Are you tired? Not sure how to help your kid sleep through the night? Here is my comprehensive guide to sleep training tools and methods to help tired parents and kids sleep better. These sleep training methods will work for infants, toddlers, and through school age.
Free Bonus: I created a guide comparing my favorite sleep training techniques to help you figure out the best method for you and your child. It’s a quick two page PDF you can save and reference later as you try this yourself. Click here to get the guide, free.
So, we’ve covered why fixing your child’s sleep problem is not selfish because it is good for you and for them. I imagine that lots of parents fix their kid’s sleep issues without a lot of difficulty. Then there are the parents who have made it to see me in Sleep Clinic. Generally, these parents have tried and failed to address their child’s sleep problem, for various reasons. Since there is a lot of information to cover, I’m going to break this out into a question and answer format, as I review all of the different effective sleep training methods .
What do you mean by sleep training?
When I refer to sleep training, I’m talking about behavioral (non-medication based treatment) of two common problems, sleep onset association disorder and limit setting disorder. Some kids have a mixture of both.
When should I consider sleep training?
I would wait until a child is at least 6 months of age, although some people have recommended trying it as early as two month of age (note that I don’t endorse this). I actually think that it is a bad idea to start before four months of age, preferably once he is no longer feeding during the night. However, if your child is still feeding multiple times during the night and is over six months of age, that could be part of the problem. If your child has issues such as autism or developmental delay, these techniques will still work but must be applied more slowly.
When should I not start sleep training?
- If you are worried that your child may have a medical problem which is disrupting sleep, please talk to your pediatrician.
- If you want to pursue co-sleeping as a lifestyle, you may find it more difficult to adopt these recommendations, although they can be put into play if you are room or even bedsharing– it is just harder. I believe that cosleeping is associated with worse sleep long term for parent and child. If you are cosleeping and want to stop, here is my guide on how to stop the cosleeping habit.
- If you have a major life event coming up– a move, a visit from the in-laws, a big project do at work.
- If you have major stresses in your that would make embarking on about a week of disruption.
- For more on this, here is a comprehensive guide on when not to sleep train.
My child feeds at night. Is that part of the problem?
It certainly can be. Most formula fed infants are capable of sleeping through the night without feeding by six months of age; this milestone happens later for breast fed infants, probably between 9-12 months of age. Here’s my article on how and when to wean night feeds.
Ok, we’re ready. Whats the first step?
I think the most important thing is taking a hard look at your child’s bedtime ritual. I saw the great Jodi Mindell speak at the 2012 Sleep Meeting here in Boston. (Here’s a question and answer she did on some of these issues at Parents.com). She emphasized that bedtime need to be consistent, positive, and have a clear trajectory. High quality consistent bedtimes are associated with better sleep quality throughout childhood. Here’s a post explaining why this is. Let’s break this out a bit:
- Consistency means bedtime happens about the same time on typical days, and has the same events in the same sequence. A good bedtime for babies and preschoolers through early elementary school age is between 7:30-8:30 PM.
- Bedtime should included enjoyable, positive activities like stories and songs, with the last part occurring where the child sleeps.
- Bedtime should be short and sweet (<45 minutes), with a forward momentum. Meaning that you go to the bathroom, then the bedroom, then lights out. Keep things simple and moving. Don’t move your child towards bed, then away, then towards it again.
- If your child has an aversion to being in their crib or room, it’s important to spend some pleasant, fun time playing there during the day to emphasize that it is a positive place.
In our house, we mark the start of bedtime by going upstairs with the boys between 7-7:15 PM. They brush teeth and bathe every other night. When one or the other attempts a digression (Wrestling! Running around naked! Peeing on the floor!) we firmly redirect them to the task at hand. They get in their pajamas, read stories, sing songs, and go to sleep on their own. If one parent is doing both bedtimes, the older one helps put the younger one to bed. Lights out is by 8:30 PM for the older boy.
When I read The Power of Habit (affiliate link), I found some terrific insights into the importance of bedtime. Remember, the most powerful reinforcer of behavior by your child is positive reinforcement (kind words, contact, affection). This is WAY more effective than, say, sticker charts.
If you are reading this post, you and your child have likely fallen into some bad habits around bedtime (fighting, lying with them until falling asleep, eating a chicken dinner in bed, etc). By establishing a consistent time and pattern of bedtime, you are going to essentially revise these habits so that, with time, your child will actually crave their lovely and predictable bedtime.
