Night waking may be associated with breastfeeding at night, a bedtime that is too late, or the failure of a child to learn self-soothing. Night waking is also a feature of babies with extreme fussiness/colic.
Maren was born July 18, 1984, after an uneventful pregnancy and an easy Lamaze delivery, three days past term. We were committed to breastfeeding, with no preconceived expectations of its duration. Maren behaved as a normal infant for about two weeks, at which point persistent crying jags began to occur daily. Though we were assured real colic was worse, we came to refer to these spells as “Maren’s colic.” We endured the inconsolable crying without much complaint. Although her crying mostly lasted one to two hours, the worst individual days would include unabated crying spells lasting for eight to ten hours. Various experiments were tried to ease the colic suffering, including having Maren sleep with us, having her sleep on a hot-water bottle, et cetera. Predictably, none worked. At 2 months, the colic ended relatively abruptly.
From 2 months on, a very happy, trusting relationship developed between Maren and me. For about 7 months, Maren was fed virtually exclusively on breast milk. From 7 to 10 months, increasing amounts of solid food were introduced at breakfast and lunch. Maren has always been a happy, bubbly, joyful child. The breastfeeding seemed to contribute to this sunny disposition. Maren’s nap patterns were completely normal. Generally, I would sleep with her in the morning. Part of the feeding ritual for these 10 months included twice-nightly breastfeedings for Maren, interrupting my sleep.
Massive campaigns were mounted by both sets of grandparents to convince me that breastfeeding needed to end. These began at 2 months and reached fever pitch around 7 months. We listened politely. Except for a brief experimental period at around 8 months, I didn’t attempt to pump my breasts to permit me extra sleep. This was a conscious decision; direct feeding was easier and more satisfying for both of us. But after nearly a year without a full night’s sleep, I began to reach a whole new level of fatigue, and I realized it was time to wean Maren to a bottle.
Maren didn’t like the plan much. She obviously disliked formula as much as I disliked feeding it to her. For nearly a week she rejected cow’s milk. I ended the midmorning nap breastfeeding ritual first. Juices (orange, apple, pear) in the morning or during car rides helped to improve Maren’s familiarity with bottles. They also allowed my husband, Larry, to feed her while I rested later in the mornings. Putting cow’s milk in a special bottle (formed and painted to look like a dog) allowed this unpleasant white stuff to become gradually more acceptable. After a few days, Maren started to respond more favorably to her “pooch juice” and the games I created and associated with it.
Maren was fully weaned at 11 months. The last feeding to change over was at bedtime. But even if she was given milk at bedtime, Maren continued to wake up once or twice per evening, crying to be fed. The next step was to get her to sleep through the night. We were repeatedly advised to let her cry herself to sleep. The phrase “even for five or six hours” was used, a reminder of colic days. We considered this proposition but continued to feed Maren warm milk, sing lullabies, and rock her to sleep, once or twice per night. The big question: What was waking her up?
We decided it was mostly habit, and that she just wanted the comfort of our company. A new go-to-sleep ritual was introduced: After much playing and affection, Maren was put to bed with her favorite doll, not rocked to sleep. If she woke, warm milk was provided, but Maren was purposely not picked up. Maren cried ten minutes when left alone the first night, then rested her head on top of her favorite doll and drifted off to sleep. After expecting possibly an hour or more of crying, this was an unbelievable, almost anticlimactic relief to us. After two or three nights of feeding without picking her up, Maren began sleeping through the night.
At the end of month eleven, the go-to-sleep is routine. Maren rarely cries at all. Key elements: a big dinner, a bath, gentle play, eight ounces of warm milk, hugs, and her favorite doll. Even a babysitter can do it. At 1 year, Maren had finally learned to sleep eight hours straight. In retrospect, maybe I should have made the switch to a bottle sooner, and not waited so long before we tried to put her to sleep alone. Our parents continuously warned us we were being too indulgent. They may have been right. But then, first-time parents are like that.
Hi Dr. Weissbluth,
My husband and I have an almost 8 month old baby, Richard. We read your book and thanks to you, Richard falls asleep easily at night and takes great naps (2 or 3 a day). Generally, bedtime is about 6pm and he wakes up around 7 am. He is breastfed but gets breastmilk bottles during the day, as I work in an office. Our sleep concern is Richie consistently wakes up around 10-11 pm and 1-2 am to eat. I believe I have created a night feeding habit as I exclusively breastfeed him at night. At first, I believed he was actually hungry as I have always been concerned about my milk supply. Now, Richard is eating solid foods at breakfast, lunch and dinner along with his morning breastfeeding and bottles during the day and breastfeedings around 3-5pm and before bed. I am becoming severely exhausted. I also have a history of depression so I am hesitant to jump into extinction with no limits. We did practice extinction when we were working on naps and it did work and we have let him cry at his first wake up around 10 pm when he didn’t sound fully awake and he goes back to sleep. Any help you can offer is appreciated.
The breast feeding before bed might be insufficient (low milk supply then because of your exhaustion) causing him to wake up twice in the middle of the night instead of once. Please breast feed at bedtime as usual but for 1-2 nights, after breast feeding 5-15 minutes, offer a bottle of expressed-breast milk. The well-fed breast-milk baby with not take much or any from the bottle. If he does and wakes up less often at night, then either work to increase your breast-milk supply (drink more fluid, try to better cope with work demands) or continue this practice. At his age, you expect 0-1 feeding in the middle of the night and soon, none. Consider also doing the same procedure of feeding at the first feeding at night to clarify whether your breast-milk supply is sufficient. If the conclusion is that hunger and breast-milk supply is not an issue at all, let me know.
Does this help?
This is very helpful, thank you. I will let you know.
Hi Dr. Weissbluth,
I saw your note after we put him to bed night one, around 7 pm as he had a late nap till about 4:40. He woke up at 1:17 and nursed and did not want the bottle. He went right back to sleep. He did wake up at 5am but I gave him a pacifier and he went back to sleep after maybe a minute of crying. He woke up at 6:40am. Last night I nursed him before bed and he again did not want the bottle. Bed time was about 7 because he had a late last nap again. He woke up at 12:30 and nursed back to sleep. We woke up again around 4:30 and I did the same with the pacifier and he went back to sleep with about a minute of crying again. He woke up at 6:15 and I got him up at 6:30. Please let me know your thoughts. Thank you!
Please describe his mood and behavior between 5-7pm when he is alone with toys (no screens or parental interaction).
Hello,
I have read sections of you book and website. Currently sleep deprived and trying to find answers.
I have an 11 week old. His sleep was great at night getting 6-7 hour stretches. At 8-9 weeks he started with frequent night wakenings. He wakes about every 1-1.5 hours from midnight on. He napes about every 90 minutes and I wake him at two hours. He takes 3 longer naps and one short catnap.
Currently, we are working on earlier bedtime. Also, we have dropped the swaddle at night , but use during naps.
My question is: 1.) do we continue to swaddle? No signs of rolling and 2.) do we cap the length of his naps?
Current schedule going of cues and not clock time
1.) wake up 7 am
2.) nap 830-1030
3.) nap 12-2
4.) nap 3:30-5:30
5.) nap 7-:745
6.) bedtime 9:15-9:30
Sleeps until midnight and the first wake up. He feeds once overnight between 3-5am. Falls sleep for night sleep and naps easily. Happy temperament. Working to move bedtime to 7pm
Thanks for help!
Katherine
Around 6 weeks of age (counting from the due date, not the birth date), all babies want an earlier bedtime. The failure to do this eventually causes cumulative sleepiness, presleep arousal, and difficulties falling asleep, staying asleep at night, or both. Around 7ish, your baby’s brain is signaling the bedtime, not a nap, as you suspected. My suggestion is to not wake him a nap and expect the bedtime to be around 5:30-6:30pm. Good luck!
Hi again Dr. Weissbluth,
I think Richard was generally tired, not content to just play with toys etc. We have since moved to an earlier bedtime and now he is wanting to get rid of his third nap (he is now 8 months). The past week or so we have done 5:30 bedtime and he falls right asleep. He was only waking up around 2 to eat but the past 3 nights he has woken up around midnight. The first night he cried hard for about a minute and went back to sleep and did wake up again around 2. The next next he cried for about 45 mins before I fed him and then he slept until 7ish. Last night he cried for about 45 mins again before I fed him and he woke up at 5:50 crying again. Should we just continue with early bedtime routine and hopefully the full night sleep will come? Should I still expect to feed him once a night? Thank you as always!
Please describe a typical nap schedule?
It is uncommon for an infant to be fed at night at and after 9 months of age so my question to you is how confident are you that he is hungry at night?
He normally naps at 9 am and around noon. I would say I’m not very confident he’s hungry, especially with how much he’s eating during the day.
I think he prefers to breastfeed and that is historically at night since I work away from home during the day and selfishly I also want that time with him. Last night he did sleep from 5:30-4am. I fed him at 4 and he slept till about 7:20.
Children develop more ‘self-agency’ around 9 months of age and this might lead to a middle of the night feeding habit that would cause sleep fragmentation. On the other hand, feeding around 4-5am (+/_ a diaper change) might be good for a later wake-up time.
Hi Dr. Weissbluth,
I have a 6 month old who is able to fall asleep on his own at nap times and sometimes at bedtime but the problem is the night awakenings. He is not able to put himself back to sleep unless he is nursed. Sometimes he stays awake for 1 hr (very upset, crying, not wanting to nurse) after sleeping for a couple hours. He takes 3 naps a day. His naps length are very irregular. I aim for the 9am nap, then the 12pm nap and a last nap to make to bedtime.
Bedtime is usually between 6:30 and 7pm and is fully up for the day around 6 and 7am (always in a happy mood when he wakes up). At bedtime last step of the routine is nursing and he usually falls asleep while nursing and wakes up a bit when is transferred to the crib but most of the times he is able to put himself to sleep.
For his naps even though I try to aim for the times I mentioned, I watch his wake windows and early signs of tiredness (yawing, rubbing eyes, pulling ears, not interested in playing with toys). So naps vary depending on each wake up time. Sometimes he naps for 30/40 min, sometimes 1 hr sometimes 1hr and 15 min etc. Very inconsistent lengths. I did extinction when he was 12 weeks old because he only contacted nap and it got really hard.
For his last nap of the day I try not to let him sleep past 5pm to make it to a 7pm bedtime. Some days this is hard to achieve as sometimes he is falling asleep at 5 for his last nap. Then I let him sleep for no more than 45 min. If he falls asleep earlier for his last nap, I tend to not wake him up. I also try to ensure he’s getting at least 3 hrs of total nap time during the day. If the last nap ends late (like 5:45) it’s hard to get him in bed before 7:30.
He is a happy baby so it’s hard to tell when he is overtired sometimes.
The night awaking lately has been almost every 2 hrs! I’m about to return to work and need him to sleep longer stretches without waking or fall back asleep without escalating or nursing every time. He doesn’t seem hungry as he falls back asleep super fast when I give up and just nurse him back to sleep when pacifier + sushing + giggling the mattress has failed.
I don’t think he is ready for only 2 naps yet.
Do I need to do extinction for the night awakings?
P.S: He’s in the 94th percentile for weight and 62th for length, so I believe he would need only 1 feeding at night.
“signs of tiredness (yawing, rubbing eyes, pulling ears, not interested in playing with toys).” Please carefully read Blog Post 83 and watch Blog Post 115X to fully understand why you are misreading fatigue signs for drowsy signs.
Please carefully read Blog Posts 159, 171, 172, and 204 to fully appreciate why the presleep arousal from a bedtime that is too late is causing your child’s sleep problems during the day and at night.
Tell me what you think my advice will be and I will help you help your child sleep better.
Hi Dr. Weissbluth,
Thank you so much for replying!!!
I have your book and I followed it for the nap drill when I did extinction process when the baby was 12 weeks old. I seem to have forgotten what the early drowsy signs look like and mistaken them by fatigue signs.
I have tried to put the baby down when he first yawns, however that seems that he is under tired and takes forever to fall asleep (exemple: alone in his crib without crying but taking 30+ min to fall asleep). So I feel bad to have put him down so early. I’ll try this again and watch for other drowsy signs as well.
For an early bed time, I used to put him down around 6 pm but he would wake up at around 8 and not go back to sleep until 10pm! So I moved his bedtime to a little later. We usually don’t have a witching hour problem, but probably do have a second wind problem. After reading the posts that you recommended I’ll try an even earlier bedtime for a few days based on his drowsy signs and if he falls asleep at 5 for exemple I won’t wake him up and see what happens.
I believe these would be your recommendations?
I’m starting this new approach as of now! Fingers crossed.
Yes.
For 3-5 nights, use a temporary 5:30pm falling asleep time (he is bathed, fed, soothed, and you are leaving the room when he is drowsy but awake at 5:30pm).
Do extinction over night.
No new nap starts after 3pm. if he is asleep at 3pm from an earlier nap, do not wake him.
Keep a written record of naps and night sleep and let me know how it goes.
Plan for a mid morning and mid day nap opportunity and do the nap drill at these times.
Depending on how naps go, later, the bedtime might a bit later.
How does this sound?
Sounds good!
What should I consider as a wake up time allowing me to enter his room? No check ins/nursing before 6 AM?
He is exclusively breastfed, starting solids 2x a day now (breakfast and lunch).
Also, I’m loving your Cindy Crawford series on instagram!
Overnight, if you are certain that he is hungry, feed him, only once; this might be very early in the morning, before 5am.
If you feel that he is up and ready to start the day, and it is after 5am, I would go to him. This is temporary and associated with his temporary super early bedtime.
Are you OK with this?
Sounds like a plan!
He woke up from his midday nap at 1:16pm (slept for exactly 1 hr) and had 1.5 hrs nap from his morning nap. Let’s see when he shows early drowsy signs for bedtime but I don’t think he can make it not even until 5 pm today.
I’ll keep you posted on how things are going on next few days. Thank you soooo much!
Consider offering a 2:00-2:30pm nap opportunity. If you are doing the nap drill, this 3rd attempt is a no-cry nap attempt.
Hi Dr. Weissbluth,
Things are not going well over here 🙁
Naps are going terribly sideways. If I put the baby down at first signs of drowsiness (yawning and that “look”) he starts playin the crib, eventually gets overtired and doesn’t sleep. Or when he sleeps naps are extremely short and I’m only able to extend it by nursing + contact nap.
These past couple days he also has been waking up from the midday nap too early (before 1:30 pm) he is not tired when I offer a 2-2:30 nap but he is tired at 3 or 4pm. So I put him down. However because this last nap is so late it doesn’t work for the 5:30 bedtime.
Also there is construction work happening on our street and this is exactly below his bedroom’s window. It’s very loud. We all use noise machines at the house as our street is normally busy, but the construction happening now is just the worst.
This afternoon we have commitments that I can’t cancel so I’m sure this will mess up his schedule even more for today.
I have not really been doing extinction because he’s not set up for success. I’m okay with doing extinction when he has a nice total sleep of day naps and bedtime can happen naturally even if we do it as early as 5:30 for a few days.
Below is what I have been logging, not sure if we need to modify the plan or if I should keep going with what we talked about and do extinction regardless of total sleep day or night? Should I wait for construction to be over on our street?
Starting on 11/23:
1st nap:
Woke up: 5:55 AM
Down at 8:15 (probably a little too late)
Asleep at 8:36 (Calm then crying, I did 2 check ins for pacifier)
Wake at 10:05
2nd nap:
Down at 12:05
Asleep at 12:15 (no crying, no check ins)
Wake at 1:16 (happy, left him in crib to see if would fall back asleep, out of crib at 1:30).
3rd nap:
Got tired and fell asleep with help at the 3:39. Wake at 4:10 happy.
Grandma gave him a bottle and tried to get him in bed by 6 when he was drowsy. I got home from a commitment and he was screaming in distress in her arms. I calmed him down and nursed him. He fell asleep nursing. In crib at 7:10. Multiple wake up at night again evey 2-3 hrs. Since the 5:30 sleep time didn’t work, I helped him fall back asleep and didn’t do the extinction. Nursed him about 3x. Up for the day at 7:30 am.
11/24
7:30: Up for the day
Nap 1:
8:35: in crib, good mood
8:45/8:50: complaining, not crying hard
9:05: paci fell off the crib, I went in gave it back to him
9:10: asleep
9:44: wake, happy
Nap 2:
11:38 in crib, happy
11:48 asleep, no crying
12:28 wake, crying a bit, after waiting a few min to see if we would fall back asleep, went to his room, paci + giggling the crib didn’t work, so nursed back to sleep. He finished this nap as a contact nap.
1:29 wake and happy.
Nap 3
At 3 he showed early signs of drowsiness and I was not going to be able to make to the 5:30 pm sleep time.
3:09 in crib – tried everything to help him fall asleep without crying since this was the last nap. He got overtired in the crib, tried nursing, rocking, singing, paci. Only fell asleep at 4:09.
4:45 wake, crying, still visibly tired
5:15: started night time routine (bath, pjs, sleep sack, sound machine on, nursing, lights out) in crib at 5:36 crying hard.
I tried partial extinction, at some point he also had a soiled diaper, which I had to change and that made everything worse as he caught a really bad second wind.
8pm: asleep – waking, crying hard every 2 hrs then every 1 hr after 3 am. I nursed him a few times and put him down. He would wake up when placed on the crib and put himself to sleep generally fast, except for the 3 am wake up that took him 30 min to fall back asleep, no crying after nursing and placed back on crib. For the 5 am wake up I didn’t go to him. He fell asleep after 40 min (soft crying here and there).
Today 11/25:
7:44 wake up for the day – happy
Tried for a 9 am nap based on early drowsy signs and he did not sleep. Stayed in crib for 1 hr.
1st nap today started at 11:15 with help but he woke up with construction noise at 11:40. I held him for a contact nap the rest of his nap because he’s so short on sleep. Woke up at 1:12.
