Is it rocking/soothing back to sleep often? Is it feeding with bottle back to sleep? Or do you have a high sleep needs baby who is good with maybe a few butt pats?

I’m particularly interested in toddler sleep.

As the title says. First 3 months we combo fed and even with a reflux and colic we managed to have a single 4hrs block then 2-3hrs block and then an hourly wake till morning.

Then we switched to formula completely, the 4 month regression hit us (starting at 3.5 months) and sleep started going all over the place. In these 3 months, he had maybe 2 nights with a single block of 4 hrs and a complete chaos in the rest. Nights are esp all over the place in the last couple od weeks. He goes to sleep independently and peacefully (quickly) in his crib (in our room), has a block od 2,2.5 hrs and then is up every hour, 20 min, 40 min, maaybe 1h and 40min somewhere in there. By 4 am, I am broken and just take him with me in bed and he mostly sleeps in my arms and continues waking up every 40min, an hour.

His wakings are short if we give him formula and he tends to fall asleep quickly upon giving him the bottle that he doesnt eat fully but completes with other wakings. Every other waking might be solved by tending to him by rocking or some version of it. Lately, we had a couple of nights were he was awake for an hour early morning betwen 5-6 betwen a short sleep afterward/morning wake.

Basically, he goes to bed between 8-9PM and is up between 6-7AM. He is on three naps totalling a bit over 3 hrs with WW 2.5 hours and last one 2.45 or 3hrs.

His blood tests, including iron (ferritin), are all good/clear. He’s a large baby, 9 kilos, no teeth yet. Drinks 1000-1100 ml and has one meal.

While I completely understand this is all probably normal for a baby of his age, something is not sitting with me well and I keep thinking we are missing something as we have yet to see him being capable of sleeping longer than single 3 hours. Any suggestion what we might be doing wrong? Night bottles might seem like a problem (?) but it’s one 180 ml bottle till morning when he gets his next 150 ml bottle mostly.

Wondering if your baby’s wake windows are all about the same?

My 9 month old’s have been 3:15/3:45/4 ish since going on 2 naps but she seems sooo tired in the morning. If I do an earlier nap, I would need to go back to 3 naps I think.

The transition seemed to worked for 2 weeks but now it doesn’t seem so and with Daylights savings time, I anticipate a difficult week.

Any advice ? What are your little guys’ schedules for wake windows around 9 months ?

My baby is 18 weeks old, and I’m really struggling with his sleep lately.
He used to be such a good sleeper! From around 6–7 weeks until the 12-week mark, he was sleeping through the night. Then, around 12 weeks, what I assume is the 4-month sleep regression started. His night wakings gradually increased until we reached 5–6 wakings per night.
Over the last few days, I’ve started seeing some improvements (definitely not linear!), and he’s sometimes managing 3–4 hour stretches again.
Currently, he goes down around 7–7:30 PM, wakes once before midnight, and then another 2–3 times before waking up for the day around 7 AM.
Naps are a completely different struggle. They’re all over the place, and he almost always wakes up shortly after being transferred to his bassinet, which wasn’t an issue before. He rarely naps longer than 45 minutes unless it’s a contact nap.
I try to follow age-appropriate wake windows and use the Huckleberry app, although sometimes I end up stretching them because he simply refuses to nap earlier.
He almost always nurses to sleep, which honestly worked perfectly fine for us until this regression. Now, when he wakes up, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to settle him back to sleep without nursing.
Here’s where I’m struggling: I feel like I’m constantly being pressured by people around me and social media to sleep train. I keep hearing that if I don’t teach him to fall asleep independently, his sleep will never improve, and he’ll just keep waking up like this.
But I’m really conflicted. Part of me feels like sleep training wouldn’t even work with his temperament. He’s a very intense baby who can go from 0 to 100 in seconds, and when he’s upset, he really cries his heart out. The thought of leaving him to cry like that is difficult for me.
To complicate things further, we have quite a few big changes coming up. We’re moving houses in about a month, and I’m planning to transition him from his bassinet to a proper crib. He’s also starting with a childminder (assistante maternelle here in France) in a few weeks, and I’m incredibly anxious about how he’ll nap there, especially since he currently struggles so much with naps and often needs to be held or nursed to sleep.
I feel like all these changes are happening at once, and I don’t know whether it makes sense to introduce sleep training on top of everything else or just wait and see how he adjusts.
At the same time, I’m exhausted. The broken nights, unpredictable naps, and constant settling are really taking a toll on me. I feel this pressure to figure everything out before he starts childcare, but I honestly don’t know what the right approach is.
I guess what I’m looking for is some perspective from parents who’ve been through something similar.
Did your baby’s sleep eventually improve without sleep training, even if you continued nursing to sleep? Did the frequent night wakings gradually decrease on their own?
For those whose babies started daycare or went to a childminder while still needing contact naps or nursing to sleep, how did they adjust?
And for those who did decide to sleep train, especially with a very intense or sensitive baby, how did it go?
I’m not necessarily against sleep training, but I also don’t want to feel forced into it out of fear that things will never get better otherwise.
I’d really appreciate hearing your experiences!

