A Healthy Child Needs a Healthy Brain, A Healthy Brain Needs Healthy Sleep
I would appreciate your comments or answers to some questions. Please write in the ‘Comments’ section in any Blog Post
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Are there new topics you would like me to discuss?
Would you like more information about old topics?
Has your child benefited from only small amounts of additional sleep (Blog Post 6)?
Has your child benefited from an early or earlier bedtime (Blog Post 7)?
Have you made a video of child transitioning from an alert-awake state to a drowsy state to a sleep state (Blog Post 9)? If you do this, you might be able to see more clearly the development of specific drowsy signs in your child to get a better handle on when to begin soothing to sleep. Perhaps this would be a week-end project as it might involve two people. Consider posting your video online and include a link in the Comments section for this Blog. Any observations or comments from you would also be welcome. There is no video online showing this transition! So, the first posted link will be making internet history. Sharing your video online offers the opportunity for other parents to sharpen their focus on their own child’s drowsy signs. Also, perhaps, I will notice items that I would share with viewers.
Have you tried Fading or Check and Console (Blog post 19)?
Have you tried Graduated Extinction or Extinction (Blog Post 25)?
What is “colic” called in your country? How do you deal with it (Blog Posts 43 and 44)?
Did improving your child’s sleep help your marriage?
Comments
My biggest question is how to work with a big sleep debt. Our baby seems so overtired that nothing we do works. We try to put her to be early (5:30) drowsy but awake but she starts screaming the moment we put her down and won’t fall asleep until 7 or 7:30. She’ll stay in her crib all night, but she wakes up crying and doesn’t seem well rested.
I try to watch for her drowsy signs but I feel like I notice something for a moment and then she’s back to playing like normal and then all of a sudden she’s fatigued and screaming. When she finally gets to sleep for her nap, she’ll only nap for a half hour.
We must be doing something wrong because ever since we started extinction she’s just slowing accumulating a bigger and bigger sleep debt.
She is just over 8 months. She wasn’t colicky per se, but she had a lot of tummy troubles until about 3.5-4 months and was thus a fairly fussy and uncomfortable baby until then.
Around 4-4:30 she seems very tired. Last night we put her to bed at 4:45 and she cried for about 45 minutes and eventually fell asleep at 6. She woke up at 6 crying but was fairly happy after being fed.
She is 8 months old. She wasn’t colicky per se when she was younger, but she had a tongue tie that made it hard for her to eat until 6 weeks and she had a milk protein sensitivity that caused tummy problems until she was about 4 months. So she was a pretty fussy/uncomfortable baby for the first few months.
Around 4pm she’s definitely having a witching hour. Last night we put her to bed at 4:45 and she cried for about 45 minutes and then played in her crib by herself until she fell asleep at 6. She woke up at 6am and didn’t seem to move around in her crib as much as she had been overnight.
Before we started sleep training she would nap 3-4 times a day. She had to be very deeply asleep and then we would gingerly place her in her crib and pray she doesn’t wake up. We definitely did the thing you’re not supposed to do and gave her a late nap around 5 and then got her up until we went to be around 9.
In the week that we’ve been doing extinction, she’s usually been attempting 3 naps. The first one is absolutely no more than 90 minutes after she wakes up. If I (mom) put her down she’ll cry for an hour and then maybe pass out for about 45 minutes. If dad puts her down she’ll cry for a few minutes and then play by herself until she falls asleep. Usually for 35-45 minutes. (Though this morning has been really good so far!). Then she’s usually ready for another nap by 11 and again at 2. Those are always questionable. By 4/5 it seems like she’s exhausted and we’re frazzled and unsure what to do. It’s hard to describe her daytime sleep as anything other than erratic, unpredictable, and a big struggle.
Sorry, I didn’t see that my last comment went through!
“Two or more months of crying sometimes adversely and permanently shapes parenting styles. An inconsolable infant might trigger in some parents a perception that their baby’s behavior is out of their control. They observe no obvious benefit to their young colicky infant when they try to be regular according to clock times or to be consistent in bedtime routines. Naturally, but falsely, they then assume that this handling will not help their post-colic child, either. Unfortunately, they do not observe the transition, at around 2–4 months, from colicky crying to fatigue-driven (sleep-deprivation) crying.”
This sounds like me. Although we’ve never really been consistent with schedule or routine.
At 8 months of age, for the post-colic child, your attempt is to simultaneously strive for a temporary super-early bedtime based on drowsy signs, feed her at night if hungry but otherwise give less attention at night (choose any sleep solution you are comfortable with) and schedule 2 naps (mid-morning and mid-day). The super-early bedtime will produce better quality night sleep which will produce better naps which will eventually lead to a somewhat latter bedtime. Details regarding this plan are described in my book. Sweet dreams, DrW.
I have confusion on how to know if a newborn or infant is showing signs of self-soothing? How does a parent know if progress is being made in teaching self-soothing in the early weeks if the child doesn’t yet fall asleep independently. Thank you!
Yes, absolutely. So, if I rock my baby in my arms to soothe to a drowsy state and she is calm and I sit down and stop rocking and she falls asleep, is that some evidence of early self soothing even though she is still in my arms? Or is it only if I put her down drowsy but awake and she falls asleep independent of my physical touch? Or is self soothing more of a physical action, like sucking on her thumb to soothe?
I have a 15 week old baby who has just never slept well. It’s probably right to categorize him as a post-colic baby. Our biggest problem is night wakings, every 1-2.5 hours. We try to sooth for a while before nursing, but especially in the first half of the night, he will cry every time his back hits the bassinet if he hasn’t been fed. We may be in a four month sleep regression but hard to know since we’ve never had much progression….
His bedtime right now is 8-8:30. I hear your advice about an early bedtime, but if I move it up 30 minutes or an hour I start getting false starts, and if I move it up to 5:30-6:00 he just treats it like a nap. Is there an implementation trick i am missing? Or should I just push through that?
He always wakes up at 11/11:30 after about 3 hours of sleep. I’ve tried to let him cry a bit, to do pick up, put down to extend it and not nurse until after midnight, but that doesn’t seem to be changing his pattern, just denying us all an hour of sleep. How do I get the first long stretch everyone else seems to get? Is this attempt to have him hold out longer a strategy or just denying a tired baby more sleep.
(FYI – he usually does four naps a day that are 35 minutes long, but I’ll try and extend one of them to 90 minutes by holding him)
Sleep regressions are bogus.
The bedtime is too late. Please read the Chapter on Sleep Solutions, pick a solution that you are comfortable with, and I will advise your.
We have been doing the extinction method since my child was four months old. Now that he is eighteen months old, he is able to put himself to sleep, and sleeps through the night, but still wakes up around early with a 6:30pm bedtime.
My question is how long should we continue the extinction method? We have been doing it for over a year now and he is capable of putting himself back down, but recently he won’t past 5:00am. We have been letting him cry until 5:15am.
His mood swings in both directions around that time in the evening. He is pretty hyper and aggressive with his toys, but also shows signs that he is tired, and will get upset easily, such as when bath time is over.
We have followed your book and established bedtime routine, which typically starts around 5:45 and he is typically excited to start that every night.
Based on those blog posts, I would say on most days he is showing signs of fatigue due to being overtired in that last hour of the day.
We have been dealing with early wake-ups for a long time, and it goes in cycles of getting better and worse, but most days he’s getting under 11 hours of sleep at night.
One reason we haven’t made the bedtime earlier is because his nap at daycare is so late, 12:00- 2:00, so that means his last wake window is only 4.5 hours and it would get shorter with an earlier bedtime.
We did have him at a 5:30 bedtime at around 11 months, and we found that pushing his bedtime back to 6:15-6:30 helped him wake later, but he was still taking two naps at that time.
Wake windows are bogus; watch your child, not the clock.
Consistent early bedtimes based on drowsy signs (not fatigue signs) will enhance brain development, prevent bedtime battles, and night waking. And perhaps he will sleep in later because sleep begets sleep.
The opposite path is also inevitable because of cumulative sleepiness (Blog Posts 84-86) from bedtimes that are too late.
Do you agree?
Yes that makes sense. We will start putting him down earlier to see if he is able to get more sleep that way.
If he does still have early wakeups, should we still be letting him cry it out if it appears he won’t be putting himself back to sleep, or would that be pointless now that he has the skill to put himself to sleep?
We have read through much of your website and are reading through your book. We will continue to do so, but are in need of guidance. Our baby is 6 months old. We’ve never quite had rhythm with his sleep and are very concerned about his consistent lack of sleep and the consequences for his development. I’m an early intervention occupational therapist and appreciate how vital sleep is for child development.
He’s always only napped 2-3 times per day for 40 minutes in his crib, generally waking 2-3 times per night to breastfeed (he previoisly would sleep in 3-7 hour strecthes). He has averaged 10-12 hours of total daily sleep (overnight and nap included) since birth. We had some success attempting to sleep train with the Fading method at 5 months, but this deteriorated when he started teething (we read this is a myth, just sharing this was our timeline). He now will mostly only nap with contact (despite us continually attempting to place him in crib), wakes every 1-3 hours at night to nurse, and sometimes requires multiple attempts to be laid down in his crib for overnight sleep.
We continue fading techniques, but he has now vomited and we don’t feel comfortable risking that sleep association. We generally start our bedtime routine (quiet play in the dark/bath, nurse, diaper change, pajamas) around 7:00 pm. We cannot seem to work out an earlier bedtime and naps not going well. My husband and I share putting baby down for naps and bedtime. We are currently also attempting naps whenever we see drowsy/fatigue signs, earlier bedtime during early drowsy state (although he generally seems to skip that state and go straight to fatigue), most/all of your recommendations on the sleep wheel and “What A Parent Can Do” resoruces.
Please describe his mood and behavior between 6-7pm when alone with toys (no parental involvement or screens).
“We are currently also attempting naps whenever we see drowsy/fatigue signs”. Describe the drowsy signs that you observe.
Thank you for your response! Update* This week we have seen major improvements in overnight sleep after finally being able to set super early bedtime of 5:00 pm (and gradually extending each day) and having baby nap 2x a day in a baby wearer around 9/10 am and 12/2pm. He has since began to sleep in 5-8 hour strecthes. We know the contact naps are not ideal but we believe they have, in part, allowed for the early bedtime and better overnight sleep. He will cry if not engaged with parents or toys between 6:00-7:00. We don’t turn on lights or screens at all during the day or evening until after he is asleep in his crib. His drowsy signs are being less engaged, staring off with blank eyes, and long blinks. Our plan was to solidify our current strategies for another week, and then work on transitioning him back to crib naps. Does that seem like a reasonable plan? Any additional recommendations for us? Thank you again. Your book is a wealth of knowledge and we will be sharing with all be families.
His father is involved daily in putting him to sleep for naps and bedtime. We alternate baby wearing for naps and share the bedtime routine and night wakenings. The past 3 nights we’ve regressed. Baby is waking 3-4 times per night again, every 2-3 hours. We have not changed anything about the routine. We continue to let him cry for an hour, but he cannot seem to settle on his own, and allowing him to cry longer seems to only cause more distress and dysregulation preventing sleep. We’re really at a loss.
I apologize, I realized I did not share many details for you. I will nurse him (he generally falls asleep or is very drowsy) we put him in his pajamas (he stirs and is drowsy/calm) and when we place him in his crib he whines/whimpers for a few minutes and falls asleep for 2-4 hours. If its less than 4 hours, we give him time to attempt to fall asleep. If its been 4 hours, I will feed him again and when we put him to sleep this second time, he will fall asleep but wake within 10 minutes and we start the cycle again attempting to give him time to put himself to sleep and then try to calm him. This repeats until its been 4 hours and I feed him again.
Previously, you mentioned that you were using the ‘fading’ strategy. Are you doing this as described in my Chapter on Sleep Solutions?
“The past 3 nights we’ve regressed”. When did you begin the ‘fading’ sleep solution?
If ‘fading is not working and her sleeping is regressing, are you and your husband open to other sleep solutions?
Thank you for your patience and time asking questions. The sleep deprivation is causing me some errors! I meant to say Ferber (which I believe is graduated extinction), not fading. We are open to other strategies. We just found that uncapped extinction is not working. We’ve let him cry for an hour a few times, and he only escalates, has once vomited, and requires another 40-60 minutes to help him calm, even when we are holding and soothing him. Last week, we would allow him to fuss for 5-10 minutes and he would put himself to sleep. It’s only been the past 3-4 days that has regressed although we’ve kept our routine the same.
When did you try Extinction, for how many days, what was his bedtime then?
When did you try Graduated Extinction, for how many days, what was his bedtime then?
Are you moderately or severely sleep-deprived?
Please read about the Nap Drill in my book and I may or may not suggest we do this plus other items.
Would you like to solve his sleep issue fast (maybe a lot of crying for 1-2 nights) or slow (maybe some crying on and off for several nights)?
We have not attempted complete, by the book extinction. The longest we’ve allowed him to cry was 1 hour, for 3 nights. We attempted graduated extinction for 1 week about 2 months ago, and now again for 1.5 weeks. His bedtime has been about 7:00 pm. I will re-read the nap drill section of the book! Thank you for the reminder. We were waking every 1-2 hours for about a month. The past week we are waking 2-3 times a night. I would say we were severely sleep deprived, but it’s beginning to improve with these fewer night awakenings. I’d be open to attempting to solve the sleep issues quickly, but we are just concerned extinction will not work for him (because of the 3 nights I just mentioned). So perhaps the slower, graduated extinction method with some tweaks will work better for him. Thank you for your help.
Previously:”He will cry if not engaged with parents or toys between 6:00-7:00.” This is pre-sleep arousal. Read Blog Post 204 to fully understand why extinction failed in the past because the bedtime was way too late.
If, and only in, you can commit to 3 (maybe 4) days, here’s your sleep solution:
Do extinction as described (no cap) in my book and read carefully Blog Post 219 for more details. Start Friday night.
