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What does your LOs sleep schedule look like? Start with waking for the day to naps to bedtime. And include any routines (bedtime routine for example, where he sleeps for naps and nighttime, etc). That will help a lot of people to weigh in I think.

It sounds like you're more concerned with falling asleep on his own vs eliminating night wakings? Or do you want to do both?

We sleep trained at 4.5-ish months at the urging of our pediatrician. But that was to eliminate night wakings and wean night feeding. We followed the basic structure of 12 Hours by 12 Weeks, with some modifications of our own. It works to stretch time between night feedings and then eventually drop the remaining feed by reducing the bottle/feed little by little. Then when it's done if they are still waking, CIO. We went for full extinction because we felt it would be most effective for our son's (and our) personality.

As far as when to do it, that's more of a parenting style choice VS a right/wrong answer. Some on here will say that 3/4 months is way too young, but others will say their pediatrician said 4 months is just right. For me, I wanted to do it as early as possible for 1) a happy baby (mine likes sleep and needs a lot), 2) time to ourselves in the evening (a nice predictable block) 3) sleep for myself (my mental and emotional health was severe). I'm also more of a Babywise/Weissbluth/schedule-driven mom, whereas some want to let the baby lead the schedule. Which is fine, different strokes for different folks! I think you'll get the same range of answers here as you've seen elsewhere, so you just have to decide what works for you.

@LTCBQE: just had a very positive sleep training experience at 4/5 months. Maybe she can chime in.

We did sleep training with B at 5 months, because he was waking up every 90 minutes and wouldn't go to sleep without nursing. We did what was basically cry it out, but with a parent in the room. The first night we put him in his crib and whenever he cried my husband (sitting in a chair out of sight) would verbally soothe him. The next night he just shushed him whenever he cried. The third night he just shushed intermittently. After that we were supposed to just put him in the crib and leave but we actually stuck with the intermittent shushing until he fell asleep for a while. I dream fed him at 10 and would also go in and feed him if he woke up after 4am. It worked great and within a few days he was sleeping 12 hours, but those few days were rough.

W was a much easier baby. I think it helped that I never nursed him to sleep. I rocked him to sleep after his routine until about 7 months and then one day just put him down in his crib instead and he went to sleep on his own, and has every since.

@Goldengirl: huge thread you can read if interested about our sleep training experience below we just did full extinction--so CIO, no checks--at 4.5 months. Sounds like we have different issues though: our baby was already going to sleep on his own (we were able to do drowsy but awake with no props starting at 6~weeks). We did extinction only to drop night feedings because I was back at work and totally fried. I focused on making sure he was getting *tons* to eat during the day so he wouldn't be hungry and suddenly without 1/3 of his calorie intake at night, and it was a very rough couple of weeks of going back and forth between great nights where he slept soundly for 12 hours, and horrible nights where he cried for what felt like forever. It seems to us that his temperament has really improved since we did it though! He's so, so cheerful and giggly for the past few weeks, everyone has noticed. And I'm no longer a train wreck and chronic grouch

http://boards.hellobee.com/topic/dropping-night-feedings-with-cio-terrible-idea/page/2#post-2680086

We did sleep training at 6 months, after 2.5 months of pure hell on the sleep front and my realization that my daughter was actually trying to kill me with sleep deprivation. We did a modified ferber method (we did the 5, 10, 15 min check thing-- but we didn't increase the time night after night). It did work wonderfully. First night sucked. Second night sucked slightly less. Third night was hell on earth and she cried on/off all night. Fourth night was almost fine. By the end of the first week I think she either wasn't crying at all at set down or for like, less than a min or two.

We did not sleep train for overnights at the same time, we only sleep trained for falling asleep initially. But she did wake far less at that point overnight.