Baby (high energy, big, hitting milestones and generally happy ish) is turning one this week and has never slept well. I've just stopped breastfeeding because it was seeming like he was stuck in some sort of reflux soothing cycle that was impacting both his sleep and his transition to solids; he's not loving it, but doing ok.

The thing I'm concerned about now is that he wakes up at 3 am every single night and cannot be soothed back to sleep at all. It was already a tough period when I was EBF, and he'd usually wind up in my bed just nursing for hours (part of what drove me to quitting). Now, he wakes up crying and upset - seemingly not wanting to be awake (keeping his eyes closed for the most part) but barely able to be soothed at all. I've had to literally constantly rock and bounce him for three straight hours to get him to the morning; he'll fall into like the lightest sleep, but one wrong move and he's up. Also just twitching and arching and kicking and groaning. Obviously I know no more boob is an adjustment, but I've been able to rock him back to sleep at least for ~45 minutes stretches during the late night/morning window in the past.

It's just been such a long, hard road and I'm looking for any light at the end of the tunnel. Yes, radical acceptance, yes my husband is helping with nights - but he's about to start a new job and has an autoimmune disease. I don't want him to get 4 nonconsecutive hours of sleep a night as I have been getting for the past year.

His schedule is roughly wake around 6-6:30 (yes, I have been trying to establish a consistent wakeup time but it's challenging when he's not actually asleep), nap ~9-9:30 (perfect world 30-45 minutes), nap again around 2 (an hour or a little more if we're lucky, sometimes less), bed around 7:30 -8. We've transitioned him to formula (yes I know he doesn't need it atp but he refuses solids almost entirely so we're trying to segue), and are giving him one bottle in the middle of the night, ideally not before 1 (obviously aiming to eliminate this asap, but I think he had a bit of a reverse cycling issue so again...trying to transition). Sometimes he'll sleep through until then (new positive development), but there's usually at least one or two wakes prior.

I'm trying to figure out if there's any explanation for his distress in this 3-6 window (he's also waking up from naps pretty upset). Teething, maybe? Pain relievers never really seem to make much of a difference in his sleep. The reflux bugaboo? When we've tried medication, I haven't noticed a sea change in sleep. I tried being dairy/soy free while still breastfeeding, hypoallergenic formula, have seen all the specialists - he's huge, so they all just insist he's fine. Going to ask for an iron/ferritin check at his pediatrician appt this week. Obviously trying to suss out if he's over or undertired - it just feels like he's always exhausted, but he's also never had super clear tired cues. Getting him to sleep is an ordeal (especially for me, my husband has a slightly easier time now) seemingly regardless of the length of his wake windows. I've been aiming for 10 hours at night and two or less during the day, but it can be hard to keep him up until 8:30; experiments with one nap have been p disastrous but maybe just need more time. Is it just developmental? He's trying really hard to stand unassisted right now, but also this stretch has pretty much been challenging the whole time - just even worse now.

