Sleep training failure

[Anonymous]

We have tried every kind of sleep training and even hired a sleep consultant and nothing works with our eight- month-old. Night sleep is actually not horrible - in 12 hours she only wakes up twice just to nurse and goes right back to sleep. Naps are a nightmare. She’ll only sleep for 25 minutes and has to be nearly asleep before you put her down or she’ll scream for 30 minutes (the longest we let her go). Not crying, not fussing - the house-is-on-Fire-screaming.

Today I just gave up trying to get her to sleep longer. I can’t take the screaming anymore.

Not a FTM. My boys were never like this. I can only hope she grows out of this.

I officially have thrown in the towel.

[Anonymous]

When you went in after 30 mins she learned if she screams long enough you will go in. If you are serious you need to not go back in. I sleep trained at 4.5 mos and the first night she cried for just over an hour. Yes I felt like a shit parent, yes I wanted to go in, but I didn’t. 2nd night was 30 mins, 3rd night 5 mins.... and done. We always put down drowsy but awake so she got used to falling asleep on her own.

[Anonymous]

I failed too. Neither kids slept through the night until about 14 months and only napped once they were down to one nap.

My kids are bright, healthy, happy elementary schoolers now so no lasting I’ll effects.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When you went in after 30 mins she learned if she screams long enough you will go in. If you are serious you need to not go back in. I sleep trained at 4.5 mos and the first night she cried for just over an hour. Yes I felt like a shit parent, yes I wanted to go in, but I didn’t. 2nd night was 30 mins, 3rd night 5 mins.... and done. We always put down drowsy but awake so she got used to falling asleep on her own.

OP here. Our expensive sleep consultant said to never let a baby cry for more than 30 minutes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When you went in after 30 mins she learned if she screams long enough you will go in. If you are serious you need to not go back in. I sleep trained at 4.5 mos and the first night she cried for just over an hour. Yes I felt like a shit parent, yes I wanted to go in, but I didn’t. 2nd night was 30 mins, 3rd night 5 mins.... and done. We always put down drowsy but awake so she got used to falling asleep on her own.

OP here. Our expensive sleep consultant said to never let a baby cry for more than 30 minutes.

Sounds like you’ve got the night sleep down for the most part. I think the daytime naps will come along. Hang in there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When you went in after 30 mins she learned if she screams long enough you will go in. If you are serious you need to not go back in. I sleep trained at 4.5 mos and the first night she cried for just over an hour. Yes I felt like a shit parent, yes I wanted to go in, but I didn’t. 2nd night was 30 mins, 3rd night 5 mins.... and done. We always put down drowsy but awake so she got used to falling asleep on her own.

OP here. Our expensive sleep consultant said to never let a baby cry for more than 30 minutes.

did they say why? My kid is 8 now with no adverse affects. Slept from 8pm 7am by 5.5 months. I was a much better parent during the day than I would have been waking up twice a night still.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When you went in after 30 mins she learned if she screams long enough you will go in. If you are serious you need to not go back in. I sleep trained at 4.5 mos and the first night she cried for just over an hour. Yes I felt like a shit parent, yes I wanted to go in, but I didn’t. 2nd night was 30 mins, 3rd night 5 mins.... and done. We always put down drowsy but awake so she got used to falling asleep on her own.

OP here. Our expensive sleep consultant said to never let a baby cry for more than 30 minutes.

did they say why? My kid is 8 now with no adverse affects. Slept from 8pm 7am by 5.5 months. I was a much better parent during the day than I would have been waking up twice a night still.

OP here. Consultant said extended crying get them too jacked up (my term) for restful sleep. And something about stress hormones released. I was told to go in and nurse her/settle her and then try again. This made it worse. As I would walk from the chair to the crib she’d start screaming.

[Anonymous]

Nap training doesn't work if you go in and settle them after 30 minutes, duh. DD is a good sleeper and trained for night sleep easily at 12 months. But naps were harder and she sometimes cried for 40 minutes. Don't sleep train if you are not committed.

