Sleep training

^^^ this

never thought to see if there was a sleep training thread on ILX. Here's what I just posted to some private facebook group:

Hello, Dad here looking for some help for my wife and our baby Opal. Sorry for this epic post but this seems like a great community and I thought I’d reach out.

Opal has been a “spirited”(fussy!) baby since birth. Initially she’d only sleep on one of us, she hated the bassinet no matter what we tried. We moved onto careful co-sleeping (mattress on floor) and that was ok for a little bit but eventually Opal would just be up every 20 minutes kicking and fussing and crying, so nobody was getting any sleep.

So around 4mo on the recommendation of our pediatrician we did a full cry it out training in her crib in the nursery. Everybody said “oh it will take 2 nights, maybe 3”. Over a week later she was finally sleeping through the night, however she would cry and scream every time she went down, and she would only nap while being carried outside in an ergo…no crib, no stroller, just walking outside, which got very trying for my wife. A month later she was still screaming to sleep and not napping well.

SO, around 5 months and a week we hired a sleep consultant. She gave us good tips and helped come up with a Ferber-style interval training program to try to fix nights and get naps going and it was pretty successful. Within a few weeks she was going down around 6:30 and sleeping until 6-ish, with 1 night feeding around 1 or 2 am. She finally started napping however never long enough.

The real problem through all of this is even when it was going well, she would cry and scream her head off overtime she went down, every nap, every evening! Usually less than 15 minutes (if more in the evening we’d soothe her without picking up and that would work).

So we felt like it was working and was trying to accept the fact that maybe she’s one of those babies that just has to cry like crazy every time they go to sleep. But then the sleeping habits started to get worse again.

We hit 8 months and think we’re dealing with an 8 month sleep regression (and it wasn’t perfect before that), plus she’s definitely teething, and maybe transitioning naps. Then last saturday was daylight savings time and she got a cold this week, so it’s been really bad!

We know the cold will pass but we’re trying to figure out why her naps are so short, often we’ll put her down and she’ll cry for 15 minutes, sleep for 20, then wake up crying.

I’m not sure what other information is helpful, she doesn’t have any sleep crutches (we think), she nurses a while before she goes down. We have a simple ritual and there are days where she’ll have been up for a few hours, she’ll rub her eyes and yawn, we put on the sound machine, read a little bit, sing a song, she seems sleepy, we put her down awake…and soon as we leave she cries for 15 minutes. We get her home and she sleeps in her crib for every nap. Her third nap is often nonexistent, it seems like she’s transitioning, but the first two naps are still often really short. We feel like we’re struggling with several issues at once and not sure what else to try.

Sounds like you're having it pretty rough, my sympathies. It's awful when teething & a cold & everything hits all at once. Our daughter is 20 months now and she's always been a terrible daytime napper, taking ages to go down and then waking like clockwork after 25 minutes. I think she was a bit older than yours, maybe a year, when we spoke to a sleep consultant and really tried to sort it, with modest results. In theory the problem was that she wasn't connecting sleep cycles so we had to try and help her do that - in practice that involved being in with her and, before she was due to wake up (either by timing or by her breathing becoming louder/shallower), starting to 'sh-pat' - rub her back (she was on her front by then) and go 'shhhh', and keep doing it as she woke up in the hope that a) she would go back to sleep and b) longer term she would managed to do it without assistance. We had some success with a), b) not so much. She did start to nap for longer but we pretty much always stayed in with her, maybe she did go a bit longer without assistance or go back easier if she did wake but we never achieved the dream of getting quality down time while she slept for an hour or more unassisted. Writing this it's incredible how much I seem to have forgotten given that it seemed to occupy our every waking moment at the time! I think at the beginning we really did have to persist with the sh-patting, even if it seemed like she was wide awake & upset and would never go back she eventually would, even if it took another 10-15 mins; gradually it got better till you could rest your hand on her just in in case but she barely woke or went back easily if she did.

thank you, that's interesting, but goes against some of the theories of sleep training, where you're creating a crutch and she won't be able to go back to sleep without you there. We do that at night if she wakes up and screams for over 15 minutes, go in with the interval check and pat and shh, but she's too alert during naps. If she even goes down soon as we walk in the room she lifts her head alert and crying!