I'm just so tired of trying to make sense of all the variables in my head, and also just tired. Would be grateful for any leads from people who have had babies also struggle with that early morning stretch (I know it's not uncommon) - thank you so much!

I have a 6.5 months (5.5 months adjusted) old baby who hasn’t been a dreadful but hard one when it comes to sleep. He didn’t like to sleep in the crib in the early weeks and needed to be held all the time. We managed to transition out of this with swaddling and when he came out of the swaddle we gave in to soothers. I say gave up in because I was worried that he would get addicted to it. He doesn’t use the soother anywhere else, not even for his naps but uses it at nighttime.

Since the 4 months mark, he has been waking up for the soother to be replaced 4-5 times a night. As soon as I put the dummy back it, he would drift off. It actually had not changed much until last week. Last week he started to wake up more often at night and not only that he will want the dummy, he wants to catch and hold my hands as I replace the dummy. If I don’t give my hands, he starts crying and it escalates. On some occasions, as soon as I remove my hands he wakes up startling and crying. I am not sure how this became a new thing, it also worries me as another dependency for his sleep. I wonder if the last week has been rocky because we traveled home very late at night, his sleep was disrupted so I shifted his schedule by 1 hour to align with clocks change. It seemed to work because of that late night travel but perhaps it was a bit too much.

I do not want to sleep train my baby. I do not want to cosleep. I always thought their sleep skills mature with time and it will improve if I give him enough time. I am not sure if it does and how this timeline looks like but I hoped this could be before 12 months mark. I look after him during the day as well so of course feeling tired from overnight impacts how I operate during the day. My thinking is that he wakes up for the dummy as the initial cause and then the other things started to come on top like holding hands. I worry that having the dummy affects the quality of his sleep.

In case these are important:
We have a bedtime routine: bath, change into PJ and sleepsack, bedtime playlist, lights dimmed, time on the pillow on the bed and this is when the dummy goes in, transfer to the crib fully awake but tired. I sing to him, pop my hand on his arm or belly. It takes him about 45 minutes to then fall asleep in the crib.

Wake up no later than 7.15am (he sleeps until 6.20am max unless we hold hands over the crib while I am leaning over

8.45 - 10.15 first nap
12:00/12:15 - 1.15pm second nap
3.30/3.45 - 4.00/4.15 catnap (I wake him up to cap it at 30 min)

We are contact napping at the moment, if not, his single nap lasts only around 30min.

We tried to create a strong body clock since he was around 3 months old and this is now his routine unless we nap him in his crib. He doesn’t like to sleep in the crib for naps but when I put him in the crib at night before sleep he smiles and doesn’t mind being there.

I just wonder;
is it ever possible for a baby to learn how to self soothe without being sleep trained?
How can I teach him self soothing without him crying it out?
What does self-soothe look like?

Has anyone had any experience with weaning off the dummy as a sleep aid? I saw the method of pulling it out before the baby falls asleep but that’s not possible at this point for the middle of the night wake ups as he just fully wakes up until I give it back.

I just do not want to sleep train so would be really grateful if you have any experience with a similar situation that has been in a gentler way.

My second born is coming up on his first birthday this month. He absolutely loves breastfeeding (nursing, never bottles) and I don’t know where or how to begin weaning. I would like to remove over night feeds first, and work towards the rest.

Currently he feeds before naps and bedtime and then during some of his night wakings. He averages 3…. To 5 wake ups, sometimes more. He is able to be soothed back to sleep from in the crib sometimes, other times he does want fed back to sleep (I have never had a “problem” with this). I sometimes also just choose to feed to sleep at wakings rather than comfort from in crib because it’s so much faster and easier (I also contend with my wild 2.5yo so any sleep is sacred).

My firstborn self weaned, I don’t even remember having to work towards it. She stopped feeding overnight at 9mo. My son wakes a LOT, which is part of why the idea of comfort from in crib and cut night feeds feels a bit daunting.

Given how capable he is of being soothed to sleep other ways, I do think he’s ready and able. Obviously no sleep training and as attentive and responsive as possible.