If you are working on starting a good bedtime, here’s a video on how to start a good bedtime routine.
We already do all that stuff. Our child still can’t go to sleep without us and wakes up at night!
Here’s where it gets a little bit more complicated, and this is the place where many parents struggle– the realm of traditional sleep training methods. Children who can’t fall asleep on their own and who wake up frequently at night likely have inappropriate sleep onset associations and will require a little bit more intervention. The goal of all of these interventions is the development of the ability to self soothe– specifically, falling asleep solo at night.
There are a couple of evidence-based tools you can use if you put your child in bed and he cries or fusses until you come back into his room:
- Bedtime fading: This strategy involves temporarily moving your child’s bedtime later while teaching him to fall asleep on his own. This can help use your child’s natural sleep drive to make falling asleep easier. Usually I recommend moving the bedtime later by 30-60 minutes depending on prior experience. For example, if the family has previously tried to put their son down and he cried for 45 minutes before they gave up, I will move the bedtime 45 minutes later or more. There is evidence that removing the child from bed if they do not fall asleep after 15-20 minutes then putting them to bed again a few minutes later (a “response cost”) is effective but I think that it is generally too complicated. Once your child can fall asleep within 15 minutes, you can move the bedtime earlier by 15 minutes every two days until you reach the desired bedtime (usually between 7:30-8:30 PM is best). It’s important to avoid letting your child sleep in in the morning or falling asleep in the late afternoon in the stroller or the car, as they will be less tired at bedtime. This is one “gentle” sleep training method.
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- Avoiding “sneaky sleep” in the later afternoon.
- Not allowing your child to sleep much later in the mornings, unless they are getting up at an uncomfortably early hour.
- The “cry it out” approach: The behavioral term for ignoring an undesirable behavior is “extinction”; obviously most parents don’t love the term. There are two ways to do this. Unmodified extinction involves putting your child down at the appointed hour, closing the door, and letting things play out. Many people struggle with this quite a bit. Graduated extinction (also known as the Ferber method), is where you check on your child at set intervals (e.g. 1 minute, 2 minutes, 3 minutes, then every five minutes until they fall asleep). When you check, the interaction should be very brief and without physical contact. Dr. Mindell recommends the script, “It’s night night time. I love you. I’ll see you in the morning”. This method is very effective but can be challenging to carry out. Some children may vomit. If this occurs, I recommend going in, cleaning up the child and bed, and leaving. It feels horrible, but you don’t want to reinforce vomiting as a tool to get what you want. Trust me. With time and experience, I’ve come to believe that this is pretty difficult to implement in children who have moved from a crib to a bed. That being said, I’m a bit fan of CIO for infants. Here’s a comprehensive guide on how to use “cry it out” to sleep train your baby.
- “Camping out” is another evidence based gentle sleep training method consisting of gradually withdrawing your presence from your child’s room at sleep time. It may result in less crying and be a better fit for some families, but takes longer than “cry it out.” This is another way that people use when they performing “gentle” sleep training. Here is a detailed guide on how to perform camping out.
- Remember, when camping out, when your child looks to your for guidance, you have to provide, brief, minimal interactions. It helps to have a script. Look at your child and say, “I love you. It’s time to go to sleep. Good night.” Do this EVERY time.
- Here’s a step by step guide for how close to be to your child, along with a video on how to do this. Each step should be between 1-3 nights. This starts if you are currently rubbing your child’s back to help her fall asleep. You move up the pyramid over time.
- The “excuse me” drill is another gentle sleep training technique where you provide very frequent reassurance at first and withdraw it over time.
- This gentle sleep training method is really for kids who are old enough to talk and have some abstract thinking– imagine age 3 and up. During the excuse me drill, the parent who usually stays with the child until he falls asleep (let’s say Mom in this case), will say, “excuse me, I need to step out and ___________ for a second. I’ll be right back!”. The excuse doesn’t really matter. Here are some suggestions:I need to…
- check the soufflé
- buy a lottery ticket
- practice my breakdancing
- bang out ten pull ups
- (In all seriousness, boring excuses (“I need to check on your brother, take out the trash, etc”) work best
At first you will come back in very frequently– every few seconds on the first night. When you come back, you praise your child for staying in his bed, looking cozy, acting brave, etc. It is OK to touch him. Then you leave after making an excuse and come back a few minutes later. Over several nights, you reduce the frequency of checks. What makes this gentle is that you are not allowing your child to stress or be alone for more than a few seconds at first. The point is that nothing is more reinforcing for a child than parental attention and reassurance. Hopefully, your child will start falling asleep with you out of the room. Coupling this with bedtime fading is a great combination for an older, anxious child, and this has been studied in children with developmental issues (specifically Angelman syndrome) as well. Like all sleep training methods, it should be part of a detailed plan.