Do the Nap Drill (no more contact naps). Father does nap duty on week-end, mother leaves the house.
Keep a written sleep and crying record.
Because of uncertainty regarding naps, prepare for a 5:30pm bedtime (he is bathed, dressed, fed, and soothed and you are leaving the room at 5:30pm and hopefully, he is drowsy but awake).
If naps are great, the early bedtime is based on drowsy signs. So carefully read Blog Posts 83, 115X, 226C, 232AX, 232BX, and 232D.
Have your husband also do all the reading.
How does this sound?
Thank you for the detailed plan. Weve seen major improvements!
Friday night – 9.5 hours consecutive sleep; no overnight awakening
Saturday – 2 hour AM crib nap and 50 minute PM crib nap after crying 50 minutes; bedtime 6:30 pm – 4:30 am sleep with 1 feed at 12:45 am
Sunday – 40 minute AM crib nap (no crying) and 50 minute PM crib nap after crying 20 minutes; bedtime 5:45 pm – 2:20 am sleep, woke for feed, sleep 3:00 am -5:20 am.
Monday – 50 minutes AM crib nap (10 seconds crying) and 10 minute PM crib nap then cried for 60 minutes; bedtime 5:30 pm – 5:20 am sleep with 1 feed at 11:20 pm; stirred at 5:20, cried for 5 minutes then put self back to sleep until 6:30 am
Tuesday – 35 minute AM crib nap after 30 minute crying.
Should we intervene on the naps slightly regressing at this point? Should we just discontinue the early bedtime as in your teaching when he no longer shows early tired cues? He still only minimally fusses for a few minutes when we put him to sleep at bedtime.
His sleep overnight is consolidated, and he’s going to sleep earlier and waking later, and napping in his crib. A few weeks ago he was up every 1-3 hours, went to bed around 7:30/8:00 pm and woke about 5:00 am, would refuse to nap unless held, and would nap only 20-40 minutes. The past 2 days his morning naps are shortening and his afternoon nap is not happening. We’re unsure if this is typical only 4-5 days into sleep training, or if we should intervene somehow.
Here is the nap report. The times are when he ACTIVELY was asleep, the crying minutes I list happened before the times unless I specify it happened after he woke up. We are attempting the rough 9:00 am and 12:00/1:00 naps as described in your bookk and blog, but the first few days we had to follow his cues and the naps were earlier.
Saturday – 7:00 am – 9:00 am (cried for 50 minutes); 1:00 pm – 1:40 pm (cried for 50 minutes)
Sunday – 8:00 am – 8:40 am (cried for 2 minutes); 11:30 am – 12:20 pm (cried for 26 minutes)
Monday – 9:00 am – 9:50 am (cried for 1 minute); 12:16 pm – 12:26 pm (fell asleep within 1 minute, woke up and cried for 60 minutes and then we ended the nap)
Tuesday – 9:30 am – 10:00 am (cried for 32 minutes); 12:45 pm – 12:50 pm (fell asleep within 1 minute, woke up and cried for 60 minutes and then we ended the nap); bedtime 5:45 pm fell asleep in 1 minute and has been sleeping since (currently 8:20 pm)
Because night sleep has improved, but only during the past few days, please be optimistic going forward. As he repays his cumulative sleep debt, naps should improve.
Nap rhythms are well established by about 6 months in about 80% of children. Please stay the course for a few more days (if you think 8:30am and 11:30am might be better nap start times, go for it).
Did your son have colic (as described in my book) when younger?
Thank you for the information. I believe the baby was colicy (inconsolable crying, not fussing, everyday around 4:00 – 7:00 pm until about 8-10 weeks old) my husband believes he was not (husband was actively involved in all daily baby care on paternity leave). We also identified a cows milk protein sensitivity during this time and his symptoms improved around 12 weeks old. He generally slept well at night since birth (3-6 hour strecthes between feeds, fell asleep on his own in crib), but he never really wanted to nap and would only nap 40 minutes maximum.
My nap study began at age 6 months. Dividing infants then into 5 groups from the longest to the shortest nap durations, the top 4 groups napped a little less duration by 9 months of age. The bottom or shortest nappers at 6 months of age actually napped a little more at 9 months of age! From my research on colic and sleep, my impression is that some post-colicky infants have a delay in the maturation of their daytime sleep rhythm maturation and instead of having it well established by about 6 months of age, it might take a few months more. That is, I suspect that post-colicky infants are overrepresented in the briefest napping infants at 6 months of age. This is my impression; not supported by data. Please be patient.
I know that your sleep adventure is not over but I would encourage you to write a narrative report so you can see how far you have come and it will encourage you to stay the course.
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 it as a Blog Post or perhaps, only if you feel comfortable, an Amazon book review. Thank you.
We greatly appreciate your guidance and help. It’s changed our lives. We definitely are staying the course! We will continue to spread word of your book by mouth, your blog, and reviews. Thank you Dr. Marc
Dear Dr Weissbluth,
greetings from Germany! Your book has been a huge help in raising our baby. We read it right before the birth of our daughter and started teaching self-soothing as described in your book the week we returned home from the hospital. Thanks to your advice she has been a great sleeper since being 5-6 weeks old, even though I suspect she was extremely fussy which just never showed to its full extent because she was so well rested. Now she is almost 5 months old and has been well rested and happy during the day for about 2 months, sleeping an average of 15:20hrs per day (almost 12 hrs per night with one night feeding). A month ago we managed to get her on a fairly regular nap schedule, including three naps. However, lately we run into a problem which costs all of us more and more sleep: She heavily relies on her pacifier for sleeping. As her sleep gets less deep in the morning hours, she tends to wake up frequently and needs us to replace ist, sometimes starting as early as 4 am. She keeps loosing it and either does not go back to sleep at all or only with us repeatedly replacing the pacifier every few minutes. In your book and on your blog you describe this as problematic and we sure feel it is! However, we are not sure if this ist a situation best solved with full extinction (we feel confident to go through with it!), using our normal bedtime routine except for giving her a pacifier, or if we should first try to teach her self-soothing without the pacifier but while intensifying other soothing methods. Please help!
She has been sick which kind of messed up the nap schedule, but usually she has a midmorning nap starting between 8:45 and 9:30 based on drowsy signs which lasts for about 40Mins up until 1,5hrs, a midday nap starting between 11:30 and 1pm based on drowsy signs lasting 1,5-2,5 hrs and a nap in the late afternoon starting between 4 and 4:30 pm which lasts about 40 Minutes. Her bedtime has been 6pm for a long time which worked just fine but after she started waking up multiple times around 7pm/8pm we moved it to 6:30 which now works well.
When she is well, place her alone with toys (no screens nor parental nor sibling interaction) for 15-20 minutes between 5:30-6:30pm for 2-3 nights and describe her mood and behavior.
We usually put her on her play mat around 5:30 and stop interacting with her. She’s content and plays with her toys or looks around. At some point, she starts making noises that sound a little unhappy, and then we start the bedtime routine.
Things have been a little chaotic due to the switch to daylight saving time and a vacation, but we’re back in a rhythm now.
The bedtime routine takes 15-20 minutes and she falls asleep by herself within minutes afterwards. Lately, she’s been falling asleep around 6:30 p.m. We’ve stopped giving her the pacifier at night (only for the bedtime routine). After her nighttime bottle, she usually falls asleep just fine without it, but since then she’s been waking up reliably between 5:00 and 5:30 a.m. This has led to her now taking four naps during the day: She makes up for the lost nighttime sleep around 6:30–7:00 a.m. and sleeps for 30–60 minutes before taking a second mid-morning nap around 9:00–9:30 a.m.
So waking up early in the morning remains a problem. We’re wondering whether we should either try to get her to sleep without a pacifier or put her to bed later in the evening. Recently, though, she couldn’t fall asleep even with a pacifier by 5 a.m.
“At some point, she starts making noises that sound a little unhappy” is the beginning of pre-sleep arousal.
“Recently, though, she couldn’t fall asleep even with a pacifier by 5 a.m.” is cumulative sleep loss.
Read about pre-sleep arousal and cumulative sleep loss on my Blog or book
The basic problem is a falling asleep time that is a little too late.
For 3-5 nights have 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 new nap starts after 3:00pm; if she is asleep at 3pm, do not wake her. Observe latency to sleep onset, the pacifier issue and the early morning issue. Keep a written record. Naps are based on drowsy signs. The early bedtime will lead to longer naps and thus later. the bedtime will be shifted a little later, based on drowsy signs.
How does this sound?
Let me know how it goes.
Thank you for the suggestion! Here is how it went so far:
– Day 1: Put her to bed after bedtime routine at 5:30pm with pacifier. Fell asleep easily within minutes (needed several replacements of the pacifier around 6.15pm), night feeding at 11pm. Left the room after minimal soothing, fell asleep within minutes without pacifier. Slept until 5 am. After giving her the pacifier she fell asleep again and slept until 6am. Bad mood all day. Naps based on drowsy signs at 8am (45 Mins), 11.15am (1h), 2.20pm (40 min) (usually her naps are much longer, especially her midday nap).
– Day 2: Put her to bed after bedtime routine at 5:30pm with pacifier. Fell asleep easily within minutes. Woke up crying, pacifier replacements: 4x after 50mins, heavy crying after 2hrs (very unusual), woke again after 2:40 hrs. Bottle at 8:30 pm, fell asleep right afterwards. Night feeding at 3:05am, left her awake without pacifier. When she couldn’t fall asleep, gave her pacifier at 3:45 and she went to sleep right away. Slept until 5:38 am. Naps at 7:45am (1:48 Mins), 11:45am (1:40 Mins). Better mood.
– Day 3: Put her to bed after bedtime routine at 5:30pm with pacifier. Asleep by 5:45pm after pacifier was replaced a few times. Night feeding at 1:45am. Left the room after minimal soothing, fell asleep within minutes without pacifier. Woke up at 5:16am, didn’t go back to sleep even with pacifier. Cranky mood.
For all naps we did a little soothing, left her awake with pacifier and she fell asleep within minutes (which is normal for her). Occasionally we have to replace the pacifier before she falls asleep properly or to extend her midday nap.
The fact that she fell asleep close to 5:30pm confirms that her previous bedtime was too late.
How would you describe her self-soothing skills without a pacifier?
Is it time to try a nighttime sleep solution to encourage more self-soothing skills? I think so because her fragmented night sleep is causing both her brief naps and “cranky mood”
If you agree, choose a sleep solution from the chapter in my book that comports with your life style and values and I will help you.
Self-soothing skills: We established a bedtime routine right from the start, with a shorter routine for naps and a longer one for the evening, so she knows exactly when it’s time for bed. She has developed her own way of falling asleep, involving arm movements, stroking pillows and stretching. She falls asleep independently after we leave the room. After night feedings, most of the time she falls asleep that way without her pacifier.
We are generally ready to practise her falling asleep without a pacifier, since we are overtired and she isn’t getting enough sleep at night. We’d like to try extinction, but first we’d like to address four points to make sure it’s the best approach:
1. We’ve already tried extinction (about six weeks ago): During the day, she still had the pacifier so she wouldn’t get completely overtired, but not in the evening or at night. After nine nights, we stopped because she was still crying heavily in the evening (times in minutes: 31, 10, 24, 19, 15, 12, 0, 15, 10).
2. Bad mood during the days when we put her down at 5:30pm: This happened during the day, not when she wakes up in the morning. She usually wakes up in a good mood between 5 and 6 a.m., but her mood changes after a while. Perhaps I didn’t describe this clearly enough.
3. Importance of the pacifier: She is a very sensitive child who reacts sensitively to light, sounds and movements, and she was constantly agitated during the first few months of her life. The pacifier helped her to self-regulate. Additionally, one parent and several of their relatives have ADHD, which may have been inherited. Since she now wakes up early regardless of her bedtime and doesn’t go back to sleep even with the pacifier, we wonder if the pacifier is really the main problem—or if, for example, the increasing morning light (she has curtains in her room, but they let light through) plays a role. Would it make sense to rule out other factors first?
4. We’re moving at the end of the month: Should we wait to start extinction until she’s settled in?
Thank you for the detailed information.
On Night 3, she returned to sleep without the pacifier and your description indicates that she has great self-soothing skills, in fact, “most of the time she falls asleep that way without her pacifier.” Therefore, the pacifier is not absolutely necessary all the time and returning to reinsert the pacifier, perhaps more in the past, might have caused both fragmented night sleep and over time, cumulative sleepiness.
1. The failure of Extinction might have been associated with a too late bedtime or the pacifier issue
2.Cumulative sleepiness might make for a developing bad mood during the day. Pre-sleep arousal from impaired night sleep can interfere with healthy naps and mood during the day.
4.Her sensitivity might be a temperament trait contributing to her sleep issue or a development from not sleeping well.
My suggestion is a 4-5 night trial of Extinction with a strict 5:30pm expected falling asleep time now to repay her accumulated sleep debt. Waiting for after the move might just increase her sleep debt and the move itself might be extremely disruptive for her sleep routine.
One choice is to cold turkey not use the pacifier at all for this trial because “most of the time she falls asleep that way without her pacifier”. Another is to offer it and perhaps have a pacifier attached to a very short ribbon (much shorter than the circumference of her neck) attached to her sleeper with an alligator clip. Either way, extinction means that you never return to replace the pacifier.
During this trial, do whatever you can to maximize day sleep. If this means that you have to use a pacifier, temporarily do it. This will not confuse her; her brain knows that day sleep and night sleep are different.
Keep a written record.
Do not do this if you cannot devote 4-5 consecutive nights to the trial.
How does this sound?
After giving it more thought, we are ready to try the extinction method for four to five nights (we’ve gotten darker curtains, and she’s much calmer and sleepier in the morning. However, she still wakes up between five and six and can’t fall back asleep). We plan to give her the pacifier in the evening, but we won’t replace it at night if she loses it.
