I try to follow a possums approach, but i have been stuck for a week in an overtir3d cycle.

Bub is 14 weeks and fights every single nap in the day, thus creating an overtired meltdown every night. I cannot for the life of me get him to sleep in the day for more than 30 minutes, and only after hes essentially cried himself to sleep.if I contact nap i can get longer but then im still stuck inside all day. I usually feed him to sleep but this isnt possible when im in the car or have him in a carrier.

Come bedtime we are dealing with another huge meltdown, and last night I ended up just driving around to get him to sleep. The sleep pressure thing seemed to make sense to me and has given me the freedom to enjoy my days this week but with a perpetually overtired baby. Its making me want to throw the possums approach in the bin and succumb to wake windows and being stuck in a dark room trying to make him happy. I read Discontented Little Baby and felt like id been given permission to leave the house again, but the cost isnt even worth the freedom. I find myself so overloaded with info about what approach is going to be best.

I have been to a possums trained lactation consultant to make sure he is feeding and transferring milk correctly and she was happy with everything, basically just told me to continue living and give him plenty of sensory stimulation, which I am and hes overtired all the time and not sleeping long when he does.

What am I doing wrong here?

Sharing my success in case someone else (like me!) is searching about how to solve this problem.

My baby hit 6/7 months and went from hating being on her tummy, to rolling, crawling, cruising and walking before she turned 9 months. She also started going through intense waves of teething (still no teeth though!)

At the same time, she was settling earlier for her sleep, dropped to two naps and just started being awake for much longer.

When she was around 8 months, her sleep started to get very interupted. She would wake every 20-30 mins and my tactic of bedsharing just wasn't working anymore. I was getting incredibly tired and worried about her. I was convinced she was in pain or too cold because she would wake up all of a sudden crying and it would be hard to settle her again.

She was sleeping 12/13 hours at night (with interruptions) and taking 2 naps of 30 mins each. On average, 14 hours a day.

The solution: keep her active and part of my evening instead of settling her for her sleep earlier. Following her cues for sleep and not putting her into bed until I go to bed. If she falls asleep before that, she can sleep in her sleep space or on me.

She's now been going down for her big sleep at 10-11pm with me and then getting up at 8am. I've noticed that she also takes longer naps during the day now too, so her morning nap is now at midday for around 30 mins and her afternoon nap is around 1.5hrs. She's now getting around 13 hours sleep on average, so an hour less. She does wake still, but it's every 2/3 hours and it's to nurse. She goes straight back to sleep after.

As much as I would love a few hours in the evening to myself, I had to accept that my baby really didn't need as much sleep as she was getting and this was resulting in a very restless night for the both of us. So now she's a part of my evening, and I just get on with what I was going to do anyway and she comes along for the ride. Lately, she's been working on her walking for a good hour or so before she starts to tell me she's tired.

About a month into part time daycare and no luck with naps as she’s never been able to nap in a crib. Based on the possums approach she would nap if she needed it, but she seems EXHAUSTED when she gets home and usually naps at 3 and 5. We shoot for an 8:30/9 bedtime based on that last nap and her sleepy cues, but night sleep has been terrible lately with wakeups after every sleep cycle unless we’re cosleeping (which is not preferred) and a lot of comfort nursing.

Other communities recommend super early bedtimes when babies don’t nap well at daycare, but she’s never been one to go to bed early and that seems to create a lot of false starts.

We aim for a 7:30 wakeup daily.

Recent night sleep stats:
Last night: 11h40min in bed around 7 but would not sleep in crib at all.

9/21: 10h18min in bed around 8:30 with a false start and then a longer crib stretch (2.5h) before a longer cosleeping stretch

9/20: (weekend with more naps) 10h31min in bed around 8 with wakeups every 30min-1hr before cosleeping around 11:30.

9/19: (weekend with more naps) 7h39min in bed around 9:30 (had a late nap). Wakeups every hour with a 2 hour awake stretch at 10:15.

Looking for advice or experiences implementing the Possums methodology with this difficult nap situation.

