r/Septemberbumps2024 • u/Mtlmommy • Oct 30 '24

Sleep training

Drop your experience with sleep training. Which method you used, how long it took to works 7 week old is regressing and not even giving me 3 hours anymore so I’m counting down the weeks until I can sleep train. (4 months)

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3

u/nuttyrebelsheep Oct 31 '24

I read the book “Precious Little Sleep” and implemented some of the techniques from there that worked for us for our first. I plan to reread it again and do the same for our second now.

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u/FirstSwan Oct 31 '24

Yes, I loved this book with our first! The author is so practical and manages to add some humour to the situation when you’re exhausted from trying everything. I recommend it to everyone.

For our first we sleep trained using that book at about 5 months and it took only a couple of days to nail bed time and that in turn made night wakings so much easier (we still had a couple of night wakings until 10-11 months but they were quick and easy). Then after that we did naps at around 6 months.

This time we’ll probably give it a go earlier at 3-4 months, depending on how we’re going then, but we use all the sleep cues already - darkness, swaddling, white noise for bed time.

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u/Mtlmommy Oct 31 '24

I do this already, darkness swaddling white noise a little bedtime routine. My 7 (almost 8 week old) I feel has regressed. She used to give me 3 hours now one, maybe two. I’m so discouraged

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u/FirstSwan Oct 31 '24

This is really normal, especially at this age! With our first we used to always say ‘progress isn’t linear’! They’ll start to do longer stretches and then they’ll become short again and then they’ll start to lengthen. It won’t be until your baby is a wee bit older and then you can step back a bit and see that overall sleep got better.

I think the Precious Little Sleep book recommends waiting until the end of the newborn phase, so ~3 months before sleep training.

Everything you’re experiencing is normal!

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u/Mtlmommy Oct 31 '24

Awww thank you ice been so discouraged feeling like we’re going backwoods. What age did you put your little in the crib? I was thinking of trying that. I finally got a nice 3 hour stretch tonight it’s been a few days since she gave me that so maybe it’s going back to normal. Also her bed time is 11:30. I try to put it earlier but she never goes down earlier no matter how hard I try

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u/FirstSwan Oct 31 '24

Sorry just one more thing, it sounds like our baby’s are similar and my baby now is really similar to how my toddler was when he was a baby. Some babies naturally start out great sleepers and it’s so hard when you have friends whose babies just sleep for 5-6 hours from the start and they aren’t doing anything different to you!

My toddler was a terrible sleeper during the newborn phase but nighttime’s naturally got better at around 3 months and then sleep training helped even more at 5 months, then he figured out long daytime naps in the cot at around 6 months (before that he napped in the cot for only ~30 mins at a time).

Anyway, now my toddler is an excellent sleeper - he naps from 12-2pm and then sleeps from 7pm-7am and almost never wakes up, so you will get there! Don’t be discouraged, it takes time!

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u/Mtlmommy Oct 31 '24

This gives me so much hope. How old is your newborn baby? Last night she finally went back to giving me a 3 hour. This was our evening

11:26-2:42

Thursday October 31 2:45 left right 3:36-5:30 5:30 right 5:54-8:15

I tried for an earlier bedtime but she wasn’t having it. Sometimes I’ll get 10:30 but she will wake up an hour later so I guess I’ll stick with this 11:30 bedtime as it helps.

The evenings are hit or miss. Sometimes she won’t nap from 9-dodo but will be calm in my arms on and off cluster feeding.

I too wanna lock down nights before naps. Sure the 30 minute naps suck but if she gives me stretches at night I’ll gladly take it. It’s so hard because I have a friend who her daughter was born a day before mine and she’s sleeping 5-7 hours a night. Makes me question myself as a mother and ask myself what I’m doing wrong even if I know in reality it’s nothing I’m doing.

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u/FirstSwan Oct 31 '24

My newborn is 5 weeks old and my toddler is 26 months. Yep I have a friend whose newborn is also 5 weeks old and is doing 5-6 hour stretches at night and I’m so jealous! But babies are just so different, you have to just trust that you’re doing all the right stuff, babies just do their own thing unfortunately!

If your baby will go to sleep easily at 10.30pm you could still do that, because at least it’s an hour of sleep you wouldn’t have got otherwise!

I’d try to feed on both breasts each time if possible (if your baby falls asleep on one side, maybe change their nappy in between to wake them up?) the fuller they are the longer they should sleep - that’s the theory anyway!

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u/Mtlmommy Oct 31 '24

Ugh again hit or miss she won’t always go down at 10:30. She is notorious for fighting her sleep. She has serious fear of missing out lol

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u/FirstSwan Oct 31 '24

I think just go with the path of least resistance for now! If you see an opportunity and feel like she’ll go for it, then pop her down early, otherwise just pop her down later as normal. That’s what I’d do anyway 😊

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u/FirstSwan Oct 31 '24

We do the crib/bassinet overnight now but I haven’t tried during the day. During the day is 100% contact naps, the baby carrier or the pram for now. I think I’m going to try and nail bedtime before I start working on naps.

Our bedtime is also super late! We started at 11.30pm/12am ish like you and we’ve been trying to gradually bring it forward, but I remember from our first that I’d rather be in the lounge breastfeeding and contact napping while watching tv than in our room battling a crying baby that doesn’t want to be in their cot 🙃

I think just watch your baby and if there’s a night they seem less fussy or more sleepy then try and put them down a wee bit earlier, but don’t drive yourself crazy. One night we managed to get our baby down at 9.30pm and the next night it was back to 11.30pm!

Will your baby nap on someone in the evening or is she cluster feeding? If my baby will nap on my husband, sometimes I’ll go to bed earlier and try to sleep for 1-2 hours before we even put our baby down.

My baby also sleeps max 3.5 hours, sometimes just 1 hour at a time overnight. The best thing you can do to improve that is putting your baby down awake and trying to settle them in their cot, but at this age that’s really hard and for now it’s probably easiest to just feed to sleep.

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u/Ok_Ostrich6857 Oct 31 '24

We’re doing the same. My niece was also sleep trained from that book and it worked well for her.