r/bninfantsleep

We live in eastern Canada and for a while now the days have been getting significantly shorter, meaning we wake up before the sun rises, and start our day in the dark. I try to follow the possum approach as much as possible, but I also adhere to wake windows. My 11 month old needs at least 3.5-3.75 hours awake per wake window to go down easy and sleep well. Being still on a two nap schedule that means he wakes at 6 and goes to bed around 8-8:30. Waking him up past 6 am pushes our schedule towards a later bedtime that just isn’t ideal for us. Baby usually wakes on his own around 6 am, but sometimes I’ll have to wake him (rare) but I do feel that even when he wakes on his own, he may be wanting to go back to sleep with a little help. Maybe I’m projecting, but I personally DESPISE waking up before sunrise, and I feel like it’s bad for our circadian rhythms to do so. So it feels kinda cruel to have my baby start his day and start playing in a pitch dark living room only lit by artificial lights… so I’m asking my fellow scientifically inclined parents: how do you cope with diminished sunlight? Do you shift baby’s schedule later to follow the sun in the morning? Or am I making a mountain out of nothing?

Edit: I am now permanently banned from the sleep training sub. That's probably for the best.

Idk if this is allowed and I'm sorry if it's not. You can just delete it if I'm breaking rules.

I am a member of both this sub and the sleep training sub. I'm not passionately against gentle sleep training or even Ferber type methods if the parent's mental health is in such a poor place that it's that or something much worse. I'm just a more middle ground person. I have done crib soothing, pick up put down, and cosleeping with my daughter. Really just whatever seems right in the moment while responding to her needs. I don't think I messed up her attachment nor did I cause her sleep issues. She is a toddler who sleeps fine now and is confident and very securely attached.

Anyway, any time at all that I say something in that sub that isn't passionately pro-CIO, a mod will reply something snarky that can be easily refuted. But when I go to reply to them, the post is locked. There's just zero space for a respectful discussion in that sub. I don't go posting horrible things about sleep training. I'm making very reasonable posts and comments but I have never once been able to reply to a mod. It's always immediately locked. It's so bizarre and insecure.

I have been having the toughest battle with my ten month old lately. She has been fighting her sleep so incredibly hard. When I’d rock her she’d kick at me and roll around, when I’d try to put her to sleep on the boob she’d push her self off of me and flip over. It would take 30 mins of me singing and rocking or whatever combo I came up with that night.

Anyway, I realized this week that I can just lay in bed with her with the lights off and let her do what she wants and eventually she’ll fall asleep lol. She’ll throw herself around and be a hot mess goblin for a few mins, popping on and off the boob but eventually she just falls asleep!

Idk why I thought I had to do all of this extra stuff to get her down 😂 This is amazing! It relieves so much stress now that I don’t have to battle her and I can just accompany her until she falls asleep on her own. I didn’t sleep train her and there’s no crying involved but I can just be there and scroll on my phone or read and she still learned how to fall asleep by herself. Is this how everyone else is doing it?

What do you think would have been beneficial for you the first year (or beyond)? If you feel comfortable, share what country you came from. Did you feel supported?

(I would love to do a follow up post than discusses actionable items to improving these things in countries that are lacking.)

Looking for perspectives on daycare in this sub, coming from parents who are like minded in terms of being anti early separation of mother-baby, etc etc.

My 16 month old has started daycare and gone most days/mornings for two weeks. She apparently naps there fine. She is still sad a lot and cries between activity transitions.

But the thing I just can’t shake is the visual of me passing her off every morning and her screaming “mama” and reaching out for me, followed my me abruptly leaving.
I have been having the thought: how is this completely dissimilar from mom-baby separation at night? The caregivers keep reminding us that it will take “6-8 weeks for baby to adjust”. But all I hear is “they will learn to get over it/self soothe. It only takes ‘3 nights’” (i.e., sleep training rhetoric).

The daycare seems to be a good place and staff to baby ratios are okay. I desperately need the break and I come home to nap after drop-off. But I can’t help but feel like I’m doing the wrong thing and causing her significant distress. Help!

So basically, my daughter wakes up every 1-2 hours and has done all her life. She is completely reliant on my boob or rocking to get her back to sleep. I wouldn’t mind her being reliant on these things if it was only once or twice a night.

