The Great Baby Sleep Thread

BitterBetty12

This is a place to discuss anything and everything in regards to baby sleep. From sleeping locations, to AAP recommendations for sleep, to "How the hell do I get this baby to sleep?" and everything in between. There is a ton of information out there, but there are also a ton of STM+ who have experience with all different areas of sleep. So let us know your questions. And we'll let you know our thoughts.

ladystout08

You'll never get any again. YW. 







Jk. Jk. 

emmaaa

We were lucky that DD was a great sleeper. From the start though, she had her own sleep space. First in her bassinet, then the pack n play, and stayed in our room until 3.5 months. I highly recommend swaddling (we used the Halo swaddles, game changer) and laying baby down while they are awake once they are about 4 weeks old. I followed Moms On Call (book you can get on Amazon and there's an Apple app) and it was a great to have the routine for DD and was beneficial for us and her

kns1988

Check out this facebook group for safe sleep recommendations: https://www.facebook.com/groups/safesleepbabycare/?fref=gc&dti=1861481010778634&hc_location=ufi 

It has some heavy stuff because a lot of people turn to it after child loss, but it's full of knowledgeable people with *evidence-based* information. 

BitterBetty12

My DD was a pretty good sleeper. She had her own sleep space the whole time. She slept in her halo bassinet in our room until about 3-4 months, and then in the pack n play in our room until 6 months, and then in her crib in her room at 6 months.

One good thing to know is that newborns DO NOT have a schedule. But sometime around 8-12 weeks or so they become ready to follow an eat-play-sleep schedule (depending on the baby - I had friends who were able to do it as early as 6 and others who didn’t have a chance until 12). This is essentially where baby wakes up, BFs or takes a bottle, ‘plays’ for an approrpiate wake time, and then you lay them down again for their next nap. I will attach a chart with suggested wake times for babies of different ages. I found these were very consistent for my DD. She was always at the lower end of the wake time before she needed to go down again. You will learn as time goes on what works best for your baby and you’ll learn their signs. It takes a while to get baby on board but when they do you will get some freedom back in your life since there will be a little predictability to your day.

Wake times are really a life saver. I know so many people who were keeping their babies up too long which then led to them being over tired and then harder to put down. But this is NOT an exact science. Babies have their own plans. Some of them will have bad colic and might scream for hours on end no matter what you do. So wake times are for when baby is in a good mood and willing to participate.

pttomato

I probably can’t offer sleep advice because my DD was a horrible sleeper, despite trying to do everything right from the beginning. It was probably not a good sign when I got a lot of comments about how alert she was as a newborn, lol.

All I know is that “drowsy but awake,” felt like a cruel joke and knowing how to “self-soothe” and fall asleep on her own was not the magic bullet it sounded like. I would put her in her crib and she would just lie there awake. It was not unusual for it to take 1-2 hours for her to fall asleep even at a couple months old. 

Something I think I will do differently this time is not spend that long trying to get them to sleep. It worked much, much better with DD if I tried for 15 minutes and if she wasn’t asleep, stop, take a break, and try again later. I was way too afraid of “overtiredness.”

And if you have a difficult sleeper, don't underestimate how desperate you can get when you are severely sleep deprived, so it can be good to have a plan for dealing with that, whether it’s additional help, or knowing how to bedshare safely, or whatever. One of the most dangerous things you can do is fall asleep in a chair or on a couch with the baby.

sweetyjenj

Thanks @BitterBetty12 !! Here's what we did:

0-3 months: She was swaddled using the halo swaddles (by the way, check out the ones without velco..we took two from the hospital. The velcro ones always woke her up if I wanted to adjust it at all) and we slept her in the manual Rock N Play next to my side of the bed. After seeing her spit up and almost choke a few times sleeping on her back in the hospital, we wanted her sleeping at an incline. I had heard that transitioning to a crib can be difficult after RnP sleep, so I started napping her in the crib around 2 months so she could adjust and especially so she could nap at daycare when that started.

~3-8 months: Once she was big enough that she could wiggle more I transitioned her to the Pack n Play that we kept in our room since she was still waking up frequently to nurse MOTN. She transitioned totally fine from the incline to the flat surface. Also at this point she wasn't spitting up after nursing anymore and I trusted she was able enough to move her head/roll to the side if she did spit up and not choke. Once she started sleeping longer between nursing I moved her to her crib in her room, around 8 months. At this point she was only waking to nurse once or twice a night.