Perhaps my following suggestions make sense only when the construction noise has ended and/or after the Thanksgiving Holiday.
On 11/24: “went to his room, paci + giggling the crib didn’t work, so nursed back to sleep. He finished this nap as a contact nap.” Make your husband carefully read the section on the ‘Nap Drill’ to help you fully understand what you are doing will interfere with the establishment of a good nap schedule’
On 11/24: “I tried partial extinction.” Make you husband carefully read the section on ‘Extinction’ to help you fully understand why what you are doing will interfere with the establishment of good night sleep.
Night sleep circadian rhythms are well established, so, independent of napping, do ‘Extinction’ with a temporary 5:30pm falling asleep time for 3-5 days.
Nap circadian rhythms are becoming well established, so aim for a 9am and 12-2pm nap and simultaneously do the ‘Nap Drill’. The competing goals are:
1, Keeping him up to use his nap rhythm as an aid to help fall asleep.
2. Not keeping him up too late to prevent pre-sleep arousal.
Trial and error may be involved.
Do not try this unless you can commit to 3-5 days without relying on Grandmother or anyone else’s help.
Maybe start this on a Friday night so your husband can do the nap drill and you leave the house on Saturday and Sunday.
Your thoughts?
I agree. I want to be fully committed based on my experience from the past, I don’t want to drag this process for longer than necessary and I want to ensure when we start the baby is set up for success.
I’ll touch base on the week after Thanksgiving. I appreciate your help!
Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family!
Hello again Dr. Weissbluth, hope you are well!
Here is how things are going, we started with extinction on the night from 12/03 to 12/04.
12/03 – 1st night
Wake on 12/03 at 7:40 am, bad naps all day – no morning nap.
11:50 am -12:55 pm 1st nap (woke up crying)
3:00 pm – 3-30 pm 2nd nap (woke up crying)
Bedtime:
4:30 pm in crib, not crying
4:35, 4:41, complaining
4:43 pm light crying
4:47 pm crying harder
5:00 pm crying really hard
5:20 pm getting tired of crying
5:30 pm still crying hard, but tired
5:33 pm fell asleep
6:28 pm woke up crying hard
6:40 pm fell asleep
11:35 pm wake, light crying/complaining
Diaper change + nursing (started to doze off)
12:18 am back in crib awake, not crying
12:31 am asleep, no crying
2:36 am wake and crying hard
3:29 am asleep
3:38 am crying
3:48 am falling asleep
5:24 am awake and crying
6:13 am falling asleep
12/04 Wake for the day 7:45 am
Owlet sock: 7 wakings
Nap 1
9:23 am In crib
9:45 am fell asleep, no crying
10:37 am awake complaining a bit
Nap 2
12:29 pm in crib
12:45 pm fell asleep, no crying
1:33 pm awake complaining
1:40 pm fell asleep nursing – asleep/nursing until 2:02 pm
Bedtime
4:31 pm in crib
4:42 pm asleep, no crying
4:55 pm awake and crying
5:05 pm getting tired, cry, stop, cry, stop
5:15 pm crying hard
5:37 pm stopped crying
5:38 pm asleep
5:41 pm awake and crying, cry, stop, cry, stop
5:48 pm asleep
2:45 am awake, not crying – Diaper change + nursing, back in crib at 3:30 am very alert, not crying
3:42 am asleep, no crying
12/05 6:37 am awake, no crying
Owlet : 4 wakings
Nap 1
8:28 am in crib
8:55 am asleep, no crying
9:28 am awake, no crying (left for another 30 min in the crib following the nap drill, started light crying at around 9:45, 9:58 out of crib, did not fall back asleep
Nap 2
11:42 am in crib, awake not crying
11:47 am asleep, no crying
1 pm awake not crying – might have been woken up by street noise
Trying for a short 3rd nap
2:40 pm in crib, not crying
2:45 pm complaining a bit
2:47 pm rubbing eyes/yawning, quiet
2:58 pm asleep, no crying
3:37 pm awake
Bedtime
5:01 pm In crib, started crying when I closed the door
5:14 pm stopped crying – fell asleep
10:14 pm woke up crying I couldn’t see him on the baby monitor, went to his room, he was at the foot of the crib stuck in the railings of the crib in an uncomfortable position. I took the opportunity to change his diaper and nurse. He fell asleep while nursing. 10:38 back in the crib half asleep
10:40 asleep
2:12 am awake
2:27 am crying
2:48 am getting tired, still crying
2:59 am stopping crying
3:00 am asleep
4:15 crying
4:47 asleep
12/06 6:36 am awake
Owlet : 3 wakings
Nap 1
8:55 am in crib
9:09 am asleep, no crying
10:42 am awake, no crying
Nap 2
12:47 pm In crib
12:49 pm asleep, no crying
1:49 pm awaken by street noise, no crying
Bedtime
Tried to hold for as long as possible to get closer to 5:30 pm. I did the bedtime routine and while nursing he started to doze off. I took him off the breast and tried to put him in the crib and he immediately woke up crying. I picked him up and tried to burp him, a tiny little burp came out, I put him back in the crib awake and paci in his mouth and left the room. He fell asleep right away at 4:58 pm. No further crying until 5:26.
5:26 pm woke up crying
5:32 pm fell asleep
1:24 awake
1:27 light crying
Nursed (started to dose off), took him off the breast, he woke up, did a diaper check didn’t need to be changed, placed in crib at 1:45, awake
2:04 asleep, no crying
Owlet: 7 wakings
12/07 6:18 am awake no crying
Nap 1
8:36 in crib
8:42 asleep
What do you think? Am I making any mistakes that need to be corrected? It looks like his sleep is still a bit fragmented based on the Owlet sock device (not sure what your thoughts are on this device and how accurate it is)
Also, I wanted him to have more consolidated naps. Sleep every day around the same time and around the same length, in order to have a smoother bedtime. How can I achieve this? Controlling wake-up time?
Now that is getting dark at 4:30 pm, does it mess with his circadian rhythm? When do you recommend moving his bad time to a little later? I’d say he should be asleep between 6-7pm, right?
Thank you!!!!
1. Because 80% of breast milk is consumed in about 4 minutes, it might help to dramatically shorten the time you are with him in the middle of the night A quick feed +/- a diaper change and only a kiss good-night might take 10 minutes or so and by leaving him drowsy but awake, more self-soothing skills in the middle of the night might develop.
2. On Night 1 and 2, although he was put down around 4:30pm, he fell asleep around 5:30pm. On night 3:
“Tried to hold for as long as possible to get closer to 5:30 pm. I did the bedtime routine and while nursing he started to doze off…He fell asleep right away at 4:58 pm. No further crying until 5:26.
5:26 pm woke up crying
5:32 pm fell asleep”
This suggests to me that in the late afternoon/early evening, when he is showing drowsy signs around 4ish, try to gently entertain him to prevent pre-sleep arousal (if possible) but allow more homeostatic sleep pressure to build and shoot for a 5:30 falling asleep time instead of 4:30ish.
How does this sound?
By the way, please read the section on excessive crying/colic and tell me whether he behaved this way when much younger?
Okay, I’ll shorten the feeding/diaper change in the middle of the night.
For nights 1 & 2 I knew it was going to take time until he fell asleep and if the goal was for him to be asleep at 5:30 I counted for extra time in the crib. Plus at 4:30 he was already tired… I’ll try your recommendation to above.
It’s just really hard when his naps are so irregular (mostly in length) and if he wakes up from his midday nap too early and I can’t squeeze a short nap for him to wake up before 3 or 4 I don’t know what to do 🙁
Do the best you can to keep him up without him getting too frazzled and try for a 5:30pm falling asleep time. Maybe you’ll only get to 4:45 or 5:15, but give it a try.
Sounds good! I’ll give it a try.
I read the section on your book about extreme fussiness/colic and my baby didn’t have that.
But he does have tongue tie which was hard for breastfeeding. We used to spend hrs nursing, well over 8x a day. At 3 weeks old the contact naps started and I could not get him to sleep anywhere else other than on me. So I did the nap drill and the bedtime extinction at 12 weeks. It worked! He started sleeping in his crib but naps became short versus contact naps that lasted 2-3 hrs. Night wakings were not terrible and I didn’t respond to every sound he made. He slept in his bassinet by me at night.
We also had an international trip where we had to co-sleep for 3 weeks (he was almost 16 weeks old). At the trip I nursed him when he would wake up at night and also after the long airplane ride things went really bad at bedtime every day during the trip and continued afterwards. I’m afraid this trip backtracked the progress he had made on his self-soothing skills if that’s a thing.
He will be 7 months old in a couple days. I’ll keep you posted on how naps are going and the 5:30 pm bedtime over the next few days. Thank you!
Hi Dr. Weissbluth, hope you are well! Here is where we left off. Things are still rocky, I think it’s partially my timing. I have such a happy baby, it’s hard to notice his early drowsy signs, but I keep trying. There is still a lot of crying- not to fall asleep initially, but to stay as sleep.
Do you have any other suggestions? Should I keep doing what I’m doing? Or should we take a break from the training?
12/07 6:18 am awake no crying
Nap 1
8:36 in crib
8:42 asleep no crying
9:30 wake no crying
Nap 2
12:08 in crib
12:16 asleep no crying
1:28 awake no crying
Bedtime
5:20 in crib
5:30 asleep
5:35 crying less than 1 min
5:36 asleep
7:21 – 7:29 light crying (probably woken up by street noise)
7:30 crying harder
7:36 stopping crying
7:38 asleep
9:35 light crying
9:48 asleep
1:24 crying
Nursed and back in crib at 1:48
Asleep 1:52
3:57: awake no crying (per owlet sock)
4:40 asleep no crying (per owlet sock)
12/08 7:27 awake, no crying
Nap 1
9:31 in crib
9:49 asleep no crying
10:55 awake no crying
Nap 2
1:01 in crib
1:27 asleep no crying
3:26 awake with external noise, no crying
Bedtime
5:30 in crib
5:42 asleep, no crying
7:51 woke up crying hard
8:04 light crying
8:23 crying hard
8:26 stopped crying
8:30 crying
8:36 stopped crying
8:40 asleep
1:32 awake and crying
Diaper change + nursing
1:52 back in crib awake, not crying
2:04 asleep, no crying
5:25 crying
12/09 6:40 out of crib – didn’t go back asleep
Was “wired” once out of crib.
Nap 1
8:21 in crib
8:55 asleep, no crying
10:11 awake
Nap 2
12:20 in crib
12:26 light complaining
12:30 crying
12:51 asleep
1:21 awake, crying
1:30 asleep by nursing/contact nap until 2:30 (I know I messed up this nap)
Bedtime
5:30 in crib
5:38 asleep, no crying
8:32 awake
8:37 light crying
9:05 crying harder – I thought he might be hungry, so I nursed him. Next night I’ll have dad or grandma try a bottle.
9:22 back in crib awake, complaining and then crying
9:35 stopped crying
9:50 crying again
10:08 stopped crying
10:15 asleep
12:07 Awake and crying
12:23 stopped crying
12:30 asleep
3:40 am awake
4:19 light crying
Nursed
4:30 back in crib awake, happy
4:39 asleep
12/10 6:27 awake no crying
Owlet: 4 wakings
Nap 1
8:29 in crib
8:45 asleep, no crying
9:40 awake, no crying
Nap 2
12:09 in crib
12:16 asleep, no crying
1:40 awake, no crying
Bedtime
5:20 in crib – was awake but he was falling asleep while nursing a few minutes before
5:24 asleep, no crying
9:02 awake
9:07 light crying
9:13 light crying/complaining on and off
9:25 almost asleep
9:29 light crying/complaining on and off
9:43 falling asleep
9:45 asleep
12:10 awake
12:31 light complaining
Nursed
12:47 back in crib awake and happy
12:55 asleep
3:20 awake
3:30 crying
3:55 asleep
12/11 6:21 awake no crying
Owlet: 4 wakings
Nap 1
8:53 in crib
9:23 asleep
10:20 awake
Nap 2
12:53 in crib
1:07 asleep
1:43 awake no crying
1:48 light crying
I offered a quick nursing session to try to extend the nap, he dozed off and woke up during the transfer to the crib at 2:03
He was tired (but happy) the rest of the afternoon, specially at 3:40. I tried to hold him off as long as possible to get close to the 5:30 pm bedtime
5pm in crib
5:03 asleep, no crying
7:39 woke up crying hard
7:56 crying on and off
7:59 asleep
1:21 light crying
Nursed, fell asleep while nursing
1:33 back in crib, woke up during transfer
2:07 crying, then started crying harder
2:41 crying on and off
2:46 asleep
12/12 5:35 awake
5:40 crying
6:01 out of crib and start the day
Nap 1
8:22 in crib
8:30 asleep, no crying
10:05 awake, happy
Nap 2
12:04 in crib
12:18 asleep, no crying
12:43 awake, no crying
1:09 light complaining
1:12 crying
1:20 out the of crib
In general, what are your plans for breast feeding?
When breast fed in the middle of the night, what is the usual duration of time that you are with him and what is the usual duration of time actually nursing?
Will he take a bottle of expressed breast milk and will your husband cooperate for a few nights to feed?
“9:05 crying harder – I thought he might be hungry, so I nursed him. Next night I’ll have dad or grandma try a bottle”, “I offered a quick nursing session to try to extend the nap, he dozed off and woke up during the transfer to the crib at 2:03”, and “1:30 asleep by nursing/contact nap until 2:30 (I know I messed up this nap)” will interfere with his ability to learn self-soothing even if these events are few and far between.
Please read carefully the section on the ‘Nap Drill’ and tell me if this is what you are doing and if not, are you able to do it.
Yes, I’m following the nap drill except those few times that I mentioned above that I couldn’t handle it… however I’m trying to be as consistent as possible. I just thought that we would be in a better place by now 8 days into the training.
If the nap lasts less than 30 min I let him stay in the crib for another 30 min even if he cries.
If the nap lasts more than 30 min but less than 1 hr, I wait and see if he falls back asleep – he never does. He usually starts crying, so I rush to him and try a nursing session and if he’s still tired he falls asleep while nursing but ends up waking up during the transfer to the crib.
The only thing that I have not been doing for the last couple of days, is leaving the house at the beginning of the nap as he can easily fall asleep without crying, even if I’m in the house.
During the night I’m following your advice and cutting the time with him shorter. I only stay with him for the duration of the nursing session + trying to burp and a diaper change if he needs it. He does take longer to nurse at night, I’m the one who has to end the feed. I do so when I notice that his sucking patterns have changed and are not “big swallows”anymore. I plan to breastfeed until he is at least 1 year old. He just turned 7 months old. I think he would take a bottle, me and my husband did this experiment when we did the training when he was younger and he took the whole bottle (4 oz) and wanted more!
The most challenging thing for me right now, besides the nap’s length issue, is the 1st wake up of the night when he’s really upset and I know it’s not hunger and the inconsolable crying can go as little as 20 min or as long as 1 hr 🙁
As always I appreciate your response!
Understood. Let’s look at the big picture, Mari.
Your original Comment included frequent night wakings and although he still has this 1st wake up with crying, has night sleep improved, and if so, for how long has night sleep been better?
Currently naps are a major issue, is the construction work nearby ongoing?
Would it be possible for your husband do the night feeding for 2-3 nights with expressed breast milk in a bottle? Because it flows faster, he would get nourishment but not mother’s soothing and be up for a shorter duration at night. It’s important for him to feed only if there is strong/rhythmic sucking and not try to “top-off” or “finish the bottle’. Keep a record of how many ouces he consumes. Additionally, for this week-end, could your husband do nap duty with you outside the house. Your husband would do minimal soothing for naps and middle of the night. Pamper yourself this week-end! Sometimes babies sleep better when Dad is more involved.
Your thoughts?
True, the big picture is what matters. He is not waking up almost 1-2 hrs anymore and last night he slept through the night! But because he only napped for 25 min at the noon nap, I let him sleep at 3pm as he was very drowsy. This nap went on for 2 hrs! I was hoping it would be shorter to allow for an early bedtime, however I wanted to see how things would go and decided to not wake him up and go with the flow for the rest of the day. I was able to get him in his crib at 7:04 pm and he fell asleep without crying 20 min later (it was a bit later than I hoped, but I guess it makes sense based on the time he woke up from the 3rd nap). Only woke up at 3:09 am, (light complaining) which I used the opportunity to nurse. By 3:21 he was back in the crib, half wake. Fell asleep super fast and woke up for the day at 5:55am! This morning he fell asleep at 8:35 am (no crying) and it’s almost 10 am he is still asleep.
Not sure if this is just pure luck or we are finally getting somewhere?
The construction ended on 12/03 so that night we started the training.
We can try get dad more involved this weekend and try bottles for sure.
Meanwhile should we continue the bedtime at 5:30 pm or based on how well last night was, move it a little bit later depending on his midday nap?
Thank you again!
I think that this last night is evidence that you should trust your instincts; congratulations! The theme is to avoid pre-sleep arousal, focus on drowsy signs, and, in general, very early bedtimes. The more careful you ae now, the easier it will be when Holiday sleep disruptions may occur in the near future.
Keeping a written record might help you fine tune your approach.
Let me know how it goes.
Dear Mr. Weissbluth,
thanks for all the advice in your book and on your website. We followed your approach and could teach our (first) daughter self soothing when she was 5 months old. All went well but now since 3 months we struggle a bit and we don’t know where to start.
Our (first) daughter is now 22 months old and she became big sister to a newborn 4 weeks ago. We thought it is tough for her emotionally to get a sibling and that she will return naturally to the routines we had before. This didn’t happen, unfortunately. Since 3 months she refuses to sleep in the cot in her own room. She only wants to sleep in a regular double bed with another adult. She doesn’t fall asleep unassisted and has 1-2 night awakenings. Therefore we (father or mother) shared the bed with her the last 3 months. She likes to drink during the night from a straw cup and uses that for self soothing. She often wets herself during the night (diaper can’t hold it anymore). On top of that she starts to wake up earlier and earlier, currently 4:30 am and refuses to go back to bed. We would like to achieve that she sleeps in her room, falls asleep unassisted after our bed routine and sleeps through the night.