I don’t believe in harsh sleep training and the current guidelines in the UK say don’t let them cry to sleep, which I would never be comfortable with anyway. I can’t let her just whine a little and hope she will settle because she is hyperventilating within minutes. She is an extremely active and inquisitive little lady.

I have tried habit stacking with patting etc. Putting down drowsy isn’t something she will tolerate at all.

We’ve been through all different sleep stages and I’ve worked hard to go from chest sleeping (she has allergies and wouldn’t be put on her back as a newborn) to bed sharing, now to being in a cot in her own room for the first couple of hours then with me after.

All I am asking for is any advice from anyone who has been through similar things, and reassurance that at some point I’ll get to sleep for longer than two hours in a row again, because doing it for nine months is wild 😅

Hi all

Trying to understand if the hourly wakes which started at 3m and is continuing now at 11m will get better once I drop to 1 nap? I feel like my bub may be getting close to it. Stretching his wake windows to 5-5.5h.

Want to know when you dropped to one nap and if that helped with night sleep.

Hi all, we went from almost perfect, long nights and easy to out down naps 3x a day, to now being in this in between zone of dropping a nap. And suddenly she's waking up on the dot at 4am or so either ready to party, babbling and crawling all over me or inconsolable and upset because she wants to go back to sleep but can't, so I have to do a whole sleep routine at 4.

She usually goes to sleep at 8.30, wakes up 7.45 or so, first nap 10ish-11.30/12, second nap 3-4:30/5

Any clue why this is happening?

Yesterday someone left this sort of comment under a post here. They had trained their 7 months old (or something) to sleep 6 to 6 plus 2 naps. But the comment that always sticks with me is the one about st changing a child’s temperament. Turning a fussy baby into a happy baby. You can guess I had a fussy baby who has now turned into a so called “deeply feeling” toddler. She is happier as a toddler but still very high needs and hyper. Waaaaay ahead with her gross motor skills since birth basically, not in a brag way it’s been crazy and at times worrying.

Of course as parenrs we worry we have caused our children to suffer. Thinking responding to her at night is what might have caused her personality makes little sense to me, but the idea she is really a happy, chill child who has simply not been sleep trIned is quite a mad thought.

Anyone in this boat? What do you think?

My baby is almost 14 months and has been going to daycare for a month now. The daycare person gave my baby a pacifier to sleep and it seemed to be a big hit so I started giving one at home at night too. I have been trying to keep it in the crib only to prevent teeth issues and make it easier to stop using later. But now it seems like baby can’t sleep without one, or without being a barnacle baby (we would usually cosleep for the last couple hours to have milk only once a day, we are almost weaned). They have really upset crying fits now in the middle of the night, I think because there soother fell out or is not in my bed with us where it would get lost. Help, what have i done?? Should i remove soothers entirely? Remove the bed sharing part of the night and fully wean?

Hi everyone, I’m on night (?) of no sleep. This probably won’t be fluffy or written very well but I’m so desperate for help.

Some details:

I cosleep with my 3 year old and have since 4 months old.

I have a 4.5 month old who has been a really great long-stretch sleeper in her bedside bassinet.

My husband works overnights.

My 3 year old has always been a high-needs sleeper. Close proximity, searches for me through the night, wakes up even if I roll away to use the bathroom or nurse the baby, etc. I have always attended to her every need and every cry at night. We stopped nursing overnight when my mental health took a dip managing both of them needing my breasts with no partner overnight to relieve me or help.

My 3 year old had bloodwork last year that apparently showed low ferritin but our pediatrician didn’t treat it or do anything about it until I expressed her extreme restlessness and my concern, beyond myself, that she’s really not getting good rest at all. So 3 months ago she gave her an iron supplement. I don’t know I noticed any improvement in sleep tbh. At her 3 year old checkup last week, they did a finger prick hemoglobin check and it was perfect. So she said no more iron.

My 4.5 month old must be moving through that developmental change plus teething, because while she used to give me 6-9 hour stretches it’s every 30,60,90 mins now.

When i get up to take care of baby, toddler wakes up.

Even when I’m laying with toddler, she’s tossing and turning and constantly seeking me. Arms wrapped around me, body tangled on me.