Here's why: My last BMB had several recommendations for the RnP, so I looked into it before DD was born. I don't do anything without looking into the pros and cons, especially when it comes to my childs safety. I looked into the actual research of SIDS and statistical numbers, I looked into common reasons for SIDS or other sleep/death related issues, and I then I made my own decisions. I'm so glad other women talked about their experience with the RnP, because it gave me the emotional freedom (aka guilt free) to do what I thought best for both of us to get comfortable and safe sleep. YES, she always slept on her back until she was strong enough to roll herself onto her stomach, and even then at first we were nervous and would sometimes roll her back.

ETA: I know several moms who used the Halo, several who have used the Dock a Tot, and several who used a Pack N Play or crib from the start. Most of them loved the choice they made and would recommend their method. I didn't do cosleeping because I tend to roll onto my stomach, and while I trusted that instinctually I would likely NOT roll onto my baby, I couldn't trust that DH wouldn't. Also, we have a queen bed and there's just not that much space between us. Dock a Tot seems cool, but just wasn't for us. Halo seemed cool, but Rock N Play had the incline AND it could be used for multiple purposes and was easy to move around the house or take with us if we were going to be at someones house during nap time or bed time. I have nothing against sleeping on a flat surface from the start if that works for you and your baby

sweetyjenj

By the way...I don't know if this helped us have a good sleeper or not, but I opened all the curtains in the house when it was morning to allow natural sunlight in, and closed them around 7 or 8pm. I heard somewhere that it can help them regulate their circadium rhythm, and that made complete sense to me, so I did it. I don't know if her sleep would have been the same without doing this, but in case it WAS the thing that helped her fall asleep easily at night, I thought I'd share!

nononorman

Ditto to we liked the Halo bassinest and the halo Velcro swaddles after about 5 weeks. Then when she grew out of those developmentally we switched to the Merlin suit. 
My baby never developed a normal nap schedule. Like to this day she just naps if/when she wants. Everyone would always talk about sleeping when the baby sleeps and I was like… She never sleeps during the day or you wouldn’t know if you put her down if it was going to be a 20 minute nap or an hour and a half. So I had to get whatever sleep i could at night. The first 5 weeks were really bad but then we got into a groove and I accepted naps weren’t part of the equation. 
It was important for me to know that every Baby is different. What worked for me - swaddle, bassinet, white noise, whatever- might not work for your kid. I know some people whose kids still take regular naps and are terrors if they miss them. They’re all different and you have to be a freaking detective to figure out exactly what works w your kid. 

emmaaa

sweetyjenj said:

By the way...I don't know if this helped us have a good sleeper or not, but I opened all the curtains in the house when it was morning to allow natural sunlight in, and closed them around 7 or 8pm. I heard somewhere that it can help them regulate their circadium rhythm, and that made complete sense to me, so I did it. I don't know if her sleep would have been the same without doing this, but in case it WAS the thing that helped her fall asleep easily at night, I thought I'd share!

This is good advice! It helps baby discern between the night and day. I also kept the house pretty noisy during the day so that she was used to napping with noise and that it was noisier during the day

kmos816

All I know is that “drowsy but awake,” felt like a cruel joke and knowing how to “self-soothe” and fall asleep on her own was not the magic bullet it sounded like. I would put her in her crib and she would just lie there awake. It was not unusual for it to take 1-2 hours for her to fall asleep even at a couple months old. 

I also felt this was a cruel joke! DD still does not go to bed anywhere near 'drowsy', and she is 4.

