u/Aggressive-Abies-652

Hi everyone, we're at the end of our rope and got sure what options we have.

Baby is 14 weeks old and has never been a great sleeper. Due to work schedules, we need to have a wake up time around 5:30-6:00am. We start the bedtime routine around 7:00pm every night, but baby usually hard cries for at least 30 minutes every night while being rocked to sleep. We have been trying to put him down drowsy but awake in his bassinet, which usually results in multiple attempts. After his first put down, he usually wakes up 20-60 min and needs to be resettled. After that, on the best nights, he wakes twice to eat and goes right back to sleep. On a typical night, he wakes at least once in between each feeding and sometimes will not allow us to place him back in the bassinet for long periods. On the worst nights, he wakes every hour.

All daytime sleep consists of contact napping, as he wakes up and cries immediately with any stem to transfer. He typically has wake windows of around 1.5 hours, with his last wake window around 2 hours. He naps around 5 hours total. When I have tried to decrease daytime sleep to 4.5 hours, I end up having to cap every nap, and it honestly didn't seem to correlate with better night sleep. That being said, he is starting daycare this week, so I have no idea how he's going to nap there, and I may soon find out what happens when daytime sleep gets drastically reduced.

I know he is too young for formal sleep training, and I honestly don't love the idea of leaving him to cry alone in a room for any length of time.

I don't think I can sleep well under "safe" bedsharing conditions, and the idea makes me quite anxious.

Is there anything I can do to make this more bearable?

Hi everyone, I have a 2.5yo and a 14 week old. My 2.5yo was a unicorn sleeper who started sleeping 8+ hours every night at 8 weeks, so I wasn't really prepared for my new baby, who is waking 6+ times a night, often requiring contact sleeping for long stretches.

I am a surgeon and will be returning to work in 1 week. I will be working long hours and will need to be functional enough to take care of my patients. My husband has been great and takes the brunt of the non-feeding wake ups, but also works a demanding job.

We have considered bedsharing, but I honestly don't think I can sleep well under "safe" bedsharing conditions - I usually sleep with a body pillow and occasionally use a weighted blanket.

I have dabbled a bit in trying to optimize his daytime napping schedule, but have not really seen any correlation between his daytime schedule and any night time sleep improvements. He will be starting daycare next week anyway, so we really won't be able to manage his schedule. He has also only been able to contact nap up to this point, so no telling how he's going to respond to napping at daycare.

I'm not really sure what I'm looking for with this post. Any advice or survival tips would be great.

I have a 3 month old who is not a great night time sleeper. The Internet is filled with advice about meticulously managing daytime naps and wake windows in order to decrease night time wake ups, with tons of sample schedules and tracking apps. Some of the common advice is to limit daytime sleep and cap naps. I've tried some of this advice with no significant/consistent improvements in night time sleep, and I'm wondering if I should really be waking my baby up from naps. He always seems to have trouble sleeping well for the first 30 minutes of a nap, but by the time 1.5 or 2 hours rolls around, he is doing asleep. I'm concerned that waking him is limiting the amount of restorative sleep he is getting. At the same time, I don't want to make my night time situation worse than it already is.