I fear that I’m nearing with baby where I, out of necessity, brought toddler into bed with me, but can’t imagine having both in bed safely.

I love having toddler in bed with me. I love her, and us, and our snuggles. Because my husband works overnights I think it’s comforting to both of us to have someone else in bed. I get it. But the restlessness and sitting up, waking up, easily disrupted and disturbed sleep is puzzling to me. I have been so patient, I thought it would get better at 1, at 2, and now at 3 y/o. But it’s just so hard every night. I nurture. I connect. I say yes to her needs. I hold her, every time.

Do I just keep waiting it out? Is this something I need to keep pressing to the pediatrician? Have you experienced this with a child as old as 3 or is this an outlier?

I’m so exhausted, I’m so desperate to both be a connected and nurturing mama and a rested and healthy one. Help.

My baby’s sleep journey has been exactly that: a journey. I am embarrassed to say that as a new mom, I had this idea of wanting my baby to feel safe ‘in the crib’. I thought that my baby as a newborn needed to be soothed in the crib so I wouldnt pick him up immediately at times and just swaddle him and pat his chest lightly, and then eventually pick him up when I saw that wasnt “working”.

I used to think “I need to help him feel safe in the crib by seeing that mommy is in the crib with him too”. I used to think that sounded so logical and thoughtful. I came across a post that discussed biologically normal infant sleep. I always knew I hated the CIO method. I despised it. All the parents that had recommended me use it, had grown children that had CPTSD including my husband or otherwise other issues that called for therapy. (My MIL recommended CIO and my husband has CPTSD and he cannot for the life of him figure out what exactly caused it. Of course I have no evidence to support the idea that CIO caused it. I don’t think it’s a huge leap to say that unresponsiveness at nighttime was a contributing factor or a framework for his nervous system though.) I began to realize how ignorant I was toward infant sleep and development, so I want to take a moment and thank the originators of this sub for bringing more awareness to the subject.

I started reading a lot more into infant sleep and studies done surrounding the impact of responsiveness, what the AAP considers “evidence“ of safety of sleep training, and finally I have realized this: Sleep training does not teach babies to sleep independently, it forces them to.

This is my first entry into my sleep diaries. I want to record everything I have learned and of course add links and resources. If you made it this far into this intro thank you so much and wishing you and your family well ❤️

I’m starting to lose my mind overnight and maybe someone has some advice… my 11 month old and I have coslept since he was around 6 weeks old. Prior to cosleeping, he would only nap being held. We would lay him down in his bassinet and he would sleep for MAYBE 20-30 minutes. This meant I was getting literally no sleep. I’ve also only ever fed him to sleep with a few, rare exceptions over his lifetime (he will be walked to sleep by my husband and will be rocked to sleep by my mom, so he can fall asleep other ways!).

He’s always been one to frequently wake overnight. Usually he will sleep for 1.5-2 hours straight up until 4am (he has slept for a 6 hour stretch ONCE in his life), and then he transitions to waking every 1-2 sleep cycles. I have heard how other babies adjusted after the 4 month sleep regression, and he just never did… he doesn’t do split nights at least (for now) and he will go to be around 8-9 and sleep until 7-8. But there are just so many wake ups that he will take a nap within 2ish hours of waking, which just feels too soon for his age??

When he wakes, the ONLY way he will go back to sleep is by boob (if I put a hand on him to try to settle, he throws my hand off him lol). And to make it worse, if that boob isn’t making milk for him, he will yell until I switch sides so he can suckle to sleep. I would say he is actually eating maybe 2-3 times per night still.

Have others faced this problem and gotten through it by making adjustments? Is he actually hungry that much overnight and that’s why he wants me to switch sides so often? Any advice would be very much appreciated.

Ive posted before that Im struggling to get bedtime right. No matter when we start the wind down and have the routine, LO is always irritated. Its like the witching hour never stopped and I thought it would be now? She falls asleep just fine once on the boob but the last 90min before including the routine (nappy, pjs, cream, sack) she just grumbles through annd if Im not fast enough full meltdown.

Can you please share your timestamp and activities of the last bit of the day so I can get some inspiration please?

