Hellobee Boards Topic: Please share your Sleep Training Experiences!

Hellobee Boards Topic: Please share your Sleep Training Experiences! https://boards.hellobee.com/ Pregnancy, Baby and Parenting blog, by Hellobee en Thu, 07 May 2026 10:20:22 +0000 Smurfette on "Please share your Sleep Training Experiences!" https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/please-share-your-sleep-training-experiences#post-2047617 Fri, 30 Jan 2015 14:11:55 +0000 Smurfette 2047617@https://boards.hellobee.com/ 1. How old was your baby when you sleep trained? almost 4 months 2. Did you follow any guidelines? (pediatrician's ok? 12 or 13 lbs? 3 or 4+ months?) Pedi said to do it due to her not able to go to sleep on her own (unless in the car) 3. Which method did you use? (Gentle/No cry? Ferber or extinction? If Ferber, what time intervals did you use?)feber, no checks. Just went in after 2 to feed her 4. What sleep issues were you trying to resolve? (falling asleep, staying asleep? reduce MOTN wakeups?) getting herself to fall asleep, and back to longer stretches that she was doing 5. Did you get rid of sleep props in advance, or ripped off the bandaid at once? (pacifier? swaddle?) We swaddle weaned at the same time. 6. Was LO swaddled, in a sleep sack, or Merlin suit, or other? used a swaddle sleep sack, but arms out, but she had the tightness on her chest. They made it loser and went to just a sleep sack. 7. Did you nurse/bottle feed as part of your bedtime routine? Nursed her before bed and one wake up a night, till she dropped it. 8. Did you keep MOTN feedings? How many? one, after 2 9. How much crying time, and many nights did it take for it to be "successful"? 3 nights and it was much much better. But it took months for her to fall asleep without crying at all, but usually it was 10 mins or less 10. How did LO's sleep improve? She started STTN and going to sleep on her own at night and even naps. 11. Did it "stick", or did you have to retrain later (if so, when did you have to retrain?) We had to retrain at 6 months, she regressed bad once she was teething. 3 nights and been STTN since, not counting sickness and some teething wake-ups. jape14 on "Please share your Sleep Training Experiences!" https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/please-share-your-sleep-training-experiences#post-2047565 Fri, 30 Jan 2015 13:45:26 +0000 jape14 2047565@https://boards.hellobee.com/ 1. How old was your baby when you sleep trained? Two days shy of 4 months old 2. Did you follow any guidelines? (pediatrician's ok? 12 or 13 lbs? 3 or 4+ months?) Not really, although we had his 4-month appointment the day after we started and the pediatrician said, "Good for you guys!" He was basically 4 months old, though, and 16 lbs. We started because his sleep was absolutely atrocious and rocking, swaddling, etc. stopped working. We also noticed (on a long overnight car trip) that he was started to suck his thumb and use a lovey to self-soothe, so it seemed like a good time to try. 3. Which method did you use? (Gentle/No cry? Ferber or extinction? If Ferber, what time intervals did you use?) We did Ferber, using the intervals from the book (although I think we did the first night at 1/3/5 instead of 3/5/10 or something like that). 4. What sleep issues were you trying to resolve? (falling asleep, staying asleep? reduce MOTN wakeups?) Falling asleep and staying asleep. It was taking a long time to get him to fall asleep, even with rocking and swaddling, and he'd often wake up shortly after we put him down for the night. He was also having random MOTN wakeups (not to eat) so we were hoping by teaching him how to fall asleep on his own, those would improve as well. 5. Did you get rid of sleep props in advance, or ripped off the bandaid at once? (pacifier? swaddle?) We got rid of the swaddle and Merlin suit, but neither thing was helping him sleep much anyway. 6. Was LO swaddled, in a sleep sack, or Merlin suit, or other? Sleep sack. 7. Did you nurse/bottle feed as part of your bedtime routine? Yes, I still nurse him before bed. We put him in the sleep sack after I nurse him so I'm not nursing to sleep. He goes down awake. 8. Did you keep MOTN feedings? How many? Yes. For the first two weeks, he was still doing 2 MOTN feedings, but he's down to one now. 9. How much crying time, and many nights did it take for it to be "successful"? The first night, he cried for maybe 15-20 minutes when we put him down. He got the falling asleep thing pretty quickly! 10. How did LO's sleep improve? He goes down awake now and we've also been able to put him down earlier successfully. Before we sleep trained, he would not go to sleep before 8 or 8:30 and would often wake back up within 30 minutes of being put down. Now he goes to sleep at 7:15-7:30 every night. We reduced MOTN wakings and he can put himself back to sleep if he does wake up (not to eat). MOTN feedings have shortened in length pretty significantly. And his napping has mostly improved, and we can put him down awake for naps too. (We weren't planning on nap training but it inadvertently worked.) 