How would you sleep train this baby?

[flyingbeet]

My baby is 6 months old. She's always been a terrible sleeper. The only thing that got her to sleep is co-sleeping and being attached to the boob all night. Recently I have realised she is finding it difficult to go to sleep even when latched on. She constantly latches on and off and I don't think she gets a good quality of sleep. Of course I don't either and have constant back pain. It also affects my relationship with my husband because we never have any alone time.

I make sure to follow wake windows, a nap schedule (she's down to 2 naps a day now) we have a bedtime routine and she's always really sleepy and ready for bed at 7.

I started doing ferber last week. Took her 30 min to fall asleep but he kept waking up. She woke up roughly around 10 times and would cry around 15-20 minutes before falling asleep. It was really hard seeing her cry and so I would sometimes pay her back to sleep when she let me or I would breastfeed her to calm her down and put her back in her cot. After doing the ferber her day naps would be all over the place since she would be tired from the night before and I would have to try and adjust her bedtime. I did 3 nights of ferber. She did a stretch of 2 hours and then 4 hours and 2 hours again which is even better than I get when co-sleeping so I was happy that although slow and a lot of crying I was getting results. Then the next morning I noticed she was very clingy and just wanted to be held. I thought she was maybe getting ill or teething so I paused sleep training but now that I think about it she could just be sleepy and maybe an extra nap would have made her happier.

It's been around 2-3 nights of that break. Should I continue with ferber? Is there any other method that might work better. I just hate to see her cry so much but the whole family is miserable and we need sleep training.

Also I don't want any hate comments. They'll just be ignored

I would say that in some ways she is a good sleeper ie she has 2 naps and is ready for bed at night. It sounds, may be wrong, that it is more about finding a different way to get her off when she wakes in the night. She is still very young and many would worry about this a bit later but I totally get that multiple night wakings are not good for anyone. Could you try more of a shush/ pat approach rather than letting her cry? I also don't think an extra nap if needed matters... that will inevitably happen some days anyway.

Stick with it.

It can be hard hearing them cry but remember they're comfortable, warm, dry and safe. It's whining more than crying, but stopping & starting will get you nowhere, you need to stick to it for a few extra days.

If after a week you're not getting anywhere, then I'd probably give up and try again in a couple of months.

Also if baby wants an extra or longer nap, let them nap

We used a gradual retreat / gradual withdrawal method with ds1 when he was about 8/9 months. He had always been a terrible sleeper and it became unmanageable.

The health visitor recommended the book 'teach your child to sleep' by the millpond clinic. It gives step by step instructions for lots of sleep training solutions.

We would comfort him to sleep but reduced that level of support gradually - from feeding to sleep, rocking to sleep, holding to sleep, sitting next to him, then sitting further and further away. Each step was after 3 days.

In addition he was feeding every 1-2 hours, so we gradually increased the time between feeds by 15 minutes every 3 days.

I preferred it as I felt better knowing I comforting him when he was crying but you have to do the solution that is best for you and your family.

I liked the book as it was factual and informative without being judgmental or prescriptive. It also gives multiple choices not just one. We picked the one that best matched our values.

She's very young to be sleep training. If it is making everyone in the family unhappy is it really the best thing for you all? Remember it is not some magic cure. I don't know anyone who hasn't had to go through the process again every time their DC is ill, teething or out of routine. Would breastfeeding laying down help your back? Is you husband helping with night waking?

I work in this area, and there’s a few things that I think might help.

One is habit stacking, if she’s using you for comfort or settling, she is going to be very distressed without you regardless of the method you use because she doesn’t have any other tools right now, so she will only fall asleep when she becomes exhausted. Can you introduce something to soothe her? For example, when we did sleep settling with our 6m old we introduced a comforter. Whilst he was still quite young to be getting attached to one, it worked really well and still is his main way to comfort himself (we actually took his dummy away and replaced it with the comforter the same night because the dummy kept falling out).

It’s great you have a bit of a routine. 2 naps during the day is quite low- how did your LO move to this routine? It’s just that most 6 m/o need a rest every 2.5-3 hours which roughly equates to 3 naps a day. If she’s not sleeping enough in the day she won’t sleep well at night. Sleep tends to breed sleep.

With the Ferber method, the consistency is the most important thing once you’ve started. It sounds as though you reached the peak and then stopped and went back to your usual routine because you weren’t sure if she was ok / were struggling to manage your feelings. Intermittently reverting back to your old routine will make it worse, and honestly, don’t do this method if you think that will happen again. It just means that every time you re-start it will become a bit harder. Some little ones take really well to methods like this, and others don’t. If you have a child who is becoming extremely distressed it is not the right method.

Other methods include the chair method (which is hard work, but it sounds like you’re a human comforter all night anyway, I’m not sure it’d be any harder than what you’re already doing), which involves slowly supporting your child to fall asleep and stay asleep whilst you are there. This is a low cry method, so if she’s getting very distressed with Ferber this is a more gentle approach.

The other option is to re-evaluate the way that you see this. If these ‘methods’ are too much for her (or you), it might be time to do a bit of acceptance that she’s still very young and just really needs you right now. You could try to plan with any support person you have a way to introduce them to the routine to allow you 4-5 hrs straight sleep before taking over again. Try to remember that for her age frequent night wakes are very normal and it might not be sleep training she needs, maybe she just needs a change in habit (so moving to more bottle feeding/ sleeping in a cot next to bed instead of on you).

@flyingbeet Do you have any updates on how your ferber sleep training is going? Currently training our 10 month old and early days but not seeing much improvement