- Nursing moms should try to avoid having nursing be the final activity prior to sleep onset. Ideally, the other parent should put the child to bed.
- The binky can be challenging. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends pacifier use up until 6 months as part of a number of interventions to reduce the risk of sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS). In older babies and toddlers you may find yourself replacing it frequently at night. If you are not ready to get rid of it, Dr. Mindell recommends keeping some pacifiers in the corner of the crib. When you put your child to bed, guide their hand to the binky and have her put it in her own mouth. That may help her find it on her own in the middle of the night.
How long will my baby cry during sleep training?
I get asked this question all of the time. Parents are understandably worried about causing their child distress. It’s a terrible feeling when your child is crying even if you know it will help them sleep better long term. Fortunately, a 2018 study looked at real world sleep training and showed that crying peaked on the first day and resolved within a week. Moreover, the parents were really happy with the resulting improvement in their child’s sleep.
In toddlers and older children, you may be able to avoid crying altogether. Adjusting your child’s bedtime and trying techniques detailed below such as camping out or taking a break can work very well. There’s more below, or you can just check out my book.
What do we do if she wakes up at night once we start this?
It’s not working. Help!
The most common reason why you have not been successful is being inconsistent. You need to be almost robotic in executing the same plan every night. Here’s my inventory of the top ten sleep training mistakes.
My child is an older and primarily has issues with bedtime. Any specific tips on working on this?
- Bedtime fading as noted above can be really helpful in this context.
- A bedtime chart showing what is expected of your child every night can be really helpful. Here’s a nice one you can purchase here. Dr. Deborah Gilboa discusses the limitations of sticker charts here.
- One strategy which I love is the bedtime pass. This works like a hall pass. Give it to your child and explain that she can use the pass to come out of the room one time for a curtain call e.g. a glass of water or another trip to the bathroom. After that one instance, she is expected to stay in her room and will be brought immediately back if she comes out. The research on this technique showed that kids tended to hoard the pass and not use it at all. Dr. Greene has a great summary of how to implement this. From Dr. Greene’s site:
So how do you use bedtime passes? Simple.
- Give your child a special card good for one free trip out of their room each night or one visit from a parent – for a brief, acceptable purpose such as a drink and a hug. Many families decorate the cards, often with the child.
- Require the child to get in bed at bedtime, but be sure the free pass is close at hand.
- When the child uses the pass, the card is surrendered for the rest of the night.
- If children leave the room again that night, they are walked back without a word and without eye contact.
- You may need to carry out an extinction strategy which is more challenging to implement in a child in their bed who can easily get out of his bed, and out of his room. I strongly advise against locking children in their room. If your child comes out of his room, take him back to his room with the brief speech noted above (“It’s night night time. I love you. I’ll see you in the morning”.) If he comes out, put him back in his bed and close the door for one minute. If he is not in his bed when you reopen the door, close it for two minutes. Keep increasing the interval until he gets the message that you expect him to be in his bed. Another alternative can be putting a gate or two in the doorway of the room. (The second, higher gate is for kids that can climb).
What else do we need to know to succeed?
- You can carry out these steps gradually. Let’s say your child falls asleep nursing in your lap in the rocking chair. You can stop nursing to sleep for a few nights (often useful to nurse earlier and have the non-nursing parent put the child to sleep), then stop rocking for a few nights, then put your child to sleep drowsy but awake.
- Keep sleep diaries so you can monitor your progress. Here’s the log we use in clinic:PEDIATRIC SLEEP LOG
- Be consistent. Intermittently giving in is a very strong way to reinforce undesirable behavior.
Will my child hate me? Does sleep training hurt my child?
There is no evidence to suggest that sleep training causes any damage to children, and lots of evidence that it helps– that children and adults are both happier and better adjusted after sleep training. This is touched on in the AASM article below. Dr. Mindell noted in her presentation that she is publishing a review of 35 studies which showed no significant evidence of harm. Over at Science Of Mom, there is a great review of this science as well.
There was a great summary published by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine in 2006 which reviews the evidence for all of these recommendations. You can download it here: Practice Parameters for Behavioral Treatment of Bedtime Problems and Night Wakings in Infants and Young Children.