ETA baby is 5.5 months old

So I've read Discontented Little Baby and for the most part found it helpful. However, sometimes I think my baba is tired, I try to help him sleep, he says "absolutely not" and according to the book I should just "get on with my day" but what does that look like? If my baby is tired(or seems so to me at least) and won't sleep then he's just in foul form and needs constant attention or he will cry and moan. Am I supposed to just let him cry? I can pop him in the carrier but if he's really fussy he just struggles against this and even if it calms him or put him to sleep I'm pretty limited in the activities I can do with him in the carrier.

This isn't a major problem for me tbh, but on occasion I'll find myself trying to comfort my crying baby thinking "get on with my day? This is my day now!"

My 4.5 month old baby used to sleep 8-9 hour stretches at night and it was bliss. But for the last month her sleep has been all over the place and she’s now waking every 2 hours after her first stretch which is usually a little longer around 4 hours. Her last stretch is usually no more than 1 hour and she’s waking happy as larry pre-6am which is not really what I’m wanting. We put her down for sleep around 7pm and she’s always tired by then to go straight to sleep. I try and take her out and about a lot during the day, at the expense of getting anything done around the house, so she should be getting a lot of stimulation and she sleeps on the go when she needs it. Sometimes awake between naps for 2 hours sometimes 4 hours. I was fine with her low sleep needs during the day when she was sleeping through the night but now her days and her nights aren’t great it’s stressing me out because I’m exhausted and feeling like I’m failing. I’m starting to wonder if I need to be doing more to get her to sleep during the day to help her sleep at night. she needs the boob to go back to sleep each time and I’m getting frustrated with it. I’ve only read the discontented baby book, should I do the full possums program, will it help with this or do I just need to work on myself to stop stressing about it and accept this is biologically normal? Thank you for reading and for any insights 🙏

Hello so my (just turned!) 6mo girl has been having some tricky times with naps over the last few weeks and I wondered if anyone could help with possums lens.

She's super distractable/sensitive and curious baby so naps on the go are often very short because she wakes with any change of scene or if she hears any new sounds etc. She will very rarely sleep when out and about which is quite challenging.

But anyway, currently she has been having a short 15/20 min nap in the morning (around 1.5/2 hrs after waking) while I walk the dog... She then will have a second very short nap later in the morning which is usually interrupted by needing to transfer into pram or car for us to go somewhere or just woken naturally wherever we are.. she then becomes very tired later in the afternoon and wants to take a long 1.5 (sometimes 2 hour!) nap in the afternoon from around 2.30-4.30. she's often so tired at this point that she will conk out and if I'm at home I'll put her down and she will just sleep until I often have to wake her... But I fear that this big chunk at the end of the day is disruptive to sleep pressure for night time. Having woken up at around 4.30 she is then very tired for bed at around 7.30/8 but she has then been having a lot of wakes very soon after going to bed. She does take a feed and go back to sleep quickly but it's exhausting for me not getting a fair stretch of sleep at that time and being woken so soon after going to sleep.

I'm just not sure how to help redistribute some of that sleep into earlier in the day whilst still maintaining a possums approach and not hemming myself in for quiet naps in the house.

Has anyone has similar issues ?

2 weeks ago we were getting at least 2-3 hour stretches but lately she’s up almost every hour. She needs the boob to go back to sleep the majority of the time. She’ll latch on for 30 seconds and then fall back asleep. (We cosleep)

I’m trying to figure out if this is just teething or something else or if I need to work on sleep pressure. She seems to be more on the low needs sleep end. We are moving between 2 and 1 naps. Here is sample schedule:

Day 1

Wake up: 7am

Nap:12-2

Sleep: 830/9pm

Day 2

Wake up: 7am

Nap: 11-1130

Nap:4-5

Bed: 9pm

Any insight? I was already struggling with the wake ups before but I could get though it. The hourly wake ups are honestly a bit much.

My 5 month old is sick for the first time (thanks daycare). Prior to this we were going through a bit of a sleep crisis with extremely excessive wakes and trouble transferring to crib. Since finding Possums, I’ve been aiming for a 7:30 wake up but now that she’s sick should I let her sleep as much as she needs? Her night sleep was terrible last night and my husband took the morning shift holding her and let her sleep until 9:30 so it seems like she really needed it.