Dan, firstly sorry to hear this, sounds terrible and have seen friends and relatives going through the same, takes such a toll on everyone.

I have an odd perspective on this as my wife is Chinese and first few years of our children's lives were in China with her family. Coming back to the UK we were surprised at all the sleep training stuff our friends and my family were talking about, this is completely unheard-of in China, but then we found out they kept their babies in different bedrooms, structured days to what seemed like an insane amount, followed huge lists of arcane, often contradictory rules - it all sounds like following an instruction manual for an exotic pet, not doing the very normal thing people have done since the start of time. Not saying it was easy for us, anything but, but I'm not sure how it's such a traumatic experience for all of us over here when we are awash with people who are supposed to be studying it. I'm not really a "wisdom of the east" guy usually, but really sounds like we've got something wrong in this particular case.

So anyway, a hippyish friend has said that our experiences tie in to this - http://www.continuum-concept.org/cc_defined.html - cannot vouch for it personally at all, but she swears by it, though it looks like a complete lifestyle transplant for a couple of years at least. Worth a look if you are desperate at least.

thank you, that's interesting, but goes against some of the theories of sleep training, where you're creating a crutch and she won't be able to go back to sleep without you there.

yeah well that's more or less correct; although we haven't really chanced it she probably could go for an hour or more without us there now, but that's after the best part of a year and dropping down to one nap.

Continuum concept, attachment parenting, gentle parenting, I would imagine many western parents looking for answers have come across those or similar ideas. That's more the route we've gone down, partly from inclination and partly because although naps were bad she wasn't really much of a crying baby at all & it really would have felt wrong. At the risk of sounding judgmental I do think we in the west are too quick to try and force routines & separate sleeping - I think we can all agree that capitalism is the real enemy here. (otoh I'm sure not every Chinese baby sleeps happily through the night either!) At a certain point I'm sure you have to try whatever works for you as well as for her and it sounds like you've reached that point, Dan, I hope you find something that works.

To be clear our older son didn't sleep through the night until he was nearly 2, but it was alright, he needed a feed or to be held, we'd all be back to sleep within half an hour. But when I hear my sister describe nights taking care of her baby it sounds like a nightmare.

we were theoretically ok w/ attachment parenting but it didn't work. Our baby was so fussy that she wouldn't even sleep, she'd kick and scream through the night causing neither her or my wife to get any sleep, which just wasn't tenable.

now both her and I have a bad cold so it's a bit of a mess around here!

We thought we were finally getting somewhere with nights - more or less sleeping through till 4am - then she got a cold and it all went downhill. That was over a month ago and she's only just getting better!

colds will always be rough. best to embrace chaos and regroup after recovery. there's truth in some of the continuum concept stuff, but their description of western hospital birth is outdated. for example, I think most hospitals do skin-to-skin contact immediately after birth now, if it's safe. the appeal to evolution within the text also feels a bit overplayed. we would not have evolved into today's low infant mortality rates without the modern hospital birth. for the whole population, there must be an optimum somewhere between the hospital and continuum concept birthing center approach. on a case by case basis, I would never judge someone for doing whatever works for them (if it's safe for all of course).

we did sleep training at around 6 months. I stayed up for all of one night, soothing the baby every so often but never picking him up. he has slept through the night (when not sick) ever since. lately he wakes up around 4:30 or 5AM, though, which is a separate problem. strength to all struggling with it itt. I'll be joining you once again here shortly.

I finally read that link about the Continuum Concept. As mentioned above, I think conventional wisdom of western practices now are certainly somewhere in between. My take on these things is that there is no one right answer and you have to pick and choose and see what works. Our hospital was very much about skin-to-skin.

As I mentioned above, we would've been happy to follow that concept, or "attachment parenting", but our baby wouldn't let us! I've read a lot about fussy/"spirited" babies, that something like 17% of babies are just born wired a certain way where she was very very hard to please. We were forced into sleep training as the only way to allow her to get any sleep...and likewise us.

