r/bninfantsleep

5 months PP and we're doing it... Waking up every 30 min for hours on end in no longer a safe option for us. I can't wait for the mail to arrive tomorrrow so we can hopefully all get some better sleep! I'm so grateful for this community that I can learn from.

Aside for the safe sleep guidelines (which I have researched extensively) do you have any other hacks on cosleeping? e.g. wear wool PJ's to stay cozy, or other tips!

every night i get to get into bed with the worlds smallest furnace and have his feet snuggled up into my legs. i wake in the night and he’s somewhere between my husband and i. last night he was back to back with my husband. when he wakes before i come to bed and i go back in for milk, sometimes it’s hard for me to find the want to leave when he’s asleep again because of how relaxing it is being in here with him. waking up in the mornings to him smiling or hugging us or doing a downward dog or babbling about mama and dada… 🥹

this is seriously one of the best parts of motherhood to me and i can’t believe everyone doesn’t do it all the time

Just something I've been wondering as a FTM.

My little one is 18 months and I still nurse/rock to sleep.

How did you know when your baby stopped needing help?

How do you transition from nursing or rocking to, let's say, reading a book together?

I'm super curious to read your stories!

Then tell me why my 7 month old is wide awake, rolling around at 11:30pm following 4 wakes so far, 1.5 hr of daytime sleep and a 3.5 hr “wake window” before bed. Lots of connection time. Lots of stimulation, then lots of nervous system support to wind down this eve. Advil and gas drops on board just in case.

According to people like Lyndsay Hookway (only calling her out because I genuinely like her advice but don’t find it helps??) all of the above should lead to a tried baby who sleeps. This baby won’t even sleep while held.

I am beyond exhausted, I could cry. This is month 3 of absolutely insanely hard sleep. I’ve tried or pursued or contemplated everything. Everrrrryyyyyythhhiiinnggggg.

Writing this at 4:30am having successfully gotten perhaps 2 hours of sleep and being so tired I've just cried so apologies for any typos or delulu energy.

My toddler (who is just over 12 months) has been showing some signs (I thought) of switching to a one nap schedule. She has been somewhat harder to put down recently and fighting naps/bedtime on occasion so I thought oh maybe it's nearing time. (Note; she did eventually fall asleep on hard days but it would sometimes take 30 minutes to an hour)

Today she had a mid morning / early afternoon nap. Usually she sleeps 2 hours naturally but went from 10:30 to 1:30pm by herself — so 3 hours.

I thought it could be a good time to try a one nap schedule however I'd watch for cues and if she wanted to go to sleep, I was fine with a later schedule.

Well we had a pretty solid day. I watched for yawning or eye rubbing and her signing for milk (usually the time we go upstairs because we are weaning). None of this happened. We stayed up til 7:30 and then did our bed time routine so she was asleep at 8. Conked right out. I mean within 10 minutes she was snoring. So I thought the sleep pressure was great. But maybe I was wrong 😭?!

By 10pm we had restlessness and rousing. We have woken multiple times tonight and we were down to 2ish wakes a night (she has only slept through the night once) so this was unusual and it had been BRUTAL. She hasn't gone longer than an hour since 10 and had been full sitting up, babbling, staring into the void, sometimes full hours at a time.

Naturally I'm like great I ruined her sleep. She just woke up again as I finished this and was only down for 15 minutes. Help... Lol. Even though it felt great during the day and we played the whole time, was she really just hyper over tired? Or is her brain just thrown off by the lack of second nap? I feel like atp I'm going back to two tomorrow...

Finally, after 13 months, my boys sleep is finally showing signs of improvement. If you look back on my post history, by god did I have it roughhhhh. I believe the sleep deprivation was a very huge part of my PPD too.

So my boys sleep still wakes a min of 4 times a night. But comparatively to the 8+ it’s just amazing. Last night he gave us a 5 hour stretch and he’s done that a couple times now 😍.

I am much happier and am loving mum life, don’t get me wrong, I am still tired but it’s just not the same level. I don’t know what the future holds for another child, but I no longer think it’s an absolutely horrible idea 😂.

