Did you / will you sleep train?

PinkPeony6210 · July 2012

If so, at what age, and what method did you/ will you use?

I know DD2 is still super young, but she will be turning 4 months next week. I never in a million years would've thought to sleep train her, but she has absolutely ZERO self-soothing skills. A typical night consists of me giving her a bath, feeding her, and then rocking her to sleep. I wait until she is sleeping to put her down. 10-30 minutes later she starts to squirm and fuss. I go in after a few minutes of fussing, shush her, and pat her on the butt, but often times I have to rock her until she is sleeping again. This process can go on for a good two hours before she actually sleeps for a couple hours. Mind you this is an every night occurance.

We have a nightly routine, and I feed her in a dim room with no distractions. I've tried a paci, the seahorse, keeping my hands on her for while, putting her down "drowsy but awake", but nothing is working.

I really don't mind the rocking at all. I don't mind the MOTN feedings. What I do mind is the 2+ hours it takes me to put her to bed. I just wish once she was down, she was down for the night.

mben1119 · July 2012

We never did. DS now falls asleep cuddling with one of us on the couch, and sleeps about 11 hours. Are you waiting until she's tired to start your routine? Or at least close to sleepy? If she's just not tired, you're setting yourself up for failure. I just follow DS's cues.

PinkPeony6210 · July 2012

mabenner1:
We never did. DS now falls asleep cuddling with one of us on the couch, and sleeps about 11 hours. Are you waiting until she's tired to start your routine? Or at least close to sleepy? If she's just not tired, you're setting yourself up for failure. I just follow DS's cues.

Yes. She is practically falling asleep as she eats.

skibunny59 · July 2012

We didn't sleep train. For the first two and a half months or so she would not sleep anywhere but in our arms so we just brought her into bed with us. One day I "tried" to put her down in the bassinet in our bedroom and she fell asleep. She's been STTN since. I nurse her to sleep and it takes about a half hour on a good night and almost an hour on a bad night. 2 hours is a long time. You poor thing. Would you be against co-sleeping for a little while? Maybe she is just not ready to be able to self soothe.

PinkPeony6210 · July 2012

skibunny59:
We didn't sleep train. For the first two and a half months or so she would not sleep anywhere but in our arms so we just brought her into bed with us. One day I "tried" to put her down in the bassinet in our bedroom and she fell asleep. She's been STTN since. I nurse her to sleep and it takes about a half hour on a good night and almost an hour on a bad night. 2 hours is a long time. You poor thing. Would you be against co-sleeping for a little while? Maybe she is just not ready to be able to self soothe.

We bed share after her MOTN feeding.

She outgrew the bassinet that we were using, but I have thought about trying to find an arms reach co-sleeper on Craigslist, and seeing if that works.

BigIsland07 · July 2012

OMG! I could have written this post myself. This is EXACTLY what DD does. Exactly -- even the falling asleep at the bottle. So frustrating. We have her 4 month check up on 7/31 and I'm going to talk to the pedi about sleep training.

LuckyBride06 · July 2012

I'm currently sleep training. I did ferber with DS1 and it worked great, so I started this week with DS2. He too has NO self soothing skills. He doesn't take a paci and he rarely sucks his thumb. Use used to have to put him down fast asleep, and he woke up 3-4times a night and I'd have to nurse him back to sleep. Finally we decided that we couldn't be zombies anymore, so we decided to start at 4 months (he's also 18lbs). It's been going well. I put him down for naps and bedtime awake (drowsy) and he cries for a few mins, but I go in and pat his back and shush him every few mins. He hasn't cried more than 15mins, which is good. We also do ferber for his first night waking bc it's only 3hrs after he goes to bed. So we've been working on extending the first stretch so he's only up twice a night. It's been 5 days and things are better, but still not great. It'll take time, but I'm so relieved we started! It's very very hard hearing them cry, but if you're consistent and committed, it works! I just keep telling myself that we will all be happier once he learns to sleep, not just DH and I, him too! GL

Chrisaloyd · July 2012

I could have written this post as well! My son is 5 months and does this same thing..but the 1-2 hours spent getting him to sleep, he screams. . He went through a rough time during 4 month wakefuls/sleep regression/Wonder Week 19.... He's 22 weeks and we still haven't recovered.

