Is it too late to ask a sleep training question?

Lee81 · September 2014

I'm curious what bedtime and nap time look like for everyone. Do you just lay your kid down at the designated time and they fall asleep? I know everyone has their bedtime routines of stories, songs, bottles/bewbs, etc., but is the baby still awake when you put them down or do you rock to sleep? What about for naps?

I'm still rocking DD to sleep at night and for most of her naps. DH thinks we need to start sleep training. I don't particularly want to (I love rocking her to sleep) but she'll be starting daycare soon and it's not like they're going to rock her for her naps. How do you guys get your kids to sleep? Rock to sleep, rock to drowsy, lay right down? Is it different for bedtime vs naptime?

deedee1017 · September 2014

We always have to rock DD to sleep. Don't worry about daycare. They may not rock her to sleep but there are alternatives. O would magically fall asleep in daycare without being rocked. They used to tell me all the time she was the easiest to put to sleep and I'd curse in my head. However, now she doesn't go down as easy, but they'll put her in a swing when she's sleepy and she falls asleep there. There are other alternatives. If you are happy with your situation, keep on!

edaire · September 2014

It completely depends on him for us. Sometimes he will let me rock him to sleep, but when he's fighting me or having a hard time getting comfortable I put him in his bed awake but drousey and he puts himself to sleep. I stay home with DS so I don't have any advice on daycare.

blueeyedrose86 · September 2014

DD nurses to sleep unless we are in the car or I'm out when it is naptime. In that case, DH puts on some music and dance/rocks her to sleep. I say do whatever works and causes the least amount of stress!

sleepy33 · September 2014

We have really progressed in the sleep department, and the biggest gains we made were from a technique shared with me by @taylormarie23 from the book The Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems. It's basically a pick up/put down technique, and allowed me to be able to put him down 'drowsy but awake', which also allows him to now take naps in his crib (before, I had to wait so long for him to be totally out before I could put him down, that the nap was basically over by the time he was ready, or else he never hit that deep sleep phase at all). Really was a game-changer for us. The nice thing is that I still can sit and read him a story and rock him for a bit until his eyes juuuuust close, and then lay him down, so we still get cuddles.

alimama33 · September 2014

We used to nurse and rock to sleep for everything. Now he doesn't need to be nursed and sometimes I just rock to sleep. He doesn't have to be in quite as deep a sleep to be laid down anymore...so it's slowly getting easier and I have hopes that one day he just might be able to be laid down awake

.
My mom and MIL watch him and have always had their own ways of putting him to sleep so I wouldn't worry about daycare. They handle it.

Chrisanna0508 · September 2014

I nurse until drowsy/asleep, but 99% of the time he is awake when I out him down.as soon as I put him down, if he is drowsy, he will pop a thumb in his mouth, roll onto his stomach, and he is out. Occasionally he will wake up when I put him down and then I just leave him to mess around in his crib before he falls asleep. He rarely will fuss for 30 secs or so, but then gets comfortable and goes to sleep.

[Deleted User] · September 2014

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catycate · September 2014

In my experience (well, mine and my mommy friends, which is about 10 other mommies), around between now and 15ish months is the last time sleep training will be easy. After 15 months, kids get much more demanding and set in the bedtime ways. And I've heard sleep training at 18 months+ is a nightmare. I have my own sleep issues but I can't just lay with my child until he/she has fallen asleep or rock for hours on end, but if it works and you love it, keep doing it! Just know it gets harder to break for a number of years. Toddlers are beast with sleeping so with dd I knew I needed to get a routine that worked for both of us.

sleepy33 · September 2014

Also, though probably everyone realizes this, but CIO/Ferber is not the only form of sleep training.

cassey910 · September 2014

We still rock to sleep for bedtime and most naps as well.

ballygirl · September 2014

We do bedtime stories and songs on a futon mattress on the floor until they get fussy and tired. Then we put them in the crib and they usually go to sleep within 15 minutes or less. They roll around and fidget for awhile and Sometimes they cry or whine for a few minutes but once they get comfortable they go down.

Naps are more difficult for us. Mornings they go down easily but in the afternoon it's a crap shoot. Sometimes I just take them out and walk them in the stroller in the afternoon if they are having trouble getting to sleep.

