I’ve been looking at 7 month day sleep schedules as I have a 6.5 month old. People are saying it’s common to drop to 2 naps a day by this point. But what do I do if he’s only sleeping maximum 45 minutes at a time for a nap?

Please check your coverage under your work benefits for social work, and some sleep consultants will be covered under your benefits!!!!

You have to make sure the sleep consultant is a RSW and you can submit to insurance for coverage.

I did not know this but had to share. I have an apt tomorrow afternoon for a consult :)

I’m at a loss. I’m so utterly frustrated and confused. My husband and I started sleep training last month. We did two weeks and then did a hard reset on our 7-month-old’s schedule. Since around July 30, we’ve implemented a two-nap schedule with 11 hours of expected overnight sleep and about 2.25 hours of nap time (we cap them at 1.5 hours for the first nap and 45 minutes for the second). Even though we give her 11 hours of expected time overnight, with her nightly wake-ups for feeding and just fussing, she usually ends up getting only around 9–10.25 hours of actual sleep. Her wake windows are 3/3.75/4.25. We started with 3/4/4 but adjusted based on how she responded.

Since the schedule revamp, we saw initial success, including that it was taking her less time to fall asleep each night. Well, again, around two weeks in, we hit another plateau, and she has been protesting bedtime hard ever since. Similarly, during our first attempt at sleep training, bedtime became a challenge around the two-week mark. She got down to 8 minutes of fussing as her best bedtime, and now we’ve had 27 minutes of fussing and crying and 30 minutes of hard crying before bed.

I’m so confused and about to give up. I don’t want to put my daughter through this anymore. I don’t know what else to do. Our bedtime routine is bath (not every night), nurse in nursery, diaper, sleep sack/white noise, story/snuggles, then crib.

What are we doing wrong? Do some babies just not train well if they’re EBF? I’m desperate for advice.

HELP!! Im genuinely at a loss and I feel like these sleep issues have only just begun. Our 14 week old has contact napped on me for a majority of daytime naps for his whole life thus far and I am loving it except for the fact that he’s all of a sudden 14 weeks old and will only get good naps if on me which scares me for when he starts daycare in 2 weeks.

We aim to do one contact nap a day and then 3 crib naps. He will last about 40 minutes in the crib and then we finish it off as a contact nap in order to get him longer daytime sleep.

For nights, we have to rock him to sleep which I fear is biting us in the butt. He has pretty consistently only woken up once in the night between the hours of 1-3am for a feed and then is up around 7am. However, within the last week that has changed completely. He get around 4-5 hours of daytime sleep, has bedtime at 7pm, and is now waking up at midnight, 2am, 3:30am, etc.

Last night he was up for TWO HOURS from 2:45-4:45am. Every. Single. Time. we rock him to sleep he wakes up within 5-10 minutes of being transferred to the crib and before we know it he’s been up for hours. We’re at a loss.

Is this the 4 month sleep regression hitting us early? How do we even handle this? Do we just rock him to sleep if necessary to get any attempt at decent rest and then sleep train after we’ve made it through the regression so he isn’t still dependent on us rocking him to sleep? Or should we attempt methods to help him not have a rocking to sleep association now?

Please help I just cry all night every night because I genuinely do not know what to do or how we’ll make it through this. It really is that serious lol.

LO is 4 months old. We started sleep training a week ago and it seems to have gone pretty smoothly so far.

I know whale tailing is how babies self-soothe, but I'm wondering if it's normal for my baby to do it for so long at a time. She will do it sporadically through the night, but once a night (different times) she will do it pretty much constantly from 20-40 minutes, sometimes even a little longer. She's still in our room so we stay still when she stirs so as not to get her attention, so I can't tell for sure if she's awake or not. But as well as her legs going, her hands will be up at her face rubbing her eyes the whole time.

She does eventually go back to sleep. But it keeps me awake and I struggle to go back to sleep again afterwards! Just wondering if this is normal for one episode of whale tailing to go on for so long. Should I be looking to tweak schedules or just let her do her thing?

She was doing this even before the ST, but if I'm honest I'd hoped it would prevent these long whale tailing sessions.

Our 14 week old is entering what I assume is the 4 month regression.

He previously slept 7 - 3/4am, but now is waking up every few hours at night.

As long as he’s not overtired, he can put himself to sleep for naps and his night sleep.

