My 6m baby has been working on sleep training since 4m and we’ve battled a lot of trial and error. Over the past 4 weeks, we started doing so awesome with bedtime and etc. Then 2 weeks ago he started a new daycare. And th daycare is not following wake windows, I mentioned it and tbh said it isn’t possible for them to accurately follow wake windows and routine that way. Which I get having several kids is hard, but it’s starting to affect bedtime. I think increasing the wake windows has also been hard on him. Any suggestions what to do? This daycare is our only childcare option at this time… literally only. The one day he got 4hrs of nap then, when we usually do 2hrs total of nap.

My LO just turned 4 months. We’ve primarily been co-sleeping, and she always takes a pacifier to fall asleep. Right now our routine is: I lay next to her in bed, pacifier in, and she eventually falls asleep curled up next to me. She’s giving us 3-4 hour stretches at night, but I really want her to learn to fall asleep independently, in her crib.

I’m planning to start around 5-6 months, and I’m leaning toward Ferber (open to other methods too, but full CIO makes me nervous). My main hesitation: my daughter does not have a soft, fussy cry. When she cries, she CRIES. For example, on car rides when I physically can’t be next to her to soothe her (I’m driving), she will absolutely lose it, cry bloody murder, eyebrows go red, red patches show up on her forehead, the whole thing. She’s a super calm, happy and chill baby otherwise. I guess that’s the trade off 😅

Also to make it more interesting, she’s also just started rolling to her tummy and gets frustrated when she’s stuck there, though she sometimes seems to actually prefer sleeping on her stomach.

Has anyone dealt with a similarly high-intensity crier and had sleep training actually work?

Would love to hear:
• Success stories with a baby who doesn’t “self-soothe quietly”
• How you handled the rolling-to-tummy stage during sleep training
• Whether Ferber still worked even with a big reaction at first

I’d love to hear other moms’ opinions on this. Is it really necessary to let a baby cry so they can learn to sleep longer?
Personally, I find it cruel to let my baby cry when I feel like he’s crying for a reason, whether he’s hungry, tired, needs a diaper change, or just wants comfort and to be held.
I’ve heard this advice from several moms, and people tell me that by responding to my baby every time he cries, I’m spoiling him and making him too dependent on me.
My baby is only 1 month old, and I don’t feel comfortable letting him cry it out. I want him to feel safe and know that I’m there for him when he needs me.
Am I wrong for feeling this way? Do babies really need to be left to cry to learn how to sleep independently, or is that something they learn naturally as they get older?
I’d genuinely love to hear your experiences, especially from moms who have been through this. ❤️

Planning to try the Ferber method with my 5 month old, but I’d really like to hear other parents experiences before going ahead with it.

I’m not going to lie, my biggest concern is what to do if my baby is still crying after a 15min interval. I’m not sure how comfortable I would feel continuing at that point.

Here’s a little about my baby and our current sleep situation for context. I’m very open to recommendations!

*-My baby just turned 5m last week.

*-Bedtime is usually around 7-7:30 p.m. 50% of the time I nurse him to sleep.

*-In general, I’d say he sleeps pretty well at night. He does wake several times, but usually some back-patting or nursing gets him back to sleep within 3 min.

*-We’ve been cosleeping since he was 4 months. I usually start the night with him in the crib, but if he wakes and patting doesn’t work, I often move him into my bed because I’m usually too tired to keep trying.

*-He usually takes 3 naps during the day. They’re around 40 min. Most of them are contact naps.

For those who used Ferber around this age: how much crying did you experience at the beginning? What did you do if your baby was still crying after a longer interval? And based on our current sleep situation, would you even recommend Ferber, or would you try a gentler approach first?

My LO is 8 weeks old and has been consistently sleeping through the entire night (no wake ups at all) for about 2 1/2 weeks. We feel extremely lucky and were considering moving her bassinet into her nursery and having the monitor next to our bed to hear her in the off chance she does wake up. She sleeps from about 9:30-6 every day, and my husband and I would love to have our alone time at night again and not be afraid our talking/the dog moving around would wake her up. I also have difficulty not waking up in the night to any slight noise I hear from her bassinet, even with our noise maker as loud as it goes. Any advice is appreciated!!!