Where should we start ? Transitioning her first to her own room with one of us sleeping with her so she can get used to it ? Or should we already start leaving the room and locking it ? Should we start with the midday nap or at night ? When should we limit the amount of water bottles per night ?
We would be very happy for your guidance what to do first and what we can do at the same time.
More information :
– mid day nap around 12:00 for 1-2 hours
– bed time is 6:30pm to currently 5am
– she is normally not cranky or fussy before 6:30 pm
Thanks beforehand !
Marion & Sebastian
Please carefully read the section on ‘Sleep Rules’ and ‘Silent Return to Sleep’ in my book and tell me your thoughts. We will make a specific modification because of her age.
Thanks, we carefully read those sections and came up with the following plan:
1. We will transfer her to her own bed in her own room. We will sleep 1-2 nights with her so she accommodates to the new environment. Meanwhile we will move the bed time to 5:30-6:00pm to check if she was overtired and sleeps until minimum 6am.
2. Use extinction method to help her learn to fall asleep unassisted. If she gets out of bed herself and doesn’t stay in the room we will use the silent return to sleep method (5 steps). If that doesn’t work, we need to use either a crib tent or lock the door (plan B). Meanwhile we will explain to our daughter some sleep rules as described in the book (down is down etc), we are wondering if she is yet too young to get it but we will try anyway. We won’t pick her up until 6am or return her to her room if she wakes up earlier.
3. We will only give her 2 bottles of water a night to avoid she wets herself. We will start that with the extinction method.
Questions:
– Should we start the extinction method for the mid day nap or at night or can we do both ?
– what would you recommend for a child in that age (22 months old) – graduate extinction or extinction method ?
Thanks for your comments. Please let us know if you see any need for some modifications of our plan.
Congratulations! You will see success quickly.
1. Watch for subtle drowsy signs between 4-5pm. Depending on naps, 6:00pm might be too late.
2. Make a poster and recite the Sleep Rules at nap and bedtime. Because children begin to understand consequences around 30 months of age and she is younger, only use positive reinforcement for compliance. Skip the restriction of privileges, for now.
3. Extinction will work quickly, if, and only if, the bedtime is not too late. Because you have two children, try extinction. Keep a written record and let me know how it goes. Abruptly stop or gradually stop (less and less water in the bottle over 4-5 nights) giving her water at night. Perhaps for the gradual approach, put a baby bottle of water in her crib and say at bedtime, “Here’s some water in case you are thirsty at night, but I will not come in to give it to you.” Going to her at night to give a water bottle (that she does not need and only makes for more wet diapers) might interfere with success with extinction.
How does this sound?
Thanks sounds fantastic, we will keep a log and get back to you.
2 questions:
1. She has toys in her room. If she stays in her room and decides to get out of bed and play. What are supposed to do then ? Should we go in her room and remove them ?
2. Should we start with extinction at night and only start with it for naps once she is settled during the night ? Or should we start at night and then be consistent and also use extinction for the naps during the day ?
Thanks !
If you are aware that she is out of bed, but quiet in her room, perhaps playing with toys, please put her back in bed (remain silent, no social interaction). If doable, put her toys (or most of them) somewhere else so she cannot get to them at night.
Do extinction for night and day but review the section on extinction for naps and note that it is time limited to one hour; that is your attempt for a nap.
Is this acceptable?
Yes thank you very much !
Hi Dr. Weissbluth, hope you are doing well!
Here is where we are at for naps:
Naps are a lot better, ~most of them~ lasting around 1.5 hrs. We are also able to aim for around 9 am for Nap 1 and 12 pm or 1 pm for Nap 2. It’s rare when he cries before a nap or taking 30 min to fall asleep, but sometimes it does happen. Do I still need to leave the house following the nap drill?
Here is where things get tricky:
Baby usually tired at around 3:30. I made an experiment to see if would be better to get him to bed super early (5:30pm) or let him take a late nap (aiming for asleep no later than 4:30) and get him to bed a little later (tentative 7pm). The 3rd nap + later bed time went better. Do you think this is a good approach? And if he’s asleep after 5pm I start to get worried that it will impact bedtime and it will be too late (like past 7:30pm). – Do you have any advice for this?
And here is how things are for the night wakings:
They got better too! But, if he goes to bed at 5:30 there is a 1st bad wake up where he cries a lot.
If he goes to bed later (between 6-7) there is at least one wake up. If I go in there and nurse he takes over 1 hr to fall back asleep. For the last 2 nights Dad gave him a bottle and he only had 2 oz the 1st night and 2.5 oz the 2nd night. This took over 10 min each night. And then another 45 min or so to fall back asleep. Does this mean that he doesn’t need a feeding at night? Just a note, he lost some weight recently, I believe that’s due to teething, he was not into nursing. During the Thanksgiving week he had his first 2 teeth erupted. Since he was 3 weeks old I work with a lactation consultant.
Also a question: With extinction, if the crying goes from hard to distress crying, I am allowed to go into his room and help him calm down, correct?
Below is the sleep log from where we left off:
12/13 Awake 5:55 no crying
Nap 1
8:25 in crib
8:35 asleep
10:04 awake
Nap 2
12:04 in crib
12:11 asleep
1:38 awake
Nap 3
4:05 in crib
4:14 asleep
5:02 awake with music
Bedtime
6:50 in crib
7:03 asleep
2:39 awake – light crying
Nursed
2:54 back in crib
3:08 asleep
12/14 6:49 awake crying (on tummy)
Nap 1
8:13 in crib
8:26 asleep
9:13 awake crying (on tummy)
Nap 2
12:10 in crib crying
12:20 asleep
1:40 awake
No go for a Nap 3 at 3:40 – crying
Bedtime
5:59 in crib
6:07 crying
6: 35 asleep
10:17 crying
11:14 asleep
12/15 5:55 awake
6:04 crying- start the day
Nap 1
8:15 in crib – complaining a bit
8:20 asleep
9:37 was already wake, not sure what time he had woken up as he was really quiet
Nap 2
11:43 in crib
11:50 asleep
1:15 awake
Nap 3
3:11 in crib
3:20 asleep
5:09 woken up
Bedtime
7:02 in crib
7:10 asleep
2:19 light crying (per owlet awake since 1:30 am!)
Nursed
2:42 asleep
12/16 5:45 am awake
Nap 1
8:28 in crib
8:37 asleep
10:04 awake
Nap 2
12:12 in crib
12:24 asleep
1:00 awake
1:05 asleep no crying
1:58 awake
Bedtime
5:45 in crib
5:49 asleep
10:28 awake
10:48 tried for a bottle, had only 1.5 oz
10:58 back in crib – started crying
11:15 falling asleep
11:27 asleep
11:40 awake and crying
11:44 asleep
2:04 awake
2:16 back in crib asleep
12/17 5:25 awake
6:30 asleep
7:59 awake
Nap 1
10:03 in crib
10:21 asleep
11:20 awake
Nap 2
1:35 in crib – fussy
1:53 asleep
3:31 wake
Bedtime
5:50 in crib – fussy
5:59 asleep
1:39 awake
Nursed
1:57 in crib
2:38 crying
2:44 crying on and off
2:54 crying
3:00 desperate crying
Nursed
3:12 back in crib
3:19 asleep
12/18 7:07 awake
Nap 1
9:18 in crib
9:37 asleep
10:15 awake
Nap 2
12:03 in crib
12:13 – 12:30 crying
12:32 asleep
2:28 awake
Bedtime
5:56 in crib
6:04 asleep
2:12 awake
Nursed
2:55 light crying
3:08 asleep
12/19 7:15 awake no crying
Nap 1
8:56 in crib (construction noise on street again)
9:28-9:31 crying on and off
9:36 asleep
10:50 awake by construction noise
Nap 2
12:58 in crib
1:06 asleep no crying
2:21 awake no crying
3:39 drowsy signs, attempt of a quick Nap 3:
4:01 in crib
4:20 asleep
5:05 waking up
Bedtime
6:32 in crib
6:45 falling asleep
6:51 asleep
1:18 awake – light crying
Nursed (fell asleep)
1:32 back in crib (woke up during transfer)
2:05 almost asleep, then wake and light crying at 2:15
2:18 almost asleep
2:20 asleep
2:25 half crying/ half asleep
Crying got harder, I think he was too hot. It was snowing that night, so I had him in a warm sleep sack (Sleeveless 2.5 TOG) but then his room got too hot overnight (75F). Our home doesn’t hold temperatures well. I look on the weather app to dress him appropriately for the night. Sometimes it can get a lot colder in his room to the point that ice forms inside his windows which are not far from his crib.
Decided to go back and put him in a lighter sleep sack. Nursed again to help him regulate and in case he was thirsty. This time he ended the nursing session when he was satisfied (probably around 5 min).
2:40 back in crib
2:47 asleep
12/20 6:05 awake for the day
Nap 1
8:17 in crib
8:30 asleep
9:04 awake
9:08 light crying
9:17 almost falling back asleep, crying on and off
9:20 back asleep
10:20 awake
Nap 2
12:40 in crib – little screams
12:53 asleep
1:32 woken up by very loud fire truck sirens – he was crying and super scared so I did go in to comfort him. I noticed he was very drowsy, rocked him for a few minutes and left the room
1:45 back asleep
2:30 awake
Bedtime
5:20 in crib
5:28 crying
Crying on and off, mix of light and hard, multiple, multiple times from 8:06 to 9:42 but didn’t seem to fully wake up each time he cried
2:15 awake and light crying
2:20 dad gave a bottle of expressed breastmilk, he took 2 oz only
2:33 back in crib, started crying when dad closed the door
2:46 stopped crying
3:04 asleep
12/21 awake 6:45
Nap 1
8:53 In crib
9:03 asleep
10:20 awake
Nap 2
12:35 asleep
1:57 awake
Nap 3 – started showing drowsy signs at around 3:30/3:45, decided to try for a 3rd nap
4:07 in crib – wanted to start to cry (but didn’t), complaining a bit
4:15 asleep
4:47 awake
Bedtime
6:57 in crib
7:04 asleep
1:39 awake for 10 mins (per owlet, didn’t hear him cry)
4:19 light crying
4:23 dad gave a bottle – 2.5 oz
4:36 back in crib, crying when dad left the room. Crying lasted a few minutes, then he begun to play in the crib.
4:48 falling asleep
4:54 awake and rolling around in crib
5:02 asleep
12/22 7:38 awake
Nap 1
9:32 in crib
9:43 asleep
10:25 awake
Nap 2
11:51 in crib
12:13 asleep
Mood over the last 6 days:
– Screech/ little screaming sounds that he has been doing and seems a little more irritable, but when we play he smiles.
– Doesn’t like getting any of his sleep sacks on, he knows this means it’s time for bed, naps and bedtime.
– More attached to mom.
– Loves to jump/bounce when being held.
– Hunger for more solids.
Please let me know your thoughts!
Thank you!
At 6 months of age, 84% of infants are taking 2 naps and 14% are taking 3 naps.
At 9 months of age, 91% of infants are taking 2 naps and 5% are taking 3 naps and 4% are taking 1 nap.
Based on his age, the best strategy is to try for just 2 naps. Temporarily, leave the house only if you think it is helping. Try to delay the first nap until about 9am (see 12/18)and the second nap, try to delay the second nap to 12:30-1:00pm to erase sleepiness occurring around 3-4pm. Keep an early bedtime based on drowsy signs.
Because he took so few ounces when bottle fed, because of his age, and weight (94%), we know that he is amply fed during the day and does not need to be fed at night.
Therefore, for the next 4 nights, do extinction as described in my book, even if the crying is intense. Keep a record and let me know how it goes.
An exception to the above might occur when outside construction noise or temperature issues mess up the schedule.
But try to keep a fairly strict schedule because around 9 months of age (please read ahead in my book), he will show more attachment to you, some stranger danger, some separation anxiety, and much more self-agency as described in my book. So getting sleep under better control now will prevent major worsening in the future.
Is this acceptable?
Yes, I can try. It’s hard when he’s crying in distress, but if that will help I’ll give it a try. Things might get interrupted on Christmas Day due to family plans… we are also traveling next weekend, I’m a bit worried about how things will go (long car ride and different home that the baby has never been before). I’ll try to keep the same schedule and bedtime routine.
Construction is now 100% over, they just did the asphalt patch and I couldn’t believe that the baby slept through that noise! Unfortunately, the bedroom temperature is a bit out of our control, but we keep trying to make the best of it.
He actually lost 2 lbs (2 different scales were used, one from Dr. office at 6 MO well back check up and one is from the LC when she came over for a follow up visit about a week ago) so now he’s more in the 50%. I offer more feedings during the day to ensure he keeps on track and has enough calories for the night.
I’m basically back to work, however I work a couple of days from home (I haven’t been to the office yet, but this will happen mid January). It’s harder to leave the house now with work, and I don’t think me being here makes much difference. Grandma and Dad shared the nap duty yesterday and it was the same as when I’m home.
He’s currently taking the 3rd nap of the day, and I’ll start overnight extinction tonight. Fingers crossed! I’ll touch base at the end of the week to let you know how things went.
Thank you and Happy Holidays!
Oops. Maybe start the strict extinction when the holidays are over and you are not traveling in order to dedicate 3-4 nights.
Looking at his growth curve, is it possible that the 6 month weight was in error as being too high (you might see a big bump up from the 4 month weight)?
At the 4 MO well baby check up he was 14 lb 15 oz and at the 6 MO he was 20 lb 13 oz from the dr. office scale only. He was really chunky at 6 MO, but wasn’t as mobile as he is now. I can see that his arms and legs are thinning out a bit… In between these appointments we also found out that he is allergic to cow’s milk protein (I have been on a dairy free diet ever since). We and the LC are watching his weight closely.
And sounds good! I’ll start the overnight extinction after our trip.
Thank you!
At 4 months of age: 14 lb 15 oz = 50% for weight
At 6 months of age: 20 lb 13 oz = 95% for weight. If this was erroneous and he was still at the 50%, his weight would have been about 17 lb 8 oz.
At 7 months of age, if he was at the 50%, his weight would be about 18 lb 8oz or about 2 lb below the weight recorded at 6 months of age (20 lb 13 oz)
It is not normal for an infant to lose weight. So either one scale was not zeroed correctly or otherwise faulty creating too high a measurement at 6 months or too low a measurement at 7 months or your child is not well and needs to be examined and re-weighed. If your child has normal urine and stool output, and in no way appears ill (has a strong suck, no fever, no respiratory symptoms, no vomiting or diarrhea, and so forth), then it is more likely to be an error of measurement.
Because of the upcoming holiday, please discuss this with your child’s pediatrician on Monday for clarification.
Thank you!
He was having a few days where he was not popping at all for 2-3 days. I was concerned because he was also nursing on one side only for about 3 minutes. So I kept offering more feedings about every awake hour. He was having the same amount of wet diapers, but the amount of pee was a little smaller than usual as well. This started right before his 2 teeth came out around Thanksgiving. I also thought that because he was feeding so much at night it was impacting his day appetite (when I first sent a message here he was awaking up every 3-2-1 hrs which I nursed him back to sleep). I contacted my lactation consultant as I was concerned and she came over about a week ago and on her scale his weight was 18 lb 5 oz. During her visit, I nursed him and the total time at breast (only wanted one side, but had been fed 1 hr before this) was 4 minutes – intake 80mL. She also said that the scale at the Dr. office could have not been well calibrated. She will be back on the first week of January for a follow up visit. His mood was still the same, he didn’t seem ill, just the happy baby as always. No fever, vomiting or diarrhea at all.
Since we started the sleep training he is nursing a little better during the day! Also eating more solids lately.
By the way, he slept all night last night!!!! When I was messaging you yesterday afternoon he was taking a 3rd nap. He woke up at 4:19pm and he was still tired. I planned to get him in bed before 6pm. I used this last wake window to feed him dinner and then do the night time routine. I started his bath at 5:30 and he was in the crib by 6:09. Not sure if I was too late to get him in his crib because he cried for 40 min, or if he was having a “response burst” as mentioned in your book. He feel asleep at 7pm and woke up today at 7:07! He’s currently taking Nap 1 (9:13 in crib and asleep at 9:25)
The owlet sock showed that he had 6 night wakings but I did not hear him crying once. Per the owlet sock total sleep was 10 hrs and 34 min.
If he wakes up at night going forward, what’s your recommendation? Offer 1 feeding only and leaving the room?
It appears that sleep is improving. I would go to your child at night if, and only if, you thought he was in distress. If yo thought he might be only hungry, then father should go first and try some low-intensity soothing (Blog Post 145) first before you go to feed. Do not use feeding as a night soothing method.
Is this acceptable?
I know that there will be some setbacks (perhaps because of the holidays), but would you consider writing a narrative report of your sleep adventure that I would include as a Blog Post? Mothers would be more attuned to your voice than to mine.
Absolutely! I’ll write our saga so far haha!
Thank you very much for all your help, hopefully things keep improving and I won’t have to bother you anymore 😊
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!
Thank you. The more detail you provide, the more you will help other parents. Please include the role (+ or -) of the father.
We would like to give an update how it goes.
The first night we transitioned her to her own room and to a children’s bed was very bumpy- it took a long time to get her to sleep, she woke up every hour, screamed and jumped out of bed.
Second night we reinstalled her crib (she can’t get out of it herself). This changed the picture completely. 1 minute protest screaming for 2 nights then she laid down and slept from 6pm to 5am – she had a few night awakenings with a bit of crying but soothed herself back to sleep, we didn’t walk into her room. 3rd night no crying or protesting, neither for the night nor for day nap.