@Goldengirl: I guess it depends what your resources are. Some would say it's too early. But many reputable pediatricians and sleep specialists like Weissbluth (and my pediatrician, who actually does infant sleep seminars in my city) say it's fine and even optimal at 4 months (assuming growth and overall health are on track). I didn't even inquire about it, so I wasnt pushing for it, she just said at his well visit that he definitely didn't need to eat at night at that point and I could/should wean him off. I was tired, so I did I have a hard time believing a pediatrician would tell me to do something harmful to my baby.

I can't say whether cio works or not if they are hungry. But a theory is that many babies start waking more out of habit than hunger after a certain point. And they feed more for comfort than necessity. If they can't get themselves to sleep at the beginning of the night, then they will also need help when they wake during the night. So weaning and CIO help to break the habit. I once read that they may feel hunger when they wake up but it's not hunger waking them up. For example, as an adult if I wake up for a random reason at 3am, I may feel hunger pangs because I haven't eaten for 8 hours. But I know that it's the middle of the night and it's time to sleep, so I roll back over and go to sleep. I read that this is the same comparison - the baby wakes out of habit (or even just because we are naturally always going in and out of sleep) and 1) can't put them self to sleep and 2) feel a hunger pangs and don't know that it's not time to eat it's time to sleep. That's where weaning and cio help. And you may find that just teaching the baby to fall asleep on his own at naps and bedtime will eliminate some night wakings.

But anyway. Not trying to persuade, Just explaining my understanding and personal beliefs on the matter since you asked a question about the age appropriateness. Like I said, everyone is different and that's ok.

@Goldengirl: I had heard everything you just mentioned, too--but only anecdotally, and like SweetiePie, my pediatrician was totally resolute that night weaning at that age was fine health-wise, and recommended that we do exactly what we did at the 4-month visit--all the same info she wrote above, that the baby didn't *need* to eat at that time, he just was in the habit of doing so. So I made absolutely sure he was getting his full amount of milk during the day, and after a few shitty nights the hunger issue kinda/mostly resolved. The doctor didn't pressure us, she said if I wanted to keep getting up 2-3x a night for the next few months I was welcome to--but I really wanted to try because I was at breaking point. So it's just one of those things you have to feel out for you and your boo; I don't think there's a wrong answer.

Also, another reason I did full extinction: a few weeks before we had already tried dropping one of the night feedings by pushing it back, then forward, and was a huge failure, it just made the baby more upset. And we tried doing ferber checks a few times and that also just made him more frantic. I knew lots of people that ferber worked for, though--just depends on personalities

@Goldengirl: I did. At that point I could definitely tell a difference between her "I'm mad" cry and her "I'm panicking/hurt" cry. If she had sounded like she was hurt I would have gone in there. I also have a video monitor and being able to look at her helped immensely.

@Goldengirl: We sleep trained at 4 months out of necessity because she refused to fall alseep while being rocked or nursed etc. We used Ferber and I found it difficult (for me lol) because obviously you don't want them to cry. My SO was awesome and really reassured me that since she was crying when we were trying to rock her there wasn't really much difference. The first couple nights we shortened up the check intervals for my own comfort so I think we did 2 min then 5 min then 8 min. We alway used the same phrase when we went in to do a check "it's sleep time, mama/baba is here". She would cry a bit louder after each check but generally only need 2 checks before falling asleep. We kept one night feed until 9 months when we did some light training to get her to 7am.

I would also recommend white noise and very consistent sleep cues. We stated this when we trained and still do the same routine before naps and bedtime now at 21 months. Diaper change, rock and sing one song, turn on white noise and put her in the crib. Tell her it's sleep time and leave. Before bed we do a bath but otherwise the routine is exactly the same.

Good luck, I know how hard it is but she was such a different baby after we sleep trained that I am so glad we did it.

-Did you do formal sleep training or did your LO figure it out on their own? Yes. I think it's rare for any child to figure it out on their own prior to 9-12 months.

-What type of sleep training did you do, and when did you do it? CIO at 4 months (I think... it might have been 5 months). Checks angered him so we stopped. We only did for night time sleep, not naps.