What’s not entirely clear to us yet is how we’ll decide when to get her out of her room in the morning. She will most likely fall asleep with her pacifier in the evening and fall back asleep without it after her nighttime bottle without any trouble. However, she then wakes up between 5 and 6 a.m. How early does she have to wake up for us to let her cry it out? What if she cries, falls back asleep, and then wakes up again? How will we decide whether to call it a night or try a second round of extinction to help her fall back asleep?
Because she is close to 6 months old, her morning nap rhythm is getting stronger so one goal is to attempt to put her down for a morning nap close to about 9am. If she starts the day too early, this becomes more difficult.
“she then wakes up between 5 and 6 a.m. How early does she have to wake up for us to let her cry it out? What if she cries, falls back asleep, and then wakes up again?” If she briefly cries in the early morning and returns to sleep and then cries again, start the day.
Your main focus now is on night sleep. If extinction goes well, you might want to try to slowly try to get the first nap start time closer to 9am. But there are two conflicting principles here:
1. Stretching her towards 9am will help her nap better because of circadian alignment.
2. Keeping her up too long creates pre-sleep arousal which interferes with a good nap.
So either wait until night sleep has improved or go slowly to find the sweet spot for her morning nap.
Does this help?
I agree with you that the focus should be on night sleep for now. My problem is I don’t think I fully understand the extinction process yet — or maybe I didn’t explain our situation clearly enough. We suspect that with the extinction process we chose (giving her a pacifier in the eventing but not replacing it), most nights she will fall asleep without trouble in the evening because we give her a pacifier, and after her late-night bottle she will most likely fall back asleep on her own without one. That’s been our experience most nights.
Our problem is the early mornings. She’ll likely wake up very early and eventually start crying if she doesn’t get a pacifier or if no one comes to get her. That’s the part I’m trying to understand better.
Let’s say she wakes up a little after 5 a.m. We don’t give her the pacifier and let her cry it out. She might fall back asleep — or she might not. At what point would we go get her? For example: what would we do if she cries from 5:20 to 6:20 and never falls back asleep? Or if she cries from 5:00 to 5:20, falls asleep, and then wakes up again at 5:40 — do we let her cry again, or do we go get her?
I hope I’ve made myself clear and haven’t misunderstood anything. Perhaps you mean that extinction doesn’t apply to the morning situation at all? That would mean we shouldn’t give her the pacifier in the evening, because otherwise most of the nights a situation of extinction wouldn’t arise at all…
I think the morning problem begins at night: “We plan to give her the pacifier in the evening, but we won’t replace it at night if she loses it.”
Giving the pacifier at sleep onset creates an association between falling asleep and the pacifier. In the middle of the night she sometimes can return to sleep without the pacifier but during lighter sleep in the morning, not so much.
During a 4-5 night extinction trial, please consider no pacifier at all, neither at sleep onset or very early in the morning. Early in the morning, some babies around 3-4am need a quick diaper change or feeding and go back to sleep with minimal soothing (no pacifier), if you think she needs this, go for it. Other babies stir, whimper, or make sounds between 4-5am with some intermittent sleeping and call out to start the day between 5-6 am. My gentle suggestion is to not go to her before 6am to start the day because this will make it more difficult for her to get towards a 9am nap in the future.
On the other hand, if she is crying a lot around 5-5:30am and you observe that she never returns to sleep and she slept well over night, then go to her at this earlier hour.
Eliminating the pacifier entirely should help but the first 2-3 days might be rough.
Is this ok?
We have now tried the extinction method for four nights, during which we have not given our daughter a pacifier to help her fall asleep in the evening or during the night. Here’s how it went:
Night 1: Left her room at 5:30 p.m., she started fussing at 5:33 p.m. with longer breaks in between. She cried from 5:49 p.m. to 6:15 p.m., slept until 3:50 a.m., and then fell right back asleep after my partner changed her diaper and gave her a bottle. She woke up at 5:55 a.m. and he picked her up from her room at 6:15 a.m.
Night 2: Left her room at 5:21 p.m. and she whined right away. She cried from 5:27 to 5:37 p.m., with breaks. She was quiet until 5:49 p.m., then she cried until 6:27 p.m. There was a diaper change and feeding at 3:30 a.m. She was quiet until 4:15 a.m., then she cried from 4:15 to 4:25 a.m. She slept again until 5:30 a.m., then she was awake and fussy. She started crying at 5:45 a.m. and was picked up from her room at 5:55 a.m.
Night 3: Left her room at 5:33 p.m., fussy from 5:33 to 5:39 p.m., but fell asleep without crying! Changed and fed her at 4:46 a.m. Left her room at 5:08 a.m. She was fussy with breaks, starting at 5:16 a.m. She was fully awake at 5:45 a.m. and was rather unhappy. Picked her up from her room at 5:55.
Night 4: Left her room at 5:34 a.m. Fell asleep without crying or whining! Changed and fed her at 5:00 a.m., then left her room at 5:24 a.m. Heard noises every now and then. She was fully awake by 5:45 and was loud. Picked her up from her room at 5:55.
In terms of the pacifier, extinction was a big success! However, as far as waking up early goes, not much has changed yet.
What would you recommend we do next?
We’re already more rested simply because she often wanted her bottle at midnight or 1 a.m. before, which made our sleep much more fragmented. Getting four nights in a row where we can sleep until 3 a.m. or later is real progress! However, the fact that she still wakes up so early remains a problem. The afternoons are also very exhausting because she no longer takes an afternoon nap due to her early bedtime. She’s awake for too long and becomes extremely overtired before we put her to bed.
Should we try pushing her bedtime back a little to see if she’ll sleep longer? In your book, you write that this isn’t usually an effective solution, but it can work as an exception if bedtime is very early. Would it be a good idea to set an alarm for 3 or 4 a.m. and wake her up to feed her, hoping that she’ll fall back asleep more easily afterward than if the feeding is later in the morning? Or would you recommend something else?
This is a genuinely good four-night report, and you are right to feel encouraged. Let me address what you’re seeing.
What went well
The pacifier extinction was fast and clean — nights 3 and 4 she fell asleep without crying at all. That is the goal achieved. The middle-of-the-night feeding has shifted from midnight or 1 a.m. to 3–5 a.m., which is a meaningful improvement in your consolidated sleep. You did this correctly.
The early morning waking
She is waking around 5:30–5:55 a.m. and is unhappy but not being picked up until 5:55. This is the right instinct — you are not rewarding the early waking by rushing in.
Early morning waking at this age is often the last piece to change, and it frequently takes longer than the initial bedtime success. A few weeks of patience here is normal.
Your question about pushing bedtime later
You are right to be cautious about this, and I want to congratulate you for recognizing it. A later bedtime now would almost certainly undo what you’ve worked hard to achieve. A 5-month-old pushed past her drowsy period enters a state of heightened neurological arousal — pre-sleep arousal — that makes falling asleep harder, not easier, and tends to worsen early morning waking rather than improve it. Your instinct here is correct. Keep the early bedtime.
What to expect in the coming weeks
Sleep comes from the brain, not the stomach. The night feeding timing will continue to evolve on its own as her sleep matures — you don’t need to engineer it. More importantly, now that night sleep is better consolidated, the expected development of longer and more regular naps will naturally follow over the next several weeks, typically around six months of age. As naps become more substantial and reliable, the long overtired afternoon stretch you’re describing will ease on its own. That improvement in daytime sleep may eventually permit a slightly later bedtime — but when that time comes, the bedtime is set by her drowsy signs, not by the clock.
The afternoon exhaustion
What time does her last nap end, and how many naps is she taking during the day and at what times? I want the full picture before making specific nap recommendations.
Before we started putting her down at 5:30 p.m. around two weeks ago, her naps were fairly regular. She usually had a mid-morning nap starting between 8:45 and 9:30 a.m., based on drowsy signs, which lasted 40 minutes to an hour and a half. She then had a midday nap starting between 11:30 a.m. and 1 p.m., based on drowsy signs, which lasted an hour and a half to two and a half hours. Finally, most days she had a nap in the late afternoon starting between 4 and 4:30 p.m., which lasted 40 minutes. As I mentioned before, due to her waking up so early, a fourth mini-nap started happening very early in the morning.
However, since we started putting her down at 5:30 p.m., her naps have been irregular and short. She takes two to four naps, and the timing varies greatly. Most of the time, her last nap ends by 1 or 2 p.m. Sometimes, she manages to take her last nap around 3 p.m. Because of this, most days she is overtired by 5:30 p.m.
How long should we keep the bedtime at 5:30 p.m.? I feel that she is pushed past her drowsy signs now because she misses an afternoon nap, unlike when she had a later bedtime and was less exhausted at bedtime.
Because she is close to 6 months of age, her nap circadian rhythms are becoming better developed; this means that the timing of naps, around 9am and 12-1pm will become more important for good quality naps.
Because of her preceding sleep debt, keep the 5:30pm bedtime in place for now and the better quality night sleep will allow you to proceed with better naps, soon, which will allow the bedtime to become a little later. Then, the wake-up time might, or might not, be a little later.
For now, slowly (every few days) and gradually (maybe 10-20 minutes at a time) try to delay the morning nap towards about 9am and either sequentially or simultaneously, try to delay the mid day nap start time to 12-1pm. If this is rushed, the risk is pre-sleep arousal which will make naps worse. A third nap is fine, if needed, but only if it starts before 3pm.
How does this sound?
I have a 9 week old baby. I feel like I was totally unprepared and have been blindsided by all things related to sleep! I read Babywise Sleep Solutions before he was born and expected some level of struggles, but everything sounded fairly straightforward overall and I was very confident in my ability to care for a baby.
Fast forward to when he was born, he basically grew out of his “sleepy potato” phase well before he was even 2 weeks old (born at 40 weeks 3 days; normal, uncomplicated vaginal delivery) and already struggled to nap “on the go.” He’d be wide awake for several hours at a time before finally falling asleep. Fairly content, not very fussy usually, but still—WIDE AWAKE!
Once he hit about 3-4 weeks, I started to become more concerned about this (in part because he did start to become more and more fussy) and tried to get him on a more regular nap schedule. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize at the time that naps at his age are still irregular and unpredictable and often short. I lost so much sleep and wasted so much energy stressing about his naps being only 30-45 minutes unless I held him or fought really hard to “rescue” the nap. I was in tears so many days because I was so frustrated that my baby wasn’t doing what I thought he was supposed to do. This continued until last week when I started reading your book and realized this was all fairly normal. So he’s still having about 30-45 minute naps, but I’m just rolling with it instead of being stressed about it! That alone has made such a huge difference!
His nights have been the most consistent since about the second week. We’d put him down about 8pm and wake him between 10-11pm for a “dream feed,” and then he’d sleep until about 3-4am needing to be fed. And then I’d get him up (or sometimes he’d already be awake) by 7:30am. Occasionally he’d wake once or twice more at very random times, not really seeming to be hungry and would fall back asleep fairly easily with minimal soothing or after letting him cry for a bit. But overall was fairly consistent from about 2 weeks old through now. Each component with very minimal crying or difficulty.
Since reading your book over the past week, we started with putting him to bed about an hour earlier, around 7pm. He’s gone down without much issue, and his night waking habits have remained unchanged (aka they didn’t get worse like I thought they would)! Yay! He’s been getting about 2-3 more hours of total sleep somehow during a 24 hour period even with just that extra hour of sleep at the front end of the night even though his total nap sleep time hasn’t changed. He’s gone from about 13-15 hrs of sleep per day to 16-17 per day just from that change.
Two days into doing this, his naps looked beautiful—he actually took two fairly long naps (1.5 and 1 hr one after the other) first thing in the morning, but more importantly, he went down so much more easily—hardly any crying or none at all. I had started putting him down much sooner after waking—about 30-45 minutes as opposed to an hour or slightly longer as I had been doing before.
We have done this early bedtime (7pm or thereabouts) now four nights in a row.
However, since yesterday, he’s fought every. single. nap. And bedtime. It’s been so exhausting. I’m putting him down after about the same length of time as before, trying so so hard to watch for his drowsy signs (they’re so easy to miss sometimes!). I don’t think I changed anything else, but he’s just fighting and fighting his naps. We are fine with letting him cry and will let him cry up to 20 min when we put him down. He’ll usually fall asleep after crying, so that’s great…but still exhausting to fight him, put him down drowsy, but then he starts crying and cries for up to 20 minutes before falling asleep. Did something change? Or is he just continuing along with the normal irregularity of babies his age and having some “good” days and some “bad” days?
Do you have any recommendations? Is it possible that I’m putting him down too soon now that he’s caught up on some sleep debt? How would I know if I am putting him down too soon since you cover so much about putting babies down too late? Could he need even LESS time than 30-45 minutes awake? Do I need to scoot his bedtime a little later now that he’s caught up on some sleep debt? Or scoot it even earlier if he’s still sleep deprived? Or just give it some more time doing the same things and keep working to learn his drowsy cues?
We have put him down drowsy but awake, swaddled, with a pacifier, and allowed at least some crying since day one basically, even before reading your book. He eats well, is gaining weight well, has plenty of wet/dirty diapers, so there’s no concerns there.
“Did something change?” Yes. Read Blog Posts 84-86 to fully appreciate cumulative sleepiness.
Congratulations on shortening the intervals of wakefulness between naps and moving the bedtime earlier; you clearly saw the improvement.
“Do I need to scoot his bedtime a little later now that he’s caught up on some sleep debt?” You did help him, but he now needs an even earlier bedtime, as you surmised.
Perhaps try a 5:30pm expected falling asleep time (he is bathed, dressed for sleep, soothed to drowsy but awake, and you are leaving the room at 5:30pm) for only 2-3 nights and report back. If you want to try this, then no new naps start after about 3-4pm.
How does this sound?