If you are consistent, your child should be sleeping better within a week. Remember, things get a bit worse (the “extinction burst” of worsening behavior) often on the second or third night. Don’t give up!
Interested specifically in sleep training your baby? I wrote an article in the New York Times breaking this down for you.
Parents: please share your experiences in the comment section below. What worked? What didn’t? Are you still struggling with these issues? If you are, let me know and I’ll try to help.
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Hello,
i have 2 boys (5 years and 3.5 years old)
i stay with them in their bed(one on my left and the other on my right arm) till they sleep then i go out, but they wake up at night and want to sleep in parents bed therefore i go to sleep with them in their bed for a moment till they sleep, it’s exhausting because i woke up many times at night(each time with one of them) and i’m very tired during the day at work.
i tried to use the “Camping out” method for the first day i sit on a chair between their two beds giving them some stuffed toys and told them that tonight we will not sleep in the same bed and each one will sleep alone in his bed with his toys after i read some stories, the younger cried for a moment but i started singing until he stopped crying but they didn’t slept without taking my hand but without sleeping on my arm,
is this a good beginning or not?? and what can i do if one of them woke up at night.
hello,
first 3 nights were goo, third night it’s time to move my chair fare in the room and now is the disaster with my 5 years son, he cried very long and shout and start to say :”i don’t love you, you are bad” he couldn’t sleep, at the end he was tired of crying and slept.
what can i do with this, he is making this very hard, the 3 years old boy slept after 10 min without crying.
There is a lot to unpack here. If it is possible to separate them temporarily (e.g. if you have an extra room) that would be helpful. I think it may be a good beginning. You may need to peel out of their room really slowly.
Hi Craig,
My son is 4.5 years old. Although he can sometimes stall a bit, he gets to bed quite nicely by 7pm latest. It’s the right bedtime as sometimes he can hardly make it through dinner with his eyes open. He started kindergarten this year and was previously napping 2 hours a day, so he seems to need lots of sleep. Generally, he sleeps through the night until 6-6:30 and if he gets up to pee, he usually goes and gets back to sleep on his own.
Recently, he went on a trip with his dad to a time zone 3 hours away and I think they either shared a room or a bed while on their trip. Since he came back 3 nights ago, he has been waking up 3 hours after he goes to bed every night, which seems to coincide with the time difference. He then starts crying that he can’t or doesn’t want to sleep and continuously calls for me, finds reasons for me to come (mommy I need you, mommy my tummy hurts, mommy I’m thirsty, mommy I need to pee, mommy I love you, mommy I need a night light, or sometimes mommy please come and sleep with me I don’t want to be alone), then throws a tantrum if I don’t come or if my fiance goes in and tells him to go back to sleep and leaves or even if I go in tell him to sleep and leave without consoling or giving him what he is asking for . My fiance is convinced he is simply looking for attention because he is needy, and feels we should ignore him. He cried for nearly an hour and a half last night. I feel I should go to him and help him calm down and stay for a few minutes to help him get sleepy. My fiance is worried this will lead to continuous waking and demanding my attention in the night, when we had done so well, for so long. My son does tend to be a high attention seeker.
What are your thoughts on these perspectives or another?
thank you,
Jessica
Travel is great for kids but there is no doubt that there is a cost to crossing time zones. I suspect that a firmer approach will get you where you need to be more quickly. You could try something like the “excuse me drill” for the first awakening if you want to be more gentle.
My Daughter is almost 11, and we still have trouble with her sleeping. As a baby she would wake up frequently – We tried every method…she didn’t sleep the full night till she was 5!!! (yes I know – I’m not sure how I survived either!) Now she is almost 11 and we are back to some difficult nights – it seems falling asleep as well as staying asleep are both issues. We have a regular routine, no TV after, no sweets after dinner, dark room. white noise- I have a feeling that it is anxiety. Is it OK to treat with Melatonin just to get over some humps and especially hard nights? All suggestions are welcome!
It may be helpful with falling asleep but doesn’t usually help with sleep maintenance. What you propose sounds reasonable but I would certainly discuss it with her pediatrician. Best of luck.
Hi,
My son turned 2 about 2 months ago. He was never a great sleeper. We got rid of his pacifier and bottle when he turned 2. He willingly goes into his room when it’s bedtime. I lay him down and say good night and walk out. Usually he will then jump and start crying mommy daddy….
He cries and then finally he says I want to go to sleep and wait a for my husband to come in and lay him down. He then usually galls asleep. Most of the nights he wakes up and in will go through the same routine.