Hang in there mummas. X

I'd love to hear from parents who didn't sleeptrain, what time are your 1-2 year olds roughly falling asleep and waking each day, and what are naps looking like? Does it vary widely, are nighttime wakeups predictable for you or all over the place? This is often the timeframe where folks start suggesting decreasing to one nap per day when it seems little one is ready, and I'm really curious about how others have managed that transition.

We're still assessing what our twin toddlers need. I can't wrap my head around a rough schedule for one daily nap but when they get two (of seemingly any length at all), they end up with a split night and are ready to party at 2am! I'm happy to oblige of course but, would like to see how others are faring.

Share what's working for your kiddo (or what isn't!)

My LO has always contact napped and bed shared, feeding to sleep with me or needing motion like in a sling or pram. We've never been able to consistently put her down when asleep. The only times I've been able to have been when she is very very tired. After accepting this is how she sleeps, I've not had any concerns (for a few months).

She started nursery recently (now 13 months) and they have been great, holding her to sleep and being able to put her down a few times. However, they called me in to a meeting to discuss LO's sleep, essentially (but more kindly) saying that they couldn't carry on getting her to sleep like this because (1) it's labour intensive and (2) the rules around baby sleep at nurseries are changing in my country so they have to be put down on their backs in a cot or mat (this is true, I read up on it and no prams or holding to sleep allowed any more). They said to try putting her down in a cot at home to get her used to it. But she will not sleep like that, she needs assistance. I know from experience it's very hard to transfer her too - she wakes if I move a muscle in contact naps for example.

Now I'm spiralling a little bit. I'd accepted that my LO's sleep was not wrong. But it sounds like it's really unusual? I really don't know what to do and I'm worried I'm doing it all wrong now. And it is all on me as am getting her to sleep at home for most naps and all nights. Should I be trying harder to get her to cot sleep?

My 11 month old has stopped falling asleep while nursing, which has been my JAM for months now. He will nurse, get sleepy, then pop up and act awake (even though I swear he is tired). He will not want to be bounced or rocked, and will try to bite my arm. I've resorted to just setting him down in his crib and trying to bounce/rock again after a few minutes. He doesn't normally cry during this time. Do I move nursing to earlier? Do I start nursing after nap?

FWIW he takes 2 naps 9-10/10:30 and 2-3 ish. Bedtime between 7-8 and wake up around 6.

Any tips or tricks for switching up my routine is greatly appreciated!

I keep hearing incessant both on various subs and in real life about the 4 month sleep regression…are there any babies who don’t go through this??

My LO just hit 16 weeks and has been a great sleeper from day one, but everyone keeps warning me of what is coming. Just curious if anyone did not experience this!

I don’t know when we started to fall into routine of our 12 week old sleeping at 9, wind down from 8, but it’s been working for about a month. She generally sleeps from 9/10pm until 9am, with wakes to feed of course

The last few nights she’s started having a witching hour 6ish-8 so I’ve gone to bed a bit earlier

Tonight she fell asleep at around half 7 ( she doesn’t normally nap very late, last one around 6). She did wake up again and go back to sleep by feeding her to sleep, but woke up again.

I’m wondering if her fussiness in the evening is sign of need for earlier bedtime?

It’s also hard to tell because I’m staying with my parents in my home country where a lot of family is seeing her throughout the day and we’re having lots of fresh countryside and sea air which we normally don’t get where we live.

When and how did you decide on bed time for your LO?

Our sleep is rough for me. Baby average wake up is 7x a night their whole life from birth to 8.5 months. Even now a good night is getting one 3hour sleep, and then a couple stretches of 1-1.5hrs, and the rest even less. (Side note that maybe I should ask for advice on this!)

People around me complaining how tired they are that their newborn baby waking every 1.5-2hrs for milk is annoying them...
like is that not the most normal thing for a 2 week old to do!!??? The crazier thing is this is 2nd child, so their first baby must have been such an easy sleeper. And the baby sleeps easily in the crib and doesn't take long to fall back asleep.
The first 6 weeks we were on 30 min - 1.5 hours max sleep stretch.