Thanks for the speedy response! I will try this tonight and for a couple more nights and report back 🙂 and I’ll try dropping the dream feed and seeing when he wakes on his own. I’m curious some more of your thoughts on that and why it’s a myth…I’d been starting to lean toward dropping that but was afraid to change too many things at once…
Dream feeds have remained popular because they solve a logistical problem for parents, not because they change infant biology. While the Pinilla and Birch study (1993) is deeply flawed and lacks replication, the practice persists through parent-to-parent anecdote, commercial sleep consulting, and the immediate psychological relief it provides to sleep-deprived caregivers.
The phenomenon stays popular due to several practical and cultural factors:
1. Shifting the Parent’s Sleep Window
• The Problem: Infants naturally sleep their longest stretch right after their initial bedtime (e.g., 7:00 PM to 1:00 AM).
• The Parent Conflict: Parents are often awake chores or relaxing until 10:30 PM, missing that entire quiet window.
• The Dream Feed Solution: By “topping off” the baby right before the parents go to bed, the baby’s next waking is thought to be pushed from 1:00 AM to 3:30 AM or 4:00 AM. The baby does not sleep more total hours, but the parents get a longer block of uninterrupted sleep.
2. Commercialization by Sleep Consultants
• Famous modern baby programs like Taking Cara Babies and platforms like Huckleberry popularized the term “dream feed” globally.
• It provides consultants with a low-risk, proactive “action step” to give anxious clients who want to feel in control of nighttime schedules.
3. Immediate Anecdotal Reinforcement
• Unlike long-term behavioral training, a dream feed offers an immediate feedback loop.
• If a parent tries it and the baby happens to sleep a longer stretch that night, confirmation bias secures it as part of their permanent routine, which they then pass on to online forums and parenting groups.
4. Low Risk and Ease of Execution
• Because it is a non-invasive, low-risk technique that does not involve letting a baby cry, parents are highly willing to try it.
• It fulfills a caregiver’s protective instinct to feed a baby before they fully cry or distress themselves.
Put him down (fed at 4:30pm, bathed, PJs, swaddled), walking out of the room at exactly 5:29pm last night. He didn’t make a peep until 6:12pm; let him fuss/cry and he fell back asleep on his own about 6:30pm. Then slept until 8:00pm; I fed him and put him right back down. Not a peep until 2:20am; fed him and back down. Then he woke at 7:00am and got fed and back down after about 40 min with no issue. Second nap I was a little late with my timing and he cried for about 20 minutes before falling asleep for about 45 min. Planning to do the same thing tonight! 🙂
I’m happy with how last night went. Naps today have still been a real struggle though. Planning to do 5:30 again tonight though and hope I see some improvements in the next few days.
I wanted to pop back on a give an update as to how the past week has gone:
I did the 5:30 bedtime for three nights. I described the results of the first night above.
The second night he woke 20 minutes after I put him down, cried for about 6 minutes and fell back asleep independently. Then slept for an hour, woke, cried for 15 min, slept 25 min, at which point I fed him. He then slept until I woke him for a dream feed at 11:30, and then until 3 (fed and back down), and then 7am.
I stopped doing the dream feed starting the third night of the 5:30 bedtime. He slept about 9 hours (5:30pm-3:00am) that night, which I was happy about. Fed him at 3, and back down until he woke around 6:30.
Unfortunately I did not see much improvement with naps with the 5:30 bedtime but I’m happy that he started getting that longer stretch at night.
The next few days were busier for us which I know sacrificed some of his sleep (particularly naps—tried using the pack n play and sound machine at family’s house but he refused to sleep more than 20 min at a time and was fussy most of the time). I will try to summarize:
Bedtime goal has been between 6-7pm based off how he’s looking (drowsy signs) and how the day has gone (lower quality naps=earlier bedtime is what I mean). Unfortunately a couple nights he got to bed closer to 7:30 due to circumstances that were mostly out of my control. However, he has slept incrementally longer and longer stretches during the night during this time (9 hours two nights, then 10 hours, then 11, then 12 hours two nights ago)! So nights have definitely improved—you’re absolutely right that the dream feed was hurting more than helping.
He had one good day of naps this week on Thursday. I cannot discern anything that I did different except that he woke naturally at 6am instead of 7 that morning. Bedtime the night before had been 7:40 (much later than I was aiming for but he cried for about 20 minutes after I put him down at 7:20). He slept 1 hr 40 min the first nap that day and continued to be very pleasant and easy to put down that day. Naps were still very frequent and very brief but overall very smooth. He went to bed easily at 7pm that night and slept until 7am.
I’ve tried intervals of wakefulness anywhere from 30-90 minutes—always watching him not the clock. I try to catch the drowsy signs but even when I think I see them they’re so subtle and I’m not very confident about them. But I try to just go for it even when I feel like I’m just guessing. It seems like no matter how long he’s been awake though, it’s a battle to soothe him and get him to settle down to sleep. I have been doing what I can to maximize sleep and minimize crying for naps—some days that’s meant contact naps toward the end of the day as he’s struggling more and more. A few times I’ve nursed him to sleep because it’s the only thing that’s soothed him or he’s fallen asleep nursing—even though this isn’t my preference. A couple times he’s been able to just cry for literally 2-3 minutes and be asleep, but other times if I just let him cry it’s still going on after 20 minutes so I go soothe him to try to minimize lost sleep.
Bedtime last night was really rough. Tried putting him down at 6 and he just wasn’t having it. I spent so much time trying to soothe him and he was just thrashing and arching away from me. I eventually gave up and put him in his crib while he was still upset and left the room; he cried for two minutes and then fell asleep at 6:30.
I’m planning for a 5:30 bedtime tonight because today has also been rough with the naps and he woke to feed at 3:30am (first time he did that in almost a week). Thinking I might need to do the 5:30 bedtime several more nights in a row to try to keep making up for chronic sleep deprivation? Not sure what to do but it’s so exhausting fighting an angry baby to nap 5-8 times a day.
He’s so happy and smiley when he’s well rested—after a good nap or first thing in the morning. But the days like today are adding up where it just feels like more of a battle with him and I feel like he fusses more than smiles most days.
For 3 nights, you had a 5:30 bedtime and there was some improvement. Why did you then move the bedtime later? “Bedtime goal has been between 6-7pm based off how he’s looking (drowsy signs) and how the day has gone (lower quality naps=earlier bedtime is what I mean). Unfortunately a couple nights he got to bed closer to 7:30 due to circumstances that were mostly out of my control. However, he has slept incrementally longer and longer stretches during the night during this time (9 hours two nights, then 10 hours, then 11, then 12 hours two nights ago)! So nights have definitely improved—you’re absolutely right that the dream feed was hurting more than helping.”
Subsequently, sleep got rocky.
“Thinking I might need to do the 5:30 bedtime several more nights in a row to try to keep making up for chronic sleep deprivation?” Absolutely yes!
“Not sure what to do but it’s so exhausting fighting an angry baby to nap 5-8 times a day.” He’s not angry; it’s presleep arousal. Carefully read Blog Posts 179, 171, 172, 204, 233X, 235C, 235D and 235E.
He needs an earlier bedtime every night.
How does this sound?
Thank you for your response. I only did the 5:30 bedtime for three nights because you had previously mentioned doing it only 2-3 nights. And the longest stretches of sleep he’s had were actually after the later bedtime. It’s also difficult to get in enough feeds for the day with such limited time between wake-up and bedtime. That makes me think I should make sure he’s getting up closer to 6am instead of 7am so that it’s easier to get him to bed at 5:30.
But I see your point. The 5:30 bedtime for three nights helped get to the point of him sleeping longer at night, but I needed to do it longer to see improvements in his naps (at least that’s what I’m concluding from what you’ve said).
I will continue the 5:30 bedtime at least until I see a consistent improvement in his naps, does that seem like a better plan (vs just doing it for a set number of nights)?
Understood. “ will continue the 5:30 bedtime at least until I see a consistent improvement in his naps, does that seem like a better plan…? YES!
I suggest that you read Blog Posts 9, 83, 115X, 232AX, 232BX, and 232D.
Naps will vary a lot until 4-6 months of age and by keeping the intervals of wakefulness brief to avoid pre-sleep arousal and cumulative sleepiness, drowsy signs will become more apparent. Wake windos are bogus.
Do not attempt to control teh wake-up time; follow his lead.
Let me know your thoughts.
Thank you for the response. I read the blog postings and watched the Sleepy Max video; I think that was helpful and I believe I can recall points where my baby was doing something similar but “snapped out of it” and I missed it. The post about the “alternative method” was helpful as well; I have been doing something similar without realizing it.
I put him to bed at 5:30pm last night drowsy but awake; he cried for 25 minutes and then slept until 12:30am. I fed him and put him back down; he slept until 6:00am. Naps today have mostly been a struggle still but this most recent one he went down more easily.
As I continue the 5:30 bedtime and practice putting him down before or at the onset of his drowsy signs, what should I do when I miss the onset of drowsiness or he’s having a hard time going down for his nap? I’ll explain:
He will often start crying fitfully (as if he were in pain, but I know that he’s not) from the second I start his soothing routine, even if I start before I see any drowsy signs; i.e, as soon as I take him to his nursery and start swaddling him, he starts crying. One second he’s fine (calm, smiling, happily moving his arms and legs, and engaged with his surroundings), the next second he’s not. His soothing routine includes swaddling, turn on sound machine, turn off lights, and gently rocking or swaying with him while I quietly hum. If he’s calm (as if I’ve caught him at the perfect moment), this usually takes 5-10 minutes before his eyes start to droop and his body relaxes and I put him down. If he is not calm (as described above and is the case 75% of the time), this routine takes much longer, 15-20 minutes. Sometimes even by the end he is still not calm but I place him in his crib because it seems like it’s just continuing to overstimulate him at that point. He will cry anywhere from 2-20 minutes (full cry, not just fussing) before falling asleep.
My husband and I are comfortable using extinction with him and have seen success using it at night. My question is if it is beneficial at all during naps at his age (10 weeks). Will it help him or will it just cause him to be more overtired from missed sleep? Is there a length of time we should let him cry for? Alternatively, should I continue trying to soothe him past 15-20 minutes if he’s still not calming down? Or do we end the attempt and try again later?
Here’s a suggestion to try only if you feel comfortable, see 3-4 consecutive days ahead that allow you to be super-consistent, and know that you can commit to this trial. Improvement might be apparent on day 3 or 4.
1. Extinction at night with 1 feeding whenever you feel it is needed. Read or reread this section carefully in my book.
2. Continue with the strict 5:30pm expected falling asleep time. It might be a little later if has great afternoon nap(s).
3. Continue with brief intervals of wakefulness before naps and night sleep.
4. Do the ‘Nap Drill’ as presented in my book. Read this section carefully. Know that the onset time of each nap and the duration of the nap may vary because of his age; nap rhythms develop around 4-6 months of age. The key is brief intervals of wakefulness to prevent pre-sleep arousal.
5. Keep a written record and give me a progress report every day or so.
How does this sound?
Don’t try this if you are not comfortable with the plan. The expectation is that with better quality night sleep, more opportunities to parctice self-soothing, naps will improve.
My husband and I discussed this suggestion and re-read the nap drill portion of the book, and decided that we weren’t quite ready to try that with him. We will continue our current method and the 5:30 bedtime for now. I am finding more and more that he often falls asleep a little faster crying on his own in his crib for a few minutes than with extended soothing from me. So I’ve been experimenting with putting him down after less soothing. I’m trying to catch him immediately at the onset of drowsy signs, get him swaddled and hold him for a minute or two and put him down as long as he’s calm (but still awake).
Last night we put him down about 5:15 and he fell asleep right at 5:30. He slept until 12:30am again, I nursed him and put him back down. He woke at 5:40am; I let him cry for a few minutes but he seemed to be in distress. Sure enough, he had a huge blowout after not pooping for 6 days! So I had to completely change his diaper and clothes. At that point it was 6am and he seemed ready to eat.
I have put him down less drowsy today for his naps like I said above, and he hasn’t cried longer than 20 minutes before falling asleep. Sometimes only 5 minutes. Sometimes he doesn’t sleep longer than 20 minutes but I just anticipate that his next nap will be a little sooner.
I am hoping that after a few days, the length of time that he cries going down for a nap will decrease. I think I am getting better and feeling a little more confident about the drowsy signs.
I will continue this for the time being and continue to provide updates.
Last night he fell asleep almost immediately upon being put down at 5:25pm. Woke to eat at 2:00am. And then again at 5:30am. For a 5:30 wake up, do I count that as a night wake, or as the start of the day? I’ve tried ignoring him for about 5-10 minutes and he doesn’t stop crying. I fed him and he seemed at least a little hungry.
As I mentioned previously, I did notice last week that when he was going to bed later, he was sleeping longer stretches and had gone several nights sleeping through the night (approximately 7pm-6/7am) without needing to eat (four nights in a row). This was when the bedtime was between 6:30-7:30pm. I guess I’m just wondering which is more important, the 5:30 bedtime to help with naps or the later bedtime so that he sleeps longer?
I do think his naps are slowly improving. He’s still crying today when I put him down but I think overall not as long or hard.
Many babies are waking to start their day around 5am. If he needs to be fed earlier, say 4-5pm, feed him and briefly soothe him with the expectation that night sleep will continue a little longer.
If he falls asleep around 5:30pm, the circadian alignment is perfect and optimal night sleep occurs. This is the path to a strong brain. If you keep him up later, increased homeostatic pressure builds up as does pre-sleep arousal and night sleep quality will be impaired. Imagine the sleeping brain at night not getting quality night sleep.
Quality night sleep means he will wake up better rested and this will enhance naps. Please read Blog Posts 183-187 to better understand the importance of naps.
How does this sound?
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My biggest question is how to work with a big sleep debt. Our baby seems so overtired that nothing we do works. We try to put her to be early (5:30) drowsy but awake but she starts screaming the moment we put her down and won’t fall asleep until 7 or 7:30. She’ll stay in her crib all night, but she wakes up crying and doesn’t seem well rested.
