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In general yes. But it likely will not work on a LO as young as yours. If I remember correctly your LO is 5/6 weeks old? He's probably going through a growth spurt and is hungry more frequently. And he's also just still at the age where he wants to be held all the time. So I would say at this point it's probably best to just ride it out. He'll get there.

Curious to hear what people say as I'm struggling with the same thing..

@Modern Daisy: The general rule about baby sleep is it's easiest for them the first part of the night and gets progressively harder as time goes on.. at 7 weeks my LO was up every 1-2 hrs after 3am because it was just too hard for her to connect her sleep cycles at that time of day. I don't think sleep training will fix it, unfortunately, just time. It gets easier as they get older. Even now at 5 months my LO gets up at 4:30-5 some days and won't go back to sleep (I spent 90 mins this morning rocking her til she finally fell back asleep at 6...zzzz..). Have you read troublesometots.com?

ETA: I did a sleep consultation with Isis where she walked me through all this.. she said 4.5-6 months is where the last 3rd of the night gets easier for them. I know this doesn't answer your question though about the first stretch of the night, I'm struggling with that too!

@Modern Daisy: you can try the wake to sleep concept, by the Baby Whisperer. Basically, you rouse them slightly before they start to do it on their own and it reprograms them to extend their cycle.

I have never done it, but considered it when my son decided it was a good idea to wake up for the day at 5:30.

If he's happy to just lay in his crib, I dont see why you couldn't leave him for a bit.

@Modern Daisy: do you mean waking up too early in the mornings (like 530am)? or waking in the MOTN (like 3am) and not being able to go back to sleep? For the first one, he might just be an early bird unfortunately...if it's the MOTN, I would try a swing, a tight swaddle, and loud shushing while rocking--those things helped our LO fall back asleep! But it will get better, hang in there! Could he have gas/be uncomfortable?

I have to agree with others. 7 weeks is pretty early to teach any sleep habits...especially in the early morning hours where it is so hard for babies to settle and learn how to fall back asleep. Sleep is so unpredictable at that age so setting expectations for when / how long he should sleep may not be the most realistic.

I would try the 5 S's and maybe try a swing like @lawbee11 suggested. Do you swaddle and use white noise? Oh, and is he full-out crying and awake at that time? My son used to make dinosaur noises between 4-7am that drove me crazy because he wasn't actually awake...just super fussy.

@Modern Daisy: hi! I just wanted to chime in and say that in my experience I don't think seven weeks is too young, given what you have described about the situation. We started around that time too and it worked for us:) for us, if he was not hungry, wet, or crying too hard, we let him fuss and coo in the crib until his wake time. He usually fell back asleep within 15 min. It was a gradual process though, with ups and downs, but he had his nap schedule down pat and sttn at night around 3 months and hasn't ever woken up at night yet since -- he is now 16 months.

It's possible that he was just a good sleeper and had nothing to do with sleep training, so we will see with LO#2, who is 12 days old so far, so too young still:)

Hope it works out with your LO, whatever you end up deciding to do!

Unfortunately, I waited out the early morning wake-up periods. I've heard from several diff sources, even straight CIO methods that early/motn wake-ups aren't usually conducive to sleep-training...

Agree with @skipper2010: and @lawbee11: about the swing. When DD was that age (back when she used to be a good sleeper!) her typical sleep schedule was 9-5. At 5 I'd bring her downstairs and feed her and then pop her in the swing while I slept on the couch. After awhile I got so used to that schedule that I'd just be up for the day at 5 without any problem.

I think for a 7 week old your LO is doing well. Six to nine weeks is the peak period for fussiness. DD is not a crier at all, but during that time there was a lot of crying for no reason. It does pass though, I promise.

Hang in there, mama. You're doing a great job

@Modern Daisy: my LO is 12 weeks now and she's always been an early bird and gotten up for the day round 5-5:30 am. I guess the difference is she'll wake up happy and smiley and ready to play...although she would definitely cry if we didnt pick her up when she woke up.
We tried for quite some time to get her to go back to sleep but that would just make her hysterical and worked up. So we gave that up and my husband wakes up for the day at that point (because I do the night wakeups) and usually by the time he leaves for work, she's ready for her first nap of the day.

I think 7 weeks is too young for any real sleep training because I don't think it will stick. I'm in a mom's group and some people have been doing scheduling and "training" from the first week home from the hospital and it still seems like the babies are either born good sleepers or they aren't. And all of our LO's, regardless of training, have been sleeping bout the same (maybe just at different times, but similar stretches). Even the ones who let their kids fuss before picking them up--- it might work fr a dayr two, but then a new wonder week or growth spurt will hit and they'll wake up more often again,

The good news is, somewhere between 2-4 months, your LO will naturally start to sleep slightly longer, and I agree with the PPs that those early morning sleep stretches are shortest for pretty much all babies. My LO now sleeps 8 pm- 1 or 2 am (so 5-6 hours), then back until about 5 am, then up for a while from 5-7:30 am and then sleep until 9 am. That's just the schedule her body has naturally made.

You can spend a lot of time fighting it, or just work with it. Personally, I wouldn't consider real sleep training until 3-5 months old.

@hilsy85: Not to threadjack.. but how did you do the second one with sleep training? My LO dropped from 8 hrs stretches to 4-5 hr stretches for her first stretch of the night and I'm dying. If she's waking up at 2 to eat now instead of 4:30, how do I make it go back?? I always try to put her back to sleep with a paci/rocking at 2am and it's never once worked.

@JoJoGirl: we did Ferber with checks at 6.5 months....I added in a bottle of pumped milk before bed so I knew he was really full, and then I set a time (2am) and didn't feed him before that--I would go in at intervals (3 min, 5 min, 7 min) and soothe for 30 seconds, then leave. Around this time we swaddle weaned and introduced a lovey. The whole point is to let them learn to fall asleep on their own, so putting them back to sleep with rocking/shushing is kind of counter productive, because it still creates a sleep crutch, if that makes sense?

It was tough, but by night 3 there was a great improvement!

@hilsy85: Absolutely makes sense. But what if you wanted LO to sleep later than 2am? She goes to bed at 8 and rarely gets up before 2, but at 5 months I feel like her first stretch should be longer than 6 hrs, you know? When it was 8 hrs for a few weeks a month ago?

@hilsy85: That's part of the problem, she often only sleeps another 2 or so hours after her first wakeup, so if it's at 2, she's often up at 4:30/5 for the day If it's 3, sometimes she'll make it to 6. But in general, yes that's her only wakeup. That's why I'm so hesitant to Ferber because it becomes night weaning and I'm not sure she's ready for that...

(Sorry @moderndaisy!!!)

@hilsy85: Hmm. okay thanks. I guess I don't understand the difference between the two