Some nights he won’t cry at all going to sleep but will wake up in middle of th e night and a few seldom nights he will sleep through the night.
Is this normal? How do just get him to sleep through the night? I’m expecting our second child in 2 months and am worried about him sleepibg through the night before the baby comes.
Please help!
Thanks
I think there are a lot of different ways to address this issue. I would pick one of the techniques in this article and try them out for a week or so.
Hi Dr Canapari,
My son is 22 months old and is still being nursed to sleep. He self soothed to sleep from the day he was born until he was around 3 months old. I accidentally started feeding him to sleep when he began teething, mistaking his cries for hunger. Since then he has been breastfed to sleep, waking frequently in the night, which resulted in co-sleeping with him to avoid having to get up so often in the night to attend to him. I have recently moved him into his own room and bed which he did not take to very well initially. He wakes up a couple of hours later only to end up in my bed again.
I plan on starting his sleep training soon and wanted some advice on which approach would be best for him. I would like to stop night feeds/wakings (and generally stop breastfeeding him too), have him sleep in his own room and bed and falling asleep himself. I look forward to your response.
Thank you,
Ayesha
Generally, I think that stopping feeding needs to come first.
hello. we would love some advice as we are ready to make some changes and embark on sleep training. Our 22 month old son has a very consistent bed time routine (bath, stories, bottle then into bed at 7pm – still awake) and falls asleep pretty happily between 5-20mins most nights.
Our trouble is he wakes often during the night, up to every 2 hours some nights, for a bottle of water and a cuddle. He then wakes for the day sometime between 5-6am!
We would like to stop the night wakings and the early mornings somehow. what would you suggest? We think dropping the bottles will help as he likes the sucking motion, but we don’t have an idea about the early mornings.
He has quite strong will power and if ever left to cry (as we tried a number of nights ago) cried for over an hour. We have done extinction sleep training in the past but only at bed time. thanks!
It’s worth checking him for a disorder of sleep fragmentation. Talk to your pediatrician about maybe obtaining a sleep study– if he is falling asleep on his own it may not have a behavioral cause. Here’s more info on night-wakings.
My name is Amanda, I am 17 years old, I have a one year old boy who just won’t get the idea that sleep is helpful. I am halfway through my second pregnancy and want to fix my first kiddos sleep problems before I have to deal with the second baby’s.
To start off, Naziah(my sons name), has never been a big fan of sleeping at night. SInce he was a newborn, I have spent many nights (probably 80%) waking up countless times throughout nights, trying to figure out which method worked best. At 4 months old, I went to his pediatrician and asked for some advice. One of the biggest problems I had was moving too much. Shortly after having the baby my mom kicked me out of the house and I stayed in a shelter, moved into an apartment w/ friends, then to husbands grandmas, and then at least 8 other places since. So the constant change in enviornment makes everything much more difficult. But, I have been staying with my sister for about 2 solid months, (which is a pretty large amount of time for me), and I am on the lease so I know I am not going anywhere. Since living here, I have tried to wean Naziah from the bottle at night. I started out with going from 8 oz of formula to 6 oz, then 4 oz. Once I got to 4 oz, I switched to a rubber nipple sippi-cup. It holds up to 5 oz, now that he is off of formula, I have switched him to whole milk. Which I give to him cold because I don’t want him used to a warm serving everytime. But the biggest issue I seem to have lately is that he is staying up more lately, throwing things out of his playpin, and throwing HUGE tantrums.
Here is his USUAL set schedule:
-highchair feeding at 6:30-7 p.m.
-play time for about an hour and a half to two hours
-I set him in the playpin with sippi full of whole milk at about 8:30-9
-cries about 15-20 mins, falls asleep
Usually, this works. However, the past 2 weeks have been hell. He doesn’t want to go to bed, and he usually ran to his bedroom door when I poured his sippi full. Now, he stays up playing, and then I feel like he just fought off any part of sleepiness he might of had. At about 10:30-11, he rubs his eyes and yawns, but still proceeds to play. So, I tried to set him in his playpin with his sippi, and let him work things out for himself. Immediatley, he stands up, throws his sippi across the bedroom, and SCREAMS. Each time I walk out, I say “goodnight, I love you.” But it honestly kills me hearing him scream in the bedroom at night. When he was 4 months old his pediatrician wrote me a perscription to “self soothe”, which in this case meant, having a full tummy and dry diaper, and setting them in the playpin, letting him cry 20 mins max. That took me a few months to get him used to, even then, he still woke up 3-4 times a night for a bottle.
