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What is your bedtime ritual? Having a consistent ritual is important. Something like 15 minutes for naps, 30 minutes for night time (bottle, bath, jammies, books).

We found that an accompanied sleep training worked for our baby, who was previously dependent on bottles and being rocked to sleep. We weren't comfortable letting her go through it alone. She needed us. I don't really think you can call it "gentle" if you aren't in there with him. Even with checks, it could still be a bit traumatic if he's left to cry. I don't believe in CIO, and other's will likely have a different opinion/experience.

So, for us, the first few nights were hard, but by 1 week, we were good. We sat in there with her. Ssshhhed her, patted her back, and comforted her until she fell asleep. Most of the time, I could tell she was tired, but she would fuss and wake back up. I kept a book in there for me, and would read for about 10-15 minutes until she fell asleep. I wasn't distracting her, and I was getting some quiet time. So yeah, by 1 week, we were good. On night 4 or 5, she did a little regression, but that's normal.

For us, we wanted to wait until she was out of the swaddle, as that's a bit of a challenge within itself. We transitioned to a Zippadee Zip around 5 months, and started sleep training at 6 months. You could do the Zippadee zip now, and once he can roll, it won't be a safety issue. 13 weeks seems so young, as they don't have the skills they need to self-soothe yet.

Our baby hasn't eaten at night (regularly) since she was 8 weeks, I think, so I'm not sure about that one. I do know that she will need to eat randomly if she's teething or not feeling good. We will do a mini routine after she eats to get her back down.

Whatever you choose, just follow what feels right for you. Sleep training was the best thing we ever did. I was starting to feel like a swamp creature, and really needed sleep. It's amazing how fast they learn!

@Vegmama: I like your advice!

OP - if you're nursing then it's quite normal for your LO to continue to need up to three night feeds until they're almost a year old, breastmilk is digested really quickly and babies do so much growing in the first twelve months!

I feel you. I know it's hard. And yeah, 4 months is when they hit a big regression ... if you haven't sleep trained before that point, you won't really be too affected. That's why we waited. It's likely that you're the only one that'll be sleep deprived. Night training is more essential first, then naps. Since you're still home, have you tried wearing him in a wrap during the day? He'll likely snooze away, and maybe you can get some peace of mind knowing he's resting??

The "they can't self-soothe at that point" is a pretty common refrain, but I haven't seen it substantiated. I know that we sleep trained our baby at 11 weeks and she did great. I almost feel like if she could talk, she would have said, "Whew, this is so much better!"

I think having her hands free did help, so she could suck on her fingers. We offered the pacifier, but she would often spit it out during the night, so she transitioned to her fingers instead of having to cry for us to put it back in (thank goodness).

@Apples4Teacher: We planned on doing checks every few minutes, but we quickly realized that it just escalated her crying and interfered with her winding down process. So we just waited it out, doing CIO at bedtime for three nights. The first night she cried off and on almost two hours, 1.5 the next, 10 minutes the next. After that, she consistently went to sleep with minimal fussing in 15 minutes or less. She's 9 months now. She fought sleep a little at the 4 month regression--we didn't have to retrain but she took longer than usual to nod off. And of course, when she's sick like she is now she needs more comfort and sleeps restlessly. But otherwise, it's been great. We used to have to rock her to sleep and tiptoe in to lay her down, but since CIO we lay her down awake every time.

I will say that we always fed her on a schedule and that helped somewhat because I knew when she would need to eat. But even if you don't, as long as you make sure she has a really good feed before bed, that might help in getting long stretches of sleep.

@Skadi: Seriously! I feel like sleep training ends up helping them so much.

We gently sleep trained at 3.5 months and it worked kind of well, but then we had teeth, illness, a trip across 12 time zones all between 4.5 and 5.5 months. So we were back to swaddling, feeding to sleep, rocking, etc, until we couldn't take it any more. When we re-trained at 5.5 months, it was like night and day from the earlier time. We did full on extinction with naps and bedtime all at once, and took away the swaddle, and he never cried more than about 10 minutes (and even that was on and off). I think at a certain point babies become ready to soothe themselves to sleep. For us, my son would start to squirm and fight if we rocked him, and would settle right down if we laid him down in the crib. Sometimes he would cry a bit and throw himself around, but he always fell asleep after a minimal amount of fuss.

I also think that the point at which they are ready is totally different for every baby. Maybe the average is around 6 months but some babies can cope really early (sounds like @Skadi: baby did) and some aren't ready for years!! Probably a personality thing, much like adults - some need the perfect conditions to fall asleep whereas some can have 2 double espressos and fall asleep in a chair.

Good luck! I found that checks didn't work for us - it would wind him right back up.

We started sleep training by 12 weeks. By this time he was on a eat every three hour schedule and had a long stretch after we put him down for the night. We started his bedtime routine (bath, swaddle, feed) at 6:45pm and he would sleep until 2:00ish. At first we did CIO with checks but like others have said it would make him so mad so I would just watch the monitor (feeling bad) but every night it became easier and easier. I would say it took probably a week until we were in a good spot. Even now at 4 months he will cry the minute I lay him down but as soon as I shut his door the crying immediately stops and he goes to sleep. It's hard at first but I think it's totally necessary!

@MamaT: ugh, watching the monitor full of guilt. Been there, don't want to do it again!!

@Apples4Teacher: I would try not to worry too much about naps - for my son, once he could fall asleep on his own and was doing well at night, naps followed on naturally. They gradually extended from only ever 45 minutes to 1.5hrs + over about a month.

I thought you might enjoy this essay! http://www.theawl.com/2014/10/to-sleep-perchance-to-scream