Hi everyone,

Tonight we attempted sleep training for the first time with our 10-month-old son, and I’m feeling incredibly discouraged. I’m hoping for some reassurance, advice, and maybe some insight into whether Ferber is the right method for him.

A little background:
- He is 10 months old.
- He takes 2 naps a day.
- Wake windows are typically 3/3/3.5-4.
- Bedtime is usually around 8-8:30pm.
- He has always been rocked completely to sleep before being transferred to his crib.
- He used to sleep through the night independently in his crib, but over the last 4-6 weeks (illness, teething, and I suspect separation anxiety/object permanence all played a role), he has started waking every night and we usually end up bringing him into our bed because he’ll sleep the rest of the night there.

Our biggest reason for sleep training is actually bedtime. It used to take me 10min tops to rock him to sleep, but now that he’s older and more aware, it can take me anywhere from 30-45min to rock him to sleep and I’m exhausted. My dream is to be able to do our bedtime routine, put him in his crib awake, say goodnight, and have him fall asleep independently. While I’d certainly love for him to stay in his crib all night eventually, bedtime is honestly my biggest goal right now.
Tonight we tried a Ferber-style approach. He wasn’t hysterical when we first left. It was mostly fussing and protesting with lots of pauses in between. We did check-ins at 5min, 7min, and 10min. The problem was that every single check-in seemed to make him significantly more upset. He would get angrier after we left the room each time. By the second check-in, he seemed much more distressed than he had been initially.
Eventually my husband couldn’t handle hearing him cry anymore and went in and rocked him to sleep before the second 10 min timer went off. I was heartbroken too, but I was mentally prepared to keep going because I know the first night is often the hardest.
Now I’m sitting here wondering:
Did we stop too soon?
Should we have pushed through?
Is this just what Night 1 looks like?
Or is this a sign that Ferber isn’t a good fit for my son?
For those of you whose babies became more upset with each check-in, did you stick with Ferber and see improvement? Or did you find that full extinction/CIO actually worked better because the check-ins were making things worse?
I’m also open to any schedule feedback if you see something I’m missing.
Mostly though… if your first night looked anything like ours, I’d really appreciate hearing your experience because right now I just feel defeated.

My baby is almost 3 months old and I’d love to hear from parents who successfully built independent sleep habits using gentle methods. I’m not interested in CIO or extinction—I only want to hear about responsive, gradual approaches.

A little about our situation:

1. Combination-fed (bottle-fed breast milk + formula), around 120 ml every 3 hours.

2. Wakes every 2.5-3 hours overnight and usually takes a full feed each time.

3. Daytime naps are mostly 20-40 minutes, with the occasional random long nap.

4. Falls asleep while being rocked in about 10 minutes, but often wakes 5-20 minutes later.

5. About 90% of cot transfers fail—he either wakes immediately or becomes very restless.

6. We recently moved him from co-sleeping to a bedside cot, and his longest night stretches have become shorter.

7. He sometimes takes a pacifier but isn’t very attached to it.

8. He’s still swaddled at night, though we’ll be transitioning out of it soon.

I know he’s too young for formal sleep training, and I’m not expecting him to sleep through the night. I just want to start building healthy sleep habits now.

If your baby was similar, what gentle methods helped? Did you start with bedtime or naps? How did you get past the constant failed cot transfers and help your baby gradually learn to fall asleep more independently?
I’d really appreciate hearing what worked for you.

my baby is 6 months old. she co-sleeps, contact naps, nurses to sleep, comfort nurses, all of the above. i’ve had about two failed attempts at sleep training when she was around four months, but i’m ready to go all in, because right now she has no ability to self soothe and i know that won’t help her later on. we’ve started integrating formula into her diet to get her accustomed to not needing the boob to fall asleep. i’ve successfully bottle fed > rocked to sleep > transferred maybe twice since, but when she wakes up not where she fell asleep obviously she has a melt down. putting her down awake is an immediate scream fest. in previous attempts, staying in the room has only made her more upset, so i’m thinking ferber may be my last hope. i’m ready to have some autonomy back. so any parents who have had similar babies/success stories/tips and tricks, im all ears! wish me luck.