I am at the point of freaking out from stress overload and sleep deprivation. Because when he goes down to bed, that’s my time to do school work, and “unwind”. So what should I do? My husband works graveyard shift so isn’t home through the nights to help out.
Tonight, I tried something new. I noticed the other day he fell asleep perfectly to cartoons. So, I put on a movie a decent volume. He will fuss occasionally, but nothing for me to run in the bedroom for. He still through his sippi, but I noticed he is getting quieter even more and more. Is this a schedule I should be getting myself into???
Please help me!
I think that it is a bad idea to have your child fall asleep to television or electronics, for many reasons. I would sit down with your pediatrician and see if you can put together a comprehensive plan. Best of luck.
Great website Craig! Had never heard about bedtime fading but it kind of naturally happens here because of the toddler we have around. The videos are a great resource in addition!
I started sleep training my almost 6mth old 3 days ago, after several days in which he even cried when I “put” him to sleep in the sling and rocked him for bed time. Better to cry and then sleep in a bed! I had used those things because he has some digestive (reflux?) issues that make he needs to burp often and these wake him up, especially when lying down. I used mainly full extinction since my presence often seem to make him cry even more; however I have been wondering if it wasn’t too much of a transition for him and my gut said he does need some reassurance, since there is something bothering him and he needs comfort. I was right in that, since our pediatrician visit this morning pointed out that he grew only 140g in 1.5 month. Now the pedi is going to check urine and we will try infant gaviscon as well as fast weaning. My question is how to continue the training since I don’t want to go back to sling/rocking, and also not lose whatever lessons he learnt. I will now try some gentle training in that I will stay with him, hoping that will work, although again, in the past it didn’t really make a difference – or perhaps it does and crying with mum near is better than alone? I am also saying that because we have seen a huge regression on day 2 and 3. I know that is normal, but I still would like your take on how you think we should continue.
Thanks a lot.
I realize this is belated but I suspect your issues have resolved. I think you can continue with what you are doing as you are likely in the extinction burst, but check with your pediatrician.
Hi Dr Craig
My daughter is now 2.5 years old she is #3 of 4 girls and she isn’t staying asleep at night. We are expecting baby #5 and I desperately need to get everyone sleeping!
She used to go to sleep perfectly and stay asleep for half the night and wake and want a bit of milk and then would go back to sleep until 5-6 am.
Over the past 6 months we stopped giving her drinks at night and she was still using a soother. She would wake and want her diaper changed and go back to sleep fairly easy. About two months ago she started to have difficulties going to sleep, calling/screaming for us to go back onto the room as soon as we would close the door. I go back in once and tell her it’s night time and walk back out. At first she cried but she quickly learned and now usually fusses a few minutes and then goes quiet. Since then the nightly waking have increased with repeated calling /screaming and the crying it out doesn’t seem to be effective. The first night she cried for 45 min then went to sleep and then she started crying for 5 min quiet 15-20 and repeat for 1-2 hours and still up for the day between 5-6 am.
About 3 weeks ago we lost the soother and she hasn’t been asking for it too much she has been fine with just sleeping with her teddy but the nights are not improving with time and she ends up screaming so hard she wakes my 11 month old.
I don’t understand what has changed and why she is waking and wanting up and with us. Is she insecure? Should for try moving her in with her 2 older sisters? She is still in a crib, should I transfer to a big girl bed ? For the past 3 days I have not been putting her down for nap she has fallen asleep in the car for short amount of time but nothing significant.
I wanted to do sleep training at 9-10 month but my husband didn’t want me to let her cry in fear of my two older girls waking. It would have been much quicker then and I won’t be making that mistake again but for now I’m stuck with a 2.5 year old who does not sleep!
Please help!
Thanks in advance.
Annie
Hi there. If she falls asleep with a family member present it is likely behavioral. If she falls asleep without difficulty by herself you need to consider other causes– worth talking about medical issues which can disrupt sleep such as sleep apnea, asthma, etc. Here’s an article I wrote on nightwakings.
One other caveat–I would NOT recommend moving her out of crib– this usually makes things worse. Good luck.
Thank you, she does fall asleep on her own without help but doesn’t seem to fit any category in the article above.
She wants us and be with us and songs. She seems to be waking right before or when she has had a wet diaper and wants a change. I have refused her liquid intake after diner to help this but she still has a wet diaper every night and then doesn’t want to go back to sleep.
