‘Gentle’ sleep training - how long until success?

[Lalalul]

My 6.5 month old has been an awful sleeper since his 16 week jabs. He’s very inconsistent, some nights he wakes hourly, others he will throw out a random 5hr stretch and then wakes hourly. Rarely he has a perfect night, but he does occasionally (no false starts, 5 hour stretches and 2 feeds). Bedtime is always a battle with lots of tears, and my husband can’t help overnight or with bedtime as baby SCREAMS until I’m there. Naps are fine, he self settles in his cot and I have to wake him up.

I’ve tried different approaches, with no success. This includes Lucy wolfe’s ‘stay and support’ which is gentle, and Ferber which felt really cruel as my baby would be hysterical every time I left the room for up to 2 hours.

I caved and invested in a sleep coach. This was to motivate me to stick to a plan, consistently. I had daily support from the coach. The method was to stay in the room and support baby with my voice only. We also implemented a wide awake dream feed between 10 and 11. There is one more feed which can be given for a wake up after 4am - any other wake ups I resettle. We are also having a consistent wake time and routine through the day which we’ve never had before. I’ve stuck to it for 7 nights and days now. I’ve seen some improvement. We are getting a 3.5-4.5 hour stretch after the dream feed (ignoring night 1 which was an awful night, to be expected). Baby doesn’t hysterically cry for bed and re-settles, but is still crying - it’s more of a shout with fewer tears. We still have bedtime battles and multiple false starts. Re-settles after the dream feed are taking 40 min - 1 hour. Nights 2 - 4 things improved with just false starts and one resettle outside of the scheduled 2 feeds. But 5-7 it feels like things are going backwards (which has happened with other gentle techniques I have tried). Resettles still taking 40-1 hour. After his second feed he’s now waking again after an hour.. so I’m having to resettle again around 5am. Last night he would settle but woke every time I tried to leave the room so I was up from 5:15am.

is it normal for things to improve and then get worse again?

how long after starting gentle sleep training did people see real results?

has anyone genuinely stuck to a plan and it just doesn’t work?

im feeling a little down (and tired) and questioning if sleep training even works or if I’m just wasting my time.

please be kind. I’m suffering a lot mentally and physically with a number of things that post partum has come with, and if we could improve sleep to one short resettle (or none) and 2 feeds, it would help.

thank you

I honestly think that 6 months is still very young for sleep training. I used gentle sleep training with all of mine successfully but they were nearer 2. Yours is still a little baby. Also a 5am start to the day is not unusual with small children. Mine used to wake around 5-6 and then go back to bed around 9.

@Elisheva thank you! I’m not sure I could take 2 years of hourly wakings. It’s making some pre existing conditions of mine worse. He doesn’t want to wake up at 5am from what I can tell. He’s crying, sucking his thumb, closing his eyes and trying to settle himself. When he’s up for the day he is all smiles! Great to hear you had success with gentle techniques and thank you for taking the time to respond

It won’t be two years of hourly wakings, they change so quickly, but I know that when you’re in the thick of it it can be hard to imagine!

I wouldn't focus on sleep training, i would focus on getting your baby to be settled by your husband, as then you can share the pain.

Yes, I agree with the above poster. I used to sleep from 9-12 while dh sorted out the baby, then he would sleep 12-6 and then take the baby again until he went to work around 8.

Wtf is a wide awake dream feed? That’s surely a contradiction? I dreamfed mine when they were younger but the clue is in the name it means you feed them whilst they’re still awake, so they have a full enough tummy to not wake for hunger, but you’re not disturbing their sleep. Is your baby waking naturally at 10-11pm or is this sleep consultant having you wake them, because that would be utterly insane…

Oh and we tried the gradual sleep training with DS during a blip, and it was a total disaster; he just stirred and then got hysterical wondering where the hell we’d gone. He was older though, apparently it works better when they’re younger. In the end we just took him on a long haul holiday, had our return flight cancelled and delayed by 24 hours and it provided some kind of hard reset that stuck. Used to be an expat mom and apparently the jet lag = hard reset is really a thing and loads credit it with sleeping through 🤣

If you want to sleep train, I would go for it and commit completely. It is fine to sleep train at 6 months if you want to, although it is a subject that people often feel very strongly about on both sides. You do what works for you. I joined a group on Facebook called 'no judgement baby and toddler sleep training', which was just so helpful in terms of working out a method, wake windows and trouble shooting issues. My two are great sleepers and they are also so attached, loved and affectionate. Contrary to what people think, my kids never stopped calling out for us in the night if they needed us (illness, worried, thirsty) but they did stop calling out for help to get back to sleep if they woke up, because they could do that easily themselves. Each to their own, hope you find something that works for you.

@Elisheva two months of it so far and I just can’t see the light :(

@Youcancallmeirrelevant we tried this for a bit but the baby would get so worked up and it made me stressed. Also DH Isn’t home for bedtime 5x a week :(

@InTheRainOnATrain i agree I wouldn’t have called it a dreamfeed. I just called it what the coach called it. I believe it’s the same method the blissful baby expert (Lisa clegg) uses. I don’t like it but it’s the only thing that has actually worked quickly. I might try a normal dreamfeed instead but want to stick with what I’m currently doing for at least 2 weeks first. I’ve been told to trust the process by the coach. The coach is having us wake the baby for this feed, he isn’t waking naturally. When he wakes naturally he won’t go down for longer than an hour. When we wake him for it he goes back down quickly and we get the longest stretch of sleep.

@Greentomatoes21 thank you so much, this is helpful! I will check out the group. How long did it take you to see real results?

I did the type of dreamfeed you’re doing (and that’s what I called it), and it did really help us. I did more of a Ferber method for sleep training, though.

We saw results pretty quickly to be honest. Definite improvement within a few days and great after a couple of weeks. For us, consistency was key. We were strict with wake windows and we responded in the same way every time according to our chosen method (we did check ins). There was some crying, which is the case for almost all sleep training methods, gentle or otherwise. But when I read desperate baby sleep posts, they almost always talk about stressful, tearful bedtimes - so the kids are still crying. For us, the short burst of crying it took to sleep train trumped the endless crying and rocking and false starts at bedtime before we sleep trained. And ultimately we had well-rested, happier awake times with our babies. I truly believe that helping your child to learn how to sleep is like giving them a gift that keeps on giving! However, baby sleep is so complex and personal that it's best to live and let live - some people will sleep train, some will co-sleep, some will rock to sleep, feed to sleep etc etc and all of them are absolutely fine if that's what works for that family. It can be a minefield! Buckle up and do what works best for you and baby!

Are you associating his poor sleep with the 16 week vaccinations? Try to put that to one side - 4 month sleep regression is very well recognised.

you mention waking him from the daytime sleeps, why are you doing that? We found that the better ours slept in the day, the better they slept at night. Only at about 2 1/2 when they were on the brink of dropping daytime naps altogether did we limit how late they slept in the afternoon.

And they definitely both had phases of waking for the day between 5-6am but not at 6 months. Just to prepare you for that….!