Hellobee Boards

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!!!

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)

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.

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.