We can’t believe how fast she went back to the routines we had established before without big of a protest. So the only thing we struggle with is her wake up time – she is completely awake between 5-5:30am and won’t go back to sleep. She gets sleepy around 5pm and is in bed at around 5:30pm, so that is nearly a 12 hours stretch. Her nap time during the day is 1-2hours – she gets currently tired and cranky around 10:30-11am which is quite early, she used to take her nap around 12 (nap time in the daycare as well). Total sleep duration is around 13-14 hours. We are wondering if we should prolong that wake up time any further to 6am while sticking to an early bedtime around 5-5.30pm ? Or should we move her bed time to half an hour later so 6/6.30pm and check how that affects her wake up time ? We learned sleep begets sleep so unsure if we would do the right thing.
Thank you so much for your help !
Because you have a baby and almost 2-year-old, and because your toddler recently wasn’t sleeping well, but now the toddler is sleeping better, I would let a few weeks go by for everyone to get well-rested and enjoy the New Year holiday. Temporarily, try to go to bed earlier yourself so you can better cope with the 5:-5:30 wake-up time.
In my experience, delaying the bedtime to cause a later wake-up time:
Rarely works in a child who needs 2 naps.
Sometimes works in a child who needs 1 nap.
Usually works in a child who is not napping.
The conflicting goals are;
Keeping your child up later at night to cause a later wake up time.
Keeping your child up later at night might produce pre-sleep arousal and sleep problems.
Let me know, in a while when you would like to try this and I’ll give you specific advice.
Because of the rapid improvement, please consider writing a narrative report of your sleep saga which I would publish as a Blog Post. Many mothers would be more attuned to your voice than mine. If so, please include the role of the father ( + or -).
This is the saga of my son’s, Ocean (Olly), sleep journey. I got the book “Healthy Sleep Habits Happy Child” as a gift during my baby shower. While pregnant I remember scanning through a few pages and thinking to myself that I really needed to have healthy sleep habits for my baby very early. When baby was born we had feeding challenges, due to tongue tie he would literally spend hours nursing some days 12x/day. It was inevitable that he would fall asleep always during feedings (unintentionally). He has always been a happy baby, no excessive crying, no colic, no witching hour. He did hate the car seat though!
At 3 weeks of age the contact naps started. I remember telling my lactation consultant that I couldn’t get him to sleep anywhere else other than on me and she said he might have been going through a growth spurt. So I thought this would be just a phase and would pass soon. By 12 weeks we were still on the contact naps situation. I couldn’t do it anymore. When my baby was awake, then I was able to put him down if he wasn’t nursing and I felt guilty as that was the time I could really enjoy his company, but instead I used this time to do things around the house, or eat or use the restroom. Then he would cry, I’d pick him up and we would start all over again.
I decided to sleep train using the nap drill to get him to nap in his crib. Nights were fine, he would sleep by me in his bassinet. He didn’t have many wakings, just the usual for newborn. However he would always fall asleep while nursing, as he took extra long to eat due to tongue tie. He didn’t have many chances to learn self soothing early.
After 4 nights using the nap drill and extinction at night, I was able to get him to sleep in his crib for naps, but naps became short, around 30 or 45 min versus 2-3 hrs contact naps. Soon after I started the training we had an international trip where we had to co-sleep due to no other option. During 3 weeks of the trip I’d nurse him every time he would wake up. I believe a bad habit started forming there. He turned 4 months old during this trip. The airplane rides were long and terrible. The country where we were at was hot and we didn’t have AC. Funny enough his naps were good, he was able to fall asleep on his own. However the nights started to become a huge problem. I believe this trip backtracked the progress he had made in some ways.
Once we returned to the US his sleep was a mess (the time difference was only 2 hrs so I don’t think it had much impact). We had one or another good nap day and night sleep. When he was 6 months old the nights were really bad. He was awaking every 3-2-1 hrs and only going back to sleep after nursing. Naps were short and irregular in length. I contacted Dr. Weissbluth via his blog around Thanksgiving, he coached me on how to proceed to get things back on track. I was worried as it was almost time for me to return to work and we all needed to sleep well at night. We had some bumps on the road as there was construction happening on our street and the baby’s bedroom can get too hot or too cold at night.
Night 1 – 1 hr of crying to fall asleep at bedtime
Night 2 – 1 hr of crying to fall asleep at bedtime
Night 3 – 15 min of crying to fall asleep at bedtime
Night 4 – no crying to fall asleep at bedtime
Naps started to get longer, finally! We were still having night awaking problems. Not as bad, so we had Dad give the baby a bottle of expressed breastmilk to see if he was really hungry at night. He had around 2 and 2.5 oz each night. On the 3rd night of the experiment he did not wake up crying and was in crib from 7pm to 7:07am.
It’s Christmas and we are not out of the weeds yet. The second nap usually ends too early and by 3:30 pm the baby is tired. We are trying to adjust the schedule, it’s a day by day type of thing. There are also some bad wake ups at night where he still cries for 1 hr. I only go to him once at night if I think he’s hungry or thirsty. This is talking way longer than I thought but we hope things keep improving and trying our best to be consistent. Letting my baby cry is one of the most difficult things I have to do, however as parents we must learn how to do hard things.
Thank you! Should I keep or change Olly’s name?
You can keep it! His name is Ocean, Olly is his nickname.
Thanks for all the advice. Sure happy to write that blog post and post it here.
Hi Dr. Weissbluth, it’s Mari here again. Hope you are well and had a good holiday season!
I was hoping I wouldn’t have to bother you again, I just have a few questions. Olly is still crying a lot specially at bedtime. And for naps sometimes he takes a long time to fall asleep (sometimes with crying) We are over a month into the training, should this still be happening? Our 2 night trip for the holidays was not good (sleep wise) but besides that I thought that by now he would be back on track. It doesn’t matter who puts him down, he cries with me, Dad and grandma too. Is it my timing? Should I try a temporary 5:30 bedtime again? Am I doing something else wrong? We experimented with a little earlier bedtime last night to see if that was it and there was still crying. Sometimes he cries before falling asleep for naps too and he’s still having 1 night waking where crying can last as little as 10 min or as long as almost 1 hr. We have not been going to him at night as he’s not crying in distress (it still extremely hard to let him cry at this time). His naps are not bad, he rarely sleeps less than 1 hr each nap. I wish they were a little longer on some days to sum at least 2.5 hours of day sleep.
After all this time has he still not learned how to self soothe?
Also, to follow up on his weight he’s 18lbs 10oz as of Friday. He’ll be 8 months old this week. He has been nursing less, not sure if he’s self weaning 😞
Below is the sleep log from where we left off:
12/23 7:07 awake
Nap 1
9:13 in crib
9:25 asleep
9:53 wake by loud noise on the street
10:14 light crying on and off
10:23 out of crib
Nap 2
12:27 in crib
12:34 light crying/complaining
12:37 asleep
2:01 awake
Bedtime
5:45 in crib
5:48 – 5:56 light then harder crying
5:58 asleep
12:32 – 12:40 am crying
12:45 – 12:55 crying
Nursed
1:07 back in crib
1:19 asleep
12/24 6:22 awake
At 7:30 am started showing drowsy signs (yawning very frequently)
8:09 in crib – 1 loud crying burst that lasted less than 1 min
8:20 asleep
9:30 awake
Nap 2
12:18 in crib
12:26 asleep
1:48 wake
Bedtime
5:49 in crib
5:52, 5:55-6:05 crying
6:06 asleep
Some crying between 6:30 and 8:30 but didn’t seem awake
10:28 awake and crying continuously until 10:35 then on and off crying until 10:43, then continuously crying again until 11:11 asleep.
3:07 awake crying
Nursed
3:17 back in crib
3:41 asleep
5:07 awake – light crying
5:13 asleep
12/25 7:20 awake
Nap 1
9:36 in crib
At 9:50 started to have hiccups and was getting frustrated. His hiccups last forever so I nursed to help the hiccups go away.
10:00 back in crib
10:12 asleep
10:40 awake – we had to leave the house for a Christmas commitment with family so we ended the nap. Baby fell asleep in the car during the last 3 minutes of the car ride at 12:40. I could not get him back asleep for the midday nap.
3:45 fell asleep in the car on the way back home – no crying Naps started
4:55 awake
Bedtime
6:30 in crib crying (30 min)
7:00 asleep
1:27 awake crying (room temp was fine)
Nursed
1:39 in crib
1:52 asleep
4:30 crying hard (room temp was fine)
4:56 on and off crying
5:01 falling asleep still crying on and off sporadically
5:06 crying hard
5:09 asleep
5:12 crying
5:24 asleep
12/26 7:00 awake
Nap 1
9:29 in crib
9:36 asleep
11:11 awake
Nap 2
1:03 in crib
1:14 crying (too early? too late?)
1:21/1:22 stopping crying
1:22 asleep – cried for 8 minutes
2:40 awake
Bedtime
5:59 in crib – was falling asleep while nursing before this and while we were doing bedtime routine was very irritated (started with a bath at 5:20) He loves baths! But doesn’t like getting dressed or having aquaphor/lotion applied on his skin (he has a couple of small dry skin spots on his arms and legs). I started his bath early to let him play a bit and to extend the wake window so he wouldn’t go to bed too early. Had not showed signs of fatigue before this and had good naps all day!
6:03 crying
6:15 asleep – cried for 12 minutes
1:36 awake crying
Nursed
1:51 back in crib
12/27 awake 7:06 crying
Nap 1
8:58 in crib
9:06 asleep
9:50 awake
Nap 2 – long car ride
12:40 asleep in car seat
2:20 awake in car seat
Bedtime
Started bedtime routine at 5:45 (tried to keep the same as home). Tried to put him down in the pack and play at 6:15 pm. Didn’t think it was fair to let him cry it out, since we were totally out of his environment and he was overstimulated due to large family gathering. Kept trying to get him to sleep for almost 2.5 hrs.
8:30 pm asleep while nursing then transferred to pack and play. Awake at 10 nursed back to sleep and co-slept until 7. Had one long awake up during the night.
12/28 Nap 1 and 2 were contact naps, no longer than 1 hr each, tried to get him to bed early between 6 and 7, again didn’t fall asleep until 8:30. Co-slept. One short wake up at night then again awake at 7
12/29
2 naps in the car 40 min + 30 min – within 3 hrs car ride. Woke up at 12 from 2nd nap.
2:09 started trying for a nap before bedtime. There was crying and this was a “no cry nap”, was able to get him to sleep at 3:10 by co-sleeping. Awake at 4:45
Bedtime
6:27 in crib – started crying as I was leaving his room and closing the door – cried for 25 min
6:52 asleep
6:59 crying for a few seconds
7:05 crying
7:16 asleep – cried for another 11 min
2:26 awake and crying
2:38 crying hard, dad tried for a bottle, had only 2.5 oz after insisting and crying the whole time. Clearly not hungry.
2:46 back in crib
2:48 crying on and off
2:51 stopped crying – cried for 25 min
2:56 asleep
3:25 crying
3:32 crying on and off
3:38 stopped crying and fell asleep – cried for 13 min
12/30 7:25 awake no crying
Nap 1
9:18 in crib
9:21 crying
9:27 stopped crying and fell asleep – cried for 6 min
11:21 awake
Nap 2
1:31 in crib
1:47 getting fussy in crib
1:48 crying
1:51 crying harder
1:54 crying on and off
1:56 asleep – cried for 8 min
2:19 awake and crying at 2:21
2:30 stopped crying, falling back asleep- cried for 9 min
3:31 awake
Messed up timing? Morning nap was too long?
Bedtime
6:06 in crib – started crying as I was leaving his side and closing the door
6:19 crying on and off
6:24 stopping crying and falling asleep – cried for 18 min
7:35 – 7:42 cried for 7 min
7:49 – 8:07 cried for 18 min
2:58 awake
3:03 crying
3:22 crying on and off, mix of light and hard, almost falling asleep at times
3:30 continuous crying
3:35 dad offered a bottle, had less than 2.5 oz and cried the whole time again. Not hungry.
3:40 back in crib, crying
3:44 stopped crying and started falling asleep
12/31 6:33 awake
Nap 1
8:28 in crib
8:39 asleep – light complaints but no crying
9:49 awake
Nap 2
12:07 in crib – some complaining here and there, no crying
12:24 asleep
1:09 awake no crying, talked for a bit and fell back asleep
1:14 asleep
1:47 awake
Nap 3 during car ride
5:09 fell asleep
5:27 awake
Bedtime
6:20 in crib started crying as I was leaving the room
6:44 stopped crying and fell asleep – cried for 24 min
6:47 crying for a few seconds
3:00 awake and crying – his room was hot but I waited to see if he would fall back asleep
3:50 changed his sleep sack to a light one and nursed in case he was thirsty.
4:08 back in crib, complained for seconds as I left the room then started playing quietly
4:30 asleep
6:19 awake per owlet, didn’t hear him cry and make noise until 7:33
01/01 7:33 awake for the day
Nap 1
9:20 in crib
9:32, then again 9:49-9:53 light crying
9:54 asleep
11:12 awake
Nap 2
1:26 in crib
1:53 asleep
2:50 awake
Bedtime
5:51 in crib – started crying as soon as I started heading to close the bedroom door (separation anxiety?)
6:01 – 6:05 crying on and off and falling asleep
10:02-10:14 awake per owlet, didn’t hear him cry
1:55 crying – per owlet, woke up at 1:39
2:50 asleep
01/02 6:50 awake
Nap 1
9:07 in crib
9:27 asleep
10:33 awake
Nap 2
12:51 in crib
1:03 asleep
2:12 awake (loud noise?)
Bedtime
5:46 crying – overtired
5:56 crying on and off
6:00 asleep
1:44 crying
2:54 asleep
01/02 6:40 awake
Nap 1
8:58 in crib
9:09 asleep
10:20 awake
Nap 2
1:08 in crib
1:23 asleep
2:33 awake
Bedtime
6:03 in crib
6:11 asleep
4:38 crying
4:59 asleep
01/04 7:19 awake – 7:09 owlet
Nap 1
9:26 in crib
9:34 asleep
10:23 awake
Nap 2
12:34 in crib
12:45 crying
12:54 stopped crying – cried for 9 min
12:55 asleep
2:07 awake
Bedtime
5:52 in crib – crying overtired
6:06 -6:10 crying on and off
6:11 – 6:19 crying hard
6:20 asleep – cried for 28 min
4:33 crying
4:42 asleep
01/05 awake 7:15 owlet 6:47
Nap 1
9:19 in crib
9:25 asleep
9:54 awake
10:03 asleep
11:33 awake
Nap 2
1:53 in crib
2:10 crying
2:20 falling asleep – 30 min to fall asleep and 10 min crying
3:20 awake
Bedtime
6:08 in crib light crying when I left the room
6:11 crying harder
6:15 crying on and off
6:23 asleep – cried for 15 min
3:18 crying
3:48 stopped crying and started falling asleep
01/06 7:05 awake
Nap 1
9:27 in crib
9:47 falling asleep
10:55 awake
Nap 2
1:23 in crib – I think that he caught a second wind when placed in the crib. Didn’t show drowsy signs earlier, started scratching ears and rubbing eyes at 1ish
1:45 -1:50 crying
1:50 falling asleep
3:13 awake
Bedtime
5:45 in crib – crying
6:06 asleep
6:12 crying
6:14 asleep
2:40 crying
2:47 stopped crying
2:53 crying again
3:25 asleep
3:39 crying- his room temp was fine so I thought something else was wrong here. I went to him and nursed, noticed that he had a dirty diaper, so this is what was probably bothering him. Changed and back in the crib at 3:58. At 4:30 still had not fallen back asleep.
As always, thank you again!
After reviewing your data, I suggest the following:
When you see ahead your ability to be very rigid about an early bedtime, dedicate 5 nights to a 5:30 expected falling asleep time (he is bathed, fed, and soothed and you are leaving the room at 5:30pm)
Keep a written record.
If this helps:
A. It might be needed for several weeks or months
OR
B. Naps might get much longer over several days and then the bedtime might be a little later (5:45-6:00pm)
How does this sound?
Let’s try it! I’ll keep in touch.
Thanks!!!
I have an 8th month old.
I started sleep training, crying to sleep about 3 weeks ago.
(Last week she was sick so reverted back to sleeping with me)
I have now gone back to her in a crib and putting her down drowsy.
My issue: she wakes up for feeds about 3-4 times a night.
Her schedule:
9 am nap 1
12:15/12:30 nap 2
Prepare to sleep (bath, play) 6
In crib 7
Wakes up at around 10:30,1am and then usually before 5. Sometimes stays with me for the last waking because I am so exhausted.
She usually wants to get up between 6-6:30
How can I help reduce the wakings. I would be ok if she wakes up only once at night (eg 12am feed).
Please carefully read the Chapter on Sleep Solutions in my book to find the one that comports with your values. Let me know what you choose and I will try to help you.
Here is the blog post let me know if anything is missing:
Blog Post:
We taught Mr. Weissbluths approach to our 2 years old daughter once she was 5 months old. All went well up to the moment mum was 6 months pregnant with the second child. We thought it is emotionally tough for her to get a sibling and that she will naturally return to the routines we had before. This didn’t happen, unfortunately. For almost 4 months she refused to sleep in the cot in her own room. She only wanted to sleep with one of us, mom or dad. She didn’t fall asleep unassisted and had 1-2 night awakenings. Therefore we (father or mother) shared the bed with her the last 4 months. She liked to drink during the night from a straw cup and used that for self soothing. She often wetted herself during the night. On top of that she started to wake up earlier and earlier ( up to 4:30am) and refused to go back to bed. We were both exhausted and needed to act as we also had a newborn to care for.