I try to watch for her drowsy signs but I feel like I notice something for a moment and then she’s back to playing like normal and then all of a sudden she’s fatigued and screaming. When she finally gets to sleep for her nap, she’ll only nap for a half hour.
We must be doing something wrong because ever since we started extinction she’s just slowing accumulating a bigger and bigger sleep debt.
How old is your child? How does she appear and behave around 4:00-4:30PM? Please describe her sleep during the day.
She is just over 8 months. She wasn’t colicky per se, but she had a lot of tummy troubles until about 3.5-4 months and was thus a fairly fussy and uncomfortable baby until then.
Around 4-4:30 she seems very tired. Last night we put her to bed at 4:45 and she cried for about 45 minutes and eventually fell asleep at 6. She woke up at 6 crying but was fairly happy after being fed.
Please read Blog Posts 43 (Infant Colic) and 44 (Post-colic Sleep problems) and the cited Blog Posts and share your thoughts with me.
She is 8 months old. She wasn’t colicky per se when she was younger, but she had a tongue tie that made it hard for her to eat until 6 weeks and she had a milk protein sensitivity that caused tummy problems until she was about 4 months. So she was a pretty fussy/uncomfortable baby for the first few months.
Around 4pm she’s definitely having a witching hour. Last night we put her to bed at 4:45 and she cried for about 45 minutes and then played in her crib by herself until she fell asleep at 6. She woke up at 6am and didn’t seem to move around in her crib as much as she had been overnight.
Before we started sleep training she would nap 3-4 times a day. She had to be very deeply asleep and then we would gingerly place her in her crib and pray she doesn’t wake up. We definitely did the thing you’re not supposed to do and gave her a late nap around 5 and then got her up until we went to be around 9.
In the week that we’ve been doing extinction, she’s usually been attempting 3 naps. The first one is absolutely no more than 90 minutes after she wakes up. If I (mom) put her down she’ll cry for an hour and then maybe pass out for about 45 minutes. If dad puts her down she’ll cry for a few minutes and then play by herself until she falls asleep. Usually for 35-45 minutes. (Though this morning has been really good so far!). Then she’s usually ready for another nap by 11 and again at 2. Those are always questionable. By 4/5 it seems like she’s exhausted and we’re frazzled and unsure what to do. It’s hard to describe her daytime sleep as anything other than erratic, unpredictable, and a big struggle.
Sorry, I didn’t see that my last comment went through!
“Two or more months of crying sometimes adversely and permanently shapes parenting styles. An inconsolable infant might trigger in some parents a perception that their baby’s behavior is out of their control. They observe no obvious benefit to their young colicky infant when they try to be regular according to clock times or to be consistent in bedtime routines. Naturally, but falsely, they then assume that this handling will not help their post-colic child, either. Unfortunately, they do not observe the transition, at around 2–4 months, from colicky crying to fatigue-driven (sleep-deprivation) crying.”
This sounds like me. Although we’ve never really been consistent with schedule or routine.
At 8 months of age, for the post-colic child, your attempt is to simultaneously strive for a temporary super-early bedtime based on drowsy signs, feed her at night if hungry but otherwise give less attention at night (choose any sleep solution you are comfortable with) and schedule 2 naps (mid-morning and mid-day). The super-early bedtime will produce better quality night sleep which will produce better naps which will eventually lead to a somewhat latter bedtime. Details regarding this plan are described in my book. Sweet dreams, DrW.
I have confusion on how to know if a newborn or infant is showing signs of self-soothing? How does a parent know if progress is being made in teaching self-soothing in the early weeks if the child doesn’t yet fall asleep independently. Thank you!
Please be more specific in what you are observing and what are your concerns. More details might allow me to help you.
Yes, absolutely. So, if I rock my baby in my arms to soothe to a drowsy state and she is calm and I sit down and stop rocking and she falls asleep, is that some evidence of early self soothing even though she is still in my arms? Or is it only if I put her down drowsy but awake and she falls asleep independent of my physical touch? Or is self soothing more of a physical action, like sucking on her thumb to soothe?
Understood. How old is she and what was her gestational age at birth?
I have a 15 week old baby who has just never slept well. It’s probably right to categorize him as a post-colic baby. Our biggest problem is night wakings, every 1-2.5 hours. We try to sooth for a while before nursing, but especially in the first half of the night, he will cry every time his back hits the bassinet if he hasn’t been fed. We may be in a four month sleep regression but hard to know since we’ve never had much progression….
His bedtime right now is 8-8:30. I hear your advice about an early bedtime, but if I move it up 30 minutes or an hour I start getting false starts, and if I move it up to 5:30-6:00 he just treats it like a nap. Is there an implementation trick i am missing? Or should I just push through that?
He always wakes up at 11/11:30 after about 3 hours of sleep. I’ve tried to let him cry a bit, to do pick up, put down to extend it and not nurse until after midnight, but that doesn’t seem to be changing his pattern, just denying us all an hour of sleep. How do I get the first long stretch everyone else seems to get? Is this attempt to have him hold out longer a strategy or just denying a tired baby more sleep.
(FYI – he usually does four naps a day that are 35 minutes long, but I’ll try and extend one of them to 90 minutes by holding him)
Sleep regressions are bogus.
The bedtime is too late. Please read the Chapter on Sleep Solutions, pick a solution that you are comfortable with, and I will advise your.
We have been doing the extinction method since my child was four months old. Now that he is eighteen months old, he is able to put himself to sleep, and sleeps through the night, but still wakes up around early with a 6:30pm bedtime.
My question is how long should we continue the extinction method? We have been doing it for over a year now and he is capable of putting himself back down, but recently he won’t past 5:00am. We have been letting him cry until 5:15am.
Describe his mood and behavior when alone with toys (no screens or parental involvement) between 5:30-6:30pm.
His mood swings in both directions around that time in the evening. He is pretty hyper and aggressive with his toys, but also shows signs that he is tired, and will get upset easily, such as when bath time is over.
We have followed your book and established bedtime routine, which typically starts around 5:45 and he is typically excited to start that every night.
Please carefully read Blog Posts 83, 115X, and 204 and tell me your thoughts.
Based on those blog posts, I would say on most days he is showing signs of fatigue due to being overtired in that last hour of the day.
We have been dealing with early wake-ups for a long time, and it goes in cycles of getting better and worse, but most days he’s getting under 11 hours of sleep at night.
One reason we haven’t made the bedtime earlier is because his nap at daycare is so late, 12:00- 2:00, so that means his last wake window is only 4.5 hours and it would get shorter with an earlier bedtime.
We did have him at a 5:30 bedtime at around 11 months, and we found that pushing his bedtime back to 6:15-6:30 helped him wake later, but he was still taking two naps at that time.
Wake windows are bogus; watch your child, not the clock.
Consistent early bedtimes based on drowsy signs (not fatigue signs) will enhance brain development, prevent bedtime battles, and night waking. And perhaps he will sleep in later because sleep begets sleep.
The opposite path is also inevitable because of cumulative sleepiness (Blog Posts 84-86) from bedtimes that are too late.
Do you agree?
Yes that makes sense. We will start putting him down earlier to see if he is able to get more sleep that way.
If he does still have early wakeups, should we still be letting him cry it out if it appears he won’t be putting himself back to sleep, or would that be pointless now that he has the skill to put himself to sleep?
I wouldn’t go to him before about 5:30am because if he starts the day too early, it will be difficult to reach mid-day for a solid nap.
Hello from fellow Chicagoians!
We have read through much of your website and are reading through your book. We will continue to do so, but are in need of guidance. Our baby is 6 months old. We’ve never quite had rhythm with his sleep and are very concerned about his consistent lack of sleep and the consequences for his development. I’m an early intervention occupational therapist and appreciate how vital sleep is for child development.
He’s always only napped 2-3 times per day for 40 minutes in his crib, generally waking 2-3 times per night to breastfeed (he previoisly would sleep in 3-7 hour strecthes). He has averaged 10-12 hours of total daily sleep (overnight and nap included) since birth. We had some success attempting to sleep train with the Fading method at 5 months, but this deteriorated when he started teething (we read this is a myth, just sharing this was our timeline). He now will mostly only nap with contact (despite us continually attempting to place him in crib), wakes every 1-3 hours at night to nurse, and sometimes requires multiple attempts to be laid down in his crib for overnight sleep.
We continue fading techniques, but he has now vomited and we don’t feel comfortable risking that sleep association. We generally start our bedtime routine (quiet play in the dark/bath, nurse, diaper change, pajamas) around 7:00 pm. We cannot seem to work out an earlier bedtime and naps not going well. My husband and I share putting baby down for naps and bedtime. We are currently also attempting naps whenever we see drowsy/fatigue signs, earlier bedtime during early drowsy state (although he generally seems to skip that state and go straight to fatigue), most/all of your recommendations on the sleep wheel and “What A Parent Can Do” resoruces.
Thank you for your help
Ariana & Ray
Please describe his mood and behavior between 6-7pm when alone with toys (no parental involvement or screens).
“We are currently also attempting naps whenever we see drowsy/fatigue signs”. Describe the drowsy signs that you observe.
Thank you for your response! Update* This week we have seen major improvements in overnight sleep after finally being able to set super early bedtime of 5:00 pm (and gradually extending each day) and having baby nap 2x a day in a baby wearer around 9/10 am and 12/2pm. He has since began to sleep in 5-8 hour strecthes. We know the contact naps are not ideal but we believe they have, in part, allowed for the early bedtime and better overnight sleep. He will cry if not engaged with parents or toys between 6:00-7:00. We don’t turn on lights or screens at all during the day or evening until after he is asleep in his crib. His drowsy signs are being less engaged, staring off with blank eyes, and long blinks. Our plan was to solidify our current strategies for another week, and then work on transitioning him back to crib naps. Does that seem like a reasonable plan? Any additional recommendations for us? Thank you again. Your book is a wealth of knowledge and we will be sharing with all be families.
You are on the right track. Can the father become more involved helping baby sleep this week-end?
His father is involved daily in putting him to sleep for naps and bedtime. We alternate baby wearing for naps and share the bedtime routine and night wakenings. The past 3 nights we’ve regressed. Baby is waking 3-4 times per night again, every 2-3 hours. We have not changed anything about the routine. We continue to let him cry for an hour, but he cannot seem to settle on his own, and allowing him to cry longer seems to only cause more distress and dysregulation preventing sleep. We’re really at a loss.
I apologize, I realized I did not share many details for you. I will nurse him (he generally falls asleep or is very drowsy) we put him in his pajamas (he stirs and is drowsy/calm) and when we place him in his crib he whines/whimpers for a few minutes and falls asleep for 2-4 hours. If its less than 4 hours, we give him time to attempt to fall asleep. If its been 4 hours, I will feed him again and when we put him to sleep this second time, he will fall asleep but wake within 10 minutes and we start the cycle again attempting to give him time to put himself to sleep and then try to calm him. This repeats until its been 4 hours and I feed him again.
Previously, you mentioned that you were using the ‘fading’ strategy. Are you doing this as described in my Chapter on Sleep Solutions?
“The past 3 nights we’ve regressed”. When did you begin the ‘fading’ sleep solution?
If ‘fading is not working and her sleeping is regressing, are you and your husband open to other sleep solutions?
Thank you for your patience and time asking questions. The sleep deprivation is causing me some errors! I meant to say Ferber (which I believe is graduated extinction), not fading. We are open to other strategies. We just found that uncapped extinction is not working. We’ve let him cry for an hour a few times, and he only escalates, has once vomited, and requires another 40-60 minutes to help him calm, even when we are holding and soothing him. Last week, we would allow him to fuss for 5-10 minutes and he would put himself to sleep. It’s only been the past 3-4 days that has regressed although we’ve kept our routine the same.
When did you try Extinction, for how many days, what was his bedtime then?
When did you try Graduated Extinction, for how many days, what was his bedtime then?
Are you moderately or severely sleep-deprived?
Please read about the Nap Drill in my book and I may or may not suggest we do this plus other items.
Would you like to solve his sleep issue fast (maybe a lot of crying for 1-2 nights) or slow (maybe some crying on and off for several nights)?
We have not attempted complete, by the book extinction. The longest we’ve allowed him to cry was 1 hour, for 3 nights. We attempted graduated extinction for 1 week about 2 months ago, and now again for 1.5 weeks. His bedtime has been about 7:00 pm. I will re-read the nap drill section of the book! Thank you for the reminder. We were waking every 1-2 hours for about a month. The past week we are waking 2-3 times a night. I would say we were severely sleep deprived, but it’s beginning to improve with these fewer night awakenings. I’d be open to attempting to solve the sleep issues quickly, but we are just concerned extinction will not work for him (because of the 3 nights I just mentioned). So perhaps the slower, graduated extinction method with some tweaks will work better for him. Thank you for your help.
Previously:”He will cry if not engaged with parents or toys between 6:00-7:00.” This is pre-sleep arousal. Read Blog Post 204 to fully understand why extinction failed in the past because the bedtime was way too late.
If, and only in, you can commit to 3 (maybe 4) days, here’s your sleep solution:
Do extinction as described (no cap) in my book and read carefully Blog Post 219 for more details. Start Friday night.
Do the Nap Drill (no more contact naps). Father does nap duty on week-end, mother leaves the house.
Keep a written sleep and crying record.
Because of uncertainty regarding naps, prepare for a 5:30pm bedtime (he is bathed, dressed, fed, and soothed and you are leaving the room at 5:30pm and hopefully, he is drowsy but awake).
If naps are great, the early bedtime is based on drowsy signs. So carefully read Blog Posts 83, 115X, 226C, 232AX, 232BX, and 232D.
Have your husband also do all the reading.
How does this sound?
This sounds like a great plan! Thank you very much.
Hello,
Thank you for the detailed plan. Weve seen major improvements!