SHAWNACPA · September 2014

We do bath and a book, then I nurse. I nurse her for no more than 20 minutes. At that point she goes to bed, sometimes asleep sometimes just drowsy. I lay her down and she USUALLY rolls over and goes to sleep. Naps are a different issue. She won't nap unless you hold her and usually wakes up as soon as I lay her down. I don't know what the difference is, but I use it as an excuse to nap myself.

Edit - That shit was not readable.

sleepy33 · September 2014

jgslr said:

Also, though probably everyone realizes this, but CIO/Ferber is not the only form of sleep training.
@Sleepy33 can you give us the deets on this method?. I really don't want to buy another book just to find out my kid is just a shitty sleeper. We *had* a method that was part pu/pd and mild ferber that worked great but as of 2 months ago (standing in crib) it doesn't work anymore.

Sure! I actually don't own the book (taylor had it from the library, I think, and sent me some screen shots?) but I'm thinking about buying it for reference, and to see what it says about transitions, troubleshooting, etc.

Basically, you go through their bedtime routine, get them drowsy/heavy eyed, then lay them in the crib. If/when they cry, you pick them up, hold them in a cradle position just until they stop crying (not until drowsy again, just not crying), then lay them back down. Repeat until they give in and sleep. If they start crying as you are lowering them into the crib, keep going, set them down, give them a second to see if they settle, if not, pick up and hold until they stop crying again.

The first night sucked, it took well over an hour (maybe even 2?), and a few times I had to sit down in the glider with him for a couple of moments to get him to stop crying, but eventually he passed out. The second day was the first time I was ever able to get him to nap in the crib. By night 3, I was able to lay him in the crib drowsy and he did not have a meltdown. It still took us a little while to get to sleep that night, but he realized that the crib wasn't a scary/bad place, and that I wouldn't leave him on his own. He actually smiled and babbled at me when I laid him down, and that was a huge turning point for us.

Once you get past the first night, you kind of have to figure out what your kid 'needs'. While he was learning to put himself to sleep, mine needed me to be very close, singing and rubbing his back until he drifted off. Some kids ( I think Taylor's was one) get distracted if they can see you and it wakes them up even more, so I think she sort of hid out of his line of sight and only stepped in when he cried, then 'disappeared' again out of his sight (but still in his room).

I *think* that the book says once they are this age, you should not actually pick them up, but just lay them back down if they stand up, but frankly, that never worked for my kid, it just made him more pissed off (unless he had just baaaarely woken up, and sometimes I could just pat and sing him back down). Every so often, he'll wake up about an hour into the night, and stand up and cry, and I just go in, hold him in a cradle position for about 3 min, and lay him back down again, and he stays down the rest of the night.

carawasa · September 2014

I try to rock my LO to sleep but she turns around and waves to her monkey...rips my hair out, picks my nose, eyebrows... So I just lay her in bed at that point. She is awake every time...sometimes she'll get up and jump up and down a few times and go to sleep..but always awake. I give her a bottle most of the time right before bed.

stephl3055 · September 2014

I've never rocked her to sleep, and from about 6 months on, I just put her down in the crib fully awake.

For her naps, I put her down sitting on her bottom and she'll stand up and babble for 5-10 minutes before laying down and going to sleep.

For bedtime, I put her down on her tummy and she usually stays face down, although she sometimes rolls around for a few minutes. She actually stood up and walked around the edge of her crib for a little bit last night, even though her room is quite dark at night.

Bedtime is always at the same time and nap times are usually within a 30 minute window. I just watch for cues. She rubs her eyes and starts to get fussy. She also crawls a bit differently, like she's worn out and just dragging herself along.

psychdoc12 · September 2014

She gets drowsy during bedtime bottle but wakes up when I put her down. Usually she grabs her lovey, rolls on her side and falls asleep. Occasionally she will fuss. If fussing goes longer than 10 minutes I may rock her - this is rare.

ashleymarie512 · September 2014

We usually put her down when she's obviously tired, but not necessarily drowsy. Sometimes, if she's really ready, she'll stay laying down and we won't hear a peep. Sometimes well hear her talking and playing a little and then fall asleep. Rarely will she fuss, but if she does, it's never for very long.