Somehow people grumbling like this is so hard for me to hear. And I'm not allowed to vent back how ours has been worse :(

My sweet baby boy is the most wonderful, awesome little guy ever. But sleep has always been a struggle (for me). The only time he ever slept through the night was when he was sick, and even then he woke up once or twice. My son wakes anywhere from 3-8+ times in a night just to nurse.

He resettles quickly most of the time, but he definitely uses the boob to connect most of his sleep cycles and it is hard. Sometimes he just prepositions himself or closes his eyes...but mostly it is boob that saves the day

I want to wean around 18m-2y when I can communicate to him a little better about why boob is going away (since it is his main source of comfort), rather than now when he can't really understand why I would be weaning. ​I still am struggling a lot though with this crappy sleep and I would like to hear from any moms in the same boat or if it ever gets better lol

I wanted to post here a positive story to help those who are struggling with a baby that is chronically waking up numerous times a night since birth.

My 7 month old went through the 4 month regression around 13 weeks and it lasted up until 6 ish months. Every night he was up every 1-2 hours with a lot of false starts. Newborn stage was also rough and barely slept 3 hour stretches.

After coming to Reddit for help, it turned out it was a scheduling issue and he needed less daytime sleep. His total daytime sleep is 1.5hours which according to the ‘average day sleep for your baby’ is low and could lead to overtiredness. This really was holding me back from stretching his wake windows.

However since having bigger wake windows - before bed usually 3.5 hours, he has been waking up once or twice a night. We also set up a side crib which is working well for us as we ended up having to co sleep to get him to sleep slightly longer during the regression.

This all happened without sleep training and I never thought he was capable of sleeping 5-6 hour stretches. If I continued to use the sleep apps and follow the advice of google etc this would have never happened. Overtiredness leading to more night wakes isn’t evidenced and this really might be holding a lot of parents back, leading to trying to rescue day naps and worrying about extending wake windows.

Of course sleep will go up and down for us, teething has disrupted it this last week but I’m so so happy sleep has FINALLY settled. It just goes to show that we shouldn’t be following generic advice and really trial and test what your baby actually needs.

I'm not talking "wakes up every 3h". I'm talking "wakes up seemingly every hour or half hour for months even though I've tried everything and am already cosleeping". Because that was me. It was brutal, I'm not sure how I survived, but I was just so miserable. My doctor wouldn't really listen to me when I suggested low iron might be an issue (I was deficient in pregnancy, only discovered in third trimester), and just told me to sleep train.

Please please please do yourself a favour and try an iron supplement for baby. I am a well educated and science literate person who always does her research and asks many questions of health care providers, but somehow it had escaped my notice that the recommended iron for breastfed babies 6-12mo is far beyond what is possible from solids consumption. I tried giving my baby a piece of my own chewable supplement and literally that night his sleep was better (only 3-4 wakes). The following night he slept through the night (9-4 with some wakes after 4am)! He'd only ever sttn once before in his life. It's been a couple days now and sleep is overall much better. Still a couple wakes but much more manageable. (He also naps better and has more energy. )

Of course, you should consult a health care professional if you intend on supplementing baby for an extended period of time.

In case anyone cares to know, the supplement I'm on is a jamieson chewable with iron and b12 (amazon). Just tastes like candy. There's an amazon gummy I tried but did not like the taste of. I have not yet tried the baby-specific iron supplements.

Edit: My baby was ebf, started solids at 6mo but refused formula.

Looking for some advice as I hold my 7 month old trying to get her back down for the second time tonight.

The last several weeks sleep has been so varied. Some nights great, some nights just terrible but I can’t figure out what is causing the issue.

Her “normal” sleep schedule is bedtime between 7:30pm and 8:30pm, up for a bottle between 1:30am and 2:30am, up for the day around 6:30am. She’s on three naps, typically one from 9am-10am, then a long one from around 12pm-2pm, and last one from 4pm-5pm. All of this is plus or minus one hour but is her general cadence and has seemed to work well most of the time. She is rocked or held to sleep for all of these but she sleeps in her crib.