It took me awhile to accept that every baby is different and what I read in those sleep books won't necessarily work or apply to my child. For example, I read something once that said "it is not considered a nap if it is less than one hour", DD was not a good napper even as a baby and most naps as an infant lasted like 30 minutes, which drove me nuts, but it was just her- and she slept more and better at night than during the day. I appreciate the chart posted than what I've seen before because that is more realistic!

bradleysmommy28

So I know this will probably sound crazy but I was super thankful that of all things that came out of our 3 wk NICU stay with my DS, one of them was an amazing sleep schedule.  They have a pretty strict 4 hr schedule in our NICU (to keep the nurses sanity I'm sure!) and from the day he was born until the day he was discharged he was on a feeding/changing schedule of 12/4/8/12 around the clock.  He and the other babies in his room were fed at their scheduled time round robin then she or us when we were there would change him.  This is also the time he got the most holding/cuddling and when he was bathed.  Obviously he didn't sleep the entire time in between but keeping on that schedule kept our sanity when we brought him home and he hasn't missed a beat with sleeping in 5 1/2 yrs.  I'm going to *attempt* a similar schedule with this one in hopes that our luck didn't run out the first time!!

saltedcaramel518

I’ll be a bit controversial and talk about sleep training (one of the best things we’ve ever done, btw). 

A couple of sleep training myths:

-sleep training is training your baby to sleep though the night. (False. It’s teaching your baby to fall asleep on his own. They may still wake to be fed in the middle of the night)

-sleep training teaches your baby not to cry when they have needs (False. After we sleep trained, DS still cried, even at night. He still does occasionally)

-letting your child cry it out means you’re a horrible parent (False. Teaching your child to fall asleep on their own is teaching them an essential life skill)

Now, for my personal experience: DS had a strong sleep association with being rocked to sleep. He was never a great sleeper, but went totally off the rails when the 4 month sleep regression hit. He was waking every 1-1.5 hours all throughout the night. Because of his sleep association, he literally didn’t know how to go back to sleep without being rocked. 

I came across the website preciouslittlesleep.com (there’s also a book and a Facebook group). We used the full extinction method to sleep train DS when he was 6 months old. The first night was rough, but after 2 more not-so-bad nights, he was falling asleep in his crib without a peep. He would sleep for 5-6 hours straight.  I’d nurse him, then he’d sleep for another 3-4 hours. It was AMAZING after essentially getting up every 45 minutes.   

There are some things I’ll try to do differently with this baby. Namely, trying not to create a strong sleep association with nursing/rocking/bouncing/whatever, but, as stated above, that put them down “drowsy but awake” stuff did not work for DS. 

Sleep training is obviously not something that everyone will choose to do. I honestly hope that I don’t have to it with this baby, but it was a total game changer for DS, and I would absolutely do it again. 

emmaaa

+1 to Sleep Training.

DD STTN before we ST but we got to the point when she was about 3 months old that we literally had to rock and bounce for minimum 2 hours for her to fall asleep at night. She was fed, she was in a clean diaper, she was sleepy, and she was ready to sleep but baby's sleep patterns change around 4 months and they no longer fall asleep as easly (4 month sleep regression). That was when we decided to ST and move to her crib. We started out doing check ins (like Ferber) but quickly realized that only made it worse so also went full extinction. Within 5 nights, DD would fall asleep without fuss. That doesn't mean she fell asleep instantly, but that she would soothe herself by talking or just laying there until she fell asleep. 

@saltedcaramel518 Even though DD was a good sleeper early on, we did have to sleep train to get her falling asleep on her own and we also nap trained to keep her naps at the length they should be. But the training wasn't hard. I hope the next one will be easy for you!

pttomato

saltedcaramel518 said:

There are some things I’ll try to do differently with this baby. Namely, trying not to create a strong sleep association with nursing/rocking/bouncing/whatever, but, as stated above, that put them down “drowsy but awake” stuff did not work for DS. 

I really tried not to create sleep associations with DD until I got extremely tired and just wanted something that worked and I wasn’t even able to establish bad sleep habits with her. Something would work for like 3 days and then stop working. I don’t know what I will do about that this time.

beachmama14

Another +1 for sleep training. I never read any books or followed any methods. I used my own mom instinct and each of my children’s own personalities. I waited til they were older, around 9 months. I knew my son was very straight forward and an all or nothing type person, even as a baby. If he knew that I was going to come get him, he had no need to sleep. Of course he would RATHER be held and nursed in my arms all night but that isn’t healthy for anyone in our home. I would feed him and make sure he wasn’t hungry any more then say goodnight and lay him down and leave. I watched him on a baby monitor to make sure he was safely crying and not harming himself or in danger. Once he learned that when it was bedtime mom wasn’t coming back to hold me, he went to sleep. It took maybe a week. Was it hard? Absolutely. But he is a great sleeper now that needs no help to lay down and go to bed when it’s time. I plan to do the same for this one. 

kianarain

Can we talk products here? Lmk if this needs to go in a diff. thread. But SO's sister has an unopened Halo Bassinest Premiere that she's sending our way.. Haven't done a ton of research on it but it seems to get good reviews and...I mean...free. Would love to hear thoughts/experiences!

sweetyjenj

@kianarain I don't have personal experience with the Halo bassinet, but I have heard from many others that used it and loved it. I would say it's worth using if it's free! If you start using it and don't like it you could always try something different.