For naps I do the same thing. She's always done pretty well with falling asleep on her own. We never got into the habit of rocking to sleep due to the NICU. Once she came home, she was kind of set in her ways and enjoyed being laid down to sleep so it wasn't ever an issue. FTR, I wish she wanted to cuddle more bc it's one thing DH and I miss so much, especially now since she's getting so grown up

dovetail223 · September 2014

DD has her nighttime bottle then gets laid in the crib. That's it. She always falls asleep within 30 min. Sometimes she talks to herself. But she never cries. We did do Ferber at 6-7 months and it worked for us within a week. I read the book though. I feel like people that are very anti- Ferber haven't actually read the book. The first half is all about sleep patterns and associations. I thought it was worth reading for that. I changed a couple nighttime routines and it improved immediately, even without the CIO (although I have never just left her to cry for ages...you can tailor the pattern of going in and comforting to your needs.) But this was just my experience.

carawasa · September 2014

Snowboarderbritt said:
I nurse her to sleep for the most part, but if she doesn't fall asleep while nursing, I lay her down while awake. I play some music for her remotely (from the monitor) until she falls asleep.

My LO hates hearing anything over the monitor...it freaks her out!!! she's all

dovetail223 · September 2014

jgslr said:
The, i lay them down and thats it posts are like daggers through my heart. (

I'm sorry! I wasn't trying to brag or anything. We had a lot of problems before sleep training. Both DH and I work full time and I couldn't handle the multiple night wakings (she wasn't hungry). I feel like Ferber helped DD a lot...her mood improved a lot after the first week. Ever since she's had no trouble. But I know that's not everyone.

Edit: mobile app ate my words

MangoMama82 · September 2014

I nurse him down before bed and naps. It's getting harder to do that though, and after 12 mos I'd like to start weaning. I've given some thought to this, and I'm going to start putting him down awake next week on my days off. My mom does it when she watches him, but I think he associates boobs with me, and he prefers to be nursed

Chrisanna0508 · September 2014

jgslr said:

The, i lay them down and thats it posts are like daggers through my heart. (

I think that is one that just depends on the baby. DS used to cry and it would take so long to get him down at night. Then we switched him up to sleeping in his crib at night and it was like flipping a switch. All of his sleep happened in the same place and he rarely cried anymore at bedtime. Now naps...those took some work :-S You can do this!
ETA: clarity

Lee81 · September 2014

jgslr said:
The, i lay them down and thats it posts are like daggers through my heart. (

It's funny because I do love rocking her to sleep but I'm still all peanut butter and jealousy sandwiches every time I read one of those posts. Now I don't know what to do.

sleepy33 · September 2014

jgslr said:

Hmm.. I'm scared to try, but I'll discuss with dh and see if we can tag team it on his nights off. Our issue is not getting her down, i nurse to sleep, but lots of night wakings. Anywhere from 2x-6x a night she wakes up crying and scared. Sometimes we can just lay her back down and pat to sleep, but most times she needs 5-20 minutes of rocking to go down again. I only feed her once around 2-4 am, and most times she goes down easily, but dh and I are hanging by a thread and end up fighting bc we're so tired. She screams bloody murder if i do the drowsy but awake, she has to be out cold, but I'm so desperate I'll try anything. We still hold for naps, I've never been able to fix that, but ifi could at least work on nights... I'm dying here.

I know it seems like these two things are not related (putting her down asleep and night wakings), but from everything I've read, they are. At some point, they simply have to learn to self-soothe and put themselves to sleep without being held. Consistency is important, you and your H have to be on the same page. Honestly, I chose a weekend when my H was out of town and just did it myself, because I didn't want to argue with him about whether it would work, I just wanted to 'fix' it and show him the proof so he couldn't argue. You also just have to summon every ounce of patience for that first night, and stay in a soothing and pleasant state of mind. I pasted a fake-as-hell smile on my face and gritted my teeth. I can't even remember how many times I picked him up and put him down that night. 20? 30? You get to the point where you start to think, this is stupid, it's never going to work. And frankly, that first night they really just get tired and pass out. But the key thing they learn is that 1. if I am upset/scared, mom/dad will be there and 2. all crying gets me is a brief pick up, and then I still have to lay down on my own and go to sleep. As long as you are consistent with those two things, it should work.

