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Can you push the second nap a bit later, and skip the last one all together? Aim for 4 hours of awake time before bed? That's what we do that works. Good luck

Oh would the 2-3-4 schedule work? Doesn't for our giy because after 2 hours awake he is no where need ready for a nap, but lots of people use that schedule around that age, I think.

@ellewoods84: our son has super short naps a lot too which is why 2-3-4 doesn't work as well. Like if he got up at 7 he would nap from 9-930 and then 1230-1 and then bed at 5. Lol NO. The only success we've had so far for increasing nap length is keeping him up longer between naps. Like a long time. 3-4 hours or more sometimes. We just keep him distracted and busy.

Good luck!

I remember I read anything after 5:30pm can be considered "bedtime". And you never know, often the earlier they go to sleep, the better they sleep!

I feel your pain. My son is 18m and still wakes up frequently. I'm beyond exhausted. Sigh.

No advice, just... sorry That sounds awful. We've done a lot of stretches like that but we have reprieve between, which helps. And FWIW CIO never worked for us overnight either. When Fia wakes MOTN I let her cry 5 min and do a check and if she cries after that there is basically 0 chance that she's going back to sleep on her own. I've tried CIO in the MOTN a few times but it never worked.

When things were at their worst for us I coslept with her just to get some sleep. But it sort of sucked. and made me nervous. And extra sucked because she wouldn't cosleep with both DH and me (it was just "omg dad is here with his beard? I should totally pull on it now" time), so I had to cosleep with her in the guest room.

But anyways. I hope you find a solution or hire a sleep consultant that can. (Also it's a good thing o baby is cute bc good lord that girl puts you through the ringer! lol)

I could have written this post! I think we are in the exact same spot and it sucks! I'm so tired if being tired. Plus my kids now wake up regularly at 5 am which makes it even harder to get them all the way to 7 for bedtime.

I've had some luck doing two things 1. Stretching awake time to the absolute brink so that we can stretch the naps later in to the day. This is risky because their nap will suck if they get over tired. But I also try not to put them down at the first sign of cranky/tiredness. Instead I take them upstairs for a change of scenery and we do something fun like fly around the room and dance to Christmas music. This will usually get us an extra 20-30 minutes before they get down to sleep.
2. We do the catnap before bed too, but we actually do it much closer to bedtime. They will sleep for30 minutes, then 30 min later we start bedtime routine. Maybe that wouldn't work for everyone, but this is the only way they won't get wayyy overtired before bed.

I have no idea about the frequent night wakings, though. We're in the same spot and I'm such a zombie in the MOTN that I don't even know if something I'm doing is ruining it. It's just so much easier to run in and nurse back to sleep in 7 minutes than to listen to them cry.

The sleep lady book really helped us identify LOs "sleep window". When we put her down as soon as she'd show signs of being tired, she took longer naps, and she wasn't overtired, so she napped longer and our routine fell into place. She also had an early bedtime - 6:30, which wasn't ideal, but it was what she needed to be well rested.

It sounds like you have tried so many things, it might be time to hire a sleep coach.

@ellewoods84: Yea cosleeping did not work for us, that was basically the breaking point for us doing sleep training. Before we did sleep training when she woke MOTN she often just wanted her paci, but if that didn't calm her I just picked her up and rocked her to sleep and put her back down. With varying levels of success. The good times it would take 20 min to rock her down, rock her a few min and set her down. Bad times I'd have to rock her for 30-60 min before she was asleep enough to set her down. Post sleep training we've just been lucky. Except for one bad night (where I coslept after several hours of attempted CIO) when she wakes MOTN she just wants her paci until about 430 am. Our rule is after 4am all bets are off. At that point if she cries after I give her the paci back I generally just rock her until our preferred wakeup time for her (630) bc she no longer lets me set her down after rocking to sleep. It helps that my husband and I have a deal where I do MOTN and he does mornings. Anything after 6am is on him. So even if I'm up with her from 430-630 I get to go back to bed until he has to get ready for work at 8, so I get a good nap before having to face the day.

I'm so sorry, my twins were not good sleepers and I went through a full year of hell with sleep deprivation so I know how it feels...
I don't really have a ton of advice bc we tried everything and nothing really worked until I stopped BFing. As far as CIO goes, if you're really desperate and can be strong, it might take a week or more but it would probably get through eventually...I have had nights where I let my
Son cry for 2+ hours bc I just could not deal with the MOTN wakings anymore. He always slept better for a few nights after those, although would often regress...

I would try putting her down earlier. I also have read that you need to give something at least 2-4 weeks to see change. So, Maybe pick a technique and try to stick with it a bit longer. Good luck!

I'm so sorry We're in the crappy sleep club, too. We gave in to co-sleeping, but it doesn't solve everything. It does get me a little bit more sleep, but she still fights tooth and nail going to bed. She often naps later in the day. We've tried making that bedtime or keeping her up, but it doesn't seem to help. Up until about 10 days ago, I was up every 3-4 hours consistently from the time she was 8 weeks old to 8 months old. The lack of sleep has been a major trigger for my PPA, and I've felt like I was about to lose it. Through nothing we've done, we've had a few days now where I'll get 4.5-5 hours of sleep in a stretch, and it is literally amazing. So, I'm holding out hope that it will get better for us all. Hang in there, Mama

@ellewoods84: That's good that she's going back asleep after 3-5 minutes even though she fusses a bit. At least she's able to put herself to sleep - that's half the battle sometimes!

We're gradually weaning by feeding a minute less each feeding every few days. I *know* she can go 6 hours without feeding (we've had a handful of glorious 5-6 hour stretches), so I felt comfortable cutting her first feeding drastically and I started feeding her on one only side for that feeding. Every few nights I cut it down by a minute. I started that about 10 days ago and we're still at a 4-5 minute feeding and she often protests after going in the crib and has to be fed again....so not ideal, but there is definitely progress. It's a much slower process than I thought it would be! I should start doing the same for the later feeds, but I'm too chicken to risk her not falling back asleep right away.
I hope tonight went well for you guys. Let us know how the early bedtime went!

@ellewoods84: Maybe a few more days with an earlier bedtime will help more? When B is overtired and sleeping like crap, it always takes a while to get better and the improvement is gradual. Like, gradual enough that I can't even really tell without looking back at his sleep patterns. I track everything in an app still because I cannot remember his sleep for the life of me.

We can't cosleep either, so it's not just you . He just will not sleep -- it's an invitation to pull my hair and grab my eyes and ugh. I wish it would work.

I am in this same sad boat. I'm so sorry for all of us dealing with this. No help here just commiseration.

Things seemed to be getting a little better then teething, the flu, an ear infection, and travel sent his sleep spiraling back to just about the worst it's ever been. We've been co sleeping out of desperation, but I mostly worry all night and still get no sleep.

We are going to give sleep training another go tonight. We don't really know what else to try either...

@ellewoods84: 5 hours of sleep would be amazing!bwendid start sleep training again. Two nights ago he cried 1 minute and fell asleep, he woke twice to eat - after 5 hours (sadly only 3 after I went to sleep) and then after 3.5 hours. Last night he cried for 45 minutes (it was horrible) then slept 5 hours are, woke after 3 hours DH rocked him back to sleep in 5 min, then slept 2 more and ate again... He is sleeping in his crib again, and falling back to sleep easily after he eats, so that is progress I guess. And two(ish) wake ups is better than a million. The plan is to get falling asleep under control then work on reducing night feedings. How are things going for you?