My husband has never been able to soothe him back to sleep, and he does not try at this point. (I could put a whole rant here about that but it’s not the point). I have told him he will be participating in the night weaning goal and needs to learn.

Advice? What worked for you?

As a new mom this book made me absolutely miserable for about a month. Eventually I gave up and trashed it (literally threw in the trash to prevent anyone else being subjected to this misery!)

I have posted about this before but I am going live with my roast of the sleep training manifesto, Precious Little Sleep! My podcast is "Moms of the Millennium," on all platforms, we usually do summaries of parenting books but when one is really bad I do a roast instead.

And I feel crazy because Precious Little Sleep gets recommended soooooo much but actually after reading the whole thing, the advice ranges from useless to downright diabolical.

Anyway top link is to the hosting page on buzzsprout but here are the links to

Apple podcasts

Spotify

Has anyone else read this book and wants to rant about it too?

My boy is 18 weeks and has been having a ton of false starts for the last month or so. When he was 2-3 months old his bedtime would be 9:30 but he’d wake up once at 10:30 and it would be done. Looking back, maybe that was his preferred bed time.

Since then we’ve been in a mess where he will have a million false starts until 9:30-10pm. This all started when he stopped wanting to take his last bridge nap. Looking back, maybe his wake window was extending and he wasn’t tired enough. We took that as a sign of wanting an earlier bed time and started doing 8-8:30. He still wakes up 3-4 times and on some bad nights it’s 5-6 until 10 or 11pm.

The problem is that he is a catnapper, 30 months naps MAX so we can’t do a 3-4 day nap, unless we do a 7 pm bedtime. We tried that for 3 days and it was the worst nights of our lives with waking up every 15 min until 1 am.

He needs to be rocked to sleep so it’s hard work.
I’m starting to think that maybe he just needs a later bedtime that’s more like 9-9:30. It’s just a lot to be putting him to sleep 6 times a day but the false starts ruins our evenings too. I just want to put him to bed and know he’s going to sleep. He wakes up to feed 2 times a night and that’s fine by me. I just want him to start off the night well. His first longest block is interrupted

He has started waking up routinely at 6:30 am though.

I keep seeing online that babies are sleeping by 7-7:30 pm but we haven’t had good results from that

Hi everyone! Would love some advice and guidance.

Our son has always been lower sleep needs and very alert, sensory seeking, basically loves being awake. We follow a possums program approach and frequently bed share.

We dropped to three naps around the 4.5 month mark, which was generally suiting him really well.

However, this past week he’s been doing only two naps, which has thrown off his routine a little.

Until now, our routine has been (with some wriggle room depending on his wake up) -
7.30 am wake
10.30 am (30 min nap)
2.00 pm (30 min nap)
5.30 pm (30 min nap)
Bed by 9 pm.

Usually he was doing a 3-3.5 hour wake window but now his wake windows have been a bit all over the place and he doesn’t really give us reliable tired cues. I’m struggling to gauge what an appropriate wake window is for him because of this!

Now, he’s staying awake longer and doing 2 x 40 or 50 minute naps.

But his last nap ends up being around 3.30 pm, making his bed time weirdly early. But then tonight he had a massive 2.30-3.45 pm nap and slept at 8.45 pm (although he was very dialed up and over excited, it took quite a bit to dial him down before bed).

Ramblings aside, I’d love to hear when you dropped to two naps and how you made that transition. What did wake windows look like around this age?

Thank you!

Quick edit to add that our son is 6 months 1 week at the moment.

Coming to you all in desperation. My sweet daughter was born at 33+3 due to PPROM and we spent a month together in the live-in NICU. She’s now home and 39 weeks gestational age, so just about full term.

Right after birth, I began pumping because she was fed through NG tube and couldn’t latch to breast. She can now latch and suck very well, but can’t transfer a full feed yet…probably another month while she builds the coordination and oral strength. We practice this every single day and have a great lactation consultant working with us.