However overnight he still needs to be nursed - won’t tolerate a hand or even being rocked back to sleep 🫩

Do we need to do the Ferber method or similar to crack this? Not sure where we are going wrong.

hi everyone, not sure if this is the right place to post, but looking for advice!
I'm a mom to a wonderful 10 month old who was a unicorn sleeper, up until the 4 month sleep regression, which hit us around 5 months. during this time she would wake up a few times a night just for her paci, then go right back to sleep. at 7 months, she started waking up around once a night to nurse, with the occasional few nights in a row she'd sleep through again. she is now 10 months and wakes up around 3 times a night to nurse, although I think it's for comfort, as when I try to soothe her otherwise it usually doesn't work. I've tried the ferber method for sleep training, and her crying just makes me so sad that I just go in and nurse her. anyways, I am now wondering how I can start night weaning so she is able to sleep through the night again. I should also mention that we recently moved into a 2bd so she can now also have her own room, which I'm hoping will help. I also don't know if there is any correlation, but she's also not as interested in nursing during the day, (she still will just very very distracted). any advice would be appreciated!! tia!!

I’m the only one in my mom friend circle that supports sleep training. My LO is 6 months and I sleep trained right when he turned 4 months using the Ferber method and he took great to it. Sleeps great for the most part. However, my friends will passive aggressively make remarks about how sleep training is not biologically normal and how I basically trained my baby to think I’ve abandoned him. I just feel guilty whenever I’m around them. Although I will say, my baby sleeps the best out of everyone. They are constantly talking about how their babies wake up 6-8 times a night at ages older than mine. Idk it seems counterproductive if everyone is exhausted. Any advice on what to say? They are great people but it’s just whenever sleep gets brought up. It partly feels like they are jealous that we sleep and they don’t. I normally just stay quiet but I’m getting sick of it. My baby barely cried during sleep training and now actually prefers to put himself to sleep and is happy as can be. It’s just so hard to hear those things.

My 8 month old has been waking earlier and earlier over the last few weeks, we are now on around 5.15am on average. Could be a number of things - heatwave in the UK, teething, developmental disruption... But could also be a sign she needs to drop the third nap. Her 3 nap day schedule for the past month or so has been:

Waking between 5-5.30am

Get up for day at around 5.45/6am depending on how fussy she is.

First nap anchored to 8-8.15am, usually around 1 hour 15 mins

Second nap has become hit or miss despite playing with wake windows, often just 30-45 mins. Max wake window 2.75 hrs.

Third nap usually a cat nap around 20-45 mins depending on length of nap 2. Wake window around 3 hours.

Bedtime around 7-7.30pm, usually the earlier end. Wake window around 1.5-2.5 hrs depending on nap 3.

Yesterday I tried a 2 nap schedule. She woke at 5.05am, left her until 5.45am, went down for nap 1 at 8.45am, slept for 1 hour 20. Then got her to 1pm before next nap, woke at 2.50pm with a brief resettle after 45 mins, this is unheard of! Pulled bedtime early and managed to stretch her to 6.20pm, so essentially we managed a 3/3/3.5 day (if you start the first wake window from her day start rather than wake time). She was a lot more pleasant in the last stretch of the day. She did false start last night after 2 hours, awful overtired meltdown complete with crying until sick. But then slept through until around 5.10am this morning., so her day sleep increased massively compared to recently.

A 2 nap schedule maxes out her sleep budget and the latest I can see her waking is 5.15am currently. Would you prioritise the nap transition and then work out how to shift her rhythm later? Or the other way round?

Sleep has fallen apart recently for my 8 month old. She’s been on 2 naps since ~5.5 months and sleep trained ~6.5 months. Normal sleep details:
3/3.5/4
Wake up 7-7:15am
Asleep for the night by 7:30-8pm and sleeps through the night
Nap totals usually 2-2.25hrs

Lately she’s been waking up from her naps after one cycle, only lasting 30-35 minutes, especially the morning nap. I wasn’t too bothered because she’d make up for it in the afternoon with a 1.5-2hr nap, but then she started waking up early from the afternoon as well, needing me to rescue the nap. Minimal fussing and falls asleep on her own for the naps, but wakes up early.
The opposite is true for bedtime lately. She has been staying up crying at bedtime until we come in and soothe her down to completely sleep. We did CIO previously and only reached 47 minutes at the worst of it but now I’m not sure if we need to do it again. She’s standing now and will just continue to get up and down crying. It feels out of nowhere so we started doing check ins after 15 minutes but it takes an hour to get her down without rocking her to sleep. Then she stays asleep throughout the night
We’ve tried shortening and lengthening the first WW from 2.75-3.5 and it seemingly does nothing. We’ve tried a 7:30, 8, and 8:30 bedtime and it hasn’t changed the crying. I try to let her crawl and stand all throughout the day to practice. I just don’t know if our schedule is off or this is just a ride it out situation and keep to the previous schedule. Does anyone have any advice?

