If you have not already done so, please read Blog Posts 1 through 5 that describe how sleep is important and beneficial. I will post specific information for parents and children based on my book, “Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child.” Please do not be put off by my book’s length. This is a reference book. Read only the topic of interest to you.
Regarding Blog Post 213: Oh my goodness, this is my Hadley! She’s now 21 months and still loves sleep. She tells us “nigh nigh” all the time and lays down on the floor lol. She now sleeps from 6:30/7pm to 7:30/8am and naps from ~12:30-3. We recently had another baby girl (one month old) and I have tried implementing Dr. Weissbluth’s suggestions earlier this time, the most important being teaching her self soothing! She cries for a little bit before her naps and usually falls asleep on her own for about half of them before I save the naps by baby-wearing her. It’s possible we may not even need to do an extinction method of sleep training this time around and that’s exciting!
Narrative Report: Hadley
Anyways, here’s my “sleep adventure” narrative with Hadley: By 2 months old I had already accidentally created a very overtired baby with a too late bedtime. So by 3 months old we worked on sleep training with Dr. Weissbluth by reading his book and communicating with him over his website. After some weeks of very early bedtimes and extinction method sleep training our daughter we had an amazing sleeper! She self-soothed and could sleep up to 14 hours a night without even waking to feed by 4 months old. She seemed to love sleep and thrive off of our new sleep schedule. That was many months ago. She is now 21 months and still loves to sleep! She now goes to bed at 6:30/7pm and wakes at 7:30/8am. In fact she often tells us that she wants to go to sleep during the day. She makes the sign language sign for “bed” by putting her palm against the side of her face and says “nigh nigh”. She then grabs her favorite stuffed animal and lays down on the ground or rests her head on the couch or coffee table. One time when she was only 1 year old she even surprised us at her grandparents’ house. She normally has so much fun there that her naps can be delayed but one day when we were visiting she stopped all playing, stood up and started walking to the room where her crib had been set up, while making the sign for “bed”. We all watched as she silently walked away from us and down the hall, clearly ready for her nap! Sometimes she is still an emotional toddler that doesn’t think she wants to nap but we know how beneficial it is for her so we place her in her crib (even if she’s crying for us to come back) and by the time the door closes to her room she is silent and she has already laid down to sleep! Lately when this happens she’s been taking her longest naps ever from 12:45-4! Sleep is such a gift to our children and our families. Thank you Dr. Weissbluth!
MW: the most common sleep problem with child number 2 is that child number 1 distracts parents, in the evening, and around 6 weeks of age, child number 1 is allowed to stay up too late. Please watch closely for drowsy signs in your baby and expect her to need an earlier bedtime around 6 weeks of age.
Absolutely! Thank you for linking that blog post and for the warning! Because of our sleep journey with Hadley and your book and advice last time I have been anticipating this moment with my newborn when she’s close to 6 weeks and I can start putting her to bed early. She is now 5 weeks old but was born 10 days past her due date so I feel we are close to that time of early bedtime. Until now she’s been going to bed anywhere from 8:30-9:30pm. Last night I tried a 7:30pm bedtime but that failed because she couldn’t settle so she had to sleep in the carrier until I could feed her and try again at 9:30pm. I’m having a hard time reading her drowsy signs right now because she’s so young and just always sleeping. But often when I try to put her to bed at 8:30-9:30 she’s SO tired that she can barely feed! I took that to mean she’d want an earlier bedtime so I’ll keep attempting that!
Narrative Report: Jenna
Jenna was born 10 days past her due date so by the time she was one month old she was already close to the adjusted 6 week mark of needing an early bedtime. As a huge fan of Dr. Weissbluth who helped my oldest daughter, Hadley, achieve amazing sleep feats (in Blog Post 213), I knew Jenna would soon need an early bedtime. My few attempts to put her down earlier, however, had already failed with her crying instead, so I would put her to sleep in the carrier until her later bedtime. She would go to bed around 8:30-9:30pm and wake every 1-2.5 hours at night. Dr. Weissbluth came to the rescue again by suggesting a temporary super early bedtime of 5:30-6:30 for a while until I could start reading her drowsy signs and adjust her bedtime accordingly in the weeks and months to come. I knew, however that this early bedtime would probably mean some crying but he encouraged allowing that to happen with either extinction or gradual extinction. Essentially the early bedtime is more important than having some crying since a too late bedtime would create an overtired baby and sleep problems that I wanted to avoid this time around!
For the first night of extinction it turned out that my husband and I were not on the same page so we failed by intervening to soothe her and then ultimately feeding her to sleep. Even though it wasn’t complete extinction we already saw improvement with her self-soothing herself back to sleep multiple times that night and longer sleep stretches. With Dr. Weissbluth’s encouragement to stay the course, we tried again the next night.
My goal each night is to keep Jenna’s wake interval to an hour or less after I wake her from her last nap (which is usually in the carrier) at 4:45 or 5pm then start her bedtime routine of bath, pj’s/change, swaddle, song, then feed in the dark. I then try to set her down less than an hour later somewhere between 5:30 and 6pm.
Night 1: set down at 5:15pm, cried 2 hours, asleep by 7:30pm. She woke to feed every 4 hours as Dr. Weissbluth said I could expect.
Night 2: set down at 6:45pm (oops, a little late), cried 1.25 hours, asleep by 8pm. Some improvement with decreased length of crying.