Believe me, I used to be in the camp that LAUGHED at the idea of putting my kid down drowsy. In fact, I remember having made posts to that effect many months ago. I get it. I have progressed from having a kid that would only sleep in the RNP, to a kid that would only sleep on a wedge with a u-shaped towel under the sheet, to a kid that could only be put down completely asleep and had to be held for every nap, to where we are at now. Honestly, I only ever started this method to fix the nap situation, because while it was a PITA to rock him and then have him sleep on my chest for an hour before I could put him down at bedtime, he only ever woke up maybe once or twice a night, so it didn't seem that bad to have to feed him/rock him again for another hour. But I knew that I had to be consistent with putting him to sleep the same way every time, whether for bed or naps, so I started with bedtime and it naturally just fixed the naps, too.

Phalaenopsis · September 2014

crunchymama11 said:

jgslr said:

Hmm.. I'm scared to try, but I'll discuss with dh and see if we can tag team it on his nights off. Our issue is not getting her down, i nurse to sleep, but lots of night wakings. Anywhere from 2x-6x a night she wakes up crying and scared. Sometimes we can just lay her back down and pat to sleep, but most times she needs 5-20 minutes of rocking to go down again. I only feed her once around 2-4 am, and most times she goes down easily, but dh and I are hanging by a thread and end up fighting bc we're so tired. She screams bloody murder if i do the drowsy but awake, she has to be out cold, but I'm so desperate I'll try anything. We still hold for naps, I've never been able to fix that, but ifi could at least work on nights... I'm dying here.

@jgslr Spirited children HATE sleep, as in haaaaatttttttteeeeeee it. Lucky me I have 2 of those lol.

So I know we've talked about the "Raising Your Spirited Child" book. The author has a sleep book dedicated to spirited children and their special sleep needs. I think it is called "Sleepless in America" or something.

You might want to look into it. I'm thinking of looking into it myself.

I will say that DD1's sleep got so much better around 1 year (it went to hell at about 8 months I think- that is when NCSS stopped working as well for us although it still worked some). That's when she finally got into a decent nap schedule*. Her night time wasn't too bad for me to deal with because we bedshared but she would not nap well during the day. At 15 months she decided she didn't want to bedshare anymore and at 16 months she decided she wanted her own room and she stopped her 1 MOTN feeding and started sleeping 12 hours.

*When I say decent nap schedule I mean a solid 1-1.5 hour nap instead of 2 20 min naps all day.

I will also say her naps are still a freaking struggle for us, and sometimes nighttime is as well. Basically for DD I have to keep her on schedule. She HAS to take her nap at the exact same time, she has to wake up at the exact same time, and she has to go to bed at the exact same time. If she is on schedule she does not fight sleep, her behavior is good, i keep my sanity. If she gets off schedule for any reason she fights all sleep, her behavior is absolutely terrible, and my life is miserable. And once she is off schedule it takes weeks to get her back.

And when I say "fights sleep" I mean laying in bed from 9pm to midnight, playing and yelling and running around, waking up in the MOTN, waking at 7 (instead of 9 am) and not napping (instead of napping 1.5-2 hours).

It took me 2 1/2 years to learn she needed an exact schedule and actually get her on one. But once I did her life (and mine!) changed. But I don't know what I could've done earlier to get her on a strict schedule because she fought it sooooooo hard.

Now DD2 is slightly different, but she still hates sleep. She has started a sleep regression like the one DD1 had. When I say "sleep regression" I mean refusing to go to sleep lol. we had to do a slight CIO because she would scream in my arms and pinch, scratch, push me. It hurt. So I would just lay her down and wait a min before picking her back up. I think she's finally stopped that crap and is letting me rock her to sleep again, peacefully. I always wake her slightly when I lay her down so she is aware I am laying her down, and she goes back to sleep. But now in the MOTN she is refusing to go back to sleep unless she has the boob. Right now I am going with it because it works right now. She usually only eats 1x/night but whatever. Sleeping with boob beats out screaming for an hour trying to get her back to sleep multiple times a night. And this is something she's never done before (and even DD1 didn't do this).