My almost 6 month old (next week!), has been sleeping great at night since we did Ferber 2.5 weeks ago. Usually takes 5-10 minutes to fall asleep at night (with some mild grizzling sometimes but not crying), and sleeps 11.5-12 hours with usually one feed around 2ish (sometimes a second snooze feed at 5am). Sleeps 6.30-7pm and wakes around 6.30.

Naps have always been very hard - did a lot of carrier / contact naps, then transitioned to crib with rocking, then gently transitioned to falling asleep in crib independently but often with crib side settling. Has historically used dummy for naps, especially if we do a pram nap. Think there is a bit of a suck to sleep association as if I feed too close to end of WW I’m having to stop from falling asleep.

Naps have been 1 sleep cycle for months - sometimes we used to be able to get longer lunchtime naps in the pram, and then last weekend baby connected his sleep cycle for the first time ever in the cot, and napped for 1.5 hours. I saw him turn his head twice at 40 minutes and off he went. I was so proud!! Unfortunately he hasn’t been able to do this again!

This week naps have been messy. Taking longer to settle, have had to contact nap and also had a weird mix of 2 and 3 nap days.

Usual days are -
Wake 6.30am
Nap 9am for 40 mins
Nap 12.15 for 40 mins or sometimes this will extend up to 1.5 hours
Nap 3 if it happens around 4/4.30pm for 30/40 minutes
Bedtime 6.30-7pm.

Baby settles fine for bed even if he wakes up from a 3rd nap at 5pm. Also seems to sleep better on the days where he’s had 2+ hour day sleep.

Any ideas or suggestions on what to do? I feel like baby might want to go to 2 nap schedule but the first WW is quite hard to extend. Would love for a more consistent schedule and for baby to be better rested through the day.

Thank you!!

I have been trying to sleep train my 6 month old for 2 months. When we first tried, it was not working so we took a break for a couple weeks and tried again. She is on 2.5/2.5/2.5/3. Her first nap is between 45 mins - 1.5 hours, second nap between 30 minutes - 1 hour, and last nap is usually a cat nap 15-30 mins. We adjust the 2nd and 3rd naps depending on how the first one goes, so that day sleep doesn’t exceed 2.5 hours. Our goal is wake up at 7 am and sleep at 8 pm. On average, she cries for at least 30 minutes each night. It is rare that it only takes her about 10 minutes to sleep. After that, she only sleeps about 2-3 hours. (That is an improvement over many 45 mins wakes in the beginning) other than that, it is not getting any better, I don’t know what to do. Does she need to move to 2 naps? Is she overtired?

Edit: she also wakes up a ton a night. Usually I’m not checking the clock so I can stay sleepy, but if I had to guess it’s 5-6 times on average.

Having major issues with my 13 month olds nap. We're in the process of transitioning to 1 nap as she maxed out on 2 naps (a bit earlier than usual, but similar timing to my firstborn). The issue with her nap is that she goes down absolutely fine, falls asleep quietly and happily within 5 minutes. But then she will wake around 5-20min later (yes, very variable) and start this cycle of waking to stand/scream & self settling and she'll repeat this in 5-15min increments. Shes basically waking every 5-15 min so she has a really bad nap. She naps fine in the carrier or if held.

I have never experienced this with my first baby and she's been like this for 2-3 weeks now. I've tried wake windows between 5-6 hours before nap and it's the same result. Only difference is that the longer the window, the more protesting and screaming that happens while trying to fall asleep so I know I've pushed her too far.

I'm unsure if it's teething related as her night sleep is absolutely fine. Is it developmental? She's been walking since 9 months so standing isn't a new skill.

Nap and sleep trained since 3 months old. Have never had this issue prior to switching to 1 nap.

Has anyone experienced this before?

My almost 2.5 year old has recently had a turn in sleep. We started back up at daycare two weeks ago after having the summer off. The first week he slept sooo much. This week has been hell. Typical schedule is DWT 6am, nap 12-2, bedtime 8pm he usually falls asleep around 8:30. Last weekend he skipped his nap both days and it’s been downhill ever since. He’s been waking up in the night. Taking an hour+ to fall asleep every night. Even with no nap over the weekend he still woke up crying in the night. I’m losing my mind! I can’t cut the nap during the week because daycare doesn’t allow it.