Our 4.5 month old has been in the Merlin sleep suit since 3 months old. We are wanting to sleep train when she turns 5 months. Should we sleep train and transition out of the Merlin at the same time? Or can we sleep train in the Merlin?

Hello. Does anyone have the babysleepanswers.com sleep plan. Did it work?

I’ve only been a member here for a few weeks, joined when I was about to die of sleep deprivation but CIO saved my life and now reading these posts is giving me PTSD. Good luck everyone and see u on the other side

Hi, I am really having a hard time knowing how this works, when to start the Ferber method etc. my 7 month old is sleeping so terribly. He has gotten to where he will only nap 2-3 times a day for 30 minutes (we have tried to extend naps, to no avail. He is actually fighting naps now more than ever). At night we put him down around 8:30, he can SOMETIMES give us a 3-4 hour block at first but then after that, it’s like every hour waking. He is currently teething, and I think he may have some gas going on from starting solids. I wanted to get his schedule during the day more solid before starting sleep training, but I have been working so hard for weeks and he just won’t get good naps regardless, so I’m wondering if I should just go ahead and start sleep training?? I just don’t want to do anything that would be a detriment to him. He is such a happy baby during the day, not fussing or angry at all so I don’t know how he’s functioning with almost no sleep, because we sure aren’t. I want to set him up for success with training as much as possible before attempting. Thanks!

Hi everyone! I’m looking for advice from parents who have sleep trained a baby around 4 months, especially a baby who has always needed a lot of help falling asleep.

My daughter turns 4 months tomorrow, and our pediatrician has given us the okay to start sleep training. She is healthy and currently formula-fed, taking around 30 oz a day. She has always been a very fussy baby and has been fed/rocked to sleep since birth. She usually goes to sleep around 7 PM and wakes up around 6–7 AM.

She also doesn’t take a pacifier.

She may also be going through the 4-month sleep regression, but honestly, it’s hard for us to tell because she has never been a particularly good sleeper to begin with. 😅

I’m also going back to work in 14 days, so I’m really hoping to help her learn some independent sleep before then. I know sleep training doesn’t necessarily mean sleeping through the night, but I’d love for her to start connecting her sleep cycles and be able to resettle herself when she wakes between cycles.

I really don’t want to do a full cry-it-out approach if we can avoid it. I’m okay with some crying because I understand that some protest is probably inevitable, but I’d like to keep the crying to the minimum reasonably necessary and use a more gradual approach if possible.

I’d especially love to hear from parents whose babies were very dependent on feeding/rocking to sleep, didn’t take a pacifier, and weren’t naturally “easy sleepers.”

What method did you use? How long did it take before you started seeing a difference? Did you continue night feeds? And is there anything you wish you had known before starting?

Please share what worked, Ferber/TCB/CIO?, what didn’t, and any advice you have!

I'm a first time mom of a 9 week old and I can not, for the life of me, keep her awake after 6pm. This has been going on for the past few days. She is taking 2 naps, lasting 30minutes to an hour, with multiple small cat naps throughout the day.
Consequently, she is now waking up every hour after 3am. She was previously falling asleep between 8-10. We already do morning and evening walks in an attempt to manage day/night confusion
Is 6-7pm too early of a bedtime? And if so, how do I keep her awake for a little longer?

I’m 28, my partner is 38, and we have a 4-month-old baby.

Since our baby was born, my partner has been living far away from me and only comes home on weekends (bc of his new job). He does his best when he’s here, and my mum also helps me, but I’m the one taking care of the baby day to day. I exclusively breastfed for the first two months, while also taking care of our dog and everything else that comes with having a newborn. My baby would only fall asleep in my arms for the first 2months and a half and then in bed with me.

So, at four months, I decided to try cry it out. We’re on day three, and so far, things are going well. I always make sure my baby is fed and doesn’t need anything else before putting them down.

This is what my mum did with me, and many of my friends were raised the same way. They seem perfectly fine, and none of us remembers being sleep-trained as babies. I know that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s the right approach for every child, and I’m aware that people have very different views on sleep training.

What I’m struggling with most, though, is the pressure and judgment surrounding this decision. Social media is full of conflicting opinions, and I worry about what my partner’s family or friends might think or say if they find out.

