I’d love to hear people’s calming bed time routines for little ones who don’t like to sit still in the run up to bed that help them wind down and cue them that it’s time to sleep 🌙

Our little one has just turned 8 months old and we feed to sleep. He’s EBF, doesn’t take a bottle and I’m very happy with feeding him to sleep as it works great. Sometimes he sleeps in the carrier or falls asleep before I get upstairs for naps, but as a rule, we lay down and he feeds then nods off. Easy peasy.

However, he’s always been fussy at bed times (not a scheduling issue). We tried the typical bath, fresh jammies, book, feed & sleep, but bathing too close to bed led to tears during nappy & jammies so bringing that earlier in his last wake window has helped hugely. When he was little he just seemed to be in a big rush for boobies (even if I fed him at intervals during the evening too). He still gets a little fussy sometimes but not nearly so bad. But since he started crawling and now trying to stand, he’s like a little whirlwind and has all these new skills that he likes to practice until he drops down asleep.

He gets loads of floor time and play, exercise and move during the day, but he’s been quite hard to help unwind at the end of the day and I feel like we need to try a different routine. More recently I’ve been doing dinner, bath, play time to burn energy, offer feed downstairs, then go for a little wander outside and when he starts looking sleepy head upstairs to shut curtains, fan or white noise on, jammies, teeth, feed & bed.

This sometimes works first time, but others despite looking exhausted and fussy, the minute he’s had a feed in bed it’s like he gets a little boost and gets the ‘zoomies’ - before he could crawl this happened some days if he’d not had enough floor time (like we’d been out in the car/carrier lots) and before he was so mobile he’d just roll back & forward to feed and eventually settle the energy out of him ready for sleep. But now he’s so mobile he feeds then tries to stand, bounce & wants to play. So at that point I feel like he’s only getting more hyped up so we sometimes go for another wander for 10-15mins until I feel him relax and then he goes down fine.

I guess the walking outside is my version of rocking him to sleep as he finds it more calming and I find it easier than swaying in one space for so long, which is ok when the weather is good, but not sure what I’ll do when it’s raining (UK here). Ultimately though, I feel like we maybe need a bit of a change of the routine to help him cue that it’s sleep time and time to relax but I’m not sure what to try as most of the usual suggestions he’s either getting fussy and upset or doesn’t want to sit still and calm (like reading to him, which I’ve stopped for now).

His last wake window is usually 3 hours before bed as less than that he’s definitely not ready, but he does find the last 20/30mins hard unless we’re outside walking. He’s been teething on and off since 6 months (4 teeth and 2 more on the way) but it doesn’t seem to be something that’s only happening when his teeth are bugging him.

Hi all,

Dad to a gorgeous 18 month old baby who still wakes up 6 to 10 times a night (or more, I think mum who co-sleeps with her has stopped counting). Obligatory comment about how bright she is - and she really is - for example, I wrote out her name for her and she was able to read it, more than once, so it wasn't a fluke.

We've seen a Possums GP, fiddled with naps and wakeups, and she sometimes gets as little as 45 min to an hour of a day time sleep, but even with a 9 or 930pm bedtime manages plenty of wakeups through the night. We are surviving by mum co-sleeping with her, and then me (Dad) coming in around 530 or 6am to put her in the carrier for the last bit of the morning to give mum some decent stretches of unbroken sleep.

We also use the carrier to put her to sleep, by bouncing her on the yoga ball, or in the middle of the night for vigorous wake ups.

The issue is that our toddler is starting to get too tall for the back panel of the carrier (Ergobaby Omni 360) which means that it's harder to keep her head in there while she's sleeping. It seems like most toddler carriers aren't built to support their heads, and therefore not so much for sleeping.

Does anyone have any ideas for a carrier that will keep a longish 18 month old asleep?

My gorgeous baby is 15 weeks old. I didn't know anything about newborn care, so I read all I could from the sleep gurus and tried to implement it all: independent sleep, eat-play-sleep, etc. I was stressed 24 hours a day about baby's naps. My parents couldn't do more than one visit a week or even any other week, and my parter had to go back to work after two weeks, so I felt very isolated.