11. Did it "stick", or did you have to retrain later (if so, when did you have to retrain?) We're only a month in so I can't really answer this one. I agree with previous posters, though, that it's a constant thing - I can totally see how that will be the case. ShootingStar on "Please share your Sleep Training Experiences!" https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/please-share-your-sleep-training-experiences#post-2047542 Fri, 30 Jan 2015 13:28:17 +0000 ShootingStar 2047542@https://boards.hellobee.com/ 1. How old was your baby when you sleep trained? 6.5 months 2. Did you follow any guidelines? (pediatrician's ok? 12 or 13 lbs? 3 or 4+ months?) Nope, we knew he was old enough. He had been sick since before he was 4 months with a really bad cold and then pneumonia so we didn't do it sooner. I think *I* wasn't ready sooner either. 3. Which method did you use? (Gentle/No cry? Ferber or extinction? If Ferber, what time intervals did you use?) We did extinction. I was sure that DS would only get more upset if we checked on him. But we didn't have hours and hours of crying either. Max was maybe 40 minutes? 4. What sleep issues were you trying to resolve? (falling asleep, staying asleep? reduce MOTN wakeups?) All of the above. He needed help falling asleep, staying asleep and stopping the cycle of wakeups every 2 hours. 5. Did you get rid of sleep props in advance, or ripped off the bandaid at once? (pacifier? swaddle?) He had pretty much grown out of needing the swaddle. We were still using it around 6m but he'd stretch them out and get his hands free and it didn't seem to bother him. We tried to get rid of the pacifier and failed. I think because they were giving it to him at daycare. That's my one sleep training regret - I wish we'd successfully gotten rid of it. 6. Was LO swaddled, in a sleep sack, or Merlin suit, or other? Nope. Tried Merlin suit around 4 month and it did nothing for us. 7. Did you nurse/bottle feed as part of your bedtime routine? We switched it around so nursing/bottle was at the beginning of the routine. So we did nurse/bottle, bath, pjs, story, crib. 8. Did you keep MOTN feedings? How many? Sort of yes, sort of no. When we sleep trained we also amped up his solids and I had to wean (for various reasons) so we switched to formula and he started drinking more. We also implemented a 10 minute rule for MOTN wakeups. He naturally started dropping feedings, I think from being fuller, and also learned to string his sleep cycles together. And many times when he woke up he'd cry for about 7 minutes and then fall asleep. In the beginning if he cried more than the 10 minute wait time we fed him. But as he went longer and longer stretches we wouldn't let him go backwards. So when he was sleeping until 3am, if he woke at 1am I wouldn't feed him. We only had a real CIO MOTN waking 2, maybe 3 times max. 9. How much crying time, and many nights did it take for it to be "successful"? It took a while and was a lot of back and forth. Probably 2-3 weeks. We got to a point where he was sleeping really well but the initial going to bed phase had a lot of crying, and that's when the pacifier got reintroduced. 10. How did LO's sleep improve? 1000x better. He sleeps 11-12 hours straight almost every night. I can even put him down in the crib with little to no crying, or rock him to sleep and he still sleeps great. Every so often has 1 wake up and usually we give him the paci and he's fine. If he won't settle down it's generally teething pain and we do ibuprofen. 11. Did it "stick", or did you have to retrain later (if so, when did you have to retrain?) Yes, it stuck. But I agree with a previous poster, the guidelines you put in place should just be the new normal. We are at a point now though where if he wakes up I can go to him and give him the paci and I know it won't start a bad cycle. BabyBoecksMom on "Please share your Sleep Training Experiences!" https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/please-share-your-sleep-training-experiences#post-2047524 Fri, 30 Jan 2015 13:19:47 +0000 BabyBoecksMom 2047524@https://boards.hellobee.com/ Let me preface this by saying that sleep training worked great for my first daughter, but it does not work on my youngest, so it doesn't always work on every child. Also, I have a problem letting my child cry more than 30 min, so the Ferber method never sat well with me. But, I have found that every child will learn to sleep on their own, given enough time. Even after sleep training, my oldest still woke once a night most nights until she was over a year old. We're at 10 months with my 2nd and she's just now down to waking once a night. 