Advised by Mr. Weissbluth we used extinction and introduced sleep/bed time rules. We introduced an early bedtime between 5-5:30pm. We also tested the silent return to sleep method but our daughter wasn’t yet ready for the big bed. She would jump out and hurt herself so we transitioned her back to her cot. Dad was the one handling the sleep training with emotional support from mum as mum needed to care for the newborn. So we applied the extinction method on our daughter and gave her only 1 bottle to drink, for a couple of nights it was horrible – she cried a lot, had night awakenings every other hour but we stayed on track. It became better and better – but we also had fall backs where she started protesting again. Now 4 weeks after we take her to the bed at 5:30 pm and she sleeps through the night until 6am. Eventually she will wake up, cry a bit for 2 minutes and then sleep again with no intervention from us. She rarely wets herself during the night. This is a fast improvement we couldn’t have imagined 2 months earlier. We should have tried it earlier. Thanks 🙏
Thank you!
Hi Dr. Weissbluth, hope you are well!
It’s Mari over here. It has been a while since I last contacted you, after your last advice to do 5 strict nights with 5:30 bedtime, things fell apart before I could try. I was very emotional going back to work at the office and with my birthday and the new year ahead, I gave up on the training and fell into old habits again. Olly’s sleep got really bad over the last month. He wasn’t sleeping and so no one else in the house. I tried to have him sleep without crying for so long, however it wasn’t working. Recently, we decided to resume the training. Here is how it’s going, it’s better than I thought! I wanted to ask your opinion on Olly’s self soothing skills and if we are on the right path:
Night 1
Nursed to sleep. In crib at 5:40pm. Awake and crying at 6pm – burp?
6:30pm- gave up and resumed sleep training
6:40pm – dad check (trying graduated extinction)
6:50pm – mom check
Both checks baby was picked up from crib, he was inconsolable sobbing and we could not calm him down. No more checks were attempted.
7:25pm asleep – cried for 55 min
Woke up 2 times during the night, crying. Played lullabies from the baby monitor camera. One wake up lasted 2 hours, but he wasn’t crying the whole time (12:30-2am). Other wake up was from 4:20am-4:40am.
6:30 am up for the day – happy
Nap 1
Almost 20 min to fall asleep – no crying
9:11 am – Asleep
10:15 am – Awake
Nap 2
1 pm in crib
1:08 pm very light crying/complaining – played lullabies
1:12 pm asleep
2:41 pm awake
Night 2
Bedtime
5:25 pm in crib
5:27 pm crying- started playing lullabies
6:00 pm grandma went in for a diaper change, he had not had a dirty diaper all day we thought he might have a dirty diaper (he didn’t)
6:19 pm asleep
About 50 min crying total
5:45 am awake per owlet – didn’t make a sound. I woke up at 6:30 it looked like he was falling asleep in that minute. Let him sleep until 6:45, if I let him pass too much the 6:30 wake up mark he would not sleep at 9 am for nap 1
Nap 1
9:06 am in crib with lullaby – was almost falling asleep but then started playing and rolling around in crib
9:32 am crying – light crying for 4-5 min
9:37 am asleep
9:38 am some on and off crying for 1 min
9:46 am awake and crying – cried for 3 min didn’t go back to sleep
10:09 am gave up on nap
Nap 2
11:39 am in crib – was tired
11:45 am light crying for less than 1 min started playing lullabies
11:51 am asleep
1:10 pm awake
Night 3
Bedtime
5:24 pm in crib – was very tired, started crying as I closed the door. I started to play lullabies on the baby monitor camera and he stopped crying
5:33 pm asleep
Had 3 brief wake ups at night with light crying, I played lullabies and he fell asleep within 10 min or less each time – 10 pm, 1:30 am and 3 am
5:20 am awake, only heard him light crying at 5:40 am. 6 am up for the day.
Nap 1
8:00 am in crib
8:17 am asleep – no crying
9:37 am awake
Nap 2
12:41 in crib
12:54 asleep – no crying
2:12 awake
Night 4
Bedtime
5:26 pm in crib with lullabies
5:30 pm crying
5:59 pm asleep – 27 min crying
6 am awake
Nap 1
8:45 am in crib
8:50 am light complaining, started playing lullabies, complaining stopped right away
9:01 am asleep
10:10 am awake
Nap 2
1:18 pm in crib
1:30 pm lullabies on
1:45 pm asleep
3:10 pm awake
Night 5
Bedtime
5:47 pm in crib
5:59 pm asleep – no crying
Started moving, had a brief half wake up, started moving around and fell back asleep within 15 min without crying.
Congratulations!! “Here is how it’s going, it’s better than I thought!”
Focusing on crying at bedtime and in the middle of the night, would you agree that there is a suggestive trend towards shorter crying durations?
Is the crying volume or quality (mild, moderate, intense) showing any trend towards improvement?
I see that there is a lot of variability in naps from day to day but do you have any feeling regarding improvements in either falling asleep for a nap or the durations of naps?
Is there any suggestion of less pre-sleep arousal at the end of the day?
Hoe old is he now?
3rd time is a charm, am I right?!
Focusing on crying at bedtime and in the middle of the night, would you agree that there is a suggestive trend towards shorter crying durations?
– Yes, some nights he doesn’t cry at all. He complains a bit but settles down.
Is the crying volume or quality (mild, moderate, intense) showing any trend towards improvement?
– Crying is usually mild-moderate lately. Unless we mess up the timing and put him down too early. He gets frustrated at some point and the crying gets intense. Most of the time he doesn’t show the early drowsy signs, we go by the clock based on his age wake window and when we see at least one drowsy sign. But if it’s getting too late we put him down to see if he falls asleep for naps, sometimes it’s smooth, sometimes not. “Watch your baby not the clock” sometimes doesn’t work.
I see that there is a lot of variability in naps from day to day but do you have any feeling regarding improvements in either falling asleep for a nap or the durations of naps?
-We are still struggling with naps, I really want to get him on a more predictable nap time and length. I’m working hard on a routine, not sure what else I can do to make this happen? His wake up time for the day is around 6:30am. I aim for a 9am nap and depending on when he wakes up I count around 3 hrs for nap 2. Always trying to get him to sleep before 2pm. Not sure what else I can do 😭
Is there any suggestion of less pre-sleep arousal at the end of the day?
– I’m not sure if he has pre-sleep arousal at the end of the day. He’s always on the same mood, happy! I do wish he was a little more calmer and relaxed, he gets to this state when I nurse during the last step of our routine (dinner, bath, lotion, pjs+sleep sack, blinds closed, red light, nursing, then bed)
How old is he now?
– He’s almost 9.5 months old.
“Most of the time he doesn’t show the early drowsy signs, we go by the clock based on his age wake window and when we see at least one drowsy sign.” Please describe in detail “at least one drowsy sign.”
He doesn’t give us much, so I hope to see a yawn or staring at nowhere or when he’s not interested in playing with toys. I try to go by wake windows and at least one of those signs.
“I do wish he was a little more calmer and relaxed, he gets to this state when I nurse during the last step of our routine ”
Please describe with a bit more detail his behavior when when you “wish he was a little more calmer and relaxed”:
He loves bath time so I do ensure I start this early usually around (4:50 pm) to allow him to stay in the water as long as he wishes. Then we quickly brush teeth, but he doesn’t like getting lotion (aquaphor/vaseline for his eczema)and his pjs on, that’s when he gets a bit upset and then calms down with nursing. He takes some time nursing too. Once done with nursing I sing a song while trying to burp him and put him down.
It appears that you have good sleep timing. Please stay the course.
Hi Dr Weissbluth,
We read your book and used the graduated extinction technique around 3.5/4 months with success. Our little girl started going to bed much more easily and was a good night sleeper, sleeping around 9-10 hours straight. However, now at 5 months she is waking up every 1-2 hours, usually wide awake, wanting to nurse and getting inconsolable very quickly. Do you have any recommendations or can you point me to areas in the book I should reference again based on our situation?
She still sleeps in our room, did not have colic, and usually takes 3-4 naps a day because she is a cat napper. Most naps range 25-30 minutes but seem to slowly be getting longer – we have not done the nap drill yet, I was about to until her night sleep got irregular.
Thank you so much!
What is her common bedtime?
Please describe her mood and behavior when alone with toys (no parental involvement nor screeens) during the 60 minutes before her bedtime?
Her bedtime is typically 8pm – although we have considered cutting out her last nap (usually a cat nap between 5-6:30) so we can achieve an earlier bedtime. Daylight savings now offers us a good opportunity to make adjustments. Her last wake window is quite short so I’m not sure if that’s an issue.
Prior to bedtime, she is pretty playful and active for an hour after waking then starts to get a little fussy and hyper so then I feed her and do bedtime routine.
Please carefully read Blog Posts 83 and 115X and tell me what you think my suggestion will be.
Thank you!
It seems like we are missing her drowsy signs and letting her get fatigued and overtired. I’m guessing this is due to a too late bedtime so we need to start bedtime and soothing even earlier. I think we may also do too much high energy playtime right before bed. We will switch to more mellow activities so we have a better opportunity to observe the onset of drowsy signs. If we have a good opportunity to video her behavior, I will do that too.
Last night we got her to bed at 7pm instead of the usual 8pm, which was similar to 6pm given daylight savings. She did cry a lot (50 mins) but then slept almost straight through for 11 hours which was encouraging and a huge improvement. She woke up once and needed soothing then woke up again but was not unhappy and got herself to sleep. Based on the amount of crying at bedtime, we need to move bedtime even earlier before she’s at a high level of arousal.
I also read your comments on wake windows (and lack of scientific evidence around them) which was helpful – especially that “children who take longer naps can stay awake longer than children who take short naps.” Since she only takes short naps, I guess it makes sense that she may be tired for bed not long after waking from her last nap. We will work on being hypervigilant of her behavior during intervals of wakefulness.
“Last night we got her to bed at 7pm instead of the usual 8pm, which was similar to 6pm given daylight savings. She did cry a lot (50 mins) but then slept almost straight through for 11 hours which was encouraging and a huge improvement.”
“It seems like we are missing her drowsy signs and letting her get fatigued and overtired. I’m guessing this is due to a too late bedtime so we need to start bedtime and soothing even earlier.”
You are correct and on a healthy sleep path!
1. For 3-5 nights only, temporarily have a 5:30pm bedtime (she is bathed, fed, soothed, and she is drowsy but awake and you are leaving the room at 5:30pm). Do this only if you can commit to the trial without variation for 3-5 nights.
2. Keep data on naps, night sleep, and fussing/crying.
3. Expect the morning nap to improve first and the mid=day nap second.
4. As naps improve, the bedtime might be a little later based on drowsy signs.
How does this sound?
Thanks Dr Weissbluth. We are willing to try this – I go back to work next week so we are committed to getting a healthy schedule in place for our family!
We tried tonight and it was bumpy (lots of crying, woke up after 30 mins, more crying and lots of soothing needed…) but we will continue the approach this week. I assume it will get better each day so I’ll follow up afterwards and share how it went.
Hi Dr. Weissbluth,
I have a question on how to get my now 10 month old in a predictable sleep schedule for naps and bedtime. I have contacted you before and I *think*we achieved the self soothing skill for the most part (THANK YOU BY THE WAY) however the sleep schedule is messy and I can’t get him on predictable sleep times. Some nights he wakes up at 5am or so and doesn’t get back to sleep. Some nights he spends a long time (like 1 hr) awake between 3-5 but can get back to sleep. Depending on the final wake up time for the day and naps start/end times it keeps shifting bedtime too. My goal is to have him sleep “by the clock” if possible, following his a natural sleep rhythm. Please help!
Here is a report on how things are going:
03/05
5:09 am – awake per owlet didn’t cry
6:15 am – mom woke up, baby out of crib
Nap 1
7:55 am in crib
8:16 am asleep
9:07 am awake
Nap 2
12:17 pm in crib
12:33 pm asleep
2:00 pm awake
Bedtime
5:32 pm in crib started crying as soon as I put him down – 24 min crying
5:56 asleep
Per owlet: Had a brief wake up at 11PM, fell back asleep in a few minutes. Wake again at 4:36 am, fell back asleep in a few minutes. Wake again 5am-5:31 am and fell back asleep.
6:20 am awake for the day
Nap 1
9:07 am in crib
9:37 am falling asleep
9:40 am asleep
10:20 am awake – mumbling, didn’t fall back asleep
Nap 2
1:20 pm in crib – crying on and off until 1:45
1:47 pm asleep
2:15 pm awake and crying – ended the nap to allow for 5:30 pm bedtime
Bedtime
5:28 pm in crib started crying as I left his room cried on and off for a few min
5:45 pm asleep
4:30 am awake per owlet back asleep at 5 am
6:08 am awake
Nap 1
8:53 am in crib
9:09 am falling asleep
10:38 am awake
Nap 2
1:58 pm in crib started crying, wanted to keep playing
2:20 pm I did a check as he was crying in distress, nursed to help him regulate.
2:47 pm asleep
3:15 pm awake
Bedtime
5:34 pm in crib cried for a moment as I left the room
3:30 am crying for a few minutes, was awake for a while
6:13 am awake
Nap 1
8:58 am in crib cried as I left the room but stopped soon
9:20 am falling asleep
10:45 am awake
Nap 2
2:14 am in crib
2:33 am asleep
3:45 am awake
Bedtime
6:12 pm in crib
6:30 pm asleep
6:20 am awake – clock ahead (5:20 am!) Daylight savings time.
Nap 1
9:01 am in crib
9:20 am asleep
10:25 am awake
Nap 2
1:39 pm in crib
2:15 pm asleep
3:06 pm awake
Bedtime
5:45 pm in crib – there was a lot of on and off crying this evening, we had grandparents over earlier so not sure if he was overstimulated.
7:10 pm asleep
6:30 am awake
Nap 1
8:51 am in crib
9:23 am asleep
10:44 am awake
Nap 2
2:21 pm in crib
2:47 pm asleep
3:58 pm awake
Bedtime
6:21 pm in crib
7:00 pm asleep
6:58 pm awake
Nap 1
8:47 am in crib
9:07 am asleep
9:48 am awake
Nap 2
12:55 pm in crib briefly cried when I left the room
1:08 pm asleep
2:38 pm awake
Bedtime
5:59 pm in crib
6:25 pm asleep
3-3:45 am awake per owlet, didn’t cry
6:48 am awake
Nap 1
9:26 am in crib
9:47 am asleep
Hi Dr. Weissbluth,
On top of the messy sleep schedule issue now we have another challenge: the baby is extremely afraid of the ceiling fan in his room! 2 days ago it got really warm so we turned on the fan in his nursery. He had slept with the fan on last summer and it was fine. Now we get into his room and he can’t stop staring at the fan and starts crying and grabbing us even when the fan is off! He did not sleep well last 2 nights (falling asleep in his crib but still awaking up 10+ times!).
From my last message here are how it’s going:
Nap 1
9:26 am in crib
9:47 am asleep
10:58 am awake
Nap 2
2:25 in crib crying until 4:48
2:50 asleep
3:58 awake
Bedtime
6:45 in crib
7:10 asleep
3-4 awake per owlet
6:30 awake
Nap 1
9:17 in crib
9:35 asleep
11:00 awake
Nap 2
1:56 in crib
2:07 asleep
3:13 awake
Bedtime
6:03 pm in crib
6:20 pm asleep
6:02 am awake
Nap 1
8:49 am in crib
8:59 am asleep
10:00 am awake
Nap 2
12:49 in crib
1:05 asleep
1:49 awake
Bedtime
5:33 in crib – he sat up and was to close to the railing, I gave him a chance to figure out how to lay down and it looked like he was snoozing here and there and started crying at 6:20. I went to help him lay down.
7:00 pm asleep – kept waking up almost every hour after that until 4 AM, was hot, uncomfortable, I kept going to him since this behavior is now unusual and until then I didn’t notice he was afraid of the ceiling fan.
6:30 awake for the day
Nap 1
8:30- tried to get him down he was freaking out because of ceiling fan. I laid down with him so he could sleep.
9:07 asleep
10:04 awake
Nap 2
I covered the ceiling fan. At this age he knows things are there even if he can’t see them. He kept looking up, concerned however seemed a little less afraid.
1:30 in crib
1:40 asleep
3:40 awake
Bedtime
6:20 in crib
6:40 asleep – 12 wake ups at night crying!
6:30 awake
How old is he now?
Is there any suggestion of presleep arousal during the hour before the bedtime?
He’s 10 months old.
No signs of pre-sleep arousal.
I put him down at 8:55 this morning for a nap, he cried for about 8 min and fell asleep within 10 min. Woke up 30 min later cried, looked at the fan, cried and repeated 3x. He was scared so I ended the nap. Should I remove the fan from his room to see if sleep gets back on track?
Please remove the fan.
Also he keeps looking up in every room in the house looking for the fan!
We removed the fan. There is another thing I just remembered!!!!! He uses the tags on his sleep sack for self soothing. One of the tags was falling a part I’m pretty sure he was swallowing some pieces of it. We cut it off and left the other tag in there. I noticed today that he’s not putting it in his mouth or playing with it anymore. Not sure if this is coincidence, I think we cut it on Friday! Same night we turned on the fan.
Could that be it? If the tag that is gone is the issue, what can I do?
Hi Dr. Weissbluth,
We did our best to do the very early bedtime (5:30) you recommended. We were able to achieve this on some of the days but, since she is still taking 4 naps, many days her last nap crept close to 5:30 which made it challenging to get her down that early. I’ve summarized our week below:
Night 1 – Left room at 5:45pm. 15 mins of crying, asleep at 6. Woke up after 30 mins, took an hour of crying/soothing but then she slept through until 6am.
Night 2 – Asleep by 5:30pm, woke up after 30 mins and was not sleepy. Put her back down at 7pm. Asleep by 7:30pm and slept through night until 6:20am!
Night 3 – Left room at 6:15pm, crying then asleep at 6:45pm, She woke around 2am, we left her alone and she fell back asleep. Up at 5:20am.