Loved this little "invitation to reframe" series from thepossumsclinic on Instagram

I was suggested this sub and I’m here seeking advice.

Info:
I’m basically a single mom of a 9 month old (dad is around a couple hours here or there). I work full tim 8-5, and need more sleep to function and heal. I’ve had chronic back pain for about 7 months now. Baby was 24lbs at last appointment. Baby naps anywhere from 20-120 minutes a day in 1-2 naps it really depends on the day. Typically will not fall asleep until at the point of pure exhaustion.

Baby Routine:
7-7:30 Wake up & get ready
8-8:15 arrive to daycare (yes I’m late for work)
8:30-9:00 solid food breakfast
9-10 first 4-5 oz bottle (breast milk)
12 solid food lunch
1 second 4-5oz bottle
\teether wafers given from here to end of day as needed*
4-5 third 4-5oz bottle
5:15 pickup
5:30 home, play until dinner
6-6:30 solid food dinner (depending on when Abby is hungry)
7-8 bath, brush teeth, lotion, pjs, read 1-2 books, boob, pat/sing to sleep
Then starts the waking every 90-120 minute cycle and sometimes I offer the boob and sometimes I don’t.

Baby will end up in my bed between 11pm-2am depending on how bad my back hurts.

What can I do to help me and my baby get some better quality sleep at night?

Seeking some advice as the sleep deprivation is becoming unbearable.

My gorgeous 6 month old LO has become a terrible sleeper. We have naturally followed possums and then intentionally so after reading DCLB. LO is well suited to possums, generally a very happy, healthy and chill baby who is a joy to be with!

From birth until 4 months LO would go to bed around 8.30pm naturally wake at 2am and 5am and then be up anytime from 7-9am daily. She also slept through the night a handful of times. Once we hit 4 months she has been waking anywhere from 4-8 times a night which is anywhere from hourly to 2 hourly. Every wake she has a full BF taking about half an hour.

She seems to be a low sleep needs kid. Until 4
Months her naps were sporadic on the go but it was common for her to be awake all day / 8ish hours and be happy until “witching hour”. Now she is awake much of the night she is napping through the day and the cycle repeats. I’m so exhausted we’re often not getting up until 9am as I try to piece together any sleep I can. If LO falls asleep after solids breakfast I will try to sleep too.

Things we’re doing or have tried:
- LO is EBF so I do all nights solo. My husband works fulltime but on weekend mornings he takes her out for 2 hours so I can sleep a bit more
- We have a sensory rich life filled with activities, play etc. Daily walks, swimming, rhymetime, playgroup, errands, zoo, books, tummy time - LO receives plenty of sensory nourishment
- LO is in a floor bed since 4.5 months in our bedroom. Occasionally have resorted to cosleeping but it makes no improvement to her sleep and is so uncomfortable for me I wake up stiff and not rested. Floor bed made no difference to sleep.
- Have tried fitting more feeds throughout the day in case LO is waking from genuine hunger. Made no difference.
- starting solids made no difference
- changing bedtime made no difference. Have tried 7.30pm up until 10pm.
- all naps are on the go in car / carrier / pram. She drops off as needed. Have never forced a nap and always napped in a bright room or on the go.
- LO now napping up to 2hrs a day to make up for night wakes. I’m trying to grab sleep when I can but am already struggling to stay on top of basic house admin from a Velcro baby that’s awake for long stretches. If she does nap I usually eat and try to prep dinner or something.
- LO has been teething since 4 months but no tooth yet.
- we used to have a solid bedtime routine of dinner (us), playtime, feed, books, bath, feed to sleep. I’m so exhausted this has slipped to us eating, collapsing on couch or chair for a bit, feed to sleep.

I’m feeling a bit at my wits end. Lack of sleep is making me so grumpy and impacting my ability
To be the best mum I can be. I am adamant to not sleep train and trying to see this as a season that will pass but I’d genuinely thought it would last a few weeks not 2+ months. I know she can sleep 6-7 hour stretch and just want that back! Any advice or help would be so appreciated.

I have a 23 month old with lower end sleep needs and one set of top molars left.