LCRbelle

I’m pretty strict when it comes to sleep and follow all of the “rules” Can something still happen? Of course! But at least I know I’ve done all I can to keep my LO safe.  I’m not willing to risk my child’s life by using unsafe sleep practices.  They might work out fine for some BUT nobody is exempt from tragedy and it does happen! So why risk it? 
We will do the same with this baby as we did with my son.  Pack n play in our room until baby is old enough to be moved to her room.  We did that around six months when we did sleep training with my DS.  This baby might wind up in our room longer since she will be sharing a room with DS.  
My DS started off as a really good sleeper then sometime between 4-6 months he hit a sleep regression BAD and was literally up all night long. We used the extinction sleep method training. It sucked and was hard but for the most part after those few hard first days he is a good sleeper!  The key to sleep training is consistency. Decide on a method and persevere through it.  If you give in it makes things that much harder!  The thing about babies is that they’re unpredictable and just as soon as you have a nice schedule down, something changes!
One very important piece of advice my mom told me when my DS was a newborn was to not let him sleep eat.  If he falls asleep then I’d attempt to wake him up and get him to keep nursing otherwise he was done.  Yes sometimes in the middle of the night when you’re exhausted it’s eassier to just fall asleep while the baby is sleeping and let them nurse off and on but you will pay for it later!  My sister is going through this now with her six month old! She will not go to sleep without her mom nursing her to sleep and when she wakes up she wants to immediately nurse!  Once it’s established it’s an incredibly hard habit to break! 
No one ever knows 100% what they’re doing and one thing that works for one child may not for another! We are all learning still no matter how many kids we have! 

skoto

I heard that the new recommendation is to keep infants in your room until they are 1 year old. Anyone else heard this?

LCRbelle

One more thing- if you can GET AN OWLET! I know it’s a piece of technology and it can still malfunction but it gave me so much peace of mind!  Being able to open an app at any time and see my baby’s heart rate and oxygen levels helped me sleep at night.  I still use it on my DS who is now 14 months! 

BitterBetty12

Ugh. I think I had selectively removed the short naps from my memory. I say DD was a good sleeper because she would go to sleep without screaming or giving me a problem in those early days (not so much later on until sleep training - but even then the regressions and leaps and teeth would KILL us). But she DID NOT nap long. Very often her naps would be 30 minutes. But then sometimes they would randomly last two hours. I never felt like I could do much of anything because I had no idea how long she would actually sleep. I want to say the short naps stopped when she transitioned to a solid 3 nap a day schedule but that was like. 6 ish months I think? She did have a 'bed time' that she self imposed around 3 months which was nice because I knew I had x amount of hours at night where she would be asleep and I could relax, play games, watch tv, etc. But she would still wake 2-3 times a night until she was up for the day. So my definition of a 'good sleeper' might be more like mediocre sleeper 

@skoto Yes 1 year is the recommendation now! For us - life happened, and we ended up transitioning her out at 6 months instead because I was back to work and we realized that my new schedule was waking her up.

I think it's important to realize that when people have differences of opinions, it can naturally sound judgemental. I promise that anything I say here is not a judgement of things others do differently. It is just my experiences and my advice based on my life, my daughter, and my personal thoughts / feelings / anxieties. I have chosen safe sleep to be my 'hill to die on' so to speak because my anxiety is severe and in my mind, knowing that I was doing literally everything I could to prevent a sleeping accident helped me ease my fears. SIDS can happen to anyone, regardless of whether safe sleep is being practiced or not. But there are a lot of studies that show that following safe sleep practices DOES decrease your chances of having one of those accidents. And so that became important for me.

