Talk to me about sleep training

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Really struggling - our daughter is 5.5 months old and since 4 months practically on the dot her sleep has gone to pot. Prior to that she was sleeping 6-6.5 hours, which I thought was pretty good for a mostly breastfed baby. However, now she wakes up after 3 hours and every 1-1.5 after that. Problem is, I'm prone to migraines and the lack of sleep is seriously impacting my health!

When she wakes the first 2-3 times, I feed her but she will only feed for 5-10 minutes and go straight back to sleep. After doing 2-3 wakings I feel exhausted so my husband takes over and makes a bottle and feeds her but again she doesn't really feed much - usually only about 30ml each time.

We also have a toddler who's room is right next to ours so we want to minimise her crying so as not to wake him. Honestly, we're just done with the lack of sleep. When she wakes she seems to not even be awake, eyes closed the whole time but crying so loud.

We've decided we probably need to sleep train but just don't know how especially with a toddler in the next room to us. We just feel we can't wait 5-10 minutes before tending to her because it will disturb our son.

Any advice greatly appreciated or if you can recommend any books!

Have you thought about cosleeping instead? Especially as you said she is barely waking.
Absolute life saver for me… can sleep easily alongside her, barely wake when she does and both back to sleep quickly with less fuss!
I have no experience of sleep training and I am sure others will have advice.
Hope you manage to get some sleep!

Hi, my DS was never a great sleeper but up to around 14 weeks he would wake 2-3 times, have a quick feed then back down, which was totally manageable. Then he started waking every two hours, then every hour, then every 40 minutes, sometimes 20 minutes. By 22 weeks I was so exhausted I just couldn't function anymore. When he turned 5 months we sleep trained just at bedtime. Took away his dummy and put down awake after our usual bedtime routine. I did checks every three minutes but he only cried for a total of 12 minutes. That first night he was back to waking 3-4 times rather than every 40 minutes. I fed him on wake ups as usual because I also have an older child next door and I don't want her to be disturbed too much. On subsequent nights the longest he ever cried was 20 minutes and it was on and off, not continuously. He was never distressed, more just frustrated crying. He's now 6 months and he goes to sleep completely independently without any crying both for bedtime and naps. He's never slept through the night yet but he just wakes for two feeds now.

I found the book "Prescious Little Sleep" helpful.

Good luck! Hope sleep improves for you!

We found it worked very fast to get some decent sleep (2-3 short wakes and feeds per night, and at 9 months went haywire then started sleeping through) and we didn't feel the need to carry it on. Id be tempted to disturb the toddler for 2 nights in order to try to change habits, and then after that just do as much encouraging as you can (pick up put down method for example) to develop from there.
I was broken by sleep. I honestly can't express how bad he was for 5 months, it would be a huge essay but all of us were physically and emotionally destroyed, baby included, by lack of sleep and refusal to be put down. First night took him 1 hr 15 to get to sleep and we didn't go in at all. Having been in tears about it all week I didn't find it that hard - for context he had cried from tiredness in my arms for 45 minutes days before because I couldn't manage to rock him and that was the only way he could sleep. So it felt no worse! After that no long crying spells and after about a week his pattern wasn't changing so since then we always go in when he cries.

Id also consider trying to stretch feeds out a bit. Don't feed any more frequently than you do in the day, and gradually try to make it less - if you can get her back to sleep without feeding she might rely on it less and not wake you up in the night. I'm really not actually the sleep training and feeding schedule type but found it worked for us to half-implement as it was easier for me to understand if he was hungry or not if I wasn't offering every 15 minutes and every night wake - I knew after a while that he could always go 3 hours and often 4 between feeds and it seemed to help at night.

5.5 months is still so little, and she's likely going through a small regression. She will grow out of it. Did you sleep train your toddler too?

Mine didn't respond to ST, he cried to the point of panic and vomiting, all children are different.

Thanks for all the replies. I appreciate every one!

I have considered co-sleeping but I'm so afraid of rolling on my daughter. Probably irrational but I just don't trust myself.

We tried something different last night, doing a dream feed at 10.30 when I went to bed and she only woke up three times with the length of time between each wake up being longer. It's something we used to do with our son but didn't with our daughter as until recently she went to be quite late but we've been working on nailing down the bedtime routine and getting her in bed between 7 and 8.

I also got a baby sleep book by Gina Ford (controversial, I know!) out of the library the other day which has been eye-opening. Because my little girl has reflux we have been feeding little and often but not really keeping a track on how often she was feeding and how much. Now we are feeding every 3 hours and trying to get her to take more, which I think has been really beneficial.

I know 5.5 months is really little but my migraines are becoming more frequent and severe from the lack of sleep and I can't breastfeed or pump breastmilk for 2 hours after taking my medication.

Going to check out the book Precious Little Sleep too! Thanks!

Lucy Wolfe! She's on Instagram, has an audio book on Audible and a hard copy. She was recommended to me when DS was about 5 months and it saved my sanity. I will recommend her till the cows come home as at 2, DS is still a brilliant sleeper thanks to the work we put in at 6 months.

Totally up to you obviously to do whatever works, but if you haven't looked into co-sleeping there are clear guidelines on how to do it safely, if following those there is little or no risk (depending whose stats you look at, but it seems basically zero). And I think by that age they are much less susceptible to accidents as they have a bit more awareness and physical ability.

As I said, I ended up doing CIO but co-sleeping really is safe if it works for you (unusually, mine cried more than if left alone!) and anecdotally they are able to switch to their own bed at a reasonable age too.

Sorry if you know this and still just can't. Good luck!