-Did it work? It was magical and life changing. It took 3 nights of Hell, but after that he could put himself to sleep. I will say we were sleep training because he was unable to fall asleep on his own (and our tricks had stopped working), he had actually been STTN since 10 weeks.

A bonus of sleep training that we didn't think of was that after that literally anyone could put him to sleep if they did his routine. We were finally able to get babysitters and have a life again.

Hopefully @jape14: will chime in too - she's the Ferber expert and ranks sleep training her son among the top 3 best things she's ever done in her life.

I am what I consider a sleep training drop out. We tried to do timed checks at night, but during the day, I wasn't following the plan and undoing the training my husband was attempting at night.

Are you keeping a log of wake times and how log your child is sleeping? I think you might also want to read up a bit on tired cues, and get familiar with when you've missed the sleep window. You wrote that your child needs to be really tired to fall asleep, but according to a lot of experts on the subject, you're way too late, and that could be the cause of your issues.

@mrswin: @jape14: Amen to sleep cues/routine.
Once we used the sleep sack over and over and the sound machine, he instantly got heavy eyes when he heard the zip of the sleep sack and sound machine. He still does to this day at 2.5-ish.

Our routine at that age, if it helps:
- bath with lullaby prayers
- turn on sound machine in his room
- book while he dried off and got warm
- lotion
- diaper
- PJs
- zip up sleep sack (for short while was Merlin)
- lights off
- rocking with bottle (he never fell asleep feeding, so I was ok with this being the last step. And it was easy to stop when we needed to. He was still drowsy but awake especialy after burping).
- in crib

ETA: nap routine is the same minus bath and drying off, obviously.

We did extinction CIO with DS1 at 13-14 weeks and did both naps and bedtime at once (we started trying gentler methods at 12 weeks and escalated to extinction over time). DS1 had 3 bad nights of crying and then was fine after that. Naps took a bit longer - like a week or two. But as the night sleep got organized and his awful sleep deficit started to get dealt with (he was an extremely colicky and refluxy newborn) he started sleeping a TON because he was just so so so tired from months of no rest. Like he went from sleeping maybe 8 hours broken up in a 24 hour period to like 17 hours or more. DS2 we started letting him fuss before all his naps for up to 10 minutes beginning at 3 weeks old so we never really had to do CIO. But we were immune to letting our newborn fuss a little after the hell that was our firstborn, LOL. DS2 did well with coming in for comforting either after the first 10 minutes or midnap - he would calm down and could go to sleep on his own. DS1 would become a psychopath if you came back in and then left - he'd get excited and think it was play time and then freak out when you left.

For us the foundation to both boys sleeping was a schedule - it provided a lot of consistency for everyone. We had a daily waketime of 730am and bedtime was 12 hours later. We did eat play sleep and fed every 3 hours the first 3 months and it slowly extended as they stayed awake longer. (DS1 never jived with the schedule until he was sleeptrained but it gave us a way to organize his chaos on a daily basis). We prioritized their schedule over everything. We also had a sleep routine that was short and predictable (2 songs and a prayer, sleepsack, white noise, dark room). Bedtime was the same but with a bath beforehand. Once we reliably saw a 5-6 hour stretch after bedtime (so I'd be waking at 130am and 430am for feedings) we instituted a dreamfeed at 1030pm before we went to bed to push that first stretch so I only had one MOTN waking. Once they were waking at 530am or 6am I'd work on getting them to eat a little more during the day at each feeding and that would get them to STTN til 730am pretty quickly.

By 4 months both boys who are wildly different were on 3 long naps plus a 30-45 minute evening catnap. DS1 was sleeping from a 1030pm dreamfeed to 730am at that age and DS2 was going 12 hours by this age.

My order of priority for baby sleep is:

Baby sleeps when they should
For as long as they should
Where they should

So that daily waketime and bedtime and nailing down when their naps should be (figuring out sleepy cues and the right amount of awake time) was my first priority. At 11-12 weeks my boys were at 60-75 minutes of awake time including feedings before needing to go down for naps.