Night 3: set down at 5:40, no immediate crying but when she did cry it only lasted 20 minutes and she fell asleep by 6:30! She did wake up 45 minutes later and cried for ~30 minutes but then self-soothed again. That night she had some of her longest night sleep stretches of 4.25hr and 5hrs! Before we started early bedtimes/extinction the longest stretch at night was barely even 3 hours. She even woke once or twice at night but self-soothed before I could even take a minute to consider feeding her. Amazing.
Tonight was night 5 of an early bedtime with extinction and she did NOT even cry, I can’t believe it! We keep getting long stretches of sleep at night, up to 5.25hrs. And this self-soothing skill has extended into her naps so even if she cries before a nap, she often self-soothes to sleep.
The worst part of extinction is hearing your baby cry but it’s important to remind yourself that she is fed, changed, and safe. She is crying because she can’t figure out how to sleep and she wants to. When my husband and I cringe through the crying this is what we tell each other: “she just wants to sleep”. We know some crying is worth it so Jenna can get her early bedtime and learn to self-soothe so she’s not sleep deprived in the long run. And it has already started working so well! Jenna is able to self-soothe and she is sleeping much longer stretches at night after just a few nights of early bedtime and extinction.
My husband’s role in this whole process has mostly been to care for our toddler when he’s available so I can spend time working with Jenna to ensure quality naps. He helps by taking the toddler when I need a quiet environment for Jenna’s bedtime routine. Maybe his most important role in our sleep journey has been to be on the same page as me in our decision to sleep train Jenna at so early an age with extinction and an early bedtime. As we are both parenting our children, we need to be in agreement about how we “parent” their sleep too. We talked through the alternatives to extinction this early such as co-sleeping or waiting until she’s older. But we were not keen on the idea of suffering the consequences of sleep deprivation until she’s 3 or 4 months old when we’d try extinction again anyways. Sleeping well now is better for all of us and our decision to start now has already been worth it! Many parents of newborns at this age (6 weeks) say they’re “surviving”, and I say we’re “thriving”, but my husband is so thrilled with all the sleep we’re getting now he says we’re “soaring” haha!
Thank you for this post. Helped my wife and I give this a try again.
Dr. W. I am the Dad. We are both for sure struggling with the idea of sleep extinction at 6 weeks but we are struggling much much more with our own sleep debt/deprivation.
Just looking for assurance that 6 weeks is appropriate for extinction. We have read and begun following the instructions in your book and are ensuring that we prioritize sleep/good sleep habits ALL hours of the day not just at night.
We tried last night. Just as above, my wife and I were not yet on the same page but tonight we have new resolve especially after reading this post.
First beautiful child that we struggled long to add to our family. Want to make sure we are doing our best by her.
Thank you sir for all you do.
Please let me know how it goes. Success depends on having an early bedtime that occurs before pre-sleep arousal develops. Maybe try for 5:30pm.
Day 1: 2.5 hours protest crying. Was absolutely heart wrenching but then she had the best night sleep she has had since coming home. Two feeds no protest.
Day 2: was a little choppier. She fell asleep within 30 minutes for 1 hour but then woke and cried again for almost 2. Was a little more frequent crying. Two feeds no protest.
Day 3: asleep within 30 minutes after hard crying. Two feeds no protest.
Day 4: hardly slept during day besides best efforts (assume because she has been sleeping so well at night!) Laid down with no protest and she went right to sleep. She did wake an hour later with loud protests for a short time then fell right back to sleep. Two feeds no protest. We did move back to our bedroom this night after some considerations. We did not like having her in her own room.
Day 5: …no protest. Right to sleep. This has been consistent now for several days. We watch her on the monitor and she just sort of sucks on her hand and looks around unperturbed. Now instead of it being hard to not go in there cause she is crying its because she’s being adorable and we just want to pick her up.
Baby is so much happier. Mom and Dad are so much happier. Only struggle for me is the early bed time. Don’t get a lot of time with her right now with work but I work from home so sneak away for cuddles and baby smiles throughout the day when I can.
Bedtime between 5:30 – 6:30 every night. We have home dates back and have the energy and time to clean the house and do all the things. We are happy with her in our room but since she goes to sleep much earlier than us we can sneak in and go to sleep. We still have her monitored too so as not to disturb her in the night when we can just peak at the monitor.
Seriously could not be happier with the outcome and all those Instagram moralizing “influencers” can shove it : ) We (including baby!) are so happy with this outcome and arrangement.
Thank you Doc!
What wonderful news — thank you for sharing this update. Hearing that your child is sleeping better means the whole family is doing better, and that is exactly what this work is for. Please read Blog Posts 247A-C to understand how you are helping her build a better brain; more than a million new nerve connections are made during every second of healthy sleep!
My sincere goal is to raise awareness of accurate, research-based information about children’s sleep, so that more families can find their way to restful nights and calmer days. You are now on the right path, and I am confident your child’s sleep will continue to improve.
To help encourage other parents who may be struggling with the same challenges you faced, would you consider writing a narrative account of your sleep journey and posting it here as a comment? I would use it as a Blog Post. Parents often find it most meaningful to hear from other parents — what the problem looked like, what you tried, what worked, and how your family came through it. If you are willing, please include the role the father played, as father involvement is one of the most important and underappreciated factors in helping children sleep well. Also, a comment about how “influencers” are sometimes misguided would be appreciated.
If you feel comfortable doing so, an honest Amazon book review would also be a tremendous help to families who are searching for guidance and trying to decide whether this approach is right for them.
I wish you and your child sweet dreams.