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My son was older but we had a failed attempt that led us to discover something other than just bad habits was going on.

we tried to sleep train my son at around 7-8 months and it didn't work. We discovered around that time that for some reason he was only getting about an ounce or two every time he breastfed. His weight fell off his curve a little bit, and we did a couple feeds where I weighed him before and after.
gfvAQIt was kind of a chicken or the egg situation, but he was waking up because he was hungry. Still don't really know what happened with my milk, but whatever. We started giving him a bottle of formula before bed at around 8 months and it improved his sleep but didn't fix it. Finally at around 10-11 months we did full extinction, it took 2 nights and he has been sleeping through the night ever since.

For us, we weren't sleep training to eliminate feedings (although that occurred), we were sleep training because our son couldn't fall asleep on his own. This resulted in his inability to link sleep cycles without our help. He would wake up not in the exact state where he had fallen asleep and would be flat out livid. I remember reading somewhere someone describing it as it being the equivalent of you falling asleep in your bed and waking up on the front lawn naked.

The bad sleep habits was evident as when he woke up and I would feed him he wasn't eating a lot, he would eat a little then just fall asleep nursing.

We sleep trained and have no regrets. We actually were considerably better with sleep habits with our daughter and never had to sleep train her (thus far).

Also, my son didn't have reflux but he spit up tons. Like we would feed him with a towel covering us. Our doctor really drilled in that spit up looks bigger than it is and that if he was gaining enough we didn't need to worry about "lost calories." She actually had us spill an ounce of milk on the counter and see how much it looked like. If you are concerned, though, I would tank him up more in the evening.

Also, my daughter had horrible eczema so solidarity! We finally found a combination that worked (as well as found out she has allergies), but it was so annoying.

You know, I would deal with bedtime first. Don’t worry about the MOTN wakings for now. That way you can ignore the reflux/hunger issue. As for the eczema, do you think he’s uncomfortable? Is he scratching, does he seem to sleep less during a flareup? Does Aquaphor sooth it at all? I was more bothered by the eczema than my son was, so I’d look closely to see if there are any signs of discomfort. Anyways, you never said what the bedtime routine is. If you are nursing or rocking to sleep and it’s not really working anymore (because it’s taking forever), then it’s probably time for a change. If you can get him to fall asleep by himself at bedtime, for some kids, it fixes the other schnenegans without having to do much else.

We sleep trained much older (19 or 20 months) but it was life-changing for us. I wish we'd done it sooner. I was confident, though, that it was all about sleep issues because we had employed too many sleep crutches. I nursed to sleep until 18ish months when he weaned himself from the bedtime feeding. We didn't really know what to do, so we started rubbing his back so he'd go to sleep. When that stopped working it was just time to rip off the bandaid. And it worked within three days. He also started sleeping much later in the morning, when previously he'd be waking by 5:30 or 6 every day, sometimes earlier. I think I'd want to be totally sure that it wasn't some other issue, though, and it sounds like you aren't super confident?

Commenting to follow.

DS is four months next week. I'm assuming we're dealing with the standard regression?

He was going down fine with minimal help and only waking twice.

Now he's taking longer to settle (is either wide awake or overtired...rarely in between... even though "bedtime" hasn't changed) and is sometimes waking four times at night. Last night his middle two wake ups were only an hour apart.

I really don't think he's hungry (he's eating more/great during the day!), but a bottle seems to be the only thing that soothes him. After an ounce/ounce and a half, he's back asleep.

I could deal with four wakings if it was *just* four wakings, but there's usually a couple bouts of fussing first and trying to figure out if he'll get through it (usually no), if a pacifier or patting will prolong the full wake up (sometimes by 20 minutes or so) or if he's on the verge of full on losing it.

DH helps with the actual feedings, but because DS sleeps by me, I deal with all the soothing that happens before we give in and feed him. So tired!

Read the book Precious Little Sleep. It uses the Ferber method essentially but with a lot of easy to follow direction and explanation to maximize your chance of success. And it recommends just doing Ferber for initial falling asleep, separating that entirely from the process of night-weaning (eliminating MOTN feeds) - there's a chapter on that which is a totally different and less harsh process than CIO.

To answer your question, sleep training is absolutely amazing. It's horrible while you're going through it but the results are a dream come true. You get your evenings back.

@periwinklebee: what is your schedule like? As in, what is the time between waking from his last nap and bedtime? Have I posted the rough schedule I use? (Granted I think I recall that your kiddo is in daycare so it might be a bit harder to control but maybe on the weekend you can test it). It might be reallly hard to get an overtired baby to learn to settle himself if you’ve missed that ideal window to put him to sleep. For us it’s early, like 6-630 pm or sometimes earlier depending on when the last nap was

When DS was a baby his sleep was awful. I think the first 7ish months of his life he woke up every two hours overnight. He was also sick ALL the time, including two bouts of pneumonia and norovirus.