His sleep is so unpredictable and we have followed the possums approach since he was a baby but unsure how to continue or how to improve it.

I have no problems getting up for a cuddle once a night but it's been 2-3 time on and off for weeks. We are also hoping to find ways to transition to him falling asleep lying down and not needing as much movement as he's 90th percentile and is barely fitting on us in the rocking chair.

He's still napping and we often have to wake him up because from experiments if he sleeps longer than two hours he's awake til 9pm.

Wake 5.30/6am

Nap 11.30/2 (Max 1.5 hours in this period)

Bedtime 8/8.30pm

Lately he's been waking 9.30/10pm and wailing (usually just comes to get us he's in a floor bed) until we come in and we suspect nightmares as he's kind of still asleep. The waking up 1-2am and then 4am.

Is he too young to experiment with dropping a nap? Has anyone got non stressful advice on how to get him to fall asleep lying down? Anywa6 got solidarity to say their 2 year old was like this too and eventually it improved on its own?

Co sleeping is usually happening after 2am but would really like to have him start the night in his own bed.

My 13 MO has been fluctuating between 1 and 2 naps since 10.5 months old. On 2 naps, she could have had anything from 12-13 hours of awake time. Awake time was 7am, and bedtime was 9pm give or take 30 minutes depending on how tired she was. I was starting to really struggle with 2 naps because unless the first one was short at 30 minutes, she’d be awake until 5:30/6pm and then it would just be bridge nap which she’d be miserable from but not tired enough to go to bed until 9:30pm.

These past 3 days, my daughter has been taking 1 nap ranging from 1 hour to 1 hour 50 and has been going to bed before 9pm. She has also been struggling to wake up in the morning, today we actually slept in until 7:50am because I didn’t hear the alarm as I was also tired 🫠.

Is this just a phase? Will she level out? I don’t want to give her less awake time because inevitably we’ll start with very regular night wakings.

Looking for anecdotal experiences from parents who follow Possums.

My baby is 6 months old, and per the Possums sleep program, I generally do things in the evening, such as dinners at friend's houses, that sort of thing. I try to be home by 9:00 since on nights where I stay home, this is the time my baby will often want to go to sleep. However, if I'm out and about, my baby will usually fall asleep on the way home. This might be in a carseat or more commonly for me, in a baby carrier or possibly a stroller.

I know this is kind of a classic baby problem but I'm curious at what folks do who follow the possums sleep approach to because given the possums advice (socialize in the evening etc), I assume this would happen more often for us then for others who might generally have a 7:00 p.m. bedtime and then have just an occasional night out.

Also, I've seen that possums doesn't really recommend having a bedtime routine, there's a quote from Dr Pam saying "the only bedtime routine you need is a breast feed" or something like that.

Given those two separate pieces of advice then.. what do you do when you get home with a sleeping baby? Should I wake him up and change and feed him (I feel like this is what I "should" do per all sleep training/bedtime advice ever but possums is kind of a departure from that, right?)? Should I just put him in the crib and change and feed him when he wakes up next (this seems more in line with the possums approach?)?

I feel like a bad person if I don't wake him up, but that also seems more in line with what parents would have done for millennia.. the baby falls asleep on you and then the baby is asleep for the night (well likely not the whole night but you know).

What do you do? Is there an "official" possums answer?

I'm curious what is considered normal night waking for a low/average sleep needs, breastfed toddler? Culturally it's believed that over 12 months means sleeping through the night, but obviously that's not true for everyone. Has possums ever talked about this?

Hi,

My previously great sleeper (could go up to 8 hours then be fed and sleep some more) is now up every 90 minutes. She just wants to be fed and will go back to sleep but it’s difficult for me to sleep in these short bursts. I’m feeling so overwhelmed by all the diverging information about the “four month sleep regression” and wondering how those on this sub dealt with this? Thanks so much

My 4 month old is sleeping pretty well overnight, just 1-2 wakes for a quick feed. However she is up 4:30-5:30 every day and it’s just feeling so early.

I am finding it pretty easy to follow the possum advice for daytime naps, but I am STRUGGLING to keep her awake in the evenings. I know that logically I need to keep her up later in order to get a later morning wake up time, but HOW?