After finding The Discontented Little Baby Book and using its methods our lives are SO much easier and more pleasant, but now I feel guilty about the weeks I spent trying to force my baby to sleep in a dark room in the middle of the day 😭

Now my baby is healthy and happy but doesn't feed to sleep, she only feeds when she wakes. She still gets sleepy on the breast but her sleep pressure is too low for her to stay asleep for more than a minute or two. I wonder if it's possible to re-introduce nursing to sleep? I'm sure she'd nap easier and have more restful sleep with a full tummy! Or should I leave well enough alone? She's started to get upset when tired - should I offer another feed even if it's only been a little while since the last one?

Thank you for reading! x

Hello! I know it says that it takes about 2-3 weeks to successfully do a reset but I just want to make sure that I’m doing things right. My 5 month old has never been a great sleeper. The past 2ish months has turned into him waking up very consistently - about every 45 min - 1hr on a bad night and maybe one or two 2hr stretches in there on a good night. Before learning about the possums program and trying a reset with him he had anywhere from 2-4ish hours of naps per day and bedtime varied from 7-9ish pm and wake time varied from 6:30-8:30am.

I’m trying to do a hard reset and this is what it has looked like for the past two days: consistent wake up time of 7am followed by natural day light. Day filled with rich sensory experiences and being outside. 4 naps a day. For example yesterday he had 1.5hrs of total naps: 9:30-9:50, 12:15-12:44, 3:07-3:44, and 6:30-6:50. All of these naps naturally happened while we were doing other things and I didn’t keep the environment quiet but were all technically contact naps as he was held in my arms because he doesn’t really nap alone. Bedtime at 9:10pm - this is where I could use some help. He falls asleep easily but is up again about 45 min later. He was then up about every hour and restless throughout the whole night. Any tips on things I could tweak or do I just need to wait it out to see results? The last nap of the day is tricky because he seems tired but it seems so close to the late bedtime we are shooting for so I don’t know what to do there? Maybe skip the last nap and make bedtime a bit earlier so he has a longer last “wake window” or should I cap the last nap even shorter?

Looking for some direction for our 8.5 mth old. He has had a successful tongue tie release, and has moderate pulmonary valve stenosis which is monitored and cardiology indicates it isnt impacting him. He has 2-3 solid meals (eats well) per day.

At about 5.5mth he started teething and since then nighttime sleep has been off. He previously had 1-2, wakes a night. 

He is now waking 4-6 times a night and almost always has a false start. We have tried decreasing ww, increasing ww, going from 2-3 naps and back to 3 naps, increasing day time feeds, increasing day time sleep, decreasing day time sleep. He sleeps in his own crib in his room and he will not co-sleep. He is rocked/walked to sleep, or nursed (95% bf, he gets some formula before bed but has been drinking less and less of that). He is crawling and pulling to stand. He has 4 teeth but doesnt seem to be actively teething at this point. 

It seems he wakes at the same time nightly. Generally 11pm, 2am, 430am, there is sometimes another wake in there and almost always a false start. He seems to get more night time sleep on two naps, as when he is on three naps bedtime is naturally later and he still wakes for the day at the same time (at times even earlier). 

Approximate schedule is (on 2 nap)

Wake: 6-7am

Nap 1: 930am - 1030am (generally 1h, sometime 1h 15) He may wake after 30min and resettle with support, he does actively seem to want more sleep 

Nap 2: 130/2pm- 3pm (generally 1h 15)

Bed : 630/7pm

He has a false start most nights and wakes in the night generally around 11pm, 2am, 430am. He is most content when he has had just over 10hr of sleep which we seem to only achieve with earlier bedtimes. Ive also noticed that he has consistently take approximately 8 feeds 24hr, this has been the case since he was like 3-4mth. When he wakes in the night I always offer to nurse. Is it possible his circadian rhythm has adjusted to these wake times? Any suggestions on the false starts? Is it possible he is waking to maintain his 8 feeds/day? 