[Anonymous]

Oh and the stress hormone thing is junk science

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When you went in after 30 mins she learned if she screams long enough you will go in. If you are serious you need to not go back in. I sleep trained at 4.5 mos and the first night she cried for just over an hour. Yes I felt like a shit parent, yes I wanted to go in, but I didn’t. 2nd night was 30 mins, 3rd night 5 mins.... and done. We always put down drowsy but awake so she got used to falling asleep on her own.

OP here. Our expensive sleep consultant said to never let a baby cry for more than 30 minutes.

did they say why? My kid is 8 now with no adverse affects. Slept from 8pm 7am by 5.5 months. I was a much better parent during the day than I would have been waking up twice a night still.

OP here. Consultant said extended crying get them too jacked up (my term) for restful sleep. And something about stress hormones released. I was told to go in and nurse her/settle her and then try again. This made it worse. As I would walk from the chair to the crib she’d start screaming.

OP, my son was a nap demon as well. I agree with your sleep trainer on the 30 minute thing bc my son was so far gone at that point there was no way he was settling to fall asleep. Here’s what worked for me right at 8 months- figuring out the proper schedule first (still rocking him to sleep and holding to extend if a nap was short). Once it was very easy to get him to sleep for both naps (and they were actually consolidated for the first nap of the day and sometimes longer for the second too), I nap trained. I did our same nap routine but didn’t rock him to sleep and put him in the crib wide awake. Set a timer for 20 mins. He was not asleep. Went and turned on the lights and told him what a great job he did and it was such a good nap. Pulled him out and played quietly in his room for 10 minutes. Did nap routine and attempted a nap again. He fell asleep within 5 minutes. Then for any nap he woke before 1 hr, I had him stay in the crib til an hour was up. He fell back asleep most of the time until both naps were consistently consolidated.

Ever since it’s never taken longer than 15 minutes for him to fall asleep and I wake him from most every nap. I’m telling you he was a nap demon and I never thought this would be possible. He’s an amazing day and night sleeper now.

[Anonymous]

Welcome to the club, OP. There are a lot of us sleep-trainer-failures out there!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:When you went in after 30 mins she learned if she screams long enough you will go in. If you are serious you need to not go back in. I sleep trained at 4.5 mos and the first night she cried for just over an hour. Yes I felt like a shit parent, yes I wanted to go in, but I didn’t. 2nd night was 30 mins, 3rd night 5 mins.... and done. We always put down drowsy but awake so she got used to falling asleep on her own.

OP here. Our expensive sleep consultant said to never let a baby cry for more than 30 minutes.

I would say that means that if your kid routinely cries for 30 minutes sleep training isn't for you.

Torturing a child for 30 minutes, while setting it up so they don't learn from the experience, is not OK.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Welcome to the club, OP. There are a lot of us sleep-trainer-failures out there!

+1. welcome

[Anonymous]

This is what worked for us:

1. Stop overnight feeds unless your baby is failure to thrive. We did gentle CIO at 6 months dropping overnight feeds and it worked in two nights.

2. Unpopular, but I held my baby for her hour morning nap an hour afternoon nap. Of course that’s impossible if you work or have other children not in school but it worked like a charm. When she was 9 months I started putting her down at her crib for naps and she took to it happily. But for some reason, until that age she would only sleep soundly if held. Once you truly overnight sleep train without feedings and if you use gentle Ferber CIO, she’ll pick it up during naps too. I would get her child sleeping soundly through the night first and then start CIO for naps later on after a couple of weeks.

[Anonymous]

My baby is 3 now so this was a long time ago, but I remember the biggest hurdle of nap training was to connect to the second sleep cycle and it was at some bizarrely specific minute, like 47 minutes or something. Knowing this, I'd go into the room around 45 mins wait for him to wake screaming, not pick him up but just immediately gently reinforce it was still time to sleep by helping him lay back down and rubbing his back until he was back down to very very drowsy and then I'd leave the room. In the beginning he'd cry at that moment for maybe like 10 minutes, but then would stop and sleep....I only went in after 30 mins of crying and then declared nap time was over. But after a week or so of that routine he started connecting that cycle on his own. Eventually I got 2 cycles out of him for naps (but he never napped anywhere but his blackedout room with a sound machine in his crib....so I was chained to the house for a long time).