Suddenly at 7m he was healthy and one night he woke up 20 minutes after we put him down and we just let him cry it out.

Over the next few days I let him CIO to fall asleep but fed him when he woke up. He started sleeping longer stretches so I’d use his wake up times as the new benchmark. So if he slept until 1am one night, that would be the goal for the next night. If he woke up any time before 1 the next night I’d let him cry for a few minutes to see if he’d settle. I think the recommendations are 10-15 based on age, but usually at the 7 minute mark he’d go back to sleep.

We went on this way and a couple weeks later he was sleeping like a champ. And with just a few rare exceptions, he has ever since and he’s almost 5.

Ferber REALLY worked for us. I know it doesn't work for everyone though. LO is now 9mo and is super flexible, falls asleep on his own and loves his crib. We sleep-trained around 5 months. By "sleep-trained," I mean simply learning to fall asleep on his own. That was life-changing. It was a hellish 1-2 weeks while he learned, but after that has been a breeze.

Forced night-weaning did not (and still doesn't) work for LO. After he was able to fall asleep on his own, we attempted to let him CIO in MOTN wakings. It was a disaster. He would cry for 1-2 hours. It was torture. If he wakes up in the MOTN crying, 99% of the time, he needs to eat. Then goes right back to sleep. He STTN 75% of the time, but occasionally will still have a bottle around 4am.

@looch: good points.
And for max awake time, I think our babies are similarly aged - mine was 4 months yesterday - he still can’t do more than like 1h-1h15min awake. Which I think is less than the charts say, but all babies are diffrent! We always take him back to his room at the one hour mark and change, sleep sack/swaddle, lights out. He’s asleep within 15 mins MOST of the time (I’d say 80% or more).
So if the max wake time they can do is even 90 mins, you should put them in at the 1h15min mark so you avoid ovettirdness. It gives them a chance to settle and fall asleep pefore that adrenaline rush kicks in. It’s amaxing what a diff a few mins can make in their little bodies!
I say this becuase that might be wayyyy less awake time than your baby is doing so it could be worth trying. It might take a few times before he doesn’t protest but I swear it’s like night and day, putting them down at the ideal time vs overtired. We were doing 90 mins up until maybe 3-4 weeks ago because that seemed reasonable for his age but naps were kind of a crap shoot. Shortening wake time plus blacking out his room with garbage bags made a drastic improvement.

I know this post is now a few weeks old so hopefully you've figured it out! But since looking through this post was helpful to me, wanted to share our sleep training experience.

My LO is 4.5 months now, was sleeping well with usually only one wake up to eat starting just before 3 months until she was just over 4 months. During this time, we also struggled with getting her to eat enough during the day but that gradually got better by 4 months.

At our 4 month well visit, the ped said we could sleep train her if we wanted to and eliminate the night feed, even though she wasn't always getting 24 ounces a day (she is FF) during the day and was only 12 pounds, because babies adjust to the elimination of the MOTN feed by eating more during the day within a few days. He said babies generally do not wake from hunger, they just eat because they are awake (kind of like adults)! Our LO also has mild reflux-she's generally a happy spitter and the doc reiterated that spit up always looks like more than it is and does not mean you need to feed her more because of the spit up.

We weren't planning to sleep train right then because one wake up was ok with us, but following week she went through the 4 month regression and started waking 4 times! She was wearing the Merlin sleep suit when we trained her. Here is what we did based on a close friend who is a sleep coach's advice:

-CIO because she says (and made sense to us) Ferber and checks make it all take longer which isn't great for baby or parent. In general, checks are for parents not baby.
-Night 1-cried 35 mins at 10pm, 20 mins at 2am, and 10 mins at 4 and 5.
-Night 2: Cried 30 mins off and on at 4am, but not really distressing cries, more like whining
-Night 3: Wake up 3am and cried for 10 mins
After this, she didn't really wke up for more than a minute once or twice a night and didn't cry-just whimpered a bit and went back to sleep.

We had a blissful week of STTN, and then she learned to roll and is obsessed with it. She keeps waking herself by rolling and then cries because she can't get comfortable. We were told to just ride this out. The first night she was up for an hour, but the past couple of nights only a few minutes a few times. She doesn't want us to help her so we just leave her.

All that said, I am a big proponent of sleep training. It really wasn't traumatizing or sad ( I know we got lucky that she didn't cry for hours), and we felt like we were teaching her a big part of being a functional person and making all of our lives better. She goes to bed by 7 and is usually up at 6/6:30 but has been having some early wake ups, which is apparently normal when they start STTN. We don't get her up until 5:30 even if she wakes before then.

Sorry for the novel but hopefully this helps!