Then it was getting them to sleep as long as they should. So if I'm trying to get 90-120 min naps out of them, I will do what it takes to get them to extend those naps, whether it's checks or patting or CIO - whatever works for your kid. Even if you have to hold them in a dark room for half the nap. If it's nighttime and I know they can sleep a little longer than 3 hours for that first stretch and they are fussing I will wait to go in for a few minutes or try a paci and shushing and try to extend that stretch.

I always try to get my kids to sleep on their own. RNP by the bed as newborns then bassinet or PNP and then crib in their own room by 6 weeks. So we always start all sleep in their own space, let them fuss, and then comfort or hold or whatever. If we have to shush or hold them back to sleep, we always try to put them right back down. But once I know they can sleep for a nap or a 4 hour stretch on their own I work on that independent sleeping more hardcore and let them fuss a bit more if necessary.

As you can see it's a lot of work. I'm not really getting any more sleep or rest when this is happening. I'm constantly watching and listening to my kids on the monitor and trying to troubleshoot what's wrong. Leaps and regressions and teething happens so you wonder if you're wasting your time. It's HARD to force yourself and your baby to wake up at 730am when you just went back to bed yourself at 6am. It's hard to wake your baby to feed them after you spent 45 minutes getting them to sleep (granted I would give or take 30 minutes on that 3 hour feeding interval). It sucks hard to stay at home constantly to get your baby to nap well those early months. So I totally get it when people say scheduling and sleeptraining are not for them because it's too much work or it's too inflexible.

But even with all the regressions and leaps and illnesses, as soon as they are over, my kids both go right back to sleeping 12 hours a night because we remain consistent. My 29 month old naps 2-3 hours a day and my 9 month old takes two 2 hour naps a day. They could not be more different children, but this works for us and they are super happy and healthy.

I say all this about the hard work because I always always tell people don't sleeptrain if you're not comfortable with it and don't do it if you're not going to be 100% committed and consistent for at least 5 days with whatever method you try. It's just not fair to the kids. Whether you train or not you are going to be staying up and losing sleep and going through hell so just decide in what way you want to lose sleep and don't let anyone talk you into a method you're not comfortable with. Cosleeping and rocking is fine. CIO is fine. Just pick whatever you and your partner feel works for you guys.

@Goldengirl: You're right; we didn't expressly night wean. I personally didn't feel comfortable doing Ferber/CIO for all night feedings that early because my son had reflux that was well-treated on medication, but still seemed to be associated with more frequent and smaller feedings. When they are little and still napping a few times a day, it takes quite a bit of effort to get them to take full feeds during the day. So we worked with our nanny to encourage fuller feeds as opposed to snacking during the day while simultaneously removing the sleep/eat association that seemed to be the actual source of some of the night wakings/feedings. I can't speak to how well CIO/eliminating night feeds to get him to eat during the day better would work -- my sense is that the building blocks of self-soothing/removing the sleep/eat association need to be firmly in place before that would be an effective strategy.

I just looked back at baby connect and it looks like DS dropped down to one night feeding within a week of starting sleep training/Ferber. It also settled to a fairly reasonable time of somewhere in the 2:30-3am hour, which was approximately 8 hours after his last feeding. In other words, it was reasonable for him to potentially be hungry then! Once he showed us he could go until a certain time (I think we picked 2am), I wouldn't feed him before that and we would Ferber as needed (rarely need to, though). So basically, once we made progress (as in, a few nights where he made it that long), we wouldn't go back.