My goal with this thread is for FTMs to read everyone's experiences and be able to come to a decision on what is important to them and what they think will work best for their family. Though truth be told - what you think will work and what actually will work obviously depends on the baby. The big giant missing factor from these discussions since they aren't here yet! But they all have their own personalities and that will certainly affect things. But it doesn't mean you can't have a plan ahead of time!

drabong88

So we did not sleep train, mainly because I'm not sure I couldn't handle crying it out. DS got a bottle of pumped milk at bedtime every night starting when he was a few weeks old. I work night shift so he needed to be able to fall asleep with DH. He always fell asleep eating while being rocked. Not intentionally but he did. When he would wake up at night he never needed me to rock him but would need to just be patted on the back. At 9 months he started STTN but still needed to be rocked to sleep. At about 13 months we would rock him and read a few books till he fell asleep. About a month or 2 ago (at 18 months) he started just saying "crib" after reading a book, he didnt want to be rocked anymore and now he doesn't even want to read he just wants to go in his crib. 

So we pretty much did everything they say not to do and DS is a great sleeper. Sleeps 12 to 13 hours every night...occasionally 14 if he doesn't nap and a 2 to 3 hour nap every day. Each kid is different you need to just do what works for you!

pttomato

One thing that did help was taking shifts with DH so I could get a block of sleep longer than 2 hours. It was harder once he went back to work and I was doing the whole night by myself. That’s when I started to get concerned about falling asleep holding the baby unintentionally.

The thing that made the biggest difference for DD was cutting out dairy and soy, but obviously that’s more specific to her.

pttomato

Has anyone used one of the swaddles that allows them to put their hands up by their face?

Like this: https://www.amazon.com/Love-Dream-Swaddle-Original-Small/dp/B0081GJ038/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1533244644&sr=1-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=swaddle+up&dpPl=1&dpID=51syjI1C9EL&ref=plSrch

DD hated being swaddled but would startle herself awake if she wasn’t and I wonder if something like that might have helped. We ended up using muslin blankets because that was the only way she would tolerate it, but obviously she got out of those.

jgil85

@kianarain I had that same bassinet and wasn't a fan. Whenever DS woke in the middle of the night I had to physically get out of bed to change his diaper and it was annoying to push out of the way and not step on the base. I wish I would have known about the infant insert they sell for it because I feel like DS would have loved sleeping in it. I actually sold mine recently and am planning on using the pnp from the beginning. 

BitterBetty12

@kianarain We loved our halo! It swivels so we would keep the base slightly away from the bed and then I would swivel the bassinet so that DD was sleeping kind of aligned with my head. I loved the mesh sides that allowed me to see her through it without getting up. I liked that the side bar dropped down to make it easier to pick her up while I was in bed (when she was really little and I wasn’t concerned about her being able to move it I would leave it unlocked). I don’t have any complaints. 

pttomato

I always liked this, probably because I read too many sleep books:

https://thechimericalcapuchin.com/babybooks/

Mandamay1414

+1 for the Rock n play.. DD hated being swaddled and hated sleeping flat on her back. She slept in the Rock n play next to my bed for the first 3-4 months and then in the pack n play in our room until she was 11 months old. We also did a combo of Ferber/extinction for sleep training during the regressions. Sometimes going in to comfort her would only wind her up more. I also love white noise.. we used an old cell phone with a white noise app... still use it today and she is 2. I think white noise is especially important if you live in a small space. We lived in a 1 br apt. Our living room/TV was fairly close to the BR. 

All this being said, we are currently in another regression.. it now takes 45+ min to get her to bed instead of 15 min... there's always something, lol

tosh24

@pttomato I haven't tried that style of swaddle, but DS hated having his arms swaddled so I just swaddled from his armpits down. Worked just fine.

nononorman

@kianarain we used the Halo and liked it. 

As far as swaddling, what I found worked for us only worked at very specific times. We tried but the halo Velcro swaddle in the beginning and she hated it so we just used muslin swaddles then.  Then one night we decided to try the Velcro swaddle again and it was absolute magic… I’m saying she was sleeping from 5 to 9 hours at a time overnight from 5 to 12 weeks old. But at some point she was at a risk of rolling over in that so we had to put her in the Merlin suit. That wasn’t an immediate hit but after about two weeks in it she was used it it and loved it. We tried the weird arm swaddle and I think being able to move her arms was a distraction like she could almost get her thumb to her mouth but not quite so it made her pissy.  