Back to the continuum concept link, we do have scheduled naps, and somewhat scheduled feedings, but based on her needs as well. I think that page presents two extremes that don't really represent the reality. Yes, cry it out and interval checks and things like are needed, but I wouldn't say we "belittle or punish" her for crying!

I am possibly about to embark on some kind of sleep training. after half term. and after the teeth are through. I am dubious that anything will work but I gotta try something. we still rock him to sleep and he's almost a toddler.

Since the posts above…she’s been great. Around 1 year she finally got good. There were some bumps but for the most part she sleeps from 7:30 pm to 7:00 am give or take whiteout too much fuss. And 1 nap at 12:30 which was sometimes over 2 hours but a few weeks ago she hit a regression caused by mental leaps and only sleeps around an hour. Sometimes less. She doesn’t scream but she lies in bed singing and telling stories. I think her mind is just a mile a minute.

Still I consider ourselves lucky after a hellish first year. Being forced into training has gotten us to a point where she’s now a better sleeper than most. At least at night and her nap. She still won’t just nap anywhere.

With ophelia it went so easy, but elisabeth was three hellish years. I was a zombie. Literally didn't know if it was day/night. I wonder now if I just should have done co-sleeping. I feel guilty. :-(

I never got into co-sleeping despite trying it as the only way to get sleep some nights.

So with my eldest, turns out in retrospect he was a great sleeper. We had an awful first 3 months with him, colic/awful screaming most nights, but it eventually settled and he was sleeping through, 12 hours, by about 9 months. Because I still thought of him as a bad sleeper every little blip worried me that he was regressing or whatever. At one year he had a period of being awake about 2-4am and would only be rocked and couldn't be put down! But he's a super sleeper, has been since he got over that.

The baby wasn't so bad to start with and is veeeery slowly improving but every tiny thing throws him. The worst issue is the rocking to sleep. I'm sure with the eldest I just put him in his cot and waited for him to fall asleep. The baby just screams if you leave him in the cot.

Oh and the 5 month and 8/9/10 month regressions were bad

So Casper is a nightmare at sleeping, and he's nearly 13 months now. Emma's broken. What can we do?

Context: he slept quite well as a small baby in the first 4/5 months - only waking 2/3 times a night for a big feed, which was way better than Nora. Then diagnosis, steroids, chemo, 50+ nights in hospital etc blew that out of the window.

Since November he's been on the new treatment and effectively not poorly from his disease - no steroids, no chemo, only one night in hospital (with a temperature) since then, so we've been able to establish something close to a normal routine.

Since January he's been in a cot alongside Em's bed (our bed; I'm still in the spare room), which is open and level with Em's bed for easy access. He wakes every 1-2 hours in the night, and some of those wakings are still relatively big feeds. We put him down circa 7 and he's normally out by 7:30/8pm, but he pretty much never gets through to 10pm (our bedtime and his meds time) without waking at least once and needing settling. Those wakings are happening less often and he is settling quicker overall, but it's still rubbish.

I generally take him and his sister downstairs about 6am so Em can have 90 minutes extra unbroken while I give them breakfast and get Nora ready for nursery.

Em desperately needs some longer periods of unbroken sleep.

Because of his illness and everything we've been through we're very, very loathe to put him through anything stressful like harsh sleep training. He's also, despite his very cheerful demeanour in photos, a stroppy little bastard who cries immediately if he doesn't get what he wants (and then stops instantly if you give him the tinfoil / duplo / toast / sharp kitchen knife / whatever he was reaching for etc etc).

We're generally 'gentle' and baby-led in our approach, but pragmatic, to a degree. What can we do?

I'm leaving off until the 1-year-crazies (technical term) subside tbh. both of mine had periods of waking for HOURS around the time they turned 1, so C is still doing that. Also dropping a nap and has constipation a lot so I think that can wake him.

I can send over the notes I got from someone if you like that I'm planning to use? They sound a bit ambitious though...

Oh and C was a total chilled out baby but now is a totally stroppy demanding DIVO too.