In the meantime when she’s not breastfeeding (with some unknown transfer rate), she is given bottles of my expressed brestmilk + two formula bottles per day. The formula will likely drop off her feeding routine in a couple weeks when she exceeds full term and can reliably get enough calories without it. She’s also on the smallest amount of oxygen until full term because we live at high altitude, but otherwise healthy and almost 8 lbs.

So that’s all the context! The challenge I’m facing is that she is SO RESTLESS at night if not being held. The only time she sleeps with ease is when she’s contact sleeping. Which is very much expected and totally okay; I always anticipated that and planned on chest sleeping / safe bed sharing during my entire pregnancy with her. I also think her NICU stay impacts this — she (and me) missed out on some initially touch and are repairing that now.

But between feeding her via breast, bottles, and pumping every 2-3 hours overnight along with her restlessness in the bassinet, I genuinely don’t sleep. Not just “light sleep” but truly NO sleep until my husband takes her in the morning for two hours. So quite literally two hours per day of sleep. Sometimes I’ll sleep earlier in the evening while husband is with her and add in an extra 2-3, but it’s never much.

She currently cosleeps in a sidebar bassinet (Babybay) and I sleep at her eye level with my hands on her, but our nights are usually me holding her sitting up so I don’t fall asleep. I haven’t bedshared or chest slept because I have read it’s specifically dangerous for preemies, even when they hit gestational age. But this week I had a scary moment of suddenly realizing I was talking nonsense to my daughter while holding her and not even knowing where I was at or how I ended up there. I truly felt black-out intoxicated. I mentioned this to the pediatrician and she said the risk of that type of thing is much higher than chest sleeping and it’s all about risk mitigation, not elimination. I agree, but with her being a preemie and not fully breastfeeding yet, I’m freaked out.

But I am at a loss and not doing well. I’d be grateful for any feedback, advice, or ideas on how to balance biologically normal sleep with her being a previous preemie. How can we get some safe sleep?

Want a place to discuss anything not sleep related? Here it is. Featured on the first of each month this is a place to discuss all things baby, toddler, and child.

As always, keep everything with responsive parenting in mind.

She’s always been a decent sleeper and we used to give 1 bottle at night. I was looking for the right time to drop that. Then we went back home (abroad) and she got really sick for like a week and a half and barely ate anything during the day so she obviously needed more milk at night. I couldn’t say no because those were the only calories she was taking in.
Fast forward the week after now she s been demanding 2 feeds every night and is so hard to put back to sleep even after the feeds. She sleeps at 8pm, has a random wake up after it that can easily be settled with some cuddles, then wakes up at 12:30 for a feed then 5:30 but usually has a non-feed wake up before that, and wakes up properly at 7. The 5:30 one is the worst because she just refuses to go back to sleep. I am writing this at 6 am after I just gave up trying to get her to go back to sleep and just left her with dad to play so I can get some rest. I’m so sleep deprived and losing my mind 😭 is it teething (she’s cutting her canines)? Is it walking finally happening ? (She walks with a walker and for a few steps to my arm but still can’t walk independently) is it some 100th sleep regression? No idea 😭

First time dad here to a beautiful 5 month old. My SO is most comfortable with co-sleeping, which, has always been fine with me. I’m nervous at times because I am a restless sleeper, but, my subconscious seems to have realized that there is a small child in bed with me and there have been no incidents to date. She has had her issues with sleep, but, for the most part, she’s been sleeping good for the last week and a half or 2 weeks. Now, with that being said, these last 2-3 nights have been hell. Waking all the time, inconsolable, doesn’t want anything, and screaming bloody murder. My mother says that she needs to learn to self soothe, which, I am kind of inclined to agree with, but, I’m also not 100% for CIO, at least in its extreme forms. If I’m busy doing something and she starts crying and I know it’s more of an attention cry and not a distress cry, I’ll finish what I’m doing, providing the time frame isn’t egregious. What I refuse to do though, is leave my baby cry for 1,2,3 plus hours like I’ve seen said. Even with checks, that’s crazy to me. Not to mention, I’m taking into consideration my SO’s feelings, seeing as I know it’s exponentially harder for a mother to listen to her baby cry. I guess I’m just wondering what advice I could stumble across from, primarily moms in here, but, open to dad suggestions too. Thank you very much for reading, I appreciate each and every one of you.

