Sorry...another sleep training ?

bratni13

For those of you who sleep train, what is the method/book you are using? My 5 month old girls are napping terribly and waking often at night. We bathe them at 6:30 p.m. every other night, feed them at 7 p.m., play/tummy time until they start getting a little fussy or rubbing their eyes and then it's to bed they go (usually around 7:30-7:45). They wake constantly throughout the night and we give them a pacifier and it usually falls out and they wake up and it's this constant struggle most nights. Around 2 a.m. we feed them and put them back to sleep until around 6:30 a.m. when they are fed again.

I just feel like they should be old enough to be sleeping longer at night. Any suggestions?

UsedToBeGoldie

they may need to go down earlier.... often, once they act tired- they are over tired already and that makes it harder to sleep well.

we followed babywise with all 3 of our boys- and all 3 were STTN at 8 weeks... it's something you start day 1 at home (a flexible routine of eat/play/sleep every 3 hours).

your babies are certainly old enough to STTN - there's no medical need to feed at night once they are back to birth weight actually - so don't feel that is an issue.

WaitingforGrace

I really liked Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Twins.

The day they came home I was pretty hardcore about setting up good sleep habits and have been pretty strict since then. I think it's been pretty successful. They sleep from 8pm-5:30am, bottle and back down until 8am. During the day, they take 3 1.5 hour naps and sometimes a cat nap after their 6pm bottle.

From reading that book, first off it sounds like you are waiting too long to put them down. Also, the biggest thing I learned was sleep begets sleep. People comment that our girls sleep all the time, but at 4 months, the recommendation is that they not be awake for more than 1 - 1.5 hours. I don't know what it is at 5 months, but I assume not too much longer. If they have been awake for 90 minutes, try putting them down.

Good luck!