Friday night – 9.5 hours consecutive sleep; no overnight awakening
Saturday – 2 hour AM crib nap and 50 minute PM crib nap after crying 50 minutes; bedtime 6:30 pm – 4:30 am sleep with 1 feed at 12:45 am
Sunday – 40 minute AM crib nap (no crying) and 50 minute PM crib nap after crying 20 minutes; bedtime 5:45 pm – 2:20 am sleep, woke for feed, sleep 3:00 am -5:20 am.
Monday – 50 minutes AM crib nap (10 seconds crying) and 10 minute PM crib nap then cried for 60 minutes; bedtime 5:30 pm – 5:20 am sleep with 1 feed at 11:20 pm; stirred at 5:20, cried for 5 minutes then put self back to sleep until 6:30 am
Tuesday – 35 minute AM crib nap after 30 minute crying.
Should we intervene on the naps slightly regressing at this point? Should we just discontinue the early bedtime as in your teaching when he no longer shows early tired cues? He still only minimally fusses for a few minutes when we put him to sleep at bedtime.
Thank you
To be absolutely clear, what would you say is the major improvement?
His sleep overnight is consolidated, and he’s going to sleep earlier and waking later, and napping in his crib. A few weeks ago he was up every 1-3 hours, went to bed around 7:30/8:00 pm and woke about 5:00 am, would refuse to nap unless held, and would nap only 20-40 minutes. The past 2 days his morning naps are shortening and his afternoon nap is not happening. We’re unsure if this is typical only 4-5 days into sleep training, or if we should intervene somehow.
Understood
Please give me the clock times that you napped him for Sat-Mon and a report for Tuesday.
Thank you
Here is the nap report. The times are when he ACTIVELY was asleep, the crying minutes I list happened before the times unless I specify it happened after he woke up. We are attempting the rough 9:00 am and 12:00/1:00 naps as described in your bookk and blog, but the first few days we had to follow his cues and the naps were earlier.
Saturday – 7:00 am – 9:00 am (cried for 50 minutes); 1:00 pm – 1:40 pm (cried for 50 minutes)
Sunday – 8:00 am – 8:40 am (cried for 2 minutes); 11:30 am – 12:20 pm (cried for 26 minutes)
Monday – 9:00 am – 9:50 am (cried for 1 minute); 12:16 pm – 12:26 pm (fell asleep within 1 minute, woke up and cried for 60 minutes and then we ended the nap)
Tuesday – 9:30 am – 10:00 am (cried for 32 minutes); 12:45 pm – 12:50 pm (fell asleep within 1 minute, woke up and cried for 60 minutes and then we ended the nap); bedtime 5:45 pm fell asleep in 1 minute and has been sleeping since (currently 8:20 pm)
Because night sleep has improved, but only during the past few days, please be optimistic going forward. As he repays his cumulative sleep debt, naps should improve.
Nap rhythms are well established by about 6 months in about 80% of children. Please stay the course for a few more days (if you think 8:30am and 11:30am might be better nap start times, go for it).
Did your son have colic (as described in my book) when younger?
Thank you for the information. I believe the baby was colicy (inconsolable crying, not fussing, everyday around 4:00 – 7:00 pm until about 8-10 weeks old) my husband believes he was not (husband was actively involved in all daily baby care on paternity leave). We also identified a cows milk protein sensitivity during this time and his symptoms improved around 12 weeks old. He generally slept well at night since birth (3-6 hour strecthes between feeds, fell asleep on his own in crib), but he never really wanted to nap and would only nap 40 minutes maximum.
My nap study began at age 6 months. Dividing infants then into 5 groups from the longest to the shortest nap durations, the top 4 groups napped a little less duration by 9 months of age. The bottom or shortest nappers at 6 months of age actually napped a little more at 9 months of age! From my research on colic and sleep, my impression is that some post-colicky infants have a delay in the maturation of their daytime sleep rhythm maturation and instead of having it well established by about 6 months of age, it might take a few months more. That is, I suspect that post-colicky infants are overrepresented in the briefest napping infants at 6 months of age. This is my impression; not supported by data. Please be patient.
I know that your sleep adventure is not over but I would encourage you to write a narrative report so you can see how far you have come and it will encourage you to stay the course.
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 it as a Blog Post or perhaps, only if you feel comfortable, an Amazon book review. Thank you.
We greatly appreciate your guidance and help. It’s changed our lives. We definitely are staying the course! We will continue to spread word of your book by mouth, your blog, and reviews. Thank you Dr. Marc
Dear Dr Weissbluth,
greetings from Germany! Your book has been a huge help in raising our baby. We read it right before the birth of our daughter and started teaching self-soothing as described in your book the week we returned home from the hospital. Thanks to your advice she has been a great sleeper since being 5-6 weeks old, even though I suspect she was extremely fussy which just never showed to its full extent because she was so well rested. Now she is almost 5 months old and has been well rested and happy during the day for about 2 months, sleeping an average of 15:20hrs per day (almost 12 hrs per night with one night feeding). A month ago we managed to get her on a fairly regular nap schedule, including three naps. However, lately we run into a problem which costs all of us more and more sleep: She heavily relies on her pacifier for sleeping. As her sleep gets less deep in the morning hours, she tends to wake up frequently and needs us to replace ist, sometimes starting as early as 4 am. She keeps loosing it and either does not go back to sleep at all or only with us repeatedly replacing the pacifier every few minutes. In your book and on your blog you describe this as problematic and we sure feel it is! However, we are not sure if this ist a situation best solved with full extinction (we feel confident to go through with it!), using our normal bedtime routine except for giving her a pacifier, or if we should first try to teach her self-soothing without the pacifier but while intensifying other soothing methods. Please help!
What is a common nap schedule and falling asleep time at night?
She has been sick which kind of messed up the nap schedule, but usually she has a midmorning nap starting between 8:45 and 9:30 based on drowsy signs which lasts for about 40Mins up until 1,5hrs, a midday nap starting between 11:30 and 1pm based on drowsy signs lasting 1,5-2,5 hrs and a nap in the late afternoon starting between 4 and 4:30 pm which lasts about 40 Minutes. Her bedtime has been 6pm for a long time which worked just fine but after she started waking up multiple times around 7pm/8pm we moved it to 6:30 which now works well.
When she is well, place her alone with toys (no screens nor parental nor sibling interaction) for 15-20 minutes between 5:30-6:30pm for 2-3 nights and describe her mood and behavior.
We usually put her on her play mat around 5:30 and stop interacting with her. She’s content and plays with her toys or looks around. At some point, she starts making noises that sound a little unhappy, and then we start the bedtime routine.
Things have been a little chaotic due to the switch to daylight saving time and a vacation, but we’re back in a rhythm now.
The bedtime routine takes 15-20 minutes and she falls asleep by herself within minutes afterwards. Lately, she’s been falling asleep around 6:30 p.m. We’ve stopped giving her the pacifier at night (only for the bedtime routine). After her nighttime bottle, she usually falls asleep just fine without it, but since then she’s been waking up reliably between 5:00 and 5:30 a.m. This has led to her now taking four naps during the day: She makes up for the lost nighttime sleep around 6:30–7:00 a.m. and sleeps for 30–60 minutes before taking a second mid-morning nap around 9:00–9:30 a.m.
So waking up early in the morning remains a problem. We’re wondering whether we should either try to get her to sleep without a pacifier or put her to bed later in the evening. Recently, though, she couldn’t fall asleep even with a pacifier by 5 a.m.
“At some point, she starts making noises that sound a little unhappy” is the beginning of pre-sleep arousal.
“Recently, though, she couldn’t fall asleep even with a pacifier by 5 a.m.” is cumulative sleep loss.
Read about pre-sleep arousal and cumulative sleep loss on my Blog or book
The basic problem is a falling asleep time that is a little too late.
For 3-5 nights have 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 new nap starts after 3:00pm; if she is asleep at 3pm, do not wake her. Observe latency to sleep onset, the pacifier issue and the early morning issue. Keep a written record. Naps are based on drowsy signs. The early bedtime will lead to longer naps and thus later. the bedtime will be shifted a little later, based on drowsy signs.
How does this sound?
Let me know how it goes.
Thank you for the suggestion! Here is how it went so far:
– Day 1: Put her to bed after bedtime routine at 5:30pm with pacifier. Fell asleep easily within minutes (needed several replacements of the pacifier around 6.15pm), night feeding at 11pm. Left the room after minimal soothing, fell asleep within minutes without pacifier. Slept until 5 am. After giving her the pacifier she fell asleep again and slept until 6am. Bad mood all day. Naps based on drowsy signs at 8am (45 Mins), 11.15am (1h), 2.20pm (40 min) (usually her naps are much longer, especially her midday nap).
– Day 2: Put her to bed after bedtime routine at 5:30pm with pacifier. Fell asleep easily within minutes. Woke up crying, pacifier replacements: 4x after 50mins, heavy crying after 2hrs (very unusual), woke again after 2:40 hrs. Bottle at 8:30 pm, fell asleep right afterwards. Night feeding at 3:05am, left her awake without pacifier. When she couldn’t fall asleep, gave her pacifier at 3:45 and she went to sleep right away. Slept until 5:38 am. Naps at 7:45am (1:48 Mins), 11:45am (1:40 Mins). Better mood.
– Day 3: Put her to bed after bedtime routine at 5:30pm with pacifier. Asleep by 5:45pm after pacifier was replaced a few times. Night feeding at 1:45am. Left the room after minimal soothing, fell asleep within minutes without pacifier. Woke up at 5:16am, didn’t go back to sleep even with pacifier. Cranky mood.
For all naps we did a little soothing, left her awake with pacifier and she fell asleep within minutes (which is normal for her). Occasionally we have to replace the pacifier before she falls asleep properly or to extend her midday nap.
The fact that she fell asleep close to 5:30pm confirms that her previous bedtime was too late.
How would you describe her self-soothing skills without a pacifier?
Is it time to try a nighttime sleep solution to encourage more self-soothing skills? I think so because her fragmented night sleep is causing both her brief naps and “cranky mood”
If you agree, choose a sleep solution from the chapter in my book that comports with your life style and values and I will help you.
Thank you very much for your input!
Self-soothing skills: We established a bedtime routine right from the start, with a shorter routine for naps and a longer one for the evening, so she knows exactly when it’s time for bed. She has developed her own way of falling asleep, involving arm movements, stroking pillows and stretching. She falls asleep independently after we leave the room. After night feedings, most of the time she falls asleep that way without her pacifier.
We are generally ready to practise her falling asleep without a pacifier, since we are overtired and she isn’t getting enough sleep at night. We’d like to try extinction, but first we’d like to address four points to make sure it’s the best approach:
1. We’ve already tried extinction (about six weeks ago): During the day, she still had the pacifier so she wouldn’t get completely overtired, but not in the evening or at night. After nine nights, we stopped because she was still crying heavily in the evening (times in minutes: 31, 10, 24, 19, 15, 12, 0, 15, 10).
2. Bad mood during the days when we put her down at 5:30pm: This happened during the day, not when she wakes up in the morning. She usually wakes up in a good mood between 5 and 6 a.m., but her mood changes after a while. Perhaps I didn’t describe this clearly enough.
3. Importance of the pacifier: She is a very sensitive child who reacts sensitively to light, sounds and movements, and she was constantly agitated during the first few months of her life. The pacifier helped her to self-regulate. Additionally, one parent and several of their relatives have ADHD, which may have been inherited. Since she now wakes up early regardless of her bedtime and doesn’t go back to sleep even with the pacifier, we wonder if the pacifier is really the main problem—or if, for example, the increasing morning light (she has curtains in her room, but they let light through) plays a role. Would it make sense to rule out other factors first?
4. We’re moving at the end of the month: Should we wait to start extinction until she’s settled in?
Thank you for the detailed information.
On Night 3, she returned to sleep without the pacifier and your description indicates that she has great self-soothing skills, in fact, “most of the time she falls asleep that way without her pacifier.” Therefore, the pacifier is not absolutely necessary all the time and returning to reinsert the pacifier, perhaps more in the past, might have caused both fragmented night sleep and over time, cumulative sleepiness.
1. The failure of Extinction might have been associated with a too late bedtime or the pacifier issue
2.Cumulative sleepiness might make for a developing bad mood during the day. Pre-sleep arousal from impaired night sleep can interfere with healthy naps and mood during the day.
4.Her sensitivity might be a temperament trait contributing to her sleep issue or a development from not sleeping well.
My suggestion is a 4-5 night trial of Extinction with a strict 5:30pm expected falling asleep time now to repay her accumulated sleep debt. Waiting for after the move might just increase her sleep debt and the move itself might be extremely disruptive for her sleep routine.
One choice is to cold turkey not use the pacifier at all for this trial because “most of the time she falls asleep that way without her pacifier”. Another is to offer it and perhaps have a pacifier attached to a very short ribbon (much shorter than the circumference of her neck) attached to her sleeper with an alligator clip. Either way, extinction means that you never return to replace the pacifier.
During this trial, do whatever you can to maximize day sleep. If this means that you have to use a pacifier, temporarily do it. This will not confuse her; her brain knows that day sleep and night sleep are different.
Keep a written record.
Do not do this if you cannot devote 4-5 consecutive nights to the trial.
How does this sound?
After giving it more thought, we are ready to try the extinction method for four to five nights (we’ve gotten darker curtains, and she’s much calmer and sleepier in the morning. However, she still wakes up between five and six and can’t fall back asleep). We plan to give her the pacifier in the evening, but we won’t replace it at night if she loses it.
What’s not entirely clear to us yet is how we’ll decide when to get her out of her room in the morning. She will most likely fall asleep with her pacifier in the evening and fall back asleep without it after her nighttime bottle without any trouble. However, she then wakes up between 5 and 6 a.m. How early does she have to wake up for us to let her cry it out? What if she cries, falls back asleep, and then wakes up again? How will we decide whether to call it a night or try a second round of extinction to help her fall back asleep?