I managed to get her on a nap schedule 2 months ago and so far (please God [-O< ) she is staying on that. I am able to put her down in her PNP for naps instead of the swing. I'm trying as hard as I can to keep her on schedule too. I don't know if it makes much difference but so far it seems to be. I am trying to be much stricter with DD2 than DD1 because I'm not sure I can handle DD1.2 lol. I BARELY survived DD1. But really I don't know if really makes much difference now because babies are babies and like to be difficult and change things up.

So TL;DR spirited children hate sleep and I have been fighting both my children as well. It sucks. it got better with DD1 eventually. Hang in there mama!

You've described my daughter to a T. I also have a "spirited" kid. She fights sleep so much, as in kicking, screaming, crying when I'm rocking her. I literally still do the 5 S's at naptime. Usually after some amount of protest she falls asleep, sometimes she wins the fight and doesn't nap at all. Nighttime is a different story, she goes down pretty easily after nursing+bottle. Sometimes if she cries when I put her down she soothes herself to sleep at night within 5-10 minutes. But until then screams bloody murder.

...So you're saying it just keeps getting better and more fun, right?!?

Phalaenopsis · September 2014

sleepy33 said:

We have really progressed in the sleep department, and the biggest gains we made were from a technique shared with me by @taylormarie23 from the book The Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems. It's basically a pick up/put down technique, and allowed me to be able to put him down 'drowsy but awake', which also allows him to now take naps in his crib (before, I had to wait so long for him to be totally out before I could put him down, that the nap was basically over by the time he was ready, or else he never hit that deep sleep phase at all). Really was a game-changer for us. The nice thing is that I still can sit and read him a story and rock him for a bit until his eyes juuuuust close, and then lay him down, so we still get cuddles.

I was gifted this book and I think I was all, "what's this crapola?!" but now I'm intrigued...

sleepy33 · September 2014

Phalaenopsis said:

sleepy33 said:

We have really progressed in the sleep department, and the biggest gains we made were from a technique shared with me by @taylormarie23 from the book The Baby Whisperer Solves All Your Problems. It's basically a pick up/put down technique, and allowed me to be able to put him down 'drowsy but awake', which also allows him to now take naps in his crib (before, I had to wait so long for him to be totally out before I could put him down, that the nap was basically over by the time he was ready, or else he never hit that deep sleep phase at all). Really was a game-changer for us. The nice thing is that I still can sit and read him a story and rock him for a bit until his eyes juuuuust close, and then lay him down, so we still get cuddles.

I was gifted this book and I think I was all, "what's this crapola?!" but now I'm intrigued...

LOL, well like I said, I only read a couple of screenshots of one section, so I can't vouch for the rest of the book. But it seemed pretty logical to me, plus it worked for Taylor, and our babies have had a lot of similar issues, so I gave it a try.

taylormarie923 · September 2014

Oh hai!!!

I feel you on the spirited child not wanting to fall asleep. DS used to be a terrible sleeper. He would fall asleep on the breast, would take very careful steps to transfer him to his crib (if he wakes up all hope is lost), and I was the only person able to get him down for the night.

Just as sleepy mentioned, the PU/pd method was a life changer. Anyone can now lay DS in his crib, fully awake, and he will lay himself down and go to sleep. I highly recommend the book.

One thing to consider is if she is waking at random times in the night, is she getting adequate calories during the day?

Lee81 · September 2014

So for the pu/pd experts (@taylormarie923, @sleepy33, anyone else) how do I get started? Currently, DD is a big fan of standing and screaming when I put her in the crib awake or when she wakes at night. I get that if she's crying, I pick her up. What if she is fussing but not crying? Let her fuss? What if she stands but doesn't cry? Lay her back down? You already answered for if she starts crying while I'm laying her down. Any other scenarios I should anticipate? Do I pick her up the second she cries or let her go for a minute. Should I just read the book myself and stop asking you guys questions?

alimama33 · September 2014

jgslr said:
The, i lay them down and thats it posts are like daggers through my heart. (