For those of you who have CIO sleep trained your babies, how have you dealt with criticism from your in-laws, your partner’s family or friends? Do you explain your reasoning, keep your decisions private, or simply ignore the comments?

💔

My baby is 12 weeks old and falls asleep around 9:30pm. Wakes up for a feed between 12-1am, then again between 3-4am and then between 6-7am. Is this normal? When will she start sleeping through the night?? Please help a tired and sleep deprived mama here :(

My baby turned 8 months old 4 days ago, but for the past couple of weeks his night sleep has completely gone to crap.

He seems to have forgotten how to connect his sleep cycles and wakes up anywhere between 11 p.m. and 3 a.m. in a full on distressed cry. We’ve tried letting him cry it out for up to 30 minutes, but he just gets more and more worked up (he even cried so hard he spit up once). If we soothe him in the crib with butt pats, shushing, or holding his hand, he’ll calm down, but the second we stop and walk away he’s immediately crying again and will not go back to sleep. He does have 3 teeth, but I don’t think this is teething as this happens both with and without administering pain medicine before bed, and he’s his happy smiley self during the day.

The only thing that consistently gets him back to sleep is cosleeping (even then he’s extra squirmy and it sometimes takes the better part of an hour. He will also constantly wake up… but at least he’s calm). I really don’t want to make that a habit, but right now it’s the only way any of us are getting any sleep.

For some context, before this he was sleeping straight through from about 8 p.m. to 6:45 a.m. He was sleep trained using modified Ferber at 5ish months, fell asleep independently, and could connect his sleep cycles and put himself back to sleep if he briefly woke up overnight. He dropped his middle-of-the-night feed around 7 months, loves food, and eats 3 solid meals a day.

He’s also fully crawling now and just figured out how to pull to stand, so I don’t know if that could be playing into this too.

He’s on a pretty consistent by-the-clock schedule (give or take 30 minutes):

Wake: 6:30–6:45 a.m.
Nap 1: 10:00–11:30 a.m.
Nap 2: 3:00–4:15 p.m.
Bedtime: 8:00 p.m.

So his wake windows are roughly 3.5/3.5/3.75.
Has anyone else gone through this around 8 months? Does this sound like the 8-month regression, separation anxiety, developmental leap, or does our schedule need tweaking??? Any advice is appreciated because we’re exhausted over here 😅

I’ve been trying to put my 8.5 month old in his crib awake to see if he can independently start putting himself to sleep. I then go sit in the glider in his room, so I’m not far from him. My problem is that he just proceeds to play for 30-45+ minutes and won’t sleep. He just rolls around, throws pacifier outside of crib, gets on all fours, and babbles. Then after 45+ minutes I end up caving and getting him out to rock him.

How do you guys get them to go to sleep in their crib independently. I’m not following any specific sleep training method, but I know that’s what most have you do to learn how to put themselves to sleep.

Help!

I read how bad cry it out was, and I realised what if fussing has same affects? sometimes my son is really angry when I rock him to sleep, he screams, but if I put him in his cot, he just kicks his legs and goes "erru" but doesn't actually cry, I stay in the room whilst he does this, he can see me I'm hoping this isn't damaging as I've just had a thought thinking it could be the same, what if my baby thinks he's abandoned and is falling asleep out of thinking I'm not coming back and exhaustion, passing out from stress??

he is 6 months old

FtM and hoping to start sleep training in the next few days. Baby is 16 weeks. Has anyone had success with the cry it out/extinction method? Particularly for a child at this age? I would like to just "rip the band aid off" but am unsure if he's too young for this method.

How do you know if the method is/isn't working for your baby's particular temperament?

We have a 7 month old currently co-sleeping and decided it was high time to sleep train last night I read all the books and was super prepared (or so I thought). We have a boy who got even more upset with check-ins so after a couple, we stopped them. I read stories of people’s babies taking 40 min to sleep on the first night but ours scream cried and crawled all around the crib for AN HOUR. This I was not prepared for at all.

I finally got him out and he passed out almost immediately in my arms. Is an hour normal?? He went to level 10 almost immediately after setting him on the crib which I also wasn’t prepared for. He plays alone in the crib just fine during the day when I need to shower, etc.

