I’ve read and heard so many stories about how sleep training helped, but I know myself—I won’t stick to it and I’ll end up going into the room.
What other tricks have helped you get your baby to sleep better? I’ve tried all the typical things like white noise, dream feeds, and keeping her awake more during the day. I finally got a 5-hour stretch last night, but that was with only 40 minutes of napping the whole day. Otherwise, I haven’t had more than 3-4 hours of sleep in about 3 weeks, and it’s starting to wear me down. My baby is turning 4 months in a few days, and she definitely isn’t getting even 14 hours of sleep total day and night.
We’re the same way with sleep training—I’ve heard a million good stories, but I just can’t bring myself to do it .
When my baby was 3 months old, his sleep suddenly got so bad. His 4-month regression started early, and it was unbearable. He was literally up every 45 minutes, and this lasted for over a month . I thought we were in the clear after the newborn stage, but nope.
I laid next to him for every nap on my bed (I didn’t sleep) and that really helped his naps go longer. I would put in an AirPod and watch a show on my phone while he slept.
I kept every routine the same for sleep (sleep sack, song, white noise) and just tried to survive. It was rough. I cried a lot. Like, a lot. I started paying for the Huckleberry app to help track wake windows. I had to ask my husband to take on more of the night shifts. I went to get an iced coffee daily. I felt like my whole life was consumed with googling what else to do for sleep.
Then one day… he started sleeping longer. Randomly! He’s almost six months now and usually wakes up just once a night. Today he took a two-hour nap and a ninety-minute nap. He has even slept through the night once. No sleep training needed! Do we have hard nights? Totally. But there are more good nights than bad now.
So, to each their own. My sister had all her babies sleep trained, and they’re dreamy kids! They love her lots and are so kind and sweet. I don’t think the crying ruins kids, but I know I am not cut out for it.
We didn’t sleep train. Instead, I gave my baby a chance to fall asleep on his own consistently. Every nap and bedtime, I would follow our routine and place him in the crib. If he whined or cried, I responded immediately, comforted him, did everything I usually do, and then tried again a bit later. If he wasn’t having it, I wouldn’t push it and would bounce him to sleep. This approach took a while, but I was okay with it because I wasn’t comfortable with any form of controlled crying or whining and still love rocking my baby to sleep.
Now, I still bounce him for a bit, and when he pushes away from me, I place him in the crib and rub his back and head until he falls asleep. I didn’t start doing this until he showed signs he was ready (pushing away because he wanted to sleep spread out, which he started doing at 8 months). I absolutely do not push anything onto him. It’s not every night that I can do this, and almost all naps are still contact naps (which I really enjoy, so I’m happy to keep doing them).
Don’t listen to all the BS Instagram pages trying to get you to buy things.
As a first-time mom of an 8-month-old who was such a good sleeper (10-12 hours!), the 4-month regression hit us HARD. He was waking every 20-40 minutes at the worst.
We co-slept for a while to survive.
Now he’s 8 months old, in his own cot in his own room, and wakes 1-2 times for a feed or a bum pat.
Full transparency, I have a very low tolerance for being woken up, so usually at his first wake (around 12:30/1 am), I put him in the guest bed and share with him for the rest of the night. He usually wakes again around 4/5 am for a comfort feed and wakes at 7 am (goes to bed at 6:30 pm).
Wow, this gives me something to look forward to! I’m hoping it’s just a phase; it feels so long while I’m experiencing it. We already co-sleep on a floor bed since I can’t function without it; after the initial stretch, I usually wake up multiple times to eat, even if only briefly.
This is somewhat of my schedule with my 18-month-old. We also began bed sharing at 6-8 months old. Some newborns prefer autonomous sleep, while others require cuddling (stage 5).
Our little one was a hardcore contact sleeper. It took us a while before we caved for naps, and she finally started getting adequate daytime sleep. Her sleep improved a lot when we moved her out of our room at 5.5 months. We did a “fuss it out” approach for nights, allowing her to fuss until she started crying, then assisting her to sleep. Getting her to eat more during the day also helped with night wakings. It took about a month of letting her fuss and night weaning before we finally saw light at the end of the tunnel. She was nearly 8 months old before she slept through the night for the first time.
You might be on the cusp of or starting the 4-month regression, so now’s the time to begin building good sleep habits. If there are ways you can think of to make sleep easier or better, start experimenting. If you try something, stick with it for a couple of weeks; if there’s no change, pivot your approach.
I do not believe that depriving a newborn of sleep during the day will improve his or her evening sleep. If they are overtired, the contrary is most likely true. Also, I could be mistaken, but not all sleep training methods necessitate “cry it out”. I feel like I sleep train my baby, but that doesn’t mean I let him scream. I let him fuss and then sush or pat him, but I don’t pick him up. There are many different strategies that work; you simply need to find what works best for you and your kid.
I was the same way. There are no advice other than night weaning when your doctor says it’s okay for your husband to take over on some evenings. Some babies are simply not good sleepers. My 2.5yo still wakes up 1-3 times every night .
Your baby is too young to sleep train; now is the time to determine when to put him down asleep but aware. Sleep training does not always entail crying it out or ignoring baby; we sleep trained our first child and never cried it out. Our second item is a unicorn sleeper, so we’re not sure we’ll need it. We also acquired blackout curtains, a sound machine, made sure Dourbkid was showered and lotioned every night, that her pjs were warm, and that she had her own room. We stopped feeding her just before putting her down and established a very particular bedtime regimen that only varies as development dictates.
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. I thought we were in the clear after the newborn stage, but nope.
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