Annie
My 22 month old son has been a pretty great sleeper since the day he was born. At around 6 months old, we used the Ferber method on him so that we wouldn’t have to rock him to sleep every night and it worked amazingly well. By day 5, I could put him down in his crib with minimal fussing and he would go to sleep. Since then he had been sleeping on average from 7:30pm to 6:30am every night and taking a 2-3 hour nap every afternoon, that is until about 2.5 weeks ago. It started with him waking up a bit early, 5:30am, then 5am, then 4:30am. Then he started waking in the night, once, twice, multiple times and then not wanting to go back to sleep for 1-3 hours. I took him to see our family doctor to make sure health wise he was fine and he was. Our doctor suggested not letting him cry it out because he is older now and maybe needed more assurance from us against night time fears, but I think this has caused him to need us to rock him to sleep every time he wakes now. During this time, his language skills have really blossomed, he’s speaking in full sentences. Nothing has changed at home leading up to this change in sleep. He is still in a crib. We are thinking about applying the Ferber method again. Is it bad to do it again now at this age?
If he is still in a crib it is still feasible. You could also try camping out.
Good post, your article is really nice, love it!
Thanks so much!!!
Hi Dr Campari,
Thank you for all the resources that you’ve provided here on your site. But as I’m sitting in my daughters room, rocking her back to sleep at 3:38 AM, I figured I’d write to you first since my tired eyes are having a hard time focusing. I write to you in search of some hope.
My daughter is 11 months old. I am still breast feeding although recently am attempting to wean her and only keep the morning and bedtime feeding, been giving her formula in between. I’ve always supplemented with formula so the transistion has been fairly easy in that vain.
We started sleep training her at about 9 months, she did great. Was sleeping a good 10-12 hours a night then all of a sudden for the past month or so she’s been waking up 2-3 times in the middle of the night. My husband is pretty good at getting her back down but isn’t alway able to due to his work hours. When it’s my turn, it’s nearly impossible to get her back down with out a bottle or nursing (it is now 4am and I’m sitting on the edge of my bed typing this while letting her CIO since rocking her back to sleep totally un did itself once I put her down) I’ve already given her a bottle which she drank in it’s entirety.
She’s good when she goes to sleep at the beginning of the night. We usually start at about 7:30 with bath time wind down, nurse and once she’s drowsy I put her in the crib and top her off with 4oz of formula. She’ll be out like a light. Then wake up anywhere between 4/5 hours later and we’re usually up for anywhere between 45-2hours.
I guess my question is, where am I going wrong, how did she go from sleeping through the night to this? Help!
Thanks so much, hoping for a reply and some sleep.
Yaritza
This happens pretty commonly when kids are working on walking around this age. There’s no magic bullet here other than being very consistent– at this age you either need to do CIO or try something like camping out (staying in the room for reassurance). If it were my daughter I would do the former.
Do you have any tips for twins at 7 months? Both have trouble staying asleep and wake up through out the night several times and tend to wake each other up. For the last feeding, we either feed them on a twin z pillow until they fall asleep then carry them to their cribs or give them a last feeding on their swing bassinet then carry them to their crib once they fall asleep. They usually stay sleeping for a short 2 hours then wake up again with a lot of energy. We usually put them down like 6PM and they keep going in and out of sleep until 6AM. Please give us some advise or tips. Thanks so much.
It’s pretty hard to troubleshoot this here, but I do suspect that the babies’ bedtime is a bit early. You also need to work on getting them to fall asleep drowsy but awake. Here’s more info.
Dr, Canapari,
Our son recently turned one and has suddenly refused to go to bed at night and for naps. We used to go up to his room have a bottle and rock to sleep or at least until drowsy, but now he refuses to go to sleep. We have continued the routine that we have had since almost day one, but now he just gets wild and worked up every time he realizes its time to go to sleep. We have tried the CIO method for a few nights, but after 2+ hours of screaming/crying both nights along with vomiting several times we ultimately end up driving around the block for a few minutes to fall asleep. We are in desperate need of advise/help on how to correct and train him for good sleep habits. Any advise would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Robert
Hi Robert. If you don’t want to try CIO then camping out. Typically, however, CIO will work in about five days.
Hi Dr Canapari,
I just wanted to say a big thank you for your blog, I’ve just read through the posts and I really liked them, so thanks again for your work! 🙂
Ada
Very kind. I really appreciate you saying this.
Awesome blog. It sound’s quite interesting to read this post.