But recently it’s been like a 50/50 chance that we’ll get a “normal” night or we’ll get a night where she’s up every 2-3 hours. At first I thought teething (we had all the signs) but no teeth have popped through yet. I’ll feed her if she seems hungry, change her diaper if she’s wet, but most of the time it’s fixed by me picking her up and holding her back to sleep. Is she gassy? Is she in pain? Is she just going through it? Advice welcome. I don’t want to sleep train but it would be great to figure out what’s causing her to sleep so well sometimes and sometimes so poorly.

today i was having a really hard day and felt completely overstimulated and overwhelmed, so i had to step away for literally one minute to gather myself. i left my daughter in the room for maybe one or two minutes maximum while i stood just outside the door taking deep breaths because i could feel myself getting to my limit.

she was crying so hard calling out “mama, mama” and when i opened the door she had turned around with her little shoulders slumped down looking so sad and defeated and it honestly broke my heart in a way i can’t even explain.

my girl is 17 months old and has never slept through the night, so we’ve been through severe sleep deprivation, but that one minute of hearing her cry while i wasn’t right there beside her felt unbearable to me. it honestly reminded me why i personally could never leave her to cry alone for long periods of time. i truly don’t understand how parents can do that to their little innocent baby, because even that one minute absolutely shattered me.

i went straight back in, picked her up, cuddled her, comforted her and stayed with her while she fell asleep, but even now while she’s asleep i can’t stop replaying that moment in my head and feeling so guilty over it even though it was literally only a minute or two.

I’m just wondering if what I’m doing with my baby could be harmful to him. So generally, at his bedtime I nurse him and it’s about a 30% chance he’ll nurse to sleep (he doesn’t have a huge nurse/sleep association- not sure why and I wish he did) so if he nurses to sleep, I’ll transfer him to his crib and if the transfer doesn’t work or he doesn’t nurse to sleep, then my husband takes over the rest of bedtime, because it was stressing me out being responsible for everything and I need a break. He is generally pretty good at getting our baby to sleep - he hums to him while rubbing his back in the crib and that usually works pretty well. But lately it hasn’t been going as well. Our baby has a big preference for me and a lot of separation anxiety, so when I leave, he just cries and cries with his dad. If he’s still crying after about 15 minutes, I come back and try to nurse again, and he’s more likely to nurse to sleep, but if he doesn’t sometimes it’s the same thing all over again, crying with dad until mom comes back in…

So I thought it’s okay because crying with a caregiver is different for the baby emotionally than crying without a caregiver, and he’s hopefully learning to get more used to being cared for by his dad. But now I’m getting worried because I don’t want him to cry so much and I really don’t want him to have bad feelings/association with going to bed?

Usually his first stretch of sleep is from around 8-midnight and whenever he wakes up, I bring him in bed with me and we breastsleep for the rest of the night and that works really well. He nurses often throughout the night but I hardly need to wake up for it, so I get good sleep. But I really like that little bit of time in his crib where I get to relax, be on my computer, get ready for bed by myself and stuff like that.

But should we change our routine somehow?

Currently in the 6-8 weeks trenches…. Is it normal?Does it gets better?
She used to be a great sleeper and all of a sudden she can’t sleep during the day and at night too.. she has been smiling and “””talking””” a lot but refuses to sleep and cries all day, can only nurse her to sleep but the minute I put her down she starts to cry.
Is it normal? Does it gets better? I’m exhausted and thinking I’m doing something wrong

Let me preface by saying, I am not going to sleep train and I personally don’t agree with letting my baby cry.
But my question is, are babies/kids really affected negatively by sleep training? My neighbors have sleep trained their kids. They seem well adjusted. My friend came for an overnight stay with her baby who is sleep trained . She’s also a happy baby. And I will admit that I did get a little bit envious because her baby put herself to sleep and only woke up once at night.
So I’m genuinely curious if sleep training has such an adverse effect?

I can’t sleep train because I can’t see my baby cry. But I’m curious about people who have sleep trained their babies.