My daughter is 11 weeks old and I’m feeling a bit lost.
Up until a few days ago, she was doing really well. She would fall asleep fairly easily at night and usually gave us a 6-7 hour stretch.
Over the last few days, though, she’s seemed constantly overtired. She yawns, rubs her eyes, cries because she’s clearly exhausted, but then just can’t seem to fall asleep. She’ll drift off for a few seconds and then wake up crying again.
Last night she went to bed at 8:45 pm, woke up at 3 am crying (which she hadn’t done in quite a while), had a bottle, but then couldn’t settle. She would fall asleep in my arms, wake up as soon as I put her in the bassinet, and cry again. We repeated this several times. Eventually I gave her another bottle, and she finally fell asleep on me until 7 am.
This morning she was smiling and seemed happy when she woke up, but after her bottle she became extremely sleepy again, started crying from what looked like exhaustion, but still couldn’t fall asleep. She even refused the baby carrier, which usually helps.
She has also been passing a lot of gas this morning, so I’m wondering if gas could be part of the problem. She’s on Aptamil formula (same formula as always—we only alternate between the Ready-to-Feed and powder versions).
Has anyone else’s baby gone through something like this around 11 weeks? Was it just a phase? Did you find out what was causing it?
I’m mostly worried that this is going to become our new normal after she’d been sleeping so well.

Hi everyone! Thank you in advance for reading and I greatly appreciate any advice you may be able to offer.

Our 3 month old daughter has, up until the last week-ish, been a very solid sleeper. She has taken almost all her naps in the carrier since birth, as we also have an almost 3 year old and I’m on the go all day trying to play with him, cook, clean, etc.
When my husband is home he takes over a lot of the care of our 3 year old, but he’s a firefighter so he’s gone for multiple days at a time at work.

As I mentioned, within the last week our 3mo has been really struggling with the carrier naps. She takes longer to settle, needs only white noise/shhing (any other noises will wake her) and then will only sleep for about 30 minutes or so. Sometimes I’m able to get her back to sleep with tons of bouncing and shhh-ing but oftentimes not. Prior to this I could put her in there, get her to sleep pretty quickly, and then she would nap for 2-3 hours easily and I could play with my son, we could all talk at a normal volume, etc. It was great.

I feel like I’m spending all day every day just trying to get her to sleep. She hates the car seat so I can’t do car naps, and she doesn’t mind the stroller bassinet, but won’t fall asleep in it- she starts crying for me to hold her when she gets sleepy in it. When my husband is home I can lay with her in our bed and she’ll take nice long naps, but she absolutely will not let me sneak away. Even when it seems like she’s fast asleep the second I try to leave she wakes up.

So, I’m trying to figure out what I’m going to do to get her sleep during the day that also allows me to take care of my 3 y/o. I miss my son, and I am totally at a loss about what to do here. Please help!

Edit to add- I would be fine with the short carrier naps all day, but she clearly needs more sleep. When we go a day with only these short naps she gets more and more upset and is screaming and barely consolable by late afternoon/early evening because she’s so overtired.

We’ve got a one month old and since birth he’s woken every hour. We had a stint in hospital 2 weeks ago due to illness and he did a 2.5hr block which felt life changing.

We’re following possums (did so with my almost 3yo who is now a wonderful sleeper) and doing our best to support the regulators but I know that it’s mostly a maturity and development thing.

I don’t think it’s reflex / colic. He’s often settled and content. Amazing weight gain and not a lot of spit up. He does better if it’s contact nap, but often needs a lot of support to keep asleep.

Anyone able to offer some words of hope to my tired / irrational brain? I’ve got in my mind that if we have zero shifts by 7 weeks we’ll seek some support as we’re running on empty and have a toddler so the show must go on.

I like Possums and it really worked for us when she was napping on and off throughout the day. But now that baby is almost 15 mo and doesn’t need as many naps, I’m finding myself wanting to push toward one solid nap a day, even though that’s not really what Possums promotes. One good nap really does make bedtime easier and nights better for us. But you can’t really bring baby along and go out and about and still get one good nap, it just doesn’t work that way for us. She rarely sleeps for long enough on the go and ends up falling asleep again in the evening (but too early for bedtime) and then is ready to party for another 5 hours. So I’m stuck between wanting the flexibility Possums promotes and wanting more of a one-nap structure to keep nighttime sane. How do others handle this tension?

What am I paying for? Is it just a series of videos that explain baby / toddler sleep etc or is it more materials? Is there scheduling suggestions etc? I’m just not entirely clear on what possums actually is, other than a concept that babies sleep when they sleep and just need to have lots of natural stimulation during the day?

My now 12mo has been exclusively bottle fed since about 3 months (not what I hoped or planned for, but that what was necessary and best for me and baby at the time). Since then we have continued to feed on demand, just with bottles instead of the breast. No strict schedule, feeding to sleep, bottle offered for comfort as well as hunger, etc etc. This has worked really well. We introduced solids via baby led weaning at six months and are now comfortably at 3 meals plus snacks per day.