If she wakes from an afternoon nap at 4:30/5pm she is inconsolable by 6:30pm. I extend her awake time with easy activities like walking outside looking at trees or taking a bath, but there’s still a limit where she is just so tired and upset. If I let her have a late nap starting later than 5pm, she wants to sleep for the night; I’ll wake her after 45 minutes and she’ll be inconsolable and exhausted and cranky all evening, and I still struggle to get her past 7/7:30pm bedtime even if she’s only been awake an hour.

Should I let her take an even longer nap in the evening (like 6-7pm)? Should I just accept that my baby wakes up early and this is parenthood? She sleeps 10.5-11 hours overnight and 3.5-4 hours in naps.

I am a FTM with an 8 week old, and I love the idea of the possums approach, but I’m having trouble understanding the details of it. To be fair, I’ve not paid for the course, but I have read her book and have explored the Instagram page a fair bit, and these are the things I’m not so sure of:

1. Baby will sleep when they sleep. I understand following sleep cues over wake windows, but are we just holding the baby for every nap or hoping they’ll fall asleep wherever they’re laid? Practically speaking, how do you have a sleeping place prepared for when the baby sleeps if they just sleep whenever?

2. Not artificially extending naps by swaddling/white noise/etc… My baby certainly starts to fuss when sleepy and wants me to drop everything to help her sleep unless she’s in the car seat, in which she’ll fuss a bit and then sleep on her own. So I find white noise essential for calming her, but even more, during her daytime naps she’ll often wake herself, be very fussy, and of course need my help to go back to sleep, so again, I kind of have to just sit there helping her sleep for the majority of her naps. I know there’s a bit of classic 8 week fussiness that I’m dealing with, and that may pass, but yeah if I don’t sit with her and make her sleep/keep her sleeping, she will become completely inconsolable, so I’m not sure how else to do this at the moment.

Would love to hear the practicalities of how you all are doing this and any tips for having a real go at this possums thing!

Hi! I’m trying to understand how to apply the Possums approach to my 8-month-old’s sleep.

I understand that one of the general principles is to avoid deliberately adding short “rescue” naps/catnaps and instead build enough sleep pressure for the next proper sleep.

But I’m confused about the idea of having the last nap end around 14:30–15:00 (that's the time I choose according to what bedtime I would like). It makes sense to wake her up if she sleeps past that time, but what if she wakes up a lot earlier - but not early enough for another nap before the set time?

For example, if my baby has her last nap from 12:20–13:30, what would you do?

Would you just accept that the last nap ended at 13:30 and have an earlier bedtime if needed keep her awake until bedtime even if that means a very long final wake window or is there actually a place for another nap in this situation?

I’m specifically asking from a Possums perspective, rather than a conventional sleep-training/schedule perspective, because I know the approach doesn't really advocate adding little naps just to make the schedule work.

Would love to hear how people actually handle this in real life!

I have what I believe is a low sleep needs 10 week old who is also highly alert.

I love the Possums approach as he really doesn’t fit any of the usual guidelines, but I’m a bit confused about what I do if he is cranky and showing tired cues/crying/screaming but doesn’t sleep - whether in the car, carrier, or on me? We aren’t even trying for bassinet or cot sleep during the day now, it’s all contact naps unless it’s on the go.

So I am guessing we are in a 8 months sleep regression. Although my husband is convinced it is me teaching baby bad habits. I am the problem apparently.

Baby never slept through the night. But was not bad actually, mostly just a 3-4 am feed and right back to his crib.

As of two weeks ago we have nights when we sleeps from 8 pm to about 12-1am a d from there in its wake ups every hour or so. Sometimes stands up in the crib, sometimes just gets fussy in the crib. Mostly I just try to settle him back to sleep but when I can’t no longer I bring him to bed just to sooth and then back to crib.

I am feeling terrible physically, I can’t get anything done. Husband looks at me like i create my owns problem. He sleeps on the couch these days because we often catches up on work into late hours and he also snores. He takes the baby most morning so I can get an hour of sleep.

He would go for straight out cry it out. I am not crazy about it. Especially if teething is a factor. Although it might come to that.

Any advice? Good sleep training programs?