This. It is just not to be at my house. And I really believe some (very special spirited) babies just don't take well to any kind of sleep training. We tried a few methods and it was hours of screaming for weeks with zero improvement. And so we're bedsharing and waiting it out over here. ::sigh:: Some day we'll all sleep again...

sleepy33 · September 2014

Lee81 said:

So for the pu/pd experts (@taylormarie923, @sleepy33, anyone else) how do I get started? Currently, DD is a big fan of standing and screaming when I put her in the crib awake or when she wakes at night. I get that if she's crying, I pick her up. What if she is fussing but not crying? Let her fuss? What if she stands but doesn't cry? Lay her back down? You already answered for if she starts crying while I'm laying her down. Any other scenarios I should anticipate? Do I pick her up the second she cries or let her go for a minute. Should I just read the book myself and stop asking you guys questions?

Honestly, I haven't had to deal with standing up all that much, so I'm not 100% sure. I did let him fuss until he either quit and slept or it progressed to full-on crying. For me, laying him back down if he was standing or on all fours almost always escalated to crying, and continuing to try to lay him down made the crying worse, so I would just try laying him down once, if I lucked out and he settled down, great. If it progressed to crying, then I picked him up. I also would almost always let him cry for a moment or two (maybe like 30 sec to 1 min) to see if he'd settle with a little back rub and singing before picking him up again, because that's kind of part of them learning to soothe themselves.

I think you're smart to go into it with a plan for all probabilities, and you probably would feel more confident/prepared if you had the book to read, IDK. I just checked and my library has it, maybe yours does too.

Lee81 · September 2014

sleepy33 said:

Lee81 said:

So for the pu/pd experts (@taylormarie923, @sleepy33, anyone else) how do I get started? Currently, DD is a big fan of standing and screaming when I put her in the crib awake or when she wakes at night. I get that if she's crying, I pick her up. What if she is fussing but not crying? Let her fuss? What if she stands but doesn't cry? Lay her back down? You already answered for if she starts crying while I'm laying her down. Any other scenarios I should anticipate? Do I pick her up the second she cries or let her go for a minute. Should I just read the book myself and stop asking you guys questions?

Honestly, I haven't had to deal with standing up all that much, so I'm not 100% sure. I did let him fuss until he either quit and slept or it progressed to full-on crying. For me, laying him back down if he was standing or on all fours almost always escalated to crying, and continuing to try to lay him down made the crying worse, so I would just try laying him down once, if I lucked out and he settled down, great. If it progressed to crying, then I picked him up. I also would almost always let him cry for a moment or two (maybe like 30 sec to 1 min) to see if he'd settle with a little back rub and singing before picking him up again, because that's kind of part of them learning to soothe themselves.

I think you're smart to go into it with a plan for all probabilities, and you probably would feel more confident/prepared if you had the book to read, IDK. I just checked and my library has it, maybe yours does too.

Thanks

. I was hoping to start this weekend but that doesn't give me much time to get a book read. I just don't want to find myself st 3am wondering WTH I do in whatever situation.

sleepy33 · September 2014

@lee81 I mean, I went into it with pretty much the basic outline and just kind of followed my instincts, and it worked out. I laid him down; if he tried to get up on all fours (like he was about to stand) I slid him back down to the mattress. Usually, and especially in the beginning, this would cause him to cry more, so I'd pick him up, stop the crying, lay him back down, repeat.

Also, this technique is only a small section of the whole book. Like, maybe 3 or 4 pages. I think there are multiple sections for different ages. So if you did get the book, it wouldn't be hundreds of pages to read or anything.

sleepy33 · September 2014

@lee81 you can read some of the book on Google https://books.google.com/books?id=w2hLhmV02GEC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false

The description of pick up/put down starts on page 219

kimbo1216 · September 2014

She always goes down awake. If she falls asleep first, it's a much harder transition to put her down. For a them, I would rock her, kiss her til I saw eyeballs to let her know I was putting her down and leave. It got to where that would just piss her off. So we loved to putting down awake.

I say do what works for you. If it's working for you both, then why stop? Let day care worry about her naps. Most likely what works for them will be different than what you do regardless.

Lee81 · September 2014

Thanks, @sleepy33‌. That's really helpful.

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