1. How old was your baby when you sleep trained? 7 months (both times) 2. Did you follow any guidelines? (pediatrician's ok? 12 or 13 lbs? 3 or 4+ months?) 3. Which method did you use? (Gentle/No cry? Ferber or extinction? If Ferber, what time intervals did you use?) 4. What sleep issues were you trying to resolve? (falling asleep, staying asleep? reduce MOTN wakeups?) 5. Did you get rid of sleep props in advance, or ripped off the bandaid at once? (pacifier? swaddle?) We left the sleep props because that is what soothed her. We felt that the whole point of sleep training was to teach them to soothe themselves, but they still needed an object of comfort during that time. 6. Was LO swaddled, in a sleep sack, or Merlin suit, or other? No - I felt they needed to have their hands free so they could put the paci back in. 7. Did you nurse/bottle feed as part of your bedtime routine? Yes, nurse to sleep 8. Did you keep MOTN feedings? How many? We would feed it had been 4+ hours since the last feeding. 9. How much crying time, and many nights did it take for it to be "successful"? 1 night of real crying and only 5 min of crying the next night 10. How did LO's sleep improve? Went from 4 wakeups to 1. 11. Did it "stick", or did you have to retrain later (if so, when did you have to retrain?) After illness or big disruptions of schedule, we would have to retrain, but it wasn't as bad. blackbird on "Please share your Sleep Training Experiences!" https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/please-share-your-sleep-training-experiences#post-2047499 Fri, 30 Jan 2015 13:04:43 +0000 blackbird 2047499@https://boards.hellobee.com/ 1. How old was your baby when you sleep trained? 5 months, 3 weeks 2. Did you follow any guidelines? I was fucking exhausted, that's all 3. Which method did you use? (Gentle/No cry? Ferber or extinction? If Ferber, what time intervals did you use?) We tried timed intervals, they just pissed her off. So we did extinction. First night=20 min of crying. She woke up a lot. Took about a week to totally adjust, btw. 4. What sleep issues were you trying to resolve? (falling asleep, staying asleep? reduce MOTN wakeups?) MOTN wake ups every time she startled herself. I wanted her to self soothe and do it herself. 5. Did you get rid of sleep props in advance, or ripped off the bandaid at once? (pacifier? swaddle?) No. Taking away the swaddle sort of coincided, though. She was moving in it too much but wanted it to sleep and she just needed to do it without it. I gave her a pacifier (wubbanub) as her sleep prop. Sleep train with a lovey. Always always always. 6. Was LO swaddled, in a sleep sack, or Merlin suit, or other? Sleep sack 7. Did you nurse/bottle feed as part of your bedtime routine? She got a bottle before bed. 8. Did you keep MOTN feedings? How many? No. She had started randomly dropping them here and there around 5 months. 9. How much crying time, and many nights did it take for it to be "successful"? 20 min to fall asleep the first night. She went from hysterics to just...OUT. Cold. I remember the first two nights weren't bad. We regressed on the third, I think. Which people here told me was normal. By a week in, she was STTN totally solid, with hardly any tears. But as a toddler, she'll still cry now and then so it sort of didn't bother me. She seemed to cry b/c she was tired or just had some spent up energy and didn't know how to expel it. I adopted the mantra that crying doesn't always mean they're upset, heh. 10. How did LO's sleep improve? See above. There were rainbows and unicorns abound. 11. Did it "stick", or did you have to retrain later (if so, when did you have to retrain?) We had a nasty regression around 18 months for 6 weeks that we had to ride out. She had a really bad ear infection last month and we had to re-train one night. That's it. Otherwise, she's had off nights here and there but i have never had to officially say "damn, we need to re sleep-train E" except for after the ear infection (she got in the habit of sleeping with us or on us, which, ok, she was sick...but then she wasn't and she still wanted that! And pregnant mommy says no way jose) BadgerMom on "Please share your Sleep Training Experiences!" https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/please-share-your-sleep-training-experiences#post-2047495 Fri, 30 Jan 2015 13:04:07 +0000 BadgerMom 2047495@https://boards.hellobee.com/ 1. 5.5 months 2. Went with the ideal time according to Mrs. Bee's post on "Bed Timing," but ultimately the transition out of the swaddle was the kicker. 3. Extinction 4. Falling asleep, and dropping a 5:00am wakeup that was new. 5. Yep. LO started rolling in the swaddle so we had to drop that. We also decided to ditch the pacifier for sleep at that time because it was becoming almost a game. 6. Merlin suit - Loved that thing! 