I've read plenty of anecdotes that imply that the babies that are easier sleepers at the beginning are eventually not. Opal was a nightmare for most of the first year forcing pretty early and pretty intense sleep training but for the last year (she's nearly 2) she's been fantastic at night. The ferber style interval sleep training is a pain but it might work and isn't as harsh as extinction/cry it out. It took a while but worked for us.

does he feed every time he wakes? Mine used to be ok with a 11pm feed then just being rocked by me/ his dad in future wakings but recently won't stand for that and screams for a feed much more often which is often just for comfort as he doesn't actually feed much and just tries to get away (then cries for milk if you let him )

my understanding of sleep training is all about the crutches, and any time you feed a child to calm them/put them to sleep, it's going to reinforce the association. By that age, so long as they're getting their nutrition, kids should have no problem sleeping through the night, so when they're crying to be fed after bedtime, it's not really because they're hungry.

yeah I thought we got out of that habit but somehow we've gotten back into it for the sake of getting some sleep.

so. it begins. I'm timing it so one of the worst nights should be when I'm out...

you might be surprised! when we did "ferberization" i think it literally took like 2 nights and then it was done.

yeah it's like two-three nights that really suck and then it's ok

starting with holding him but not rocking, for a couple of nights. The tough bit will be leaving him to sleep in his cot.
He's toddling around now! I mean, not now. But in general!

ferberization took us several attempts over several months and each attempt lasting for a few weeks! I think she just had to be ready. Now it's a breeze.

Birds tweeting.
Sunlight playfully peeking through the curtains.
The strange experience of waking up in the morning of my own accord and not too a screaming baby...
(really it's raining and I expect the recycling lorry woke me up but still, he slept 8 hours after a few evening wake-ups and didn't have a night feed...)

it's probably coincidence though, that and having pooed loads in the day so that wasn't waking him up. I hardly think one evening has changed anything, but I'll take a win where I can!

so - I never genuinely thought it'd work - but - touch wood - it seems to be going well. Far better than I ever expected!
We (mainly him indoors) have done 3 days of putting him down in his cot (rather than letting him get to sleep in our arms). Staying with him, singing, shushing, putting him back down 100 times. No feeding after bedtime too (which is why he's doing it not me).
First night - an hour of screaming and crying before he tired himself out, then another hour or so when waking up at 11pm. Pretty horrible but then he slept until 7.30.
2nd night - about 20 mins crying at first but not as bad as the first night, then about 10 mins when waking up around 9pm then slept til 6.30! 9.5 hours which is unheard of.
3rd night - got up lots when trying to put him to bed but didn't cry much. couple of short wake ups and one long one.

Next step is to not stay right by the cot but we'll see...

Ferberization didn't really work for us. I think a lot of it is about the kid.

I just looked at the wiki for the ferber method and i feel this sentence: "A few babies are capable of sleeping through the night at three months, and most are capable of sleeping through the night at six months" is lacking an all-caps drudge siren CITATION NEEDED.

yeah, we tried it at six months. We tried it for three or four painful weeks. We made a second attempt a few months later that did temporarily work but wore off when we moved. K has had persistent sleep problems since. With E we just co-slept and she naturally transitioned to sleeping on her own around a year and is much less anxious at night. But I really believe it depends on the kid, because I know co-sleepers who were still in the bed with the kid at 6.

Ours has just turned 3 and we're still in with her. We never tried ferber or anthing like that, she wasn't waking a great deal or for long periods but it was persistent and ultimately it was easier to be in the room with her and shush her back than actually having to get out of bed to do it. Obviously she's institutionalised to it now and it's hard to see how we'll break it, but otoh it's not so bad when she doesn't have a cold or whatever. Which of course is most of the time.

I keep reading it as 'febreezisation'

my baby is 13 months btw, I wouldn't really bother trying much before that (with my two) let alone at 3 or 6 months!

Birds tweeting.
Sunlight playfully peeking through the curtains.
The strange experience of waking up in the morning of my own accord and not too a screaming baby...

The first time that happened for me I ran to my kid's room in a panic, assuming some horrible tragedy had befallen him during the night.

haha! I've been there.