Night 4 – Left room at 6:10pm, brief crying and asleep by 6:20. She woke up and nursed at 9pm. Stirred multiple times during the night but we did not intervene and she got herself back to sleep. Up at 6:20am. Nursed then back asleep until 7:30am.
Night 5 – Had a late cat nap. Got her to bed at 7:30pm and she fell right asleep. Nursed at 11pm. Awake at 5:30am, nursed, back asleep 6-7am.
Night 6 – Had a later cat nap then put her to bed at 6:30pm. Fussed a bit but fully asleep by 7pm. Woke up at 5:45am, nursed, back to sleep until 7am.
Night 7 (tonight) – Left room at 6:18pm, asleep by 6:30pm.
Interestingly, the night before we started this she decided to sleep on her stomach for the first time. She had previously rolled over at night but we’d moved her back, thinking she didn’t want to be in that position. She figured out how to get comfortable and now, for the last week she has been sleeping almost exclusively on her stomach, and it seems to really help. This made us nervous at first but she has very good neck strength and is a good roller so we have let her stay on her stomach.
While each night has been different, the last two days and nights of sleep have been pretty consistent so we are very pleased with the progress we’ve made. Her morning nap is getting a bit longer and we’ve managed to do the majority of her naps in the crib which is a significant improvement. We plan to continue doing as early of a bedtime as we can as the days continue to normalize. Thank you so much for the advice!
Congratulations!
Please consider writing a narrative report of your sleep journey and post it here. I would use it as a Blog Post. Mothers would be more attuned to your voice than mine. If so, the more detail the better and please include the role (+ or -) of the father.
Hi Dr. Weissbluth, see below for my narrative experience, feel free to use as a blog post (would prefer under the name “Rose”) . Hopefully this is helpful!
About six months ago, we welcomed our first child. After the initial (and expected) sleep deprivation of the early days, she became a pretty good sleeper. By 10-12 weeks she was sleeping long stretches overnight (sometimes 7-9 hours without a feeding) and we knew we were lucky!
I was gifted Dr. Weissbluth’s book and actually started reading it to learn more about nap habits, since our little one has always been a catnapper. Even now, at 6 months, she still naps four times a day – but it works for her! I’ve typically been the one to put her down for naps since my husband had very little paternity leave, but he did do many contact naps early on and helps with naps when he can on weekends. Reading Healthy Sleep Habits, Happy Child gave me a lot to think about and we quickly realized we needed to move her bedtime up. We got close to a consistent bedtime of 8pm but, as the weeks progressed, she started having trouble getting to sleep. Some nights, we needed to rock and sing to her for upwards of an hour until we got her to sleep, at which point we’d transfer her.
When she was four months old, we decided it was the right time to use the graduated extinction method because bedtime was becoming stressful and less enjoyable. Within a week we saw results – she started going to bed much more easily and was sleeping around 9-10 hours straight through the night. This worked well for about a month until we had a few late nights with family, travel, and other disruptions. She then began waking up every 1-2 hours, usually wide awake, wanting to nurse and getting inconsolable very quickly. My husband and I traded off caring for her in the night but it was challenging since she’s exclusively breastfed. I soon got worried that these night feedings would become a habit and get in the way of full daytime feedings. I was also getting ready to go back to work and, after just a few nights, we knew this would be untenable.
I reached out to Dr. Weissbluth, through his blog, for guidance on our situation. He helped us determine that we were missing her drowsy signs in the evening and were letting her get overtired. We realized that the 8pm bedtime was too late and that we were likely doing too much stimulating playtime before bed. To combat this, Dr. Weissbluth recommended that for 3-5 nights we temporarily institute a 5:30pm bedtime, with the understanding that her bedtime would likely normalize at a later time in the long run. While this felt drastic, we were committed to making a change and establishing better habits.
For the next week we strived for the earliest bedtime we could, which differed slightly each day depending on her last nap. Each night, we remained hyper-vigilant of her drowsy signs and kept to a short window between waking from her last nap and going to bed (only 1-1.5 hours). We coupled these early bedtimes with another “round” of graduated extinction to get back on track and started to see improvements within a few days. She cried many of the nights (one night was 50 mins but most were 10-15 mins) but she soon began to fall asleep earlier, soothe herself during the night, have fewer night wake-ups, and seemed less interested in feeding during the night.
It’s been 2.5 weeks since we did this exercise and we are so happy with the progress we’ve made even in this short time. We have moved to a ~7pm bedtime and she has been sleeping straight through from 7pm-5:30/6am most days. We’ve been continuing to test out bedtimes between 6:15-7:15 depending on the day and her mood – earlier always seems to yield better results. She is still taking four naps a day but they’ve gotten more consistent. Her first nap is usually around the same time, she’s very comfortable napping in her crib, and many times falls asleep within minutes, which is a significant improvement from before. Our next step will be to have my husband do more bedtimes on his own so we have more flexibility in who puts her down.
I’ve learned so much from Dr. Weissbluth’s book and really appreciate the 1:1 advice he is willing to provide through his blog. Using the graduated extinction method and the early bedtime approach were both challenging in their own ways, but we feel they were absolutely worth the effort and challenge. We know our little girl’s needs and schedule will continue to evolve, but we are glad that we’ve helped her build good sleep habits early on and hopefully these will continue to benefit our family.
Thank you.
At 6 months of age, she should have 2 major naps (morning and midday) and possibly a third brief and maybe irregular afternoon nap. Please read the section on ‘Nap Drill’ to help achieve 2 major naps.
Hi Dr. Weissbluth,
My daughter is 4 months and we have started sleep training her. We are 6 days in and using the extinctions method for self-soothing and so far she has made progress with self-soothing initially when put down at 7pm only crying for 6minutes or less. After, 6 days she is still waking up for her feedings at night. 10:30pm, 1:30am and between 3-4am. We have been trying to wean her night feedings by only feeding her after 12am and after 5am. But she has not made any progress and this schedule has been predictable. She does a morning nap between 8-9am and an afternoon nap between 12-1pm and even a quick 20min around 4pm. She eats regularly every 3 hours during the day. Is there something we are missing with why her night feedings haven’t weaned? Does she need more time? My husband and I are both involved in the sleep training and feeding process. Should we just continue this method?
Thanks for any help.
Describe her mood and behavior when alone with toys (no parental involvement nor screens) between 5:30-7pm.
Is she breast, formula, or mixed fed?
Can father feed her at night?
Hi ML,
Her mood with toys is usually quiet between that time or she will start getting whiny. Around that time block we put her in a baby swing (not on) and she watches me cook dinner in the kitchen with a teething toy. She sits quietly until around 6:15, 6:30 she usually starts getting fussy and so our bedtime routine starts (feeding, bath, change, book) and she is down by 7. She is breastfed and my husband and I prior to trying the Ferber method these past 6 nights, did one shift on and one off. So he bottle feeds her my breast milk about 90ml. She takes 3-4 naps a day but they are usually under 40minutes, this past week they have been much shorter. I have been exhausted this past week due to us both being up to do sleep training and I feel my supply has been less, so last night we did a 125ml bottle before bed and she still woke up 10:30, 1:45, 4:45 and back down until 7:30.
“she will start getting whiny…She sits quietly until around 6:15, 6:30 she usually starts getting fussy and so our bedtime routine starts…and she is down by 7.” is a description of pre-sleep arousal.
Please carefully read Blog Posts 83 and 204 to fully understand why “After, 6 days she is still waking up for her feedings at night…But she has not made any progress…”
What do you think my advice will be?
Dr. Weissbluth,
Earlier bedtime! 🙂 We put her down at 5:30pm yesterday after reading your blogs and basically every blog on here, and I picked up your book today. She slept yesterday from 5:30pm until midnight! We did a night feed and then she went back to sleep until 4:40am, where I breastfed her again and put her back down. She woke for the day at 6am. This has been the longest stretch she has slept since birth. We have been watching her cues today and her last nap ended a little before 3pm and we started bedtime routine at 4:45 this time and she was asleep by 5:22pm, only took her 6 minutes after putting her down to go to sleep. The nanny reported today that her naps were longer (45 min+), and she seemed so much more animated. Hopefully, this path will continue as we keep our new bedtime routine.
Congratulations!!
Were you skeptical or surprised?
It’s not uncommon to find online advice that says to help your child fall asleep faster and to sleep in later in the morning is to keep them up later at night and/or cap naps.
Please consider writing a narrative account of your sleep journey that I would use as a Blog Post. Mothers would be more attuned to your voice than mine.
My husband was definatly surprised, I felt more hopeful going into it due to the reading I did on your blog most of the day. It was his night last night and she did not do as well. This was her schedule with him:
-4:45pm bedtime routine started
-5:20 fell asleep
-10pm- Woke, gradual extinction 5 minutes
-11pm-Woke, gradual extinction 10 minutes
-12:30pm- Woke, feed 120ml of breastmilk bottle
-4:45-Woke, tried gradual extinction after 15 min, fed
-6:02-Woke up for the day
-7:00-7:40-Nap 1
-9:05-9:50-Nap 2
-11:45-11:54-12:19-1:01-Nap 3
It is 1:53pm now and she will probably do a Nap 4 around 2:30. If she wakes from her nap and is still yawning do we put her down again? She did that this morning with the Nap 1.
It seems both days now she has done a 12am wake and she did do a 4:30-4:40am wake both days, but she soothed herself with me after less than 5 minutes, while she did not do it the 2nd day.
Maybe she didn’t get enough to eat at 12am feed with him?
I will have night 3 results tomorrow and I will post my experience. I will say that for us even her doing 5:30-10pm is a huge success considering she never slept more than 3-4 hours prior to early bedtime and she is 17 weeks.
“Maybe she didn’t get enough to eat at 12am feed with him?”
Did she consume the 4 ounces quickly?
In general, think of sleep coming from the brain, not the stomach. But if she is hungry, feed her.
I would offer her as much as she eagerly sucks. Watching her sucking rhythm (suck/swallow/suck/swallow) and her enthusiasm to eat is more valuable than counting ounces.
Sorry we fed her both nights at 4:45 am (Brain fog). I am starting to keep a diary now so I can keep things straight, all the nights go together when your waking up so much.
Hi Dr. Weissbluth,
She does consume quickly and we have been watching her sucking rhythm. Here are last night’s wakes. What do we recommend to do about the 3or 4am wakings? This has happened now the last 3 nights with the 5:30 bedtime. Things are definitely much better but that 4am wakeup and then a 6am wakeup has been challenging. Is there something else we can tweak? We are speaking with a sleep consultant on Friday.
5:21 bedtime
12:20-12:45am wake-nursed
3:19-4:20am- wake, changed diaper and nursed (she was wide awake when I went in after waiting 10minutes)
5:50am-wake for day
6:30am bottle fed
6:40-7:15-Nap
Considering your thirst, your urine output, and the fullness of your breasts, and your state of mind, is it possible that she is not getting enough breast milk when fed at 3am?
How long is the actual feeding then?
How long are you with her in total then?
It could have been possible last night as she fed for about 25 minutes at 12am and then woke at 3:19am again and I breastfed her. The feeding at 319am was 20 minutes. She goes to bed rather easy after feeding so total time would have been about 20 and 25 minutes that I was with her. Should we test with just bottle feedings starting after pm nap all through night to see if the lack of breastmilk could be the issue?
Yes, please for 2-3 nights.
Will do! Thanks Dr. Weissbluth. I will report back in 2-3 days.
Hi Dr. Weissbluth,
Unfortunately, we did not see any night wakings decrease. We have been been feeding her bottle only until she is turning away the bottle or stops sucking and she is still waking up at 10pm, 1am, 3:30am, and 6:30am (give or take). We are feeding her at these times now and she goes right back to sleep. The change we have seen is her naps have gotten longer. She now is doing two 1+ hour naps a day and sometimes a 3rd. Where before she had been doing 3-4, 30-45min naps. Not sure what to do with the wakings now, we were thinking of trying pick up and put down instead of feeding her. Not sure what else we can implement at this point.
Early bedtimes improves the quality of night sleep so a baby wakes up better rested which permits better naps.
At her age, she can easily go 4 or more hours between feedings. Consider feeding her 4 or more hours after her bedtime feeding (middle of the night) and 4 or more hours after that feeding (early morning) if she awakens then, but at all other times, do extinction. This will prevent a night feeding habit and promote self-soothing skills at night. She will take larger volumes less frequently. Do this only if it comports with your values and you can commit to a 3-4 night trial.
Your thoughts.
Thanks! We have some family staying with us starting tomorrow. So we will pick up and start extinction when they leave next Monday. I am willing to try a 3-4 night trial. I will report back. Thanks so much Dr. Weissbluth!
Hi Dr. Weissbluth,
I wanted to give you an update on our progress. We started doing extinction again this week and not feeding her at 10pm and 3am wakings. This has been working well. We have kept her bedtime at 530pm (or sooner), depending on her last nap and her sleep cues. I am happy to report that she is only waking up now between 11pm-12am which we feed her and between 4-5am. If its about 5am we will feed and she goes back to sleep until 630 or 7am. We are starting to see the 10pm and 3am wakings diminish (4 days extinction) . If she does stir in between those hours, which we are seeing less and less, we just let her cry and do our 5min, 10min check ins. She usually will go back in 10 min or so.
Thank you so much for all your help and support. This 5:30pm bedtime has been life changing! We believe the mix of early bedtime, feeding proper amount, and extinction has helped the sleep amount tremendously.
To encourage other parent, please consider writing, and posting here, a narrative report of your sleep adventure that I would use as a Blog Post or perhaps an Amazon book review.
I wish you sweet dreams for your child.
Hello! I’m curious what your thoughts are on my baby’s night waking… She has had a very rough first year of life. From 3 months old to 10 months of age she was covered in head-to-toe eczema. This made her very itchy and uncomfortable, especially at night. In “survival mode”, all I could do was nurse her every time she woke up at night. I also knew she was sleep deprived because of her condition so her bedtime has been 5:30/6 ever since she was 6 weeks old. At her worst she was waking 4x/night (at 10 months old)!
We finally found a miracle treatment that worked almost immediately and she went from 4 night wakings to 1 night waking within 3 days. That was 6 weeks ago but she still wakes once a night (11.5 months old). At first I figured it’s a metabolism thing where she was used to being fed all night so it might take a while for her body to adjust. I do think she is hungry when I feed her at night (suck-swallow pattern).
I recently started feeding her more solids during the day in the hopes of sleeping through the night. I’m ready for us both to sleep all night but I of course don’t want to starve her if she’s really hungry at night. Does this sound like something I need to just wait out a little longer as I feed her more solids? I saw your recommendation to another commenter to give a bottle after nursing at night but sadly she seems to hate bottles…
(Thank you so much for helping all of us with our children’s sleep! You are a gift!)
At one year of age, she does not need to be fed at night but some parents want to continue night nursing. Consider how much the night nursing is affecting your sleep and whether it is, or is not, fragmenting your baby’s sleep. Maybe you’ll continue as is for a while or stop cold turkey; it depends on the cost to you and your baby.
Does this help at all?
Thank you! I would definitely like to be done night nursing but I am just worried that my baby might be hungry still. Are you saying that’s unlikely at this age and that I can start weaning night feedings? I would feel comfortable not feeding her at night as I continue increasing her solids during the day. As I do that should I just let her CIO if she wakes or go in and comfort her without feeding?
It will be less stressful for all if:
1. Do extinction or
2. Father does low-stimulus soothing in middle of night for a while to see if night waking disappears. She knows that Dad cannot breast feed.
Great, thank you! I can’t wait to sleep soon haha!
Let me know how it goes.
Well that was quick haha. I just needed to wait a few more days instead of reaching out to you I guess! She slept through the night last night without me needing to do anything different except for feeding her more solids during the day. I usually give her naps at 9:30 & 1:30 but yesterday she only took one long nap in the middle of the day. Since she was tired sooner than usual I put her down for bed at 5:45pm. At 7:10am she woke up after sleeping 13hrs and 25minutes without waking or nursing! 5 days before she turned one. Thank goodness! Thank you for your encouragement 🙂
Hello-
My 6.5 month old wakes pretty regularly around 3am. We typically feed him and then he goes back to sleep until about 7:30 or so. How do I know if this is a habit or if he actually needs milk? We typically breastfeed. I’ve tried sending my husband in with a 2oz bottle but that results in screaming so we end up giving the last 2oz. Typically he goes right back down following. He falls asleep independently for naps and ay bedtime.
When you nurse at 3am, what is the total duration of the feeding/soothing?
Are you able to return to sleep after this feeding?
Are you short on sleep?
When does he typically fall asleep at night?
5-10 minutes maybe? I try to unlatch as soon as the vigorous sucking subsides. He typically goes right back to bed or fusses for a few minutes and then goes back down.
Yes-Im short on sleep. I have a really hard time falling back asleep after the 3a waking. My husband does as well. A few weeks ago he was waking up our other toddlers so then everyone is tired. the last few nights though they have slept through his cries.
Bedtime-I think we’re in a nap transition. If he takes 2 naps he barely makes it to 530. If he naps 3 times then closer to 730.
How often does he take 3 naps compared to 2 naps?
Describe the timing and duration of the 3rd nap.
I would say he typically takes two naps. 3 naps happen maybe 1-2 days a week when he has a short 20-40 minute nap. In the case he’s usually loosing his mind around 4-430. In that case I give him a third 30-60 minute nap
1-2 times a week, he takes 3 naps and has a bedtime of 7:30pm on those nights. Here are my suggestions and if you are uncomfortable with them or need more explanation, let me know.
The 7:30pm bedtime is way too late and is contributing to or causing his sleep issues.