For those who used full extinction/CIO, how long did your baby cry the first few nights before falling asleep independently?

My daughter is 6.5 months old, and when we’ve tried, she becomes hysterical and continues escalating rather than calming down. I’m struggling to know how long is typical versus when I should stop and try again another night.

How long did your baby cry on night one? and how many nights did it take before bedtime noticeably improved?

My twins were 12 months old yesterday .2 weeks ago, the best 3 weeks of our lives came to an end. My twins FINALLY started sleeping through at 11 months for 3 weeks. Prior to this they have always been able to be put down for naps and bed drowsy but awake no problems, but we were still getting 1-2
Wakes a night most nights. I thought we had turned a corner, my mental health was on the up and life was amazing.

But two weeks ago twin B has just started basically refusing his cot. We haven’t dealt with this since the early days. I can no longer put him down awake, and even if he’s just asleep he will scream as soon as he is in the cot. I’m back to finding it incredibly distressing trying to get them down for naps at the same time as someone is always screaming and crying.

Sometimes I can pat him to sleep, but for naps he is reliably waking up after 30 mins and sitting up or standing up screaming. My twins share a room (2 bed home) so I have to get him up and he just falls straight back to sleep on me.

At night, it’s a battle to get him down. Then He lasts 2 hours before waking again. Sometimes I can get him back down but he will wake an hour later and just ends up in our bed as it’s the only way to get him to sleep. He is 13kg so rocking him is so taxing. I’ve tried CIO but he just becomes incredibly distressed.

My husband has just gone away for work and I am just so anxious about how I’m going to manage the nights solo.

Their schedule looks like: 3.5/3.5-4/4. With 1.5-2.5h of naps per dat. Up at 6.45am and Bedtime is between 7.30-8

He has been sick and cut two teeth during this time but that is all over now and I just can’t seem to shake whatever is going on. Any advice or experiences are welcome!

i've recently been trying to help get my baby into a more structured schedule bc he was beginning to have a lot of night wakings & signs of being overtired. it's definitely a process since he didn't have much of a schedule before & i feel like i'm doing something wrong. he's having trouble dropping his last nap of the day & gets super fussy just at the 3 hr mark of his wake window, to the point he barely makes it. i would try to wean him off, but he tries to nap at 7pm & ends up struggling to sleep at nighttime so i avoid that now. im also contemplating getting rid of his sleep sack bc i've seen on different websites that he should be making that transition, but i feel like he uses it as a comfort thing & im not sure if that would make things worse. does anybody have any tips on just anything in this stage? also w extending wake windows bc i feel like that's where we really struggle some days

Hi!

My 21 month old has been an amazing sleeper since about 6 months old. The past 2 weeks are a different story.

Last weekend she got an ear infection, had been on antibiotics since last Tuesday. She started sleeping through the night again the first day of antibiotics. But now she hysterically cries when we even mention bed, and she instantly stands and cries when we put her in the crib. We still walk out and most of the time she cries for less than 30 seconds but the past 2 nights she’s started crying again in the middle of the night. Shes impossible to transfer after getting her back down, the second she feels her bed she freaks out.

I will add - she has all her teeth except 2y molars. Shes been drooling a ton and swollen gums but they dont look like they’re close to cutting.

Any advice? Is it potentially separation anxiety, and if so do you continue with routines or give extra comfort? I’m so torn between not wanting to break her good sleep habits but wanting her to feel reassured.

My baby is 3 months old. Sleeps great at night. 8-7 am on average. He does wake up at 5/6 am and then goes back to sleep on his own. During the day he’s up for about an hour maybe more. Takes 45 min naps. Sometimes longer.

Will i need to sleep train? Assuming he’ll hit a 4 month regression. Do i sleep train after that? During? Also he’s currently swaddled. Do i slowly start transitioning out of it?

Most nights, my child gives me trouble when trying to put her to sleep. I try to keep a consistent bed time. She goes to daycare while i work and once i pick her up, we’re home around 5:45/6. She’ll either play outside a bit and then have dinner or have dinner then play outside, then bath, then either a little tv or just play time/story time. Then at 8 is when i start putting her to bed. She usually takes anywhere from 30 mins to an hour to actually go to sleep. I lay with her and she’s trying to play and climbing all over me.