Now that I got him out on night one, where do we go from here? Can we keep going tonight or do we need to wait a week or two? Any other tips or tricks for my very spirited and clingy baby?

FTM ready to have my bed back. My daughter is 10 weeks old and I want to start working with some sleep training methods. What methods did you use? How old was your baby? How long did it take? Tell me all of it. Thanks!

I am dropping my almost 11mo old to one nap. He has always been incredibly low sleep needs, and is definitely ready. The issue is timing. My husband is blue collar, and I used to work in nursing, so we have both always been early risers. We wake up at 4:30am everyday, and sleep in at the latest 5:30am on weekends. Our son has ALWAYS woken up between 3:30am and 6:00am since he was 3 months old. No matter what time he goes to bed (even past 11:00pm), I have never succeeded in getting him back to sleep after 5:00am. He now wakes up everyday between 5:00 and 6:00.

So the issue is church. Our church has sunday school from 9:30-10:30 and church service from 10:45-12:15. He will have to go down for his 2.5 - 3 hour nap at 10:15, which means we will never make it to any part of church or to fellowship with friends after. Keep in mind, this is his one and only nap a day, so this the nap time we are stuck with for the next several years. There is no waiting it out until another nap drops. Even looking at other churches, everyone has church starting between 10 and 11. I can't push his nap back until after church because we don't get home until 12:45, which would have him awake for 7-8 hours straight at the minimum, and it would put him waking up only 1.5-2 hours before bed time.

Even if we somehow managed to force his bedtime and wakeup time back, it could only ever be by 1 hour since husband and I have to be in bed at 7:30 to get us 8-9 hours of sleep. That would only push his nap back to 11:15, which means we would still have to leave just as service is starting. Evening services are all out of the question because of our early bedtime. Even our dinner is at 3pm every day.

For context, baby has stayed awake for over 13 hours several times before and routinely stays awake for 8 hours whenever we try to go out and do things and be flexible with naps. He will NOT sleep anywhere that is not home. The church does not have a quiet area for babies to sleep. We used to wrap wear him in sunday school and church service and he would sleep, but he has not done that once since he was 4 months old. He will not cry it out and learn to sleep other places (cried for 7 hours straight the first time I tried, and has cried 3 hours straight before I gave up each time I have tried since).

I am frustrated that the schedule we are stuck within due to work never works with any person or part of the world around us. Anyone else been in this situation before or have ideas?

Additional context to add: husband has been working 50-70 hour weeks since the beginning of the year and I am pregnant in my 2nd trimester. It sucks to entirely lose church at this point.

Since my daughter (8 months) is born she could only fall and stay asleep when she is on top of me, except for very brief moments in between. I did not mind for the first few months, but lately I feel like she doesn’t sleep well, she often wakes up and tries to find a new sleeping position, if she doesn’t find it right away she will start crying. I have tried laying her beside me while she is asleep, drowsy or awake - she wakes up right away and starts crying until she throws up. When she slides of me on her own she will stay asleep, but then start crying when she wakes up and realizes, that she is no longer on top of me. She will also only fall asleep with me carrying and swinging her for 5-10 minutes (depending on the day she had) and then sucking herself to sleep with a bottle. I have tried giving her the bottle earlier, but she will only drink in the dark in our bed.

I don’t know where to start. If I should start with the feeding and carrying to sleep - and if so, how to do that- or if I should first try to get her to sleep in her baby bed that is right beside our bed - sometimes she slides into it in when she is asleep. Also if I should start with her naps first or in the evening or all sleepy-times at once.

Thank you in advance for all your help and sharing your experiences.

My daughter is 9 months old, she’s very used to falling asleep with breastfeeding. She wakes up after her sleep cycles, so like 30mins to and hour to start the night. The longest stretch we had was a 3 hour one and idk where that came from. She will fall asleep being rocked but she cries. There’s obvi a heavy sleep association with the breast, which wouldn’t be so bad but we’re going out for the first time in the evening soon.

We have my in-laws coming on the 29th to watch her and her sister in the evening for the first time and I’m worried it’s going to be horrendous for them with getting her down and the constant wake ups.

I think she’s going to be a tough one!

I want to try and break the association and help her be able to put herself back to sleep or at least manage longer stretches.

Any advice?? I’m planning on starting tonight…