u/Weak_Conference8585

I gave birth to my first child in February, she is now 8 months old. I luckily got pregnant with her really easily, second unmedicated IUI, but know that isn’t the norm and to expect to need more time to conceive this go around. I’ll be carrying again but my wife is in her mid/late 40’s and she’d like us to be done having babies before she’s 50. I’ve seen two different doctors at my OBGYN office since then and have gotten conflicting opinions on if allowed to start trying again at 12 months or 18 months postpartum. In a perfect world I’d like to start trying right at 12 months. For those of you have kids close together or had a second child post c section do you have any advice? Do you wish you waited longer between kids? I plan to have a scheduled c section after a very difficult labor experience led to an urgent c section so not worried about the risks that come with VBAC. Being a mom is easily my favorite thing I’ve ever done and I’d love to give me sweet daughter a sibling.

I sleep trained my 5 month old a few weeks ago and it’s been going really well. We went from only doing 30 min spurts in our crib and pretty much contact sleeping all night to falling asleep in het crib within 10 minutes most nights and sleeping from around 7:30-6/6:30 with 1-2 wake ups to feed. I’ve also worked on extending our wake windows. She currently takes 3 naps a day with an occasional 4th cat nap. Her wake windows go anywhere from 1.75 hours to 2.5 hours depending on her sleep cues. She stays up for 2.5-3 hours before bed. Last week I started crib training for naps. She’s falling asleep in her crib within 10 minutes (occasionally needing a reset at 10 min and falling a sleep a few min after), but her naps are only lasting 25-45 minutes, when she normally naps for 1-2 hours. Yesterday I got one 1.5 hour crib nap which was an anomaly. I have been saving one nap a day if she’s super cranky. How do you lengthen crib naps? My girl is cranky without her long naps!

I sleep trained my 5 month old a few weeks ago and it’s been going really well. We went from only doing 30 min spurts in our crib and pretty much contact sleeping all night to falling asleep in het crib within 10 minutes most nights and sleeping from around 7:30-6/6:30 with 1-2 wake ups to feed. I’ve also worked on extending our wake windows. She currently takes 3 naps a day with an occasional 4th cat nap. Her wake windows go anywhere from 1.75 hours to 2.5 hours depending on her sleep cues. She stays up for 2.5-3 hours before bed. Last week I started crib training for naps. She’s falling asleep in her crib within 10 minutes (occasionally needing a reset at 10 min and falling a sleep a few min after), but her naps are only lasting 25-45 minutes, when she normally naps for 1-2 hours. Yesterday I got one 1.5 hour crib nap which was an anomaly. I have been saving one nap a day if she’s super cranky. How do you lengthen crib naps? My girl is cranky without her long naps!

*Update* last night went great! She was in her crib at 8 and a sleep at 8:25. Whined about 45 min later but settled before the 2 min timer went off. She then slept until 2:45am. She sometimes has milk overnight so we offered milk and then took about 20 min to fall back a sleep. The crying was much less intense after her bottle and was a lot of start and stop. She then woke up again about 45 min later and start and stopped crying/whining for about 10 minutes, never for long enough for the timer to go off and check in on her. She then slept until 6:30am. Was all around a really positive first night. Will try and stay with awake time during the day being around 9 hours and slightly reduce napping time. She doesn’t seem ready to only sleep for 3 hours during the day but probably doesn’t need the almost 6 hours she’s getting.

Asking for advice/rambling vent
I was never planning to sleep train this early but my mental health has taken a complete dip from sleep deprivation. I have started meds and am in therapy but still feel like I’m at a breaking point. I have a 19 week old baby girl who at about 14 weeks old stopped sleeping at night. Went from a 6 hour stretch in her bassinet, feed and then 3 hours of sleep most nights to waking up after 30-40 min in her bassinet (we’ve now switched to crib in her room) and fully needing to be rocked or fed to sleep. We’ve tried all the gentle drowsy but awake methods over the last 5 weeks and it has never worked. It makes her tired enough from crying that once we pick her up she’s a sleep within a couple minutes and then we transfer to her crib. We tend to take shifts at night transferring to her crib and eventually just contact sleep in the glider in her nursery. About half of her naps before the sleep regression used to be in her bassinet and now every nap is a contact nap. We go by wake windows. First one is about an hour and half, then an hour 45 min, and then 2 hours. We start our 30 min bedtime routine after another 2 hour wake window. She takes around 1.5 hour long naps, I always cut it off at the 2 hour mark. If one of her naps is shorter sometimes she’ll also do a 30 min cat nap at the end of the day. She is the happiest baby during the day and our days are filled with lots of fun and activity.
I finished reading Dr. Ferber’s book. we are going to start it tonight and I’m very nervous. I’m worried the check ins will piss her off more after reading this sub. Any tips on getting through the first few nights? I’m really scared about sleep training, but I’m scared to keep going on such little sleep. I am happy to keep contact napping but will stop if it feels like that is hurting her nights. I selfishly would love an occasional break during the day being a stay at home mom whose wife works long hours. My wife is ready to take the lead on tonight if I need to go down to the basement with noise cancelling headphones. Thanks for any advice!