My second born is 5 months and she was a very good sleeper as a newborn, getting a solid 5 or 6 hour stretch before waking up to feed every night. Then came the 4 month regression and boyy did she regress. HARD. Occasionally I'll get around 2 or 3 hours for the first stretch, and then it's up every 1-2 hours all night to feed back to sleep. Every night.

I'm much more prepared by it than I was with my first (because who isn't high strung with their first kid?) but now my issue is getting poor sleep and then having to get up for the day at 7am with a toddler (i solo parent on days my husband works so there is no break to get some recovery sleep) is rapidly wearing me down. With my first I caved at 7 months and did cry it out and I have so much regret over putting her through that but at the time I felt like I didn't have an option (and she ended up undoing all progress every time we would go to visit family and we refused to keep putting her through CIO to 'retrain' her) as she was an every 40 minute waker (day and night) by 6 months.

I don't want to do any form of CIO this time around but I need advice as to whether feeding to sleep is the culprit here or if this is just an age thing that will pass by itself and poor night sleep is part of the package.

Hi everyone. I'm just venting here. We bedshare, almost exclusively contact nap and have nursed to sleep as of last week. I say as of last week begrudgingly.

LO has suddenly become very frustrated at the breast when falling asleep, and at this point I'm certain it's because she's become annoyed by having milk in her mouth once she's done with the feeding.

She's started 'fixing' that problem by sucking on her middle and ring finger. She does that a lot when awake too, but once she's asleep the fingers immediately fall out, which wakes her up. We're stuck in a cycle of unnecessary wake-ups now. Sometimes she's ok with accepting the pacifier, but she's becoming adamant on sucking fingers alone.

There's also the issue of constantly turning onto her tummy if we nurse to sleep in bed. She wakes up and immediately flips, then starts sucking on the fingers. Sometimes she goes back to sleep, sometimes she doesn't, but it's reeeealy frustrating because nursing to sleep worked so well until this point.

Now I have both a baby that wants to sleep on her tummy, which scares me, and one that wants to self-soothe and wakes herself up with that mechanism.

Again, just venting. Please share stories of how your babies try to usurp good sleep if you have them.

My 6 week old eats every 2.5-3 hours naturally and then likes to take 1.5-2 hour naps in her bassinet. I’m wondering if she is sleeping too much by napping the whole two hours and having to be woken up to eat? I try to keep her awake for an hour at a time and follow appropriate wake windows. At night she sleeps from 8:30-1:30 and then 2:00-5:00. She gets a mixture of pumped bottles and breastfeeding. If you have a 6 week old sleeping longer stretches at night what are you doing/what do your days look like?

My baby is 6 months old and has a pretty predictable schedule. Up until now, he’s taken all of his daytime naps (3-4) in our bed and only slept in his crib at night. He’s been sleeping through the night since about 3.5 months. I have been wrapping him in our bedding from the chest down to keep him from rolling onto his belly as he generally gets stuck and won’t roll back onto his back when he’s ready to sleep. Think of it like a half opened, taped down baby burrito. He would get bored being stuck on his back and would suck his thumb and put himself to sleep. Problem is, he’s now strong/big enough to escape the burrito and is rolling too close to the edge of the bed. So no more big bed naps during the day. When we put him down for bed at night, he is usually tired/calm enough to fall asleep pretty quickly. That is not happening with naps in his crib. He keeps getting up on all fours. He’s screaming and crying like it’s his job. I don’t know what to do to keep him from getting stuck on his belly/staying calm enough to self soothe with his thumb and fall asleep. Rocking does nothing, he just kicks and grabs at my face and tries to play. He is obviously tired (gets fussy, lots of yawns, rubbing eyes) but just will not go down easily in the crib. All suggestions welcome.

Edit: he used to fall asleep with a pacifier, but once he became coordinated enough, he started pulling it out of his mouth and chewing on all sides/parts of it like it’s a toy, so that no longer helps either.

Hi folks.

I have a 4 month old baby who wakes up I don’t even know how many times as I BF and safely cosleep so just feed him back to sleep any time he rouses. I also have a 3.5 year old daughter who has only in the last few months started sleeping through the night.

I will never do any form of leaving my baby alone or crying sleep training but I’m wondering if there’s a middle ground between that and just waiting for things to get better themself?

Are there things I can do to encourage better sleep? Am I encouraging waking by feeding back to sleep at every wake?