Thank you for your help!
Because she is close to 6 months old, her morning nap rhythm is getting stronger so one goal is to attempt to put her down for a morning nap close to about 9am. If she starts the day too early, this becomes more difficult.
“she then wakes up between 5 and 6 a.m. How early does she have to wake up for us to let her cry it out? What if she cries, falls back asleep, and then wakes up again?” If she briefly cries in the early morning and returns to sleep and then cries again, start the day.
Your main focus now is on night sleep. If extinction goes well, you might want to try to slowly try to get the first nap start time closer to 9am. But there are two conflicting principles here:
1. Stretching her towards 9am will help her nap better because of circadian alignment.
2. Keeping her up too long creates pre-sleep arousal which interferes with a good nap.
So either wait until night sleep has improved or go slowly to find the sweet spot for her morning nap.
Does this help?
I agree with you that the focus should be on night sleep for now. My problem is I don’t think I fully understand the extinction process yet — or maybe I didn’t explain our situation clearly enough. We suspect that with the extinction process we chose (giving her a pacifier in the eventing but not replacing it), most nights she will fall asleep without trouble in the evening because we give her a pacifier, and after her late-night bottle she will most likely fall back asleep on her own without one. That’s been our experience most nights.
Our problem is the early mornings. She’ll likely wake up very early and eventually start crying if she doesn’t get a pacifier or if no one comes to get her. That’s the part I’m trying to understand better.
Let’s say she wakes up a little after 5 a.m. We don’t give her the pacifier and let her cry it out. She might fall back asleep — or she might not. At what point would we go get her? For example: what would we do if she cries from 5:20 to 6:20 and never falls back asleep? Or if she cries from 5:00 to 5:20, falls asleep, and then wakes up again at 5:40 — do we let her cry again, or do we go get her?
I hope I’ve made myself clear and haven’t misunderstood anything. Perhaps you mean that extinction doesn’t apply to the morning situation at all? That would mean we shouldn’t give her the pacifier in the evening, because otherwise most of the nights a situation of extinction wouldn’t arise at all…
I think the morning problem begins at night: “We plan to give her the pacifier in the evening, but we won’t replace it at night if she loses it.”
Giving the pacifier at sleep onset creates an association between falling asleep and the pacifier. In the middle of the night she sometimes can return to sleep without the pacifier but during lighter sleep in the morning, not so much.
During a 4-5 night extinction trial, please consider no pacifier at all, neither at sleep onset or very early in the morning. Early in the morning, some babies around 3-4am need a quick diaper change or feeding and go back to sleep with minimal soothing (no pacifier), if you think she needs this, go for it. Other babies stir, whimper, or make sounds between 4-5am with some intermittent sleeping and call out to start the day between 5-6 am. My gentle suggestion is to not go to her before 6am to start the day because this will make it more difficult for her to get towards a 9am nap in the future.
On the other hand, if she is crying a lot around 5-5:30am and you observe that she never returns to sleep and she slept well over night, then go to her at this earlier hour.
Eliminating the pacifier entirely should help but the first 2-3 days might be rough.
Is this ok?
Dear Dr. Weissbluth,
We have now tried the extinction method for four nights, during which we have not given our daughter a pacifier to help her fall asleep in the evening or during the night. Here’s how it went:
Night 1: Left her room at 5:30 p.m., she started fussing at 5:33 p.m. with longer breaks in between. She cried from 5:49 p.m. to 6:15 p.m., slept until 3:50 a.m., and then fell right back asleep after my partner changed her diaper and gave her a bottle. She woke up at 5:55 a.m. and he picked her up from her room at 6:15 a.m.
Night 2: Left her room at 5:21 p.m. and she whined right away. She cried from 5:27 to 5:37 p.m., with breaks. She was quiet until 5:49 p.m., then she cried until 6:27 p.m. There was a diaper change and feeding at 3:30 a.m. She was quiet until 4:15 a.m., then she cried from 4:15 to 4:25 a.m. She slept again until 5:30 a.m., then she was awake and fussy. She started crying at 5:45 a.m. and was picked up from her room at 5:55 a.m.
Night 3: Left her room at 5:33 p.m., fussy from 5:33 to 5:39 p.m., but fell asleep without crying! Changed and fed her at 4:46 a.m. Left her room at 5:08 a.m. She was fussy with breaks, starting at 5:16 a.m. She was fully awake at 5:45 a.m. and was rather unhappy. Picked her up from her room at 5:55.
Night 4: Left her room at 5:34 a.m. Fell asleep without crying or whining! Changed and fed her at 5:00 a.m., then left her room at 5:24 a.m. Heard noises every now and then. She was fully awake by 5:45 and was loud. Picked her up from her room at 5:55.
In terms of the pacifier, extinction was a big success! However, as far as waking up early goes, not much has changed yet.
What would you recommend we do next?
We’re already more rested simply because she often wanted her bottle at midnight or 1 a.m. before, which made our sleep much more fragmented. Getting four nights in a row where we can sleep until 3 a.m. or later is real progress! However, the fact that she still wakes up so early remains a problem. The afternoons are also very exhausting because she no longer takes an afternoon nap due to her early bedtime. She’s awake for too long and becomes extremely overtired before we put her to bed.
Should we try pushing her bedtime back a little to see if she’ll sleep longer? In your book, you write that this isn’t usually an effective solution, but it can work as an exception if bedtime is very early. Would it be a good idea to set an alarm for 3 or 4 a.m. and wake her up to feed her, hoping that she’ll fall back asleep more easily afterward than if the feeding is later in the morning? Or would you recommend something else?
Thank you very much for your help!
This is a genuinely good four-night report, and you are right to feel encouraged. Let me address what you’re seeing.
What went well
The pacifier extinction was fast and clean — nights 3 and 4 she fell asleep without crying at all. That is the goal achieved. The middle-of-the-night feeding has shifted from midnight or 1 a.m. to 3–5 a.m., which is a meaningful improvement in your consolidated sleep. You did this correctly.
The early morning waking
She is waking around 5:30–5:55 a.m. and is unhappy but not being picked up until 5:55. This is the right instinct — you are not rewarding the early waking by rushing in.
Early morning waking at this age is often the last piece to change, and it frequently takes longer than the initial bedtime success. A few weeks of patience here is normal.
Your question about pushing bedtime later
You are right to be cautious about this, and I want to congratulate you for recognizing it. A later bedtime now would almost certainly undo what you’ve worked hard to achieve. A 5-month-old pushed past her drowsy period enters a state of heightened neurological arousal — pre-sleep arousal — that makes falling asleep harder, not easier, and tends to worsen early morning waking rather than improve it. Your instinct here is correct. Keep the early bedtime.
What to expect in the coming weeks
Sleep comes from the brain, not the stomach. The night feeding timing will continue to evolve on its own as her sleep matures — you don’t need to engineer it. More importantly, now that night sleep is better consolidated, the expected development of longer and more regular naps will naturally follow over the next several weeks, typically around six months of age. As naps become more substantial and reliable, the long overtired afternoon stretch you’re describing will ease on its own. That improvement in daytime sleep may eventually permit a slightly later bedtime — but when that time comes, the bedtime is set by her drowsy signs, not by the clock.
The afternoon exhaustion
What time does her last nap end, and how many naps is she taking during the day and at what times? I want the full picture before making specific nap recommendations.
You have done the hard part. Stay the course.
— Marc Weissbluth, M.D.
Thank you for your detailed answer!
Before we started putting her down at 5:30 p.m. around two weeks ago, her naps were fairly regular. She usually had a mid-morning nap starting between 8:45 and 9:30 a.m., based on drowsy signs, which lasted 40 minutes to an hour and a half. She then had a midday nap starting between 11:30 a.m. and 1 p.m., based on drowsy signs, which lasted an hour and a half to two and a half hours. Finally, most days she had a nap in the late afternoon starting between 4 and 4:30 p.m., which lasted 40 minutes. As I mentioned before, due to her waking up so early, a fourth mini-nap started happening very early in the morning.
However, since we started putting her down at 5:30 p.m., her naps have been irregular and short. She takes two to four naps, and the timing varies greatly. Most of the time, her last nap ends by 1 or 2 p.m. Sometimes, she manages to take her last nap around 3 p.m. Because of this, most days she is overtired by 5:30 p.m.
How long should we keep the bedtime at 5:30 p.m.? I feel that she is pushed past her drowsy signs now because she misses an afternoon nap, unlike when she had a later bedtime and was less exhausted at bedtime.
Because she is close to 6 months of age, her nap circadian rhythms are becoming better developed; this means that the timing of naps, around 9am and 12-1pm will become more important for good quality naps.
Because of her preceding sleep debt, keep the 5:30pm bedtime in place for now and the better quality night sleep will allow you to proceed with better naps, soon, which will allow the bedtime to become a little later. Then, the wake-up time might, or might not, be a little later.
For now, slowly (every few days) and gradually (maybe 10-20 minutes at a time) try to delay the morning nap towards about 9am and either sequentially or simultaneously, try to delay the mid day nap start time to 12-1pm. If this is rushed, the risk is pre-sleep arousal which will make naps worse. A third nap is fine, if needed, but only if it starts before 3pm.
How does this sound?
Hi Dr. Weissbluth!
I have a 9 week old baby. I feel like I was totally unprepared and have been blindsided by all things related to sleep! I read Babywise Sleep Solutions before he was born and expected some level of struggles, but everything sounded fairly straightforward overall and I was very confident in my ability to care for a baby.
Fast forward to when he was born, he basically grew out of his “sleepy potato” phase well before he was even 2 weeks old (born at 40 weeks 3 days; normal, uncomplicated vaginal delivery) and already struggled to nap “on the go.” He’d be wide awake for several hours at a time before finally falling asleep. Fairly content, not very fussy usually, but still—WIDE AWAKE!
Once he hit about 3-4 weeks, I started to become more concerned about this (in part because he did start to become more and more fussy) and tried to get him on a more regular nap schedule. Unfortunately, I didn’t realize at the time that naps at his age are still irregular and unpredictable and often short. I lost so much sleep and wasted so much energy stressing about his naps being only 30-45 minutes unless I held him or fought really hard to “rescue” the nap. I was in tears so many days because I was so frustrated that my baby wasn’t doing what I thought he was supposed to do. This continued until last week when I started reading your book and realized this was all fairly normal. So he’s still having about 30-45 minute naps, but I’m just rolling with it instead of being stressed about it! That alone has made such a huge difference!
His nights have been the most consistent since about the second week. We’d put him down about 8pm and wake him between 10-11pm for a “dream feed,” and then he’d sleep until about 3-4am needing to be fed. And then I’d get him up (or sometimes he’d already be awake) by 7:30am. Occasionally he’d wake once or twice more at very random times, not really seeming to be hungry and would fall back asleep fairly easily with minimal soothing or after letting him cry for a bit. But overall was fairly consistent from about 2 weeks old through now. Each component with very minimal crying or difficulty.
Since reading your book over the past week, we started with putting him to bed about an hour earlier, around 7pm. He’s gone down without much issue, and his night waking habits have remained unchanged (aka they didn’t get worse like I thought they would)! Yay! He’s been getting about 2-3 more hours of total sleep somehow during a 24 hour period even with just that extra hour of sleep at the front end of the night even though his total nap sleep time hasn’t changed. He’s gone from about 13-15 hrs of sleep per day to 16-17 per day just from that change.
Two days into doing this, his naps looked beautiful—he actually took two fairly long naps (1.5 and 1 hr one after the other) first thing in the morning, but more importantly, he went down so much more easily—hardly any crying or none at all. I had started putting him down much sooner after waking—about 30-45 minutes as opposed to an hour or slightly longer as I had been doing before.
We have done this early bedtime (7pm or thereabouts) now four nights in a row.
However, since yesterday, he’s fought every. single. nap. And bedtime. It’s been so exhausting. I’m putting him down after about the same length of time as before, trying so so hard to watch for his drowsy signs (they’re so easy to miss sometimes!). I don’t think I changed anything else, but he’s just fighting and fighting his naps. We are fine with letting him cry and will let him cry up to 20 min when we put him down. He’ll usually fall asleep after crying, so that’s great…but still exhausting to fight him, put him down drowsy, but then he starts crying and cries for up to 20 minutes before falling asleep. Did something change? Or is he just continuing along with the normal irregularity of babies his age and having some “good” days and some “bad” days?
Do you have any recommendations? Is it possible that I’m putting him down too soon now that he’s caught up on some sleep debt? How would I know if I am putting him down too soon since you cover so much about putting babies down too late? Could he need even LESS time than 30-45 minutes awake? Do I need to scoot his bedtime a little later now that he’s caught up on some sleep debt? Or scoot it even earlier if he’s still sleep deprived? Or just give it some more time doing the same things and keep working to learn his drowsy cues?
We have put him down drowsy but awake, swaddled, with a pacifier, and allowed at least some crying since day one basically, even before reading your book. He eats well, is gaining weight well, has plenty of wet/dirty diapers, so there’s no concerns there.
Thank you in advance!
“Did something change?” Yes. Read Blog Posts 84-86 to fully appreciate cumulative sleepiness.
Congratulations on shortening the intervals of wakefulness between naps and moving the bedtime earlier; you clearly saw the improvement.
“Do I need to scoot his bedtime a little later now that he’s caught up on some sleep debt?” You did help him, but he now needs an even earlier bedtime, as you surmised.
Perhaps try a 5:30pm expected falling asleep time (he is bathed, dressed for sleep, soothed to drowsy but awake, and you are leaving the room at 5:30pm) for only 2-3 nights and report back. If you want to try this, then no new naps start after about 3-4pm.
How does this sound?
Oh, and dream feeds are ineffective.