7. Yep, Nurse and a top off bottle as last part of routine. 8. LO had pretty much dropped all feedings at that point. He still had a 6-7am wakeup and feed that we kept because it allowed him to go back to sleep for another 1-2 hours. 9. A couple minutes, it went wayyyyy better than we anticipated. The 5am wakeup was a little harder, he probably cried a couple days for maybe 1/2 hour max. 10. His sleep was good to begin with, it just made it a lot easier to put him down at bedtime and after his early morning feed. 11. This questions kind of baffles me. We still occasionally have good nights and bad nights, so I feel like once you CIO, you are always crying it out. We didn't just stop with the method after the three days.Sometimes (a couple times a week max) LO fusses going to sleep, but we just don't go to him anymore, and it never lasts more than 15 mins before he falls asleep. But we're going on vacation here shortly and sharing a room, so I could see where that could totally derail things and we'd have to retrain in earnest. sunny on "Please share your Sleep Training Experiences!" https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/please-share-your-sleep-training-experiences#post-2047454 Fri, 30 Jan 2015 12:52:34 +0000 sunny 2047454@https://boards.hellobee.com/ 1. 16 weeks 2. Pedi told us it was a good time to do it 3. Extinction. Our LO is the type to get mad if we came in the room and tried to calm her down but not pick her up. 4. Falling asleep without BF, staying asleep without BF 5. We weren't using any sleep props. LO didn't like the paci or swaddles. 6. Sleep sack 7. Bottle fed as part of nighttime routine 8. Yup. She usually went to bed around 7:30-8pm and she would wake up around 2am and I would bring her to bed with me and we co-slept the rest of the night, usually with her BF. 9. First night was a full hour of crying. By the end of the first week, we were down to 5-10 min of crying. It took a long time before she was down to 30 seconds of crying. Then again, a long while before she was happy to just go to bed with a smile on her face. 10. TONS!!!! LO would not sleep without being on the boob and next to me. After training, she learned to fall asleep on her own and stay asleep. Gradually she slept through the night and didn't wake up until 6am. 11. My friend told me to think of it as constant training and I think she is right. You just have to stick with it. GOOD LUCK!!! :) BabyTsMom on "Please share your Sleep Training Experiences!" https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/please-share-your-sleep-training-experiences#post-2047427 Fri, 30 Jan 2015 12:42:27 +0000 BabyTsMom 2047427@https://boards.hellobee.com/ 1. 3.5 months 2. No (?). Only that he was out of the swaddle so he could learn to self soothe 3. Modified Ferber. Checks at 7, 10, 15 min or something like that. I can't remember! but it was definitely longer stretches than Ferber's. 4. Just to fall asleep. We did not train for motn. 5. swaddle weaned a couple of weeks prior. 6. Sleep sack. (although we did end up using a Merlin a couple of months later). 7. yes 8. yes. he was getting up once by then. 9. 40 min for night one. much much shorter for nights two and three. 10. He was already a good sleeper but needed to learn to fall asleep on his own. 11. so far, yes. at 8 mo. we haven't had to retrain yet. Meridian on "Please share your Sleep Training Experiences!" https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/please-share-your-sleep-training-experiences#post-2047397 Fri, 30 Jan 2015 12:28:00 +0000 Meridian 2047397@https://boards.hellobee.com/ I'm gathering as much info as possible before we start sleep training in 3 - 4 weeks (when LO is about 18-19 weeks/13-14 weeks adjusted) and would love to read about your experiences! Our biggest struggle is bedtime, which leads to 2 - 3 hours of crying. I'm thinking of going the Ferber route (but only read the Weissbluth book so far). 1. How old was your baby when you sleep trained? 2. Did you follow any guidelines? (pediatrician's ok? 12 or 13 lbs? 3 or 4+ months?) 3. Which method did you use? (Gentle/No cry? Ferber or extinction? If Ferber, what time intervals did you use?) 4. What sleep issues were you trying to resolve? (falling asleep, staying asleep? reduce MOTN wakeups?) 5. Did you get rid of sleep props in advance, or ripped off the bandaid at once? (pacifier? swaddle?) 6. Was LO swaddled, in a sleep sack, or Merlin suit, or other? 7. Did you nurse/bottle feed as part of your bedtime routine? 8. Did you keep MOTN feedings? How many? 9. How much crying time, and many nights did it take for it to be "successful"? 10. How did LO's sleep improve? 11. Did it "stick", or did you have to retrain later (if so, when did you have to retrain?)