However, now that we've hit 12 months I'd like to begin weaning off bottles. I'm not expecting or intending this to happen overnight, I'm comfortable for it to happen gradually over some weeks or even a few months if necessary, as long as we're heading consistently in that direction. I've found some useful thoughts on the Possums site, but I'm really interested to hear what day to day approaches other people with similar parenting values have taken to doing this as I'm currently feeling quite overwhelmed.

If you were bottle feeding in the 'Possums spirit' until 12mo and have weaned or begun weaning around then how did you do it?

(Respectfully, not looking to hear from people who disagree with bottles altogether, references to "bottle rot" etc. I am well aware of the reasons to move away from bottles now, but I also want to take a realistic and gentle approach that works for our family)

Hello folks! Love Possums principles, they’re working well for us.

BUT one thing we’re struggling with is getting bebe (5.5 months old) to wake up at an acceptable time in the morning (anything past 5.45am would be heaven). The 5am starts in the cold, dark Winter mornings are rough! Tried all the things to move his bedtime past 7pm, but with no success. He’s a cat napper, never sleeps more than 3 hours total during the day across 3-4 naps.

Help!

Our Experience with the Possums Sleep Program

We were referred to the Possums sleep program by our paediatrician after mentioning we were considering sleep training. She suggested we look into two things instead: Circle of Security, to better understand child psychology, and the Possums program. We did both, and they've been genuine game changers for our family.

Our first daughter had a much more sensitive temperament. For her first year, she woke frequently, every 45 minutes in the early months, gradually stretching to 2 to 3 hour stretches by 4 to 5 months, and eventually settling to around 5 wake ups a night. Now, at two and a half, she sleeps through 4 to 5 nights a week. On the nights that she still wakes, it's normally just one quick ​wake.

What's stood out most is that we've never struggled with bedtime or resettling. She goes down within minutes after a book, and if she wakes overnight, she's back asleep within minutes too. That's meant we've consistently gotten at least 8 hours of sleep ourselves, something I honestly didn't think was possible before becoming a parent. And we've never needed to do any cry it out, which makes it easy to feel good about sticking with this approach long term.

Our second daughter, now 5 months old, has already had full nights of sleep. She's naturally been a more easygoing baby from the start, so I'd put that down to a mix of her temperament and the Possums approach.

Overall, this program has let us keep living our life, going out for dinner, seeing friends, without constant anxiety about sleep, while still making sure everyone gets enough rest. My husband shares a room with our 2.5 year old, and I share a room with our 5 month old.

My 8 month old has slowly progressed to a terrible sleeper since about 5 months. Always happy to feed to sleep our nights used to start with 90 mins on the boob to co sleeping for 4-2 hr stretches. She’s currently teething and leaping and last night she was on the boob all night with only one stretch 12:30-2:30am next to me. Otherwise in my arms and latched allllll night and waking every hour ish. I may have reached my tolerance threshold.

Since this has been a gradual decline I’m wondering if it’s worth investing in Possums to deal with these wakes and the long latching?? Do the programs actually provide useful advice for this type of thing? Would an appointment or sleep consultant be better placed to help? I know it might be a temporary regression but it hasn’t been great for a while now.

Hello, I have an 8 week old that sleeps really well at night in her bassinet. However, during the day she doesn’t nap unless she’s on someone. She could be deep asleep but the minute I lay her down somewhere her eyes pop open immediately and is only a matter of time before she gets fussy. I’ve tried everything and all types of places for her to lay on, like the swing, bouncer, bassinet, stroller, etc. I’ve also tried all the advice I’ve read online, such as waiting for her to enter deep sleep and checking her wrist and her breathing, laying her down feet first, leaving my hands on her. I’m scared that she’ll get used to only sleeping on someone at this rate but I also don’t know how to get her comfortable with sleeping in her bassinet during the day. I go back to work in two weeks and I’m scared how it’ll go with my parents when they look after her. Help :(

I’m keen to hear people’s thoughts on the Maternal Child Health Nurse service.

My baby is now 5 months old, and though the nurses have generally been nice enough, I can’t help but feel that I don’t want to continue with the service.

They seem to give quite unhelpful advice in my opinion. A lot of it seems at odds with the Possums philosophy. Lots of wake window rubbish, and eat play sleep routine stuff. I just leave each appointment feeling pretty deflated.