Thanks for the speedy response! I will try this tonight and for a couple more nights and report back 🙂 and I’ll try dropping the dream feed and seeing when he wakes on his own. I’m curious some more of your thoughts on that and why it’s a myth…I’d been starting to lean toward dropping that but was afraid to change too many things at once…
Dream feeds have remained popular because they solve a logistical problem for parents, not because they change infant biology. While the Pinilla and Birch study (1993) is deeply flawed and lacks replication, the practice persists through parent-to-parent anecdote, commercial sleep consulting, and the immediate psychological relief it provides to sleep-deprived caregivers.
The phenomenon stays popular due to several practical and cultural factors:
1. Shifting the Parent’s Sleep Window
• The Problem: Infants naturally sleep their longest stretch right after their initial bedtime (e.g., 7:00 PM to 1:00 AM).
• The Parent Conflict: Parents are often awake chores or relaxing until 10:30 PM, missing that entire quiet window.
• The Dream Feed Solution: By “topping off” the baby right before the parents go to bed, the baby’s next waking is thought to be pushed from 1:00 AM to 3:30 AM or 4:00 AM. The baby does not sleep more total hours, but the parents get a longer block of uninterrupted sleep.
2. Commercialization by Sleep Consultants
• Famous modern baby programs like Taking Cara Babies and platforms like Huckleberry popularized the term “dream feed” globally.
• It provides consultants with a low-risk, proactive “action step” to give anxious clients who want to feel in control of nighttime schedules.
3. Immediate Anecdotal Reinforcement
• Unlike long-term behavioral training, a dream feed offers an immediate feedback loop.
• If a parent tries it and the baby happens to sleep a longer stretch that night, confirmation bias secures it as part of their permanent routine, which they then pass on to online forums and parenting groups.
4. Low Risk and Ease of Execution
• Because it is a non-invasive, low-risk technique that does not involve letting a baby cry, parents are highly willing to try it.
• It fulfills a caregiver’s protective instinct to feed a baby before they fully cry or distress themselves.
Sleep comes from the brain, not the stomach.
Reporting back as to how last night went:
Put him down (fed at 4:30pm, bathed, PJs, swaddled), walking out of the room at exactly 5:29pm last night. He didn’t make a peep until 6:12pm; let him fuss/cry and he fell back asleep on his own about 6:30pm. Then slept until 8:00pm; I fed him and put him right back down. Not a peep until 2:20am; fed him and back down. Then he woke at 7:00am and got fed and back down after about 40 min with no issue. Second nap I was a little late with my timing and he cried for about 20 minutes before falling asleep for about 45 min. Planning to do the same thing tonight! 🙂
How did you feel about last night?
I’m happy with how last night went. Naps today have still been a real struggle though. Planning to do 5:30 again tonight though and hope I see some improvements in the next few days.
Consider shortening the interval of wakefulness before each nap by 15-20 minutes.
I wanted to pop back on a give an update as to how the past week has gone:
I did the 5:30 bedtime for three nights. I described the results of the first night above.
The second night he woke 20 minutes after I put him down, cried for about 6 minutes and fell back asleep independently. Then slept for an hour, woke, cried for 15 min, slept 25 min, at which point I fed him. He then slept until I woke him for a dream feed at 11:30, and then until 3 (fed and back down), and then 7am.
I stopped doing the dream feed starting the third night of the 5:30 bedtime. He slept about 9 hours (5:30pm-3:00am) that night, which I was happy about. Fed him at 3, and back down until he woke around 6:30.
Unfortunately I did not see much improvement with naps with the 5:30 bedtime but I’m happy that he started getting that longer stretch at night.
The next few days were busier for us which I know sacrificed some of his sleep (particularly naps—tried using the pack n play and sound machine at family’s house but he refused to sleep more than 20 min at a time and was fussy most of the time). I will try to summarize:
Bedtime goal has been between 6-7pm based off how he’s looking (drowsy signs) and how the day has gone (lower quality naps=earlier bedtime is what I mean). Unfortunately a couple nights he got to bed closer to 7:30 due to circumstances that were mostly out of my control. However, he has slept incrementally longer and longer stretches during the night during this time (9 hours two nights, then 10 hours, then 11, then 12 hours two nights ago)! So nights have definitely improved—you’re absolutely right that the dream feed was hurting more than helping.
He had one good day of naps this week on Thursday. I cannot discern anything that I did different except that he woke naturally at 6am instead of 7 that morning. Bedtime the night before had been 7:40 (much later than I was aiming for but he cried for about 20 minutes after I put him down at 7:20). He slept 1 hr 40 min the first nap that day and continued to be very pleasant and easy to put down that day. Naps were still very frequent and very brief but overall very smooth. He went to bed easily at 7pm that night and slept until 7am.
I’ve tried intervals of wakefulness anywhere from 30-90 minutes—always watching him not the clock. I try to catch the drowsy signs but even when I think I see them they’re so subtle and I’m not very confident about them. But I try to just go for it even when I feel like I’m just guessing. It seems like no matter how long he’s been awake though, it’s a battle to soothe him and get him to settle down to sleep. I have been doing what I can to maximize sleep and minimize crying for naps—some days that’s meant contact naps toward the end of the day as he’s struggling more and more. A few times I’ve nursed him to sleep because it’s the only thing that’s soothed him or he’s fallen asleep nursing—even though this isn’t my preference. A couple times he’s been able to just cry for literally 2-3 minutes and be asleep, but other times if I just let him cry it’s still going on after 20 minutes so I go soothe him to try to minimize lost sleep.
Bedtime last night was really rough. Tried putting him down at 6 and he just wasn’t having it. I spent so much time trying to soothe him and he was just thrashing and arching away from me. I eventually gave up and put him in his crib while he was still upset and left the room; he cried for two minutes and then fell asleep at 6:30.
I’m planning for a 5:30 bedtime tonight because today has also been rough with the naps and he woke to feed at 3:30am (first time he did that in almost a week). Thinking I might need to do the 5:30 bedtime several more nights in a row to try to keep making up for chronic sleep deprivation? Not sure what to do but it’s so exhausting fighting an angry baby to nap 5-8 times a day.
He’s so happy and smiley when he’s well rested—after a good nap or first thing in the morning. But the days like today are adding up where it just feels like more of a battle with him and I feel like he fusses more than smiles most days.
For 3 nights, you had a 5:30 bedtime and there was some improvement. Why did you then move the bedtime later? “Bedtime goal has been between 6-7pm based off how he’s looking (drowsy signs) and how the day has gone (lower quality naps=earlier bedtime is what I mean). Unfortunately a couple nights he got to bed closer to 7:30 due to circumstances that were mostly out of my control. However, he has slept incrementally longer and longer stretches during the night during this time (9 hours two nights, then 10 hours, then 11, then 12 hours two nights ago)! So nights have definitely improved—you’re absolutely right that the dream feed was hurting more than helping.”
Subsequently, sleep got rocky.
“Thinking I might need to do the 5:30 bedtime several more nights in a row to try to keep making up for chronic sleep deprivation?” Absolutely yes!
“Not sure what to do but it’s so exhausting fighting an angry baby to nap 5-8 times a day.” He’s not angry; it’s presleep arousal. Carefully read Blog Posts 179, 171, 172, 204, 233X, 235C, 235D and 235E.
He needs an earlier bedtime every night.
How does this sound?
Thank you for your response. I only did the 5:30 bedtime for three nights because you had previously mentioned doing it only 2-3 nights. And the longest stretches of sleep he’s had were actually after the later bedtime. It’s also difficult to get in enough feeds for the day with such limited time between wake-up and bedtime. That makes me think I should make sure he’s getting up closer to 6am instead of 7am so that it’s easier to get him to bed at 5:30.
But I see your point. The 5:30 bedtime for three nights helped get to the point of him sleeping longer at night, but I needed to do it longer to see improvements in his naps (at least that’s what I’m concluding from what you’ve said).
I will continue the 5:30 bedtime at least until I see a consistent improvement in his naps, does that seem like a better plan (vs just doing it for a set number of nights)?
Understood. “ will continue the 5:30 bedtime at least until I see a consistent improvement in his naps, does that seem like a better plan…? YES!
I suggest that you read Blog Posts 9, 83, 115X, 232AX, 232BX, and 232D.
Naps will vary a lot until 4-6 months of age and by keeping the intervals of wakefulness brief to avoid pre-sleep arousal and cumulative sleepiness, drowsy signs will become more apparent. Wake windos are bogus.
Do not attempt to control teh wake-up time; follow his lead.
Let me know your thoughts.
Thank you for the response. I read the blog postings and watched the Sleepy Max video; I think that was helpful and I believe I can recall points where my baby was doing something similar but “snapped out of it” and I missed it. The post about the “alternative method” was helpful as well; I have been doing something similar without realizing it.
I put him to bed at 5:30pm last night drowsy but awake; he cried for 25 minutes and then slept until 12:30am. I fed him and put him back down; he slept until 6:00am. Naps today have mostly been a struggle still but this most recent one he went down more easily.
As I continue the 5:30 bedtime and practice putting him down before or at the onset of his drowsy signs, what should I do when I miss the onset of drowsiness or he’s having a hard time going down for his nap? I’ll explain:
He will often start crying fitfully (as if he were in pain, but I know that he’s not) from the second I start his soothing routine, even if I start before I see any drowsy signs; i.e, as soon as I take him to his nursery and start swaddling him, he starts crying. One second he’s fine (calm, smiling, happily moving his arms and legs, and engaged with his surroundings), the next second he’s not. His soothing routine includes swaddling, turn on sound machine, turn off lights, and gently rocking or swaying with him while I quietly hum. If he’s calm (as if I’ve caught him at the perfect moment), this usually takes 5-10 minutes before his eyes start to droop and his body relaxes and I put him down. If he is not calm (as described above and is the case 75% of the time), this routine takes much longer, 15-20 minutes. Sometimes even by the end he is still not calm but I place him in his crib because it seems like it’s just continuing to overstimulate him at that point. He will cry anywhere from 2-20 minutes (full cry, not just fussing) before falling asleep.
My husband and I are comfortable using extinction with him and have seen success using it at night. My question is if it is beneficial at all during naps at his age (10 weeks). Will it help him or will it just cause him to be more overtired from missed sleep? Is there a length of time we should let him cry for? Alternatively, should I continue trying to soothe him past 15-20 minutes if he’s still not calming down? Or do we end the attempt and try again later?
Here’s a suggestion to try only if you feel comfortable, see 3-4 consecutive days ahead that allow you to be super-consistent, and know that you can commit to this trial. Improvement might be apparent on day 3 or 4.
1. Extinction at night with 1 feeding whenever you feel it is needed. Read or reread this section carefully in my book.
2. Continue with the strict 5:30pm expected falling asleep time. It might be a little later if has great afternoon nap(s).
3. Continue with brief intervals of wakefulness before naps and night sleep.
4. Do the ‘Nap Drill’ as presented in my book. Read this section carefully. Know that the onset time of each nap and the duration of the nap may vary because of his age; nap rhythms develop around 4-6 months of age. The key is brief intervals of wakefulness to prevent pre-sleep arousal.
5. Keep a written record and give me a progress report every day or so.
How does this sound?
Don’t try this if you are not comfortable with the plan. The expectation is that with better quality night sleep, more opportunities to parctice self-soothing, naps will improve.
My husband and I discussed this suggestion and re-read the nap drill portion of the book, and decided that we weren’t quite ready to try that with him. We will continue our current method and the 5:30 bedtime for now. I am finding more and more that he often falls asleep a little faster crying on his own in his crib for a few minutes than with extended soothing from me. So I’ve been experimenting with putting him down after less soothing. I’m trying to catch him immediately at the onset of drowsy signs, get him swaddled and hold him for a minute or two and put him down as long as he’s calm (but still awake).
Last night we put him down about 5:15 and he fell asleep right at 5:30. He slept until 12:30am again, I nursed him and put him back down. He woke at 5:40am; I let him cry for a few minutes but he seemed to be in distress. Sure enough, he had a huge blowout after not pooping for 6 days! So I had to completely change his diaper and clothes. At that point it was 6am and he seemed ready to eat.
I have put him down less drowsy today for his naps like I said above, and he hasn’t cried longer than 20 minutes before falling asleep. Sometimes only 5 minutes. Sometimes he doesn’t sleep longer than 20 minutes but I just anticipate that his next nap will be a little sooner.
I am hoping that after a few days, the length of time that he cries going down for a nap will decrease. I think I am getting better and feeling a little more confident about the drowsy signs.
I will continue this for the time being and continue to provide updates.
Please stay the course; you are doing everything correctly. Correct me if I am wrong but it seems that the trend towards improvement is palpable.
Last night he fell asleep almost immediately upon being put down at 5:25pm. Woke to eat at 2:00am. And then again at 5:30am. For a 5:30 wake up, do I count that as a night wake, or as the start of the day? I’ve tried ignoring him for about 5-10 minutes and he doesn’t stop crying. I fed him and he seemed at least a little hungry.
As I mentioned previously, I did notice last week that when he was going to bed later, he was sleeping longer stretches and had gone several nights sleeping through the night (approximately 7pm-6/7am) without needing to eat (four nights in a row). This was when the bedtime was between 6:30-7:30pm. I guess I’m just wondering which is more important, the 5:30 bedtime to help with naps or the later bedtime so that he sleeps longer?
I do think his naps are slowly improving. He’s still crying today when I put him down but I think overall not as long or hard.
Thoughts?
Many babies are waking to start their day around 5am. If he needs to be fed earlier, say 4-5pm, feed him and briefly soothe him with the expectation that night sleep will continue a little longer.
If he falls asleep around 5:30pm, the circadian alignment is perfect and optimal night sleep occurs. This is the path to a strong brain. If you keep him up later, increased homeostatic pressure builds up as does pre-sleep arousal and night sleep quality will be impaired. Imagine the sleeping brain at night not getting quality night sleep.
Quality night sleep means he will wake up better rested and this will enhance naps. Please read Blog Posts 183-187 to better understand the importance of naps.
How does this sound?