Thanks a lot for sharing this wonderful post.
Wow, this article is really helpful. I’ve never heard about this “excuse me” method before – it seems pretty awesome! But for what age would you recommend it?
I’ve already sleep trained with HWL method from How to teach a baby to fall asleep alone guide and I am satisfied for now. We have 12 hours straight and the training was like 4 nights long. And what’s most important – no CIO! I wouldn’t use that like EVER.
The excuse me drill is probably best for three and up but can sometimes work at age 2 and a half.
As for CIO, it is not the right fit for many families but it is safe and effective.
My son is almost 6 months old and has always been an inconsistent sleeper. We have a bedtime routine and he can put himself to sleep at bedtime, but wakes up randomly during the night. When he does wake up, we’ve been doing Ferber and going in at intervals and putting his pacifier back in. It usually takes him two hours to go back to sleep for a significant amount of time after the intervals of crying. Should we get rid of the pacifier? She we do extinction? He will randomly give us nights and sleep from 7:30 to 6am, but then will have weeks of waking up 3-4 times at night.
Hi there. If he is falling asleep on his own consistently at bedtime, I would talk to your pediatrician and make sure you aren’t missing any health issues which could be waking him up. If everything looks great, you could consider getting rid of the pacifier. Good luck!
Helllo, my 16 month old has no issues going to sleep but wakes up 5-6 times a night. We have a consistent bedtime routine, he goes straight to sleep without our help and we just cut out nighttime feedings last month by reading your other article. But he’s still waking up all the time. How can I help him not wake up after he’s gone to sleep?
I would talk to your pediatrician about looking for a medical cause of night awakenings, and then look carefully at how you are responding at night.
My son is 15 months and wakes up a lot throughout the night. He has a consistent bedtime routine. He has a bath and then we feed him his bottle while rocking him to sleep. Over the last few months he’s been waking up a lot at night and refusing to sleep in his crib. He will fall asleep in our arms but as soon as as we try to put him in the crib he starts crying. My husband began bringing him to our bed because he was waking up so often and refusing to stay but now we’re stuck co-sleeping. I’m completely at a loss for where to start. I’ve tried the Ferber method but he cried for 4 1/2 hrs before finally going to sleep. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
In this age group you are stuck with CIO or camping out. Note that the crying rapidly improves after a few nights. He will not stop waking up at night until independent sleep at bedtime is established. Best of luck!
Dear Dr Canapari,
Thank you for putting together all this useful information. We have a 6mo baby and we are struggling with frequent night wakings (she is breastfeed and wakes up every 1-2h and needs to nurse, or rock to fall sleep again). We follow a bedtime routine at around 7.30pm but she needs me rubbing her back to fall sleep. We will try the ‘Bedtime fading’ method or the ‘camping out method’, but I have a question for you. Most of the nights she would fall sleep at 8pm but then she wakes up 30minutes or 1h later crying, sometimes she wakes up 2-3 times from 8 to 12pm, what should we do when this happen while we are trying sleep training with her.
Thank you very much for your help in advance.
Marta
You need to follow your bedtime plan. So if she cries and falls asleep, then you follow the same plan if she wakes up within an hour or two of falling asleep.
Thank you for this helpful post. The thought of a CIO method has always stressed me out so I was grateful to see a variety of more gentle approaches to sleep training. There’s one issue I didn’t really see addressed or I may have missed it. My daughter is almost 18 months old. Her bedtime has been the same for almost a year and her nap time has been about the same for 6 months. We’ve just started sleep training a few days ago. Our issue isn’t sleeping through the night. She may have one fussy wake up and it only takes a reassuring hand on her back for a minute or so for her to calm back to sleep. But she does not easily fall asleep on her own. We’re trying a Camping Out approach. She doesn’t cry until right before she falls asleep. Most of the time she runs around her crib. I remind her to lay down and go night-night, but she pops right back up almost as soon as she lays down. When I rocked her to sleep, it might take 15 minutes at nap time and 30 minutes at bedtime. Yesterday to fall asleep on her own, it took an hour and a half at nap time and 45 minutes (our quickest time yet) at bedtime. We’ve had a solid bedtime routine for almost a year, with removing nursing about 4 months ago. Should I be offering her more scaffolding at sleep time?
It sounds like you are just seeing some prolongation of sleep onset due to reducing your involvement at bedtime. This will likely improve with time.
Thank you so much for replying. It does seem like that is what was going on. Today, she fell asleep in 10 minutes at nap time.