For the next 7 nights, strictly enforce a 5:30pm expected falling asleep time (he is bathed, dressed for sleep, fed, soothed, and you are leaving the room at 5:30pm). No new naps starts after 3pm. A third nap might begin before 3pm if needed. Still, keep the 5:30pm bedtime. If he is asleep at 3pm, do not wake him. Continue with your nighttime (early morning) feeding. Keep a record of his sleep and let me know how it goes. During this trial, if he is “losing his mind” around 4-4:30pm”, use a 5:00pm bedtime. These super-early bedtimes are temporary and after naps stabilize and lengthen, the bedtime may be later.
How does this sound? Will your husband cooperte?
Sounds good. I also tried to put my older kids (4.5, 2 to bed earlier). They screamed and woke up the baby. Everyone is awake…grr. We will get there eventually. Will try the early bedtime. My husband will be fine with it but he works until 8p multiple nights a week so its just me putting everyone to bed.
In regards to a rough bedtime mentioned above, is it possible that my new 2 year old is about ready to start dropping a nap? She is awake around 630-7, naps about 12:30-2:30 (I wake her up if she is still asleep). I cannot get her to go to bed before 8pm. We go through your rules, she plays, she’s wide awake, takes her clothes and pull up off. Last night I tried putting her to bed at 5:30 (I think she was actually hangry not tired) but she still didnt fall asleep until 8:15 or so.
With 3 children, and a husband that often comes home late, your hands are full! Maybe start my suggestion on a Saturday night or on a night when your husband will be home early for a few consecutive nights.
All two-year olds nap once a day and by 36 months, about 90% are still napping, 6 days a week, so keep the nap for a while.
Suggestion: Read carefully the sections on Extinction and Sleep Rules and Silent Return to Sleep in my book but only use positive reinforcers because your 2-year-old is too young for negative reinforcers.
Strictly enforce Extinction and a temporarily early bedtime 6:00-6:6:30pm for 3 nights and keep a written record and get back to me.
To be fair, do Sleep Rules for your eldest child so he/she can get rewards for compliance also and this will motivate your middle child to also comply.
How does this sound?
Yes 3 kids by myself at times is a lot.
Re: the 7m old. The first couple of days the early bedtime bought until 4a or 5am. (The added issue with 430 on is that he woke up the older two and they dont fall back asleep.). Ik general its been even more unpredictable. Sometimes its still 3:30, sometimes later (4-5am) and on two occasions he’s woken up twice he. Once around 11pm-12am and the again 3:30-5am. Another night he was up multiple times but he want content and babbling to himself—he eventually got himself back to sleep.
For the 2 year old a 6/630 bedtime has continued to be a toss up—some days it works other times she is still falling asleep really late. I have not had a chance to re-read the section on extinction. I’ve basically been going on, putting her back in bed and leaving. Keeping interactions and words to a minimum. Tonight she was in bed by 6:30 but after 9pm before she fell asleep. What is the latest you would let her nap? How long should a young 2 year old be napping?
“Another night he was up multiple times but he want content and babbling to himself—he eventually got himself back to sleep.” Has this occurred much in the past? If not, then the earlier bedtime is helping to promote self-soothing that will lead to more settling back to sleep unassisted at night.
Please read the sections that I suggested. Your current behavior is causing the sleep problem in your 2-year-old.
My husband took the kids so I could review it. Question—the 4 and 2 year old share a room. Often the 4 year old falls asleep and the 2 year old is pulling clothes out of drawers. Climbing all over sister. Finding sister’s stuffed animals. Just let her go and dont go back in regardless? Even if she wakes up her sister who then starts screaming? Im not sure a tent is not a possibility right now.
I’ve essentially been doing a silent return to bed when I hear her getting in to drawers and what not. Although I’m not sure my husband does the same—more coddling.
She just turned two and. Im honestly not sure how well she understands the candy/positive reinforcement. I say that only because we are potty training. She knows she sometimes gets an m&m but doesn’t entirely grasp the cause/effect relationship. She thinks she gets an m&m if she walks in the bathroom.
In regards to the 7m old. No, he has never really babbled or talked in his sleep. Either awake or asleep. He has only done the babbling one time. Last night he went to bed at 5:-5 and was up at 11pm and 3:30 screaming. Should we ignore the 11pm and let him self soothe? Continue to attend to 3:30ish wake up until sleep continues to improve?
7 month-old: Extinction +/- a feed, if, and only it, needed. Super early bedtime.
2-year-old: Earlier bedtime, extinction, Sleep Rules with only + reward, STOP:”I’ve essentially been doing a silent return to bed when I hear her getting in to drawers and what not. Although I’m not sure my husband does the same—more coddling.” You are perpetuating this behavior by your social interaction.
4-year-old: If the 2-year-old is messing up her sleep, temporarily, move her and the 7 month-old into the same room, use Sleep Rules
Re-read Silent Return to Sleep.
How does this sound?
The 7m slept 530p-545am! Wohoo!
2 year old: the last couple of days around 4-430 she is grabbing a pillow and a blanket, closing her eyes and lying down on the floor, our bed, basically anywhere. She says she’s tired. She just lays there. When we put her down at 6-630 like you suggested its like she’s overly tired and then cant wind down. Is it worth trying a 5-530 bedtime for 1-2 nights? Im just wondering if there was a specific reason you suggested 6-630 over 530?
Thank you for all of your help.
Congratulations! It sounds like you have made a lot of progress in a short time. Please write a narrative report describing each child separately so that I do not get confused.
Try 5:30pm for a few nights and let me know how it goes.
7m old fevered for 3 days and now his sleep is worse than before.
7m in bed and out the door by 530
2y/4y in bed and out the door by 635
Mom/dad bed by 8:30
855-4 yo wakes screaming, incoherent. Night terror? Night before she had an accident. She had a hard time falling asleep, up for hours plus baby cried a lot that night.
9:15-7m crying. Gave bottle only took 2.5 oz
11:30-4y crying again. Another night terror or fell out of bed? She was incoherent.
1:50-2:30-7m crying. Didn’t feed since I fed earlier
4:50am-7m crying again. Nursed and put down.
6am both parents up for work.
I started re-reading the age appropriate chapter but didn’t finish. I think you mentioned that some babies need to eat 4 hours after bed time and some need to eat early morning. This was why I offered a bottle at 9:15 but hindsight when he only took 2.5 oz, I’m thinking it wasn’t actually necessary. He is a very distracted nurser during the day so part of me wonders if he is getting enough during the day.
We’re trying to figure out when to let him cry to extinction and when to feed.
Any thoughts or suggestions?
Good news the 2 year old who has been the problem for the last 1.5 months slept through the night. I hope one night we all sleep again.
Please carefully read the section on night terrors. Night terrors are more common with fevers and bedtimes that are too late.
Taking only 2.5 oz tells you that he was not hungry or thirsty.
If his weight gain is adequate, don’t worry about distraction when feeding during the day.
Dear Dr. Weissbluth,
We have a question regarding our fraternal twin daughters. Both were born extremely preterm one year ago and are currently seven months corrected age. For several weeks we have been implementing a structured sleep-training routine. We are seeing clear progress with the bedtime process: one of the twins is now able to self-soothe and fall asleep within about 30 minutes and generally sleeps through the night.
Our other daughter, however, continues to experience pronounced nighttime wakefulness that we feel unable to influence. Almost every night, she wakes between approximately 12:00 and 1:00 a.m. and then cries for two to three hours, often almost continuously. Our usual interventions (including brief comforting, physical contact, pacifier, or a bottle if needed) have had little to no effect during these episodes.
Once she eventually falls asleep again after these prolonged wake periods, she typically only sleeps for a very short stretch — usually from around 3:30–4:00 a.m. until 5:00 a.m. — and is then fully awake for the remainder of the morning.
So far, we have been unable to identify a clear cause for these episodes. She had a respiratory infection a few weeks ago, and our supporting home-care nurse suggested that stress-related or trauma-associated factors might play a role — potentially related to the circumstances around her birth and the prolonged hospital stay of nearly four months. We are unsure how to interpret this possibility or whether it could manifest in this specific way.
We are increasingly concerned that this may have developed into a habitual pattern, but we are unsure how to respond without reinforcing or worsening the situation.
Could you advise us on how to better understand these nighttime wake phases and whether there are specific steps you would recommend to help break this pattern?
Thank you very much in advance for your assessment.
Kind regards,
Max and Schari
I will help you.
Please tell me the common 24-hour sleep schedules for both twins (sleep onsets and durations).
How many bedrooms do you have?
For only 2-3 nights and only for about 15-20 minutes, place each twin alone with toys (no screens nor parental nor sibling interaction) during the hour before the bedtime and describe to me their mood and behavior.
Read Blog Posts 83, 115X (video), 226c, 232AX, 232BX, and 232D regarding Drowsy signs.
Read Blog Posts 171, 172, 204, regarding Pre-sleep arousal.
Hello again 🙁
After our horrible night the other day, we opted to cry to extinction which was 70 awful minutes of crying. My husband was at work and only heard the last 15-20 minutes. He then slept 13 glorious hours for the next three nights. Unfortunately then we traveled last weekend for early Thanksgiving which set him back.
We’re continuing the two naps and early 5-530 bedtime. He’s been waking up around 1am. He intensely cries, starts to calm, is calm for 5-10 minutes and then works himself back up to intense screaming. My husband is wanting to go in and soothe him back to sleep. At this point he is willing to go in every night to help him fall back asleep. I want to continue to let the 8 m o baby cry. I do understand my husband’s point that letting him go on for 90+ minutes is causing issues for the older two kids. We tossed around the idea of trying a pacifier. Do you have suggestions? This is causing a significant amount of marital tension. Thank you again for all of your help. I am so grateful for your wisdom and experience.
Our goal is a well-rested family.
Attempt to reduce marital tension by a trial of 4-5 nights of allowing your husband to promptly respond to your 8 month old at night and encourage him to read Blog Post 145 to use low-stimulus soothing. If he instead uses high-stimulus soothing, so be it. Keep a written record. After 4-5 nights, let me know how it goes.
Pacifiers are fine; give it a try (read about them in my book)
How does this sound?
Update to above post—I reread chapter 1. No pacifier.
We talked about graduated extinction but he said absolutely not. He would rather get him up and fall asleep with him in the rocker. I know this will make it worse though.
Our fraternal twins (Twin 1 and Twin 2) currently show the following daily sleep–wake patterns. Twin 2 is the one experiencing the pronounced nighttime difficulties.
Over the past 1.5 weeks, the girls have been sleeping in separate rooms, and they also take their daytime naps separately, to minimize mutual disruptions.
Morning Wake-Up:
• Twin 1 usually wakes between 6:00 and 7:00 AM.
• Twin 2 has recently been waking significantly earlier, typically between 5:00 and 5:30 AM.
Morning Wake Window & First Nap:
Both stay awake until around 8:00–8:30 AM, after which they take their morning nap, lasting approximately 45–60 minutes.
Midday Nap:
Their midday nap begins between 12:00 and 12:30 PM.
• Twin 1 typically sleeps until 2:00–2:30 PM.
• Twin 2 usually sleeps longer, until about 3:00 PM (occasionally 3:30 PM, though this is not the norm).
Evening Routine and Bedtime:
We start their evening routine at around 5:00 PM.
They fall asleep between 5:30 PM and 7:00 PM:
• Twin 1 usually falls asleep earlier (around 5:30–6:00 PM).
• Twin 2 often needs more time and may fall asleep closer to 6:30 or 7:00 PM. (The gap seems to shrink in correlation with the controlled screaming)
Night Sleep:
• Twin 1 generally sleeps through the night from about 5:30/6:00 PM until 6:00/7:00 AM.
• Twin 2 has a much more fragmented pattern:
• First sleep period: approximately 5:30/7:00 PM to 1:00–2:00 AM.
• Second sleep period: approximately 3:30 AM to 5:00 AM.
Between these periods, Twin 2 has prolonged nighttime wakefulness, often lasting 1.5–2 hours or more, accompanied by significant restlessness.
The threads you provided—we will carefully review them, and we will forward additional information regarding her behavior in the coming days. Thank you very much for your help!
Max& Schari
So, as you requested, we’ve been putting both of them in their beds with some toys for about fifteen to twenty minutes on the last two evenings before bedtime, without us being present. What we’ve noticed is that Twin 2 in particular seems quite wound up — she’s babbling a lot, sometimes even calling out, almost on the verge of crying. She appears very unsettled in her attention, is restless in the bed, seems to have trouble maintaining focus, and overall comes across most like the “drowsy” state described in your book, maybe already tending toward overtiredness.
Meanwhile, the other one lies calmly in her bed, doesn’t talk, focuses on her toys, occasionally looks out the window, but overall just lies there quietly and plays with her toys.
Max & Schari
“almost on the verge of crying. She appears very unsettled in her attention, is restless” is such a good description of the fatigue signs caused by pre-sleep that I may include it in the new book that I am writing.
Now that you are fully appreciative of the genetic individuality of sleep (see Blog Post 14 and soon to be published Blog Post 234E) and understand how late bedtimes may cause pre-sleep arousal, here are my suggestions for Twin 2:
For the next 3-4 nights, temporarily enforce a strict 5:30pm expected falling asleep time (she is bathed, dressed for sleep, fed, soothed, and you are leaving the room at 5:30pm). No curtain calls; extinction over night.
Keep a written record for day sleep and night sleep.
The expectation is that better quality and quantity of night sleep will eventually enhance naps and when this occurs, the bedtime might, or might not, be moved a little later.
Because Twin 1 is sleepy before around 9am and the morning nap is about an hour or less, do the same for Twin 1 for 3-4 nights and report back.
How does this sound?
Okay, first of all, thank you very, very much for your response and for taking the time to look into this problem.
We actually have two more questions about all of this.
For example, over the last two days, probably due to massive sleep deprivation during the night, Twin 2 wasn’t able to manage her afternoon nap and her afternoon nap only lasted until 2:30 p.m.
Would you still recommend that we stick to this 5:30 p.m. bedtime? Really set in stone for the next three or four days?
And the second question is about the extinction method.
Does that mean that we really, really shouldn’t go into her room at all throughout the entire night? Even if, for example, she were to work herself up into something like hyperventilation or hysteria from crying?
Or are there certain limits we need to keep in mind?
Or would it truly require us not going in at all for the entire night?
Thank you very much.
Please clarify, are you asking whether the bedtime should be earlier than 5:30pm? If so, try an earlier bedtime tonight but it might create another problem; see the section on the ‘5:30am rut’ in my book.
Extinction is safe and effective but please look at the Chapter on Sleep Solutions to understand how it is to be implemented and also, perhaps you would like to choose a different sleep solution.
With extinction, you always go to her if she needs to be fed or cleaned, but not for soothing.
That’s fine, just let me know.
Yes, that is exactly what we were trying to ask. Recently, we suspect that because of the accumulated sleep deficit, they start to tip into overtiredness around 5:00 pm — especially Twin 2, but really both of them.
So would it be acceptable to establish 5:00 pm as their set bedtime at least for now?
Or do you think it really needs to be 5:30 pm, even if that might increase the risk of them becoming overtired?
Understood.
Yes, go for 5:00pm tonight for both twins and let me know how it goes.
If Extinction is unacceptable, use another method and have father do the overnight soothing and keep it brief and minimal.
OK?
For almost 2 weeks we tried the controlled-crying-method but felt like it‘s not really working, especially for twin 2.
So we want to try it now with Extinction.
Thank you so much for your time!
We will inform you the next evening!
Ok, so we layed her (Twin 2) down at 5 p.m.
She cried for 50 minutes, before she fell asleep.
A Minute before she slept, she woke up her sister (Twin 1) . She cries for like 40 minutes now. We gave her milk, because she seemed thirsty – drank about 2,5 oz. Now she is shouting, but not really crying anymore and looks like she‘s getting calmer from time to time.
How do you feel about the overall plan?
We have to say that this whole process is really difficult for us. But we can already see the benefit for Twin 2 — even in these first attempts. When we look at the timing alone, she seems to regulate herself noticeably faster than when we try to support her through it.
The comparison between the controlled crying approach and the full on extinction is definitely noticeable. And yet, it is incredibly challenging for us emotionally, because we keep questioning ourselves — whether we are good or bad parents, whether what we’re doing is okay. We try to reassure each other, and we keep reminding ourselves of that quote you used in your book: that sometimes kindness can become cruelty. Meaning that by accompanying her and inadvertently triggering these extended wake phases, we might actually be causing her more harm than if we let her learn to regulate herself.
We genuinely believe that we’re doing the right thing right now. We also believe that, in the long run, this will help both girls sleep better and improve our relationship with them — allowing us to approach them with less tension, both at night and during the day.
But even though we think it’s the right step, it’s still an incredibly difficult process for us to endure. At the same time, our observations suggest that it actually seems noticeably easier for our child.
I understand completely. By keeping a written record of sleeping and crying for a few days, it will be both reassuring and motivational to see a trend towards improvement even though it may not be linear and even though stressful crying will continue for a while (but less and less).
Please stay on course.
Thank you so much for your help! We will stay on course!:-)
Here is our last 5 nights. I’m not sure if I captured the details you need. One question that arose was you said “allow husband to promptly respond to him at night”, does that include any night wakings or just distress? Reflecting it seems like he would wake and I might hear him babbling but then 30-60 minutes later the crying would start. If the goal is to decrease sleep fragmentation when is the best time to intervene?
Night 1
Bedtime: 5:08 p.m.
3:45 a.m. – Began intermittent whining.
4:15 a.m. – Whining became consistent. Husband attempted low- and high-stimulation soothing strategies.
Husband brought Aaron to me to feed. He nursed until vigorous sucking stopped.
4:30 a.m. – Returned to crib; cried for <1 minute with intermittent brief cries.
4:45 a.m. – Crying intensified. Husband attempted additional soothing strategies. Aaron fell asleep in husband’s arms and was placed in crib at 6:00 a.m.
Wake time: 7:40 a.m.
Night 2
Bedtime / out the door: 5:20 p.m.
