If you sleep trained

jd614

How the heck did you do it when you have to get up for work ? DS was an awesome sleeper and the last month has really regressed . I feel like I need to sleep train him but when he's crying at 1am and my alarm goes off at 450am I always give in and go in there. Any suggestions ?!

shannm

I would choose a weekend to start and a week that isn't too busy at work. If you can do a long weekend, even better. Hopefully it won't take too long. It was only a few days for us till she caught on. Good luck!

thedash

It really only took 2 to 3 days for us to see dramatic improvement so weekend was fine. But we didn't try for the first time until he was a year old. I can't see your ticker on mobile so don't know your LO's age.

jd614

thedash:

It really only took 2 to 3 days for us to see dramatic improvement so weekend was fine. But we didn't try for the first time until he was a year old. I can't see your ticker on mobile so don't know your LO's age.

DS is 5.5 mos old and the last month has been awful. What / how did you sleep train?

ccam

I was still home on leave when we sleep trained but we made sure it was a weekend for DH and a time when we didn't plan on doing too much. DS was much better after about 3 days. Night 1 and 2 were the worst.

financialdiva

jd614:

thedash:

It really only took 2 to 3 days for us to see dramatic improvement so weekend was fine. But we didn't try for the first time until he was a year old. I can't see your ticker on mobile so don't know your LO's age.

DS is 5.5 mos old and the last month has been awful. What / how did you sleep train?

DS2 just turned 6 months.

From about months 45.5 he was an AWFUL sleeper. Just awful. I was a walking zombie. I was maybe getting 4 hours of broken sleep a night. We pushed through, no sleep training and this last week he has really turned the corner and has started sleeping from 7:306:30 in his crib, waking once to eat.

I'm NOT against sleep training at all, I'm just letting you know there is hope. We went through sleep hell, first it the four month wakefuls, then three teeth came in, then he learned how to roll so he would roll onto his belly in the middle of the night and wake himself up. Then we transitioned to the crib in the middle of all this b/c we figured, what the heck, he's sleeping like crap anyway.

GL!

hansa11

In my opinion, sleep training at 5.5 months is not too early.  We did it earlier than that with our second son (forget how old...it's all a blur now) when he had been sleeping through the night and not needing to eat at night and then was suddenly waking every hour or two.  It got so unmanageable.  I know the walking zombie feeling. 

Anyway, we would go in there to let him know we were there, give him his pacifier back, comfort him and then quickly leave the room.  It took more than a couple of days for us, but we did see improvement after two nights, so that was our encouragement that it was working. 

It's so hard to do sleep training in the middle of the night when you have to get up so early, so that's the only reason we didn't start earlier.  It wasn't until it got so bad that we accepted we had to do something.  My husband and I would take turns sleeping on the couch in the basement so one of us would get a full night's sleep.  That made it a little easier to get through work that day on minimal sleep knowing that I was going to get to sleep that night.

Good luck!  I'm a firm believer that setting the stage for good sleep habits benefits everyone in the long run.  This is a normal stage and you'll get through it.

shannm

jd614:

thedash:

It really only took 2 to 3 days for us to see dramatic improvement so weekend was fine. But we didn't try for the first time until he was a year old. I can't see your ticker on mobile so don't know your LO's age.

DS is 5.5 mos old and the last month has been awful. What / how did you sleep train?

Sorry, I didn't catch his age. I waited till closer to 11 months with DD.

thedash

jd614:

thedash:

It really only took 2 to 3 days for us to see dramatic improvement so weekend was fine. But we didn't try for the first time until he was a year old. I can't see your ticker on mobile so don't know your LO's age.

DS is 5.5 mos old and the last month has been awful. What / how did you sleep train?

I read No Cry Sleep Solution and Ferber's book cover to cover and was shocked by how similar they are. So first I started with the NCSS idea of gradually moving out of the room. It didn't work very well for us. Then I followed Ferber's advice pretty much exactly and it worked. First night I think it took over an hour of crying at bedtime (with periodic check-ins) and about half an hour when he woke up in the middle of the night. The second night it was about half that and then for several nights we had 15 minutes of crying at bedtime but no middle of the night wake-ups. Within a week he was going right to sleep without crying and no waking.

Of course, then he turned 2 and we moved him to a toddler bed and it all fell apart. But that's another story... 

 

ETA: I also really liked Ferber's chart of how much sleep is generally needed at each age. We were expecting him to need more hours of sleep per day than he actually did. We moved bedtime back a full hour when we sleep trained and it helped a ton. Just remembered that. 

DaisyJanie

We sleep-trained at 6.5 months and only the first night did we get any less sleep than we were getting before. However, at that point I did keep an overnight feeding, if he woke up after 4:30 I would BF him. We went from 5-6 overnight wakeups to just the one feeding in 3 nights. Best thing ever.

ETA: I followed the Ferber method.  

iverske9

Start on the weekend but honestly you have to stick to it. I HAD to read a book and have a plan or else I caved every time. I read The Sleep Easy Solution and it was a god send. I did start it on the weekend and kept with the plan. Good luck! It is so worth it since my little guy is an amazing sleeper, besides teething (which we are finally out of it :-) he sleeps 12 hours a night

ns1

I agree with the long weekend idea.  I think we took a 3 day weekend when we started.  And, know that it will make sleep so much better!  (At least it did for us.)  So, lost sleep for a few nights will be well worth it in the long run.  Just be consistent when you're ready!

rockychryslerb2010

I am a Ferber believer, it saved our marriage! 

E's sleep sucked from 3-5 months.  I personally wasn't comfortable sleep training before 6 months, and he struggled with teething and a cold so we held out until 6.5 months.  Our biggest problem was having to rock him to sleep initially, and with every wakeup throughout the night.  So we started sleep training the first time on a sunday night, just because we had a horrible week vacation and were at our breaking point.  E cried with every wakeup the first two nights, but the third night we saw a huge difference.  He was still waking up, but I could put him in the crib and walk out the room with him awake after nursing. made a huge difference.  even the first two nights of sleep training was better sleep for me.  we had gotten in a habit of bringing him into bed with us to sleep after his first wakeup, and I always slept very lightly and restless with him in our bed.

we did it again around 10 months after he got all off schedule with a vacation, this time didn't take more than 1-2 nights and he went to bed without tears and would wake up 1-2 night, nurse and go right back to bed awake and fall asleep on his own.

He started STTN around 12.5 months, no tears at all with bedtime and he actually gets excited to go up to his room and get into his crib.  Even with molars and canines, he has only hand a handful of wakeups in 6 months.