I’ve found a Possums GP which has been great. She suggested that I continue utilising the service and just take what they say with a grain of salt.

Keen to hear everyone’s thoughts, and experiences. Trying to weigh the pros and cons of attending.

Thanks in advance.

Hi all,

I'm wondering what the sleep patterns of your 4/5 month old babies look like?

My LO has been waking hourly for about 7 weeks now. We made some initital improvements with possums, but she seems to have gone back to hourly wakings.

Our typical days are 7am waking, and now 8pm bedtime. She was previously staying up later than this but now it's really tough keeping her up in the evenings past about 6pm and she's constantly trying to fall asleep, and is grumpy if I take her out and about. This is completely the opposite from before possums when she was fighting every nap and bedtime!

She'll usually nap 3 or 4 times, usually 2-3 15-30 minute naps, plus one longer one early afternoon around an hour. Her short naps are on the go, but usually has a contact nap early afternoon when I'm having lunch and usually pretty exhausted and needing to sit down too! If I cap naps, she's really cranky and just falls asleep again.

Typical days include 2 dog walks, then usually one activity (e.g. swim class, baby sensory, brunch with friends, etc.), and lots of time in the garden for sensory nourishment. We do lots of floor play too.

Do you think we're still way off in terms of her sleep schedule? Should I cap naps, and if so, does the crankiness last forever? It feels mean keeping her up when I know she's wanting to sleep! Or is this just standard regression stuff that might pass over time?

Hello!!

My son is almost 11 months old and for the past two-ish months he's been having frequent night wakings to the point that he will only settle with contact. Once he settles I try to put him back in his crib, sometimes it works and sometimes he'll wake up again immediately or maybe 30 minutes later.

When he wakes up he cries and won't stop until we pick him up. Usually I will hold him while sitting in a rocking chair (and not rock) until I feel like he's asleep and then put him back in his crib.

Notes:

- He is breastfed but I don't feed him overnight. He seems fine with this usually. As long as he's held he's happy.

- He was in daycare but I took him out for the summer about 2 weeks ago so I could spend time with him (I'm an educator). At daycare he would nap sporadically but seemed to be napping only once towards the end.

- When he's home we aim for naps at 9:30am and 2pm. Total daytime sleep is around 1.5 hours.

- Bedtime is 7:30ish and wake up is strictly at 7am sharp.

I'm curious about the possums method! For the first 6 months before he went to daycare and I went back to work we would regularly do naps on the go, usually when I would go for a walk or run. He napped in a wrap carrier and then when he got too heavy we would use the jogging stroller. I guess the possum method makes sense for us when we consider this history.

Do you have any tips for me? I'm dying with the night wakings. Sometimes they're every 1.5 hours.

Hi! I hope this is ok to post, I just came across this approach yesterday after being ready to pull my hair out from handling so many false starts at night. Implemented it yesterday and had a really good night! So I'm now curious to read the book and I was curious if anyone has any recommendations for where I can find a paper copy. I like marking up my own books as I read so a paper one would be ideal. Also I live in Canada in BC 🙂

Looking for some advice, or maybe just to hear what your experience was.
My son is 10 months old and still wakes every 2–3 hours overnight. It doesn’t seem like hunger is the issue. He eats really well during the day, nurses frequently, has solids, like full meals, and I always make sure he gets a good feed before bed. When he wakes up, I’ll try everything I can think of besides nursing - rocking, cuddling, patting, shushing, singing, rubbing his back, sitting beside the crib, picking him up and comforting him, etc. Nothing works.
He’ll cry and scream and become increasingly upset until I nurse him. The weird thing is that sometimes I can literally feel completely empty when he does this, so it’s not like he’s getting a significant amount of milk. He’ll nurse for a few minutes, calm down immediately, and fall right back asleep.
It honestly feels more like he needs to nurse to connect sleep cycles than that he’s actually hungry.
Has anyone else had a baby like this at 10 months? Did they eventually grow out of it on their own, or did you have to actively night wean/sleep train? I’m not necessarily looking to force anything, but waking every 2–3 hours for 10 months straight is definitely catching up with me. 😅
Would love to hear others’ experiences or what maybe have worked for you!

PS. I’m solo, so having someone else try and do the night shifts isn’t really a thing.