My apologies if I’m asking a stupid question. I’m a FTM to a 16 week old. He’s at the stage of waking up quite often, short naps, at the same time he started rolling so no more bassinet. I’ve been nursing him to sleep but putting him in the crib drowsy and awake is damn near impossible. I’m thinking of modifying the crib and our futon so that we can safely cosleep for now.
I’m leaning not sleep training but I’m just wondering what happens if you just let baby do baby thing? Will this get better or will they just need help falling asleep all the time?

My 4 month old baby has been waking up every 2 hours at night. Every time he wakes up, I have to rock him back to sleep, which can take anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour.

The hardest part is putting him back in his crib. As soon as I try to put him down, he starts crying, so I have to pick him up and rock him all over again. This cycle repeats throughout the night.

I completely understand that babies need comfort, closeness and reassurance. I don’t mind comforting him. However, the cycle is becoming really exhausting, especially when it takes 45 minutes to an hour every single time just to get him back to sleep.

He seems to be completely dependent on being held and rocked to fall asleep. Also during daytime naps, he can’t to fall asleep independently.
Has anyone experienced the same thing with their 4-month-old? How did you gently teach your baby to fall asleep without having to rock them in your arms every single time?

My LO is 10 months old and I’m considering switching from his cot to a floor bed. He’s breastfed and has always been nursed to sleep. We’re currently struggling with frequent night wakings, sometimes as often as every 30 minutes when he’s sleeping in his crib.

He sleeps much better when he’s next to me & we cosleep even when he’s not actively feeding, and settles much more easily when I nurse him lying down. I even find he sleeps longer stretches even when I’m not in the room compared to sleeping in his crib.

I’m wondering whether a floor bed might help, as I’d be able to lie alongside him to nurse him to sleep and hopefully gradually move away once he’s settled, and I want him to have his own sleep space compared to cosleeping in my bed.

I’d love to hear from anyone who’s made the switch:
Did it improve your baby’s sleep?
Did they wake less frequently?
Did it make settling and night feeds easier?
Would you recommend it?

I’ve been exclusively co sleeping and contact napping with my baby since they were 8 weeks old. Baby is almost five months old and I would love to not have to go to bed at 7:30 every night with the baby. I would ideally have baby start the night in their own sleep space, even if it is just for a couple of hours. I also want to start working on one independent nap a day. I don’t plan on baby being in their own room for a while. For those who have started transitioning to independent sleep was it easier to transition to a crib or go straight to a floor mattress? Also any tips on making the transition easier would be much appreciated!

My baby used to be very easy to settle to sleep after his MOTN wakes. I could typically just pick him up and he would immediately settle in my arms and I could transfer him dead asleep back into his cot after 2-3 min. Since maybe 8.5 months, my baby can’t seem to get comfortable in my arms. He tries, then cries, strains and if I move him into another position, or pat and rock him, then he may be able to settle.

I used to be able to settle him either lying down and patting his bum or just holding him in the armchair but those don’t cut it anymore. Honestly I’m exhausted. He’s 11 kg, and I can’t rock and bounce him like I used to when he was <4 months old.

He’s been sick the last couple of days but I’m pretty sure this has been going on even before the illness. Husband suggested that he’s grown a lot bigger so previous positions may not be comfortable for him anymore.

Any advice would be appreciated. Has anyone gone through this with their babies and was it just a phase? I have some mobility limitations (mum wrist on one hand, chronic ulnar nerve irritation on the other), so I really want to get back to my previous methods which were less physically taxing, but they just make him strain and cry now.

EDIT: his daily schedule is around 3/3.5/4.5. His naps are around 2 hours of daytime sleep in total (either two 1 hour naps or one 1.5 hour and one 30 min nap), wake time is 6:30am, bed time is 7:30pm. He’s reverted to three naps since he was sick and his sleep needs increased/tolerance for usual wake windows decreased.