I don't mind feeding in the MOTN; I actually enjoy our time together. But yeah..spending 8-10pm trying to get him to sleep sucks! I don't have any advice; I'm at a loss myself. I might try an earlier or maybe even later bedtime to see if that helps.

elektra1835 · July 2012

I'm actually kinda torn about whether or not to sleep train. I do feel that it would be best for everyone in the house if we did (I'm currently trying to function on 4hrs of sleep a night), but I'm kinda leery of it. I tried for a week at 4mo, but I don't think he was quite ready for it. He's been doing a lot better going to sleep at night, but he is very inconsistent, despite my efforts at keeping his bedtime routine & environment more or less the same every night. Some nights he will sleep 6hrs at a time, only waking once to eat, others he is up at least 3 times a night and will not want to go back to sleep unless he is BF. There are those rare nights when I put him in bed awake and he will happily put himself back to sleep and will continue to do that when he wakes up in the night. Then there are the times I have to replace his paci 4 or 5 times every time he wakes up, ugh. It's really wearing on me. I never know what he's going to do from one night to the next. I think if he is still not sleeping well at 6mo, then I will try sleep training again. I've heard that if you're going to do it, it should be done before they turn 8mo. Hopefully it won't come down to that, but we'll see.

KateLouise · July 2012

I don't think we sleep trained DD1, but I did use some techniques right from the word go, and I think she was also a naturally good sleeper, in that she would go to sleep easily. But I certainly spent an awful lot of time rocking her, and holding her hand while she went to sleep

With DD2 I haven't had the luxury of leaning over her cot for 20minutes or longer without DD1 disrupting us. She's reasonably good at getting to sleep on her own, but I do rock her often as well.

Generally I'm anti-sleep training, for us. It all goes so quickly, and if my baby needs me to hold them, then I am going to wallow in the gorgeousness of rocking my little girl, and feeling her chubby hands pinch my hand or cheek as she drifts to sleep.
I believe that because I never left DD1 to cry, is part of why she loves her bed now. We never have a problem getting her to go to bed. Also the few times where I was tempted, or if I left her to cry for a couple of minutes everytime I checked on her there was a reason for crying like an arm stuck i the cot, or a poo nappie.

DD2 wakes at least once a night, and wakes early and I am really tired, and I'm ok with that. I've basically been tired for 3 years between pregnancies and both girls getting to a place where they STTN. I'm ok with that.

I understand that my approach isn't for everyone. I understand that everyone's situation is different and that some babies are very difficult sleepers, but it's what suits us.

However, I am one to say, "never say never" so if I thought our current approach no longer worked for us, then I would look at other approaches.

shaket83 · July 2012

We still have a ways to go with the boys before they will be ready, but we do plan on sleep training if we can't break them of needing the swaddle and the paci for sleep. Sometimes they will wake and be able to put themselves back to sleep if the paci falls out, but other times we have to replace it half a dozen times, but so far they absolutely will NOT sleep without being swaddled. We won't even consider trying though until they are experts at self soothing. I had previously thought that we would start around 5 months, but now I'm convinced they won't be ready by then--but every baby is different. In the mean time I got a couple magic sleep suits to see if we can ease them out of the swaddle.

brendasduke · July 2012

The girl who said to wait till she's tired.. there might be something to that. I have the same problem- the baby goes down at 9, then is up at 10, 11, and 12.. I am a wimp and I breastfeed her back to sleep every time. Sometimes I let her cry for a few minutes if she's still awake after nursing and she falls asleep after 5-15 minutes. (I go back in if she's still not asleep or if the cry sounds severe and not just whiney.) Sometimes though if I wait till she's really tired (she starts making fussy noises), she wakes up a bit less. Another thing is make sure they stay awake when they are fed. If she only eats a little bit because she is sleepy at her last meal, she wakes up more and if I don't wake her up a little by changing her diaper, she has another short sleepy feed and is hungry again very soon.. but I still need to figure this out too. One thing I am considering doing to sleep train is sort of doing cry it out but going in every 15 mins or so to let the baby know I haven't abandoned her. But I am going to wait till she's 6 months and then I'm going to make sure I feed her if it's been 5-6 hours since her last meal and she wakes up crying. (Right now she's still only going 3-4 hours

) My husband wants me to turn the baby monitor off completely and go to sleep/ let her cry but I just can't do that.

InlovewithJHK · July 2012

My first DD didn't sleep through the night once until she was about 1 year old. Yup thats right. So It is a HUGE pet peeve of mine when people say "they will sleep through the night when they are ready." My DD might never have been ready and I was going INSANE! I have a friend whose 3 year old doesn't SSTN.

With my second DD, I'm starting Ferber tonight. She is a little over 5 months old. We ended up doing Ferber with my first DD in the end and it worked fairly well.

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