7:45 p.m. – Awake, quietly babbling; no intervention.
I left at 8:00 p.m.
9:05 p.m. – Husband texted that Aaron was screaming.
9:30 p.m. – I returned home. Husband reported difficulty calming him.
When I entered, Aaron was calm, but he screamed when placed in the crib at the end of our routine.
Offered pacifier (accepted).
Husband resumed soothing; placed in bed at 10:00 p.m. Minor fussing, then fell asleep independently.
Wake time: 7:10 a.m.
Night 3
Bedtime: 6:15 p.m.
Initially went down easily. Began crying ~15 minutes later.
Went back in; asleep between 6:30–6:45 p.m.
Wake time: 6:15 a.m.
Night 4
Bedtime: ~5:30 p.m. (I was not home)
2:15 a.m. – Awake; husband soothed and returned him to bed.
3:15 a.m. – Screaming resumed but then decreased, so we allowed time for self-settling.
3:30 a.m. – Crying intensified again; I coached husband through additional soothing strategies (he was reluctant to go back in).
Wake time: 6:45 a.m.
Night 5
Bedtime: 5:35 p.m.
3:00 a.m. – Babbling/talking to himself.
3:40 a.m. – Fussing began. Husband attempted soothing; reported that Aaron was moving around a lot without settling.
4:20 a.m. – I went in to feed due to limited sleep (previous night) and having been awake with our sick older children since 2 a.m.
Fed, then he cried/fussed, and fell asleep around 4:30 a.m.
Wake time: 6:45 a.m.
It appears to me that your husband’s soothing involvement is contributing to fragmented sleep by interfering with Aaron’s learning self-soothing. Do you think this is possible? If so, have your husband read the section in my book on ‘Extinction’ and have him reply to me why he does not want to try it. I remember your comment about marital tension and I do not want to suggest anything that might make it worse.
Honestly I have no idea at this point but it very well could be the problem. Aaron has been hard to soothe period. When picked up at night he thrashes around, arches his back and is in general just angry. He did eventually calm down but merely picking him up was surely not the “magic answer”.
I’ve wondered if Im missing his optimal nap window, Ive wondered if bed time is too early, Ive wondered if bed time is too late.
Interestingly enough this morning when he left Aaron’s room and he started crying—my husband said let him cry so he might be more so on board now. Ironically I was the one who couldn’t listen to him crying and desperately needed to get back to sleep for my own mental wellbeing today.
My interpretation of his concerns are the following.
1. He has unrealistic expectations. He cried it out 1 time and thinks that solves everything. Yes we’ve talked about the timeline in your book.
2. When we have let him cry it out, it has been anywhere from 60-90 minutes. Which is a long time to listen to him cry. (An hour is about my max and breaking point)
3. It is one thing when it is 9pm and he is crying (at 9pm the girls can sleep through it)but its another thing at when its 2am and everyone is awake and everyone needs help getting back to sleep.
I’ll work on getting him to answer directly though.
If he is agreeable and you can both tolerate it, I think that by the 3rd night of a 4 day strict Extinction trial, improvement would be seen.
I do not recommend this if either of oppose it or think that you might not be able to last 4 nights.
My husband did agree to sleep training.
Night one: 65 minutes around 2:30am
Night two: my husband said he slept all night (I was on a mom getaway for the night)
Night 3: 75 minutes and counting started around 7:45pm. Calms for 5ish minutes and then starts again. He now has his sister’s cold. He is congested and coughing.
Do you recommend pausing while sick or pushing through?
Yes.
For most common colds, the acute phase is 24-72 hours, then lingering symptoms might go on for 3-10 days. Pausing during the acute phase makes sense but waiting until all symptoms are gone might not. Because winter colds are common and he has older siblings, there might be many times this winter when he gets extra attention for a few days, but not for several days. Discuss this with your child’s care-giver.
What were your thoughts about the second night?
Once you have success with extinction and he is well-rested, there may be occasions in the future when you will need to do a ‘reset’ (as described in my book) and not have to repeat days of extinction.
You mentioned my exact concern. Between an RN, public school speech therapist, and one in preschool, someone will be sick from now through April. Will give him a bit more grace for the next 1-2 days and then pick back up.
As far as day #2–I wasnt home so its all in theory. I have a feeling that he went to bed later. I think my husband said between 6 and 6:30. Was it the magic bedtime or overtired? Or the cold setting in? I’m not sure.
Good morning,
I feel like this is different than I expected. Definitely a different experience than when we trained our middle child.
Night 1-65 minutes of crying
Night 2-none
Night 3-75 minutes *sick
CNight 4-none * sick
Night 5-woke at 4am and I couldn’t let him cry for an hour and wake the older two. I immediately got him up and started the day early. Gave an extra nap.
Night 6-60-70 minutes
Night 7-40 minutes (4:20am) quiet for 30 minutes started crying again at 5:30 (5-10 minutes). He cried again at 6:20. I got him up to feed but he seems pretty tired.
Because of his illness, I’m not sure we can make any firm conclusions, but no crying on Nights 2 and 4 might be an encouraging sign.
What were the falling asleep times for these 7 nights?
Hello again, we hope you have a wonderful christmas time!
After trying extinction with Twin 2 since the last time we contacted you – we now face a new problem.
We have definitely noticed an improvement. Usually, she would calm down in the evening after about 45 minutes and fall asleep—sometimes even after just 20 minutes. At night, she would only wake briefly and was able to fall back asleep on her own.
However, we are currently finding ourselves in the following situation: she shows clear signs of tiredness from around 4:30 p.m. We put her to bed as usual by 5:00 p.m. at the latest, after going through a fixed bedtime routine.
For the past three days, however, she has been waking up at almost exactly the same time (5:45 p.m.) and appears extremely alert—crying a lot, moving restlessly all over the bed, and playing with her pacifier and the crib bumper. We usually go in after 40–45 minutes (the longest we can manage) to check whether her diaper is full or, depending on how much she drank in the evening, whether she might be thirsty.
Even after two hours, she simply doesn’t calm down. What are we doing wrong? What could we perhaps have done differently? We are quite at a loss.
Thank you in advance!
How old is she now?
At her best, for how long was the improvement in place?
Prior to this new issue: Describe a common 24-hour sleep schedule.
She is 1 year old, but corrected age is almost 9 months.
For about 3 weeks now, we have noticed an improvement.
Currently, she sleeps until around 6:30/7:00 in the morning. The next sleep window is between about 9:00–9:30 and lasts around 45–60 minutes. The following sleep window is between 12:30/1:00 p.m. and lasts about 1.5–2 hours (so she is awake again around 2:00–2:30 p.m.).
Then, at around 4:30 p.m., we start the evening routine, as she shows clear signs of tiredness (touching her ear, glassy eyes, seeming absent, etc.).
What we are noticing at the moment: for the past few days, we have been trying to reduce all stimulation about 1 hour before bedtime. This means no loud toys, not much interaction, and the lights are dimmed. Each twin is given a silent toy to occupy themselves with before the fixed evening routine begins.
This has been extremely successful for Twin 1: she now falls asleep directly from 5:00 p.m. until 7:00 a.m. Previously, she would cry for 1–2 hours before finally falling asleep. For Twin 2, however, this seems to have the opposite effect – is this possible?
She falls asleep around 9-9:30am for her morning nap. Describe her mood and behavior when put alone with toys for 10-20 minutes (no screens nor parental nor sibling interaction) before this nap. Do this for 2-3 days.
She falls asleep around 12:30-1:00pm for her second nap. Describe her mood and behavior when put alone with toys for 10-20 minutes (no screens nor parental nor sibling interaction) before this nap. Do this for 2-3 days.
Alright!
Thank you!!
Hello:-)
So, we observed her (Twin 2) behavior before the naps and can summarize the following.
Day 1:
Before the morning nap, she became frustrated quite quickly. After about 5 minutes of playing with toys, she started looking for us, fussing, escalating into crying and calling out.
Her sleep was then also very short for her and quite early (8:50–9:22).
Before the midday nap, which was also a bit earlier than usual because it could no longer be postponed, she likewise played for about 5 minutes, then lost interest, looked for us, and fussed. Even when she discovered toys on her own, she tended to fuss more and engaged with them less. After 12 minutes, she cried and became louder, calling for us. (Slept from 12:18 to 14:02.)
Day 2:
Before the morning nap, she lost interest in toys after just 2 minutes. However, she no longer actively looked for us; instead, she babbled to herself, also in high-pitched tones (almost like squealing), and overall appeared tired and somewhat disengaged. After 12 minutes, she briefly became loud and cried, but only very briefly.
It was similar before the second nap. Overall, there was less focus on the surroundings or on “what is missing.”
The pre-sleep arousal (Blog Posts 171, 172, 204, 233X) that you are describing before a nap suggests that she is unable to tolerate the same duration of wakefulness before naps as her twin. How is her current night sleep going?
Perhaps, if you are able, you can shorten the interval of wakefulness before all of her naps and then her nap duration and quality would improve. I would still keep the bedtime early, based on drowsy signs. After a while, this might enhance the duration and quality of her night sleep. If this occurs, then maybe you would be able to better synchronize, for the sake of convenience, their nap schedules.
How does this sound?
Sounds good! We will definitely try this out, thank you!!!
The first night she cried for about 40 minutes—very intensely and without interruption. We noticed that it wasn’t her usual calling/crying. When I went into her room, she was curled up and holding both of her ears. We then gave her pain medication, as she seemed to be in pain (possibly teething). After that, she slept until 6:40 a.m.
Last night, the twins stayed with their grandparents. She slept from 4:45 p.m. until 7:15 a.m. without fussing and without any interruptions.
Today we put her to bed at 4:50 p.m. because she seemed very tired and had already rubbed her eyes several times. She has been screaming since 5:20 p.m., rolling back and forth in bed, but she does have pauses between the screaming episodes.
Please read Blog Post 233C.
Are you able to stay the course for a few more days?
Oh wow, interesting. Always thought it is directly related to sleep problems (because of the pain).
Yes, we will stay on course, thank you!
We will update you in a few days. 🙂
We have a quick question regarding the latest recommendations.
Today we tried putting Twin 2 down earlier for both daytime naps — with disastrous results.
She only slept 30 and 45 minutes respectively and is now completely crashing in the afternoon.
We tried, out of necessity, to put her down for a third nap, but she can’t settle at all.
What did we do wrong? We put her down when she was clearly showing drowsy signs.
Sorry. How did night sleep go?
If she does not appear to be ill, I would suggest trying it for at least 1-2 more days before abandoning the effort.
I know that making a change like this or perhaps a super early bedtime takes a day or so to see benefits.
Nightsleep is okay, she‘s calling like 1-2 times at Night, but seems to sleep quickly afterwards.
Alright, we will stay on course! Thank you!!!
Hello Again,
Good news to report, I think we are *almost there*. Unfortunately Christmas festivities went on for three days and caused some setbacks for everyone as expected. Post Christmas, I made the mistake of assuming that when he woke up at 445–5am that I could feed him and then he would go back to sleep. Not the case. I completely acknowledge that I have caused this problem.
We are in a disagreement about how to course correct.
This morning I refused to get up with him before 6am. My husband went in at 5:20amand tried to give him a bottle and soothe but soothing was unsuccessful.
If I put him down for a nap when he’s showing signs (probably around 7am) he will take a 30-60 minute nap “crap nap” and again a few hours later. Then he’s done napping by 1pm and sooo overly tired by 5pm. We’ve tried sneaking in a 3rd nap but that has been unsuccessful.
If I keep him up until 9am when he typically naps, its a better nap but getting to 9am is hard.
Until I can convince my husband (again) that getting our son up at 5am is only making it worse, what is the best daytime solution here? My husband thinks putting him to bed at 6pm will magically solve all of our problems.
How old is he now?
Teamwork is key; therefore, let your husband take charge and go to him before 6am and use 6pm bedtime for 2-3 days and keep a written record to see if his ideas help or hinder.
First of all, we wish you a Happy New Year!:-)
We would now like to summarize the last few days for you:
29/12 – We put her down earlier; she then slept for 50 minutes. Unfortunately, the second nap with an earlier bedtime did not work well (12:15–12:55). So we had to introduce a small power nap in the early afternoon, which went from 15:20–15:40 (we woke her after 20 minutes).
We then put her to bed at 5:00 p.m.
30/12 – She actually slept from 5:00 p.m. the previous day until 6:25 a.m.
First nap: 8:30–9:06 a.m.
Second nap: put down at 12:00, fell asleep at 12:08, awake at 1:22 p.m.
Put to bed for the night at 4:30 p.m.
31/12 – Awake at 4:25 a.m., had milk at around 4:55, fell asleep again at around 5:15 until 7:20 a.m.
First nap: 9:06–9:45 a.m.
Second nap: put down at 12:18, fell asleep at 12:25 and slept until 2:15 p.m.
Put down at 4:45 p.m. and she slept.
01/01 – Awake at 3:30 a.m., had milk and a diaper change. Fell asleep at 4:00 a.m. until around 6:30 a.m.
First nap: 8:05–9:30 a.m.
Second nap: put down at 12:12, fell asleep at around 12:17, awake from 1:47 p.m.
In the evening things went worse again.
Due to strong tiredness signs (possibly also overstimulation from the grandparents’ visit before bedtime?), we put her down at 4:25 p.m. She woke up at 5:30 p.m., cried, called out, and at times screamed intensely.
In total, we went into the room three times (offered milk again because she had drunk a bit less than usual in the evening, then changed her diaper once, and the third time gave her the pacifier because she had thrown it out of the bed). After she was given the pacifier, she fell asleep at 7:45 p.m.
02/01 – Slept until around 6:50 a.m.
She already seemed very tired from 8:00 a.m. onwards (touching her ears, seeming absent), but completely refused to sleep (very active in bed, babbling, screaming, playing with the pacifier), so we took her out of bed. She no longer seemed tired at all.
Something seems to have changed since yesterday.
She also started teething yesterday, but as far as we know, that usually doesn’t affect sleep quality? (We read the blogpost 233c)
The times we put her down were always directly based on the tiredness signs she showed us.
We definitely see improvement!!!
Please describe in narrative detail the improvement that you observe.
I agree with you and note that some naps are 1.5 hours (or more) and that the early bedtime is not causing her to wake up too early in the morning. I suggest that you stay the course for several more days.
How old is she now?
I know that you are on the right path and her sleep will improve. I wish you sweet dreams for your child. My sincere goal is to raise the visibility of accurate information regarding children’s sleep. To encourage other parents, please consider writing, and posting here, a narrative report of your sleep adventure (please include the role of the father) that I would use as a Blog Post or perhaps, only if you feel comfortable, an Amazon book review. Thank you.
Thank you, as always, for your quick and thoughtful response. Corrected age-wise, both of our daughters are now around nine months old.
Regarding the improvements we have observed:
First of all, due to the fact that it was physically not possible for my wife to breastfeed, we have both been equally involved in the evening routine from the very beginning. One of the first and most important improvements we noticed came from implementing one of the core principles from your book: establishing a consistent bedtime routine. While the effects were not immediately noticeable, after more than a month of following the program we can now clearly confirm that, under normal circumstances, putting them down at the correctly observed time works smoothly and within just a few minutes when supported by the routine.
That said, we continuously realize that the greatest challenge for us as parents remains correctly interpreting our daughters’ sleep cues. When we recognize the right signs, everything suddenly feels incredibly easy—almost effortless.
Another significant improvement is that, with the help of controlled crying, we have managed to reduce nighttime awakenings and prolonged periods of wakefulness to an absolute minimum. It is important to mention that allowing them to cry has been — and still is — extremely difficult for both of us on an emotional level. At the same time, through this process we have repeatedly felt how much we had unintentionally disrupted their sleep by responding too quickly and too frequently, even when they were capable of settling themselves.
Despite these improvements, challenges still remain. There are occasional “disaster days” where we feel helpless again and nothing seems to work. However, when we consider that days like these used to be our everyday reality, we can honestly say that the overall change has been nothing short of remarkable.
Of course, we will leave an Amazon review, and we are deeply grateful for the additional time and care you continue to dedicate to all of us here. Your commitment goes far beyond what one would normally expect, and it truly makes a difference for families like ours.
Hello Dr Weissbluth
We’ve had a very content baby who self soothes after sleep training since he was 5 months old.
He’s 2 now and hell broke loose when we changed his nap time from 11:30-12 to 1pm for a week when he went to a new nursery while keeping his bed time unchanged at 7 or 730pm
He used to wake up at 630 which became 530am and the night wakings also began. First once then twice and this is after we pulled him out of nursery and moved nap back to 11 and 1130 and bed time to 630.
We removed thr crib railing because during one night waking he climbed out and bumped his head but now im wondering if I should put it back up?
It’s been a month of him not sleeping without me staying in the room until he dozes off and am worrying if he’s adopted wrong sleep associations ? I tried extinction last night starting at 6pm and it was a disaster, after 45 min I went in and soothed him. He woke up 2 hours later then again at midnight.
Im convinced we need a 6pm bedtime for a few days to erase sleep debt but my husband refuses thinking this will shift his wake up even earlier, which is already happening he woke up today at 515am. Now im wondering a reset might have to be 530pm and my husband will never agree.
How do i convince his dad? And do we have to sleep train again because of the staying in the room during the last month?
Describe exactly what it is that your husband opposes and why. Without him being on board, there might be no long term healthy sleep. Is this an isolated area of disagreement or are there other marital issues?
Another thing: he’s had other changes in this month: he was sick and didnt sleep well at all for a couple of nights, he also bit through his favorite pacifier and wont take another one, so sleeps without it. There was naturally some separation anxiety too with the new nursery .
So yea a lot has happened in a short span of time, and I know I need a few resets, but there’s resistance from my husband. Plus, in 2 months he absolutely has to go to nursery and with his nap being at 11 now I don’t know how to achieve this..