but we are doing it for my mental state and DD’s mood. She was getting no sleep and she was miserable, in hand I was struggling and her sleep was ruling my day and night. We have already seen an improvement in her mood now she is getting a decent chunk of sleep overnight and no more cat naps (unless she rolls onto her front…)

We had a brief period of this and it was maddening. We focused a lot on teaching dc to roll both ways during the day so they could get themselves over without help at night. There are YouTube videos that can help. Ignore any horrible comments you get on this thread. Sleep training is of course a misnomer, as you know since you put it in quotes (but I think the name contributes to its bad rep)- its just withdrawing unsustainable parent- controlled sleep associations which are causing wakeups. Most parents are lucky enough not to need to do it as their dc just settle into a stable sleep pattern on their own. If you need to sleep train, then you need to- very broken sleep night after night will wreck your mh and its not ideal for baby either. Good luck!!

We had a similar situation with one of our twins around the 7 month mark after being a fantastic sleeper. We let her cry for 5 mins or so to see if she’d settle, if not we’d go in and reposition onto side/back (until she could do this herself) and dummy back in/quick back rub then left. Didn’t get her out of her cot at all. Ironically her sister slept throughout it all in the other cot next to her! It worked, but took a few weeks and meant VERY broken sleep for me and DH but worth it as now she’s great again at resettling herself and we all get a full nights sleep (minus the odd wake up). Don’t feel bad for doing what works for you, there’s no shame in teaching babies to self settle in a controlled way and you’re only human and need to prioritise your own MH too. Consistency is key with anything like this so better to stick with it in my opinion. You’ve got this!

Have you tried tucking her in so she can’t roll roll?
We used to have to get one of those holey cotton blankets and tuck it down the sides so it kept DS in place when he went through this and stopped rolling completely but enough to go onto side.

Thank you for your tips and encouragement, it’s so nice to see positive comments when I was expecting backlash.

so since posting this thread, we have discovered that whilst DD hates being on her tummy during the day, she is infact a tummy sleeper and I assume the screaming was out of frustration. Definitely taking some getting used to for my anxiety but she’s going to sleep so much faster, albeit whilst still having a whinge!