Re: dropping the last feeding, we weaned him off of his reflux meds around the 7.5-8 month mark, and just like with that second night feeding, we found that he started eating more during the day (including solids!) and less at night. Once he went 2-3 nights in a row with no night feedings, it showed to us that he could do it (plus, he woke up hungry and ate really well that day, so the cycle continued) and then we Ferbered very minorly should he wake up after that. I think there were a handful of nights where that was needed and DH was the one to do it. We found that to be a good strategy during this process -- I would only go in if I intended to feed him. If we wanted him to try to go back to sleep, DH would be the one to do checks as necessary.

Also! Caveat that this did not work for us until he was 4 months. I tried cutting out a feeding at 3 months and it flat out did not work.

I sleeptrained my first at 4 months and my second at 3.5 months, both cio. It worked well and they both sleep well still.
Also, when they started sleeping through the night feedings, they started eating more during the day.
Good luck!

We did formal sleep training, following babywise/baby whisperer routine and drousy but awake stuff pretty much from day 1. We'd wake for the day at 6:30 and try to get them down for the "night" at 6:30 pm. This was the most important part to having a predictable schedule and knowing when they were probably hungry and when they were probably tired.
DS1 did a 3 hour schedule easily and we slowly worked toward him putting himself to sleep for naps. Some naps it didn't work so I'd hold him, but we'd always try for the next nap. By 3 months he was putting himself to sleep for naps and night time. He never night weaned, so at 8 months when I was sure he didn't need the night feeding anymore we did CIO to drop the nighttime comfort nursing. We didn't do checks because they made him mad. It worked really well and he went to STTN after that.

DS2 did not take a pacifier and just wanted to be nursed all the time. He did not fall into a 3 hour schedule easily, and I didn't want to force him to go longer than 2 hours if he couldn't do it. I tried to get him to lengthen naps and learn to fall asleep on his own by using Ferber checks. I first tried at 6 weeks out of desperation because nursing to sleep wasn't working anymore and I had a toddler destroying the house while I rocked him. But it wasn't working and then he hit a growth spurt. I tried again at 8 weeks and it just didn't work. At 10 weeks he found his thumb and he started actually going to sleep on his own and sleeping through the night! We did some light sleep training (ferber checks) to get him on a 3 hour schedule then. I haven't had to do anything intense with him at night like I did with DS1 because he did it himself. If he wakes up at night these days (8 months) I know he is hungry.

My take away from two kids is there is no right way to do it. Pick something that works for you and your family. The most important part about any sleep training is that they learn to go to sleep without your help. You can do that at 6 weeks, or 5 months, or let them slowly morph into it when they are 3. But I think most people do sleep training when whatever was working stops working or becomes unlivable. So if you've hit that point at 3 months, it's ok to go ahead and try something and not just wait it out till some magical age range.

@Goldengirl: Yes, we did CIO with no paci. Our routine has evolved a little but what I've found works best is get her in a sleeper and clean diaper, then feed while listening to a specific playlist, then Merlin suit and into the crib with musical seahorse on.

She can have the paci during the day, but every time we slip into using it at night it becomes a disaster.

@Goldengirl: Even if your little guy can't hold the wubanub just yet, I'd still consider giving it to him. It could help him develop that skill. One of the first awesome things I noticed my girl doing was holding her wubanub. It started early and the way she moves it around and looks at it is hilarious and amazing. So even if you guy can't hold it right now, having it available to him may help him do it soon! And I know what you mean about pacifiers maybe being a problem later. (But why? bad teeth? embarrassing for older kid to use it? I know really know.) Pacifiers are encouraged to help prevent SIDS. And my baby really likes them so I just see no reason to cut her off now. Do what works for you!! ETA: 3 months is still so young. you and your little guy will figure it out!

@Goldengirl: I don't mean to make it sound so simple; it's just been a while since I've sleeptrained, so I may be blocking out the frustration and tiredness.
Every baby will be different - even my two took to cio in different ways - and every parent will differ in what they're comfortable doing. I hope you find what works for you and your son.
Also, I do remember naps being a bit harder than nighttime sleep, since there wasn't unlimited time to let them fall asleep. For naps, I used black-out blinds with my first and sound machine with both.