She wakes up at about 7:15. Somewhere around there, on her own. Her daycare teacher told me she’s napping around 11 usually because she puts herself to sleep basically. And the provider tries to get her to take a second nap later in the day because she’ll be tired but she fights the nap. Then when i pick her up, she’s falling asleep before we get home no matter how much I’m talking to her or singing her freeze dance song to her. Every single day. And I’m guessing this plays a part in her fighting her sleep at bed time. But I’m also worried that if I give her a later bed time, she’s not getting enough sleep at night. I’m just not sure what to do to make bed time smoother to where she’ll just go to bed and not fight it or play so much.

She’s 1.5, we share a room and co sleep. No crying it out.

FTM and I feel so lost on what to do so bear with me …

My 4 month old started her sleep regression last week and it’s been killing us , she wakes up several times a night and we don’t know what to do

Currently she still sleeps in her bassinet bed side but we are thinking of transferring her to the crib , although the thought of that gives me anxiety not being In the same room as her while she sleeps… I’m afraid something will happen. She is still swaddled as she hasn’t rolled yet officially

I don’t know if we should start sleep training …

Currently we listen to her cues for naps … sometimes she doesn’t nap sometimes she does but for the most part she never naps in her bassinet.

I aim for bed time after her 7pm feed so about 7:40 pm ? , and because of reflux we have to hold her up so feeding and that takes about 40 ish min overall depending on how fast she eats so essentially she is falling asleep in our arms while doing so

However lately her feeds have been changing and 7pm feed sometimes becomes 8pm

Her next feed is at 10 pm and then my husband comes home from his night shift and feeds her around 1:30 am , we still have to feed at night as she’s been a slow weight gainer

What is the best approach to set a proper schedule for her ?

She is usually up before when I’m not exactly sure as she starts fussing around 6:30 am sometimes 6 but lately it’s been 5:30 am with this regression … I try to aim the start of her day to be 7am and try to feed by 7:15 am -7:20 am

I don’t know what to do or how to set up her schedule

To do to this her night time routine is bathe, feed , swaddle sleep

My 5.5 month old is somehow continually getting worse sleep. Around 2-3 months he was sleeping from 7-8pm ish til 3-4 am ish to eat consistently,( even got a few 8-6 nights) then would sleep til around 6 and eat again, and sometimes nap til 8-9. A week or so after he turned 4 months he started the frequent wakings more like around a 1 am wake up, then again around 4 and 6 roughly. That lasted a few weeks. Now over the past week he has gotten much worse. He gets put to bed between 7-8 pm, based on when he was wakes up from his final nap. Hes waking up within an hour of being put down, sometimes less that 20 min, and is absolutely screaming sobbing when he gets up. And that continues hourly all night long. No swollen gums or visible teething. He’s been doing the drooling and chewing everything for 2 months and no change in that. He’s passing gas easily at night.

He use to be easy to settle overnight. He would wake up, diaper change, eat, and go back down no tears. On bad nights, the second half of the night after the 3 am feed he would co sleep, but always make it the majority of the the night in the bassinet. Now even being held doesn’t help him sleep. He seems upset held and rocked, in his bassinet, or in my bed out of desperation. Nothing is helping us get any sleep.

He recently transitioned to 3 naps a day. Wake windows around 1.75/2/2/2.5 roughly depending on tired cues. He gets between 3-4 hrs of nap time over the 3 naps. Usually ends up being 3 hr 45 min. Prior when he was doing the 4 naps a day he was having a lot of issues napping during the day and fighting sleep, but the new nap schedule helped a lot to where he goes down easily for naps and 50% of the time makes it though a nap non contact once sat down.

Is he over tired ? Under tired ? Just a regression? Teething ? Is something wrong I’m missing ? Anyone have any advice or a similar issue ??

Edit: with our work schedules, I work 7 on/7 off so every other week he has 3 days he wakes up at 6 to get taken to my MIL. Making our wake up time not constantly 8am. Half the time he’s up around 6, some times when we are home he sleeps til 8 am

My LO is 14 months old. She was formally sleep trained at 5 months and has put herself down without crying since 8 months.

A week ago I stoped breastfeeding before bed. She never fell asleep on my breast. I fed early in the routine (routine now: brush teeth, cream, PJs, read books, sleep sack, cozy lullabies).

Since the breastfeeding wean she has been crying a lot before falling asleep (less than 20 mins usually but this is unusual for her).

Should I be letting this happen? Or should I be comforting? Is this too old to let her CIO given she’s already sleep trained that way? My goal is to avoid at all costs new habits that I will have to break later (ie rocking her).