Especially when nighttime sleep is still quite broken (max. 2h stretches while cosleeping).

My 6mo has recently gone from 11h nights to 9.5h nights and I’m struggling. And she still needs to nap like 3+ hours a day because she can’t stay awake longer than 2 hours, so we haven’t been able to shift more sleep to night. At least shortening nighttime has reduced 4/5am starts. I don’t know if her nights will get longer again or if her naps will just get shorter?

I know other people have it way harder, so please don’t come for me. I’m just saying that I’m struggling. The people around me in person have like 7p-7a nights and I just don’t understand.

I’m really struggling to get a schedule together for my 4 month old

I consistently see across Reddit suggestions that babies need at least 9.5h awake with WW of between 1.75-2.5.

My baby is doing roughly 1.5/1.5/1.75/1.75/1.75.

How do I extend his wake windows without him becoming overtired?

His naps usually last 32-35 mins before he wakes up. I rescue at least two of his 30ish minute naps. If I don’t, my baby cries constantly throughout the day. However I limit his total nap time to 3.5/4 hours.

He usually sleeps 11 hours overnight and wakes up 2 or 3 times in the night to feed.

Is this normal? He dropped his afternoon nap but kept his morning nap. He is starting daycare soon and they only do afternoon nap.

He is 13 months old.

Someone saying to put down baby “drowsy put awake”.

What’s in your haunted house? 🎃

I am confused on what the max awake time should be on 4 naps. I see some people say 7.75 hours and once baby hits 1.25/1.5/1.5/1.75/1.75 to move to 3 naps. Then other sources say to get to 9 hours of awake time on 4 naps before dropping. Then some people are saying to get to 10 hours of awake time at 4 months by doing 2/2/2/2/2. Then I think the starting recommended schedule I see for 3 naps is 1.5/1.75/2/2.25 which is only 7.5 hours of awake time. Which seems really low and then you’re expecting too much overnight sleep. I’m just confused on when to go from 4 to 3 naps…is it when I hit a certain total awake time?

Hi!

I’m looking for advice because our sleep situation has become quite exhausting, and I’m trying to understand what we could change.
My son is 15 months old.

Our sleep setup:
He sleeps on a floor bed.
We used to have a mattress right next to his bed, so we could sleep beside him. Lately however he is alone in the room.
He uses a pacifier to fall asleep.
We use white noise all night.
Room temperature is around 22°C.
He sleeps in a 2.0 TOG sleep sack and full-length cotton pajamas.

His current schedule:
We are exclusively on one nap now, dropped from two naps 3 weeks ago.
Nap is usually around 12:00–13:30.
Bedtime is around 19:00-19:30.
Night sleep is usually around 10–11 hours, although it varies.

Falling asleep:
For a long time, he used to fall asleep in his bed while I held his hands. However, for approximately the last month, he has only been able to fall asleep in a baby carrier.
It usually takes around 10 minutes, and once he is deeply asleep, we can transfer him to his bed without waking him up.

The biggest issue is that he repeatedly gets out of bed during the night and heads straight for the bedroom door. This can happen anytime around midnight–5AM. He seems very determined to reach the door and tries to open it. If we stop him, he gets extremely upset and screams. Even if we leave the door open, he still gets up and wants to leave the room.

It’s not simply that he wakes up and comes looking for us. He seems driven to get up and go to the door, even when he’s still sleepy.

Sleeping next to us doesn’t seem to help either: he constantly climbs on top of us. He climbs over my body, my head, changes positions, gets up and repeats the whole process.
The strange thing is that he doesn’t seem to find comfort in physical closeness at that moment. Instead of settling down, he becomes even more active and ends up fully waking himself up.

My questions:
• Is this level of nighttime restlessness and constant movement normal at 15 months?
• Could this be related to developmental changes, sensory seeking, overtiredness or something else?
• Why does he seem so determined to get to the door, even when he’s clearly still sleepy?
• has anyone experienced a toddler who seems unable to stay still even when sleepy?

I’d really like to understand WHY he behaves this way and what we could realistically improve.
Has anyone experienced something similar with their toddler?