Yep! The only difference was the feeding part... if it had been more than 4h since her last feed, instead of treating it as a wakeup, I went straight in and fed her before she got too worked up.
Hi! First of all thanks for sharing this, it’s really helpful. I just don’t have it in me to do any crying sleep training methods. We tried this for the third time today. My son wakes up so much as soon as I put him down that he goes from eyes drooping in my arms to rolling around, he lasts about a minute before fussing then I do “calm chicken” aka picking him up (butt pats singing etc didn’t do anything) and when he gets quiet I put him back down. He lasts seconds to a minute or two before fussing again. We do calm chicken maybe three times before he starts just blood curdling screaming then I give up and jsut get him to sleep my usual way. He’s just over 6 months old. I’m trying to be consistent with elements of our normal routine (dark room, same lullaby on, white noise, etc.) and follow the instructions so carefully but we never even make it close to the 15 min mark. Any advice?
Did your baby already sleep in the cot for naps? Mine contact naps in the day and wondering whether to start this for just night sleeps (where she will go in the crib) or both?
Thank you so much for posting this. We tried it with our 4.5 month old last night and she put herself to sleep after 1 check in (10 mins after I first put her down)! She did the same thing for her first nap this morning and then only fussed for 4 minutes for her second nap! This is a game changer for us!
For reference I have a 17 week old that only falls asleep if I breastfeed him. What do you do if:
1. In the first part, before you lay them down, walking around doesn’t make them sleepy? In fact he cries when we walk him around. As noted above he’s used to feeding to sleep so walking seems to annoy him.
2. In the second part, when you hide, do you turn off the lullaby and light? I imagine you leave the white noise on?
3. In the third part, he doesn’t stop fussing and you go back in, do you just stay there until he sleeps? Or do you hide again if he settles?
It's been a while but I have since had another baby so I'll try to answer these as best I can!
1) This one is so tricky. I've had the same situation with my second little one. I've found you either have to absolutely nail that window (which is so hard to do) or feed till sleepy and then quickly put in the crib.
2) Yeah, when you hide, lullaby and light go off. White noise on.
3) I would actually never leave, not until she was asleep, or the allotted time was up and I needed to get her to sleep however I could. I was giving her a chance and if she couldn't do it in 10-15 mins, I knew she wouldn't be able to and I had to get her to sleep myself. Then try again the next day.
My baby absolutely hates it when I try to soothe him while he is still in his bassinet. He very loudly complains about seeing me but not being held but he is not crying. For your method, should I stay by his bed and keep trying to reassure him? Or should I just pull the plug at that point?
If baby is still fussing after 15min of calm chicken, but not all out crying do you pick them up and give them a different method for napping? Or do you keep going? Or start the process over?
Question - what if they fall asleep but wake up a few minutes later or prematurely - like only 20 minutes of napping? Let them fuss for 5 minutes again?
That’s what I am trying ; letting him fuss for the 5 mins or close to it first, because to me it’s like the pause before intervening ( I always peek in to make sure he is safe though) Then I do the Give Baby a Chance times according to specific sleep type, in this case, because “premature wake”, I calm him for a max of 10mins
I wonder about the 4th option not listed, you put baby down & they don’t fall asleep at all? Baby can lay there wide awake for at least 20m before starting to fuss from boredom/lack of attention, and it’s not a wake window issue, dark room, 70°f.. what’s the routine for this circumstance?
What would you suggest doing if baby gets wide awake and starts babbling and playing right away once she’s put down for a nap? I waited 15 minutes and she never got fussy or fell asleep but I gave up because I was worried about crankiness later after 15 minutes (she fell asleep nursing 2 minutes later and was yawning/rubbing eyes before)
We actually started with naps, rather than bedtime. At that stage, she was still waking once (maximum twice) to feed overnight, but most of the time was able to connect cycles between feeds. Once we had naps nailed, we used the same process for nights to drop to one feed a night, and then eventually to no feeds a night.
She now sleeps for 2.5 hours during the day (she recently dropped to one nap) and a blissful 12 hours straight during the night. (I *never* thought I would be able to type those words!)
After putting her in her sleep suit while playing the lullaby in her lamp-lit room, I would hold her and sway/rock her for a good 10-30 seconds or so (still, while the lullaby was playing) to get her nice and calm. I usually looked for a droopy eyelid or two as the sign she was ready, and that's when I immediately set her down in the crib, said the key sleepy phrase, turned off the lamp and turned on the white noise.
I never put her in the crib already asleep... I guess I always aimed for the infamous "drowsy-but-awake." (Over time, as she got more skilled at this sleep thing, I could put her down pretty wide awake and she'd be off to the land of the z's within 5-10 minutes.)
Did you follow the same steps for night time wake ups?
Yep! The only difference was the feeding part... if it had been more than 4h since her last feed, instead of treating it as a wakeup, I went straight in and fed her before she got too worked up.
Hi! What do you do if baby doesn’t fuss for 5 minutes but also doesn’t fall asleep?
Hi! First of all thanks for sharing this, it’s really helpful. I just don’t have it in me to do any crying sleep training methods. We tried this for the third time today. My son wakes up so much as soon as I put him down that he goes from eyes drooping in my arms to rolling around, he lasts about a minute before fussing then I do “calm chicken” aka picking him up (butt pats singing etc didn’t do anything) and when he gets quiet I put him back down. He lasts seconds to a minute or two before fussing again. We do calm chicken maybe three times before he starts just blood curdling screaming then I give up and jsut get him to sleep my usual way. He’s just over 6 months old. I’m trying to be consistent with elements of our normal routine (dark room, same lullaby on, white noise, etc.) and follow the instructions so carefully but we never even make it close to the 15 min mark. Any advice?
I was wondering if it's would work for my almost 8 month old. I feel like it might work better for a much younger baby.
Did your baby already sleep in the cot for naps? Mine contact naps in the day and wondering whether to start this for just night sleeps (where she will go in the crib) or both?
Not sure if you're still responding here. But do you remember when you put the baby down in regards to wake