As for moving her to her own room, their became a point when it was very evident that her sleep was being negatively affected by the fact that she was in the room with us. Between us and the dogs, we were just making too much noise and it would wake her up all night long. We moved her to her own room at five months and within a week she was back to only 1-2 wake ups a night, and soon only one wake up to nurse. She started sleeping through the night at 9 1/2 months. 

BitterBetty12

My favorite part of swaddling was when DD would wake up and then I would open her swaddle and she would throw her arms up and stretch. Ahhh. Now I need to go find a video. 

We loved the halo Velcro swaddle and we used it arms in. DD didn’t like her arms in and would always try to escape BUT she wouldn’t sleep at all with her arms out. She would startle herself awake almost instantly.

We still use halo sleep sacks for all sleep at 13 months since we do nothing in the crib except DD, sheet, and binky.

pttomato

tosh24 said:

@pttomato I haven't tried that style of swaddle, but DS hated having his arms swaddled so I just swaddled from his armpits down. Worked just fine.

We had to do arms in because she would startle herself awake with the Moro reflex otherwise.

We used the halo sleep sacks until DD was probably 20 months old and would sleep under a blanket. The temperature in her room would drop overnight and the sleep sacks helped. They are also supposed to make it harder for them to climb out of the crib, but DD managed to do it anyway at 16 months.

sfgiantsgamerbabe

I was very fortunate that DS was a good sleeper. He didn’t like to be swaddled but he wouldn’t sleep and would startle himself awake. I also loved the velcro swaddles and Mam pacifires. DS eventually loved his swaddle until 5 months, then we switched to the Zipadee Zip. He was rolling over by then but still sleeping in his swing/bouncy seat. I know it’s a no no but it was the only way he’d sleep and his pediatrician said it was ok because we were dealing with reflux. He went to a crib with no problem by 5 months. 

To put DS on a schedule I would just notice the times he got tired and put him down. I noticed he always got tired around the same time every day and, before I knew it, he was on a 2 nap schedule. 9-11am and 2-4pm. This happened pretty early on because I was back at work in 6 weeks. 

I was the kind to rock/nurse DS to sleep. It didn’t seem to affect him too much because he learned to fall asleep on his own as he got older. I also tried not to tend to every little fuss or whimper so he would learn to self soothe. 

BitterBetty12

@pttomato did you try swaddling arms up with hands to face in the halo swaddles? DD would often get herself into that position so sometimes I would just swaddle that way. Though I did feel like she could escape the swaddle more easily that way. 

BitterBetty12

@cait32 omg I’m ded  That was amazing. DD2 has some big shoes to fill now!

pttomato

BitterBetty12 said:

@pttomato did you try swaddling arms up with hands to face in the halo swaddles? DD would often get herself into that position so sometimes I would just swaddle that way. Though I did feel like she could escape the swaddle more easily that way. 

I tried arms up in the swaddle blankets, but it was too easy for her to get them out. She hated anything with Velcro or a zipper and would scream and thrash around, so I gave up on those. I can’t remember if I ever put her in those with her hands by her face.

It would be nice if I got lucky this time and this baby doesn’t hate sleeping and everything associated with it, lol.

BitterBetty12

@cait32 I showed DH and he swears he showed it to me when it went viral. But this whole discussion sent me down a google photos rabbit hole of looking at newborn pics of DD and I’m so excited for a little squish!

UnbreakableKimmySchmidt

DD was a terrible sleeper from the first night.  She had her days and nights mixed up for awhile.  It was really hard!  White noise and RnP worked best for us.  We seriously had her fall asleep in the RnP in the kitchen with the exhaust fan from the stove blasting.  She was never a great napper but we did sleep train at 4 months and that did help.  I'm crossing all my fingers and toes  that we get a better sleeper who does not have FOMO like his/her big sister.  I just came to the conclusion that sometimes you just get a kid that does not like to sleep despite all your best efforts!  Also, buy a sound machine.

drabong88

+1 for the white  noise machine! We have used that since the beginning.

BitterBetty12

Yup another +1 for white noise machines. It’s amazing. And at this point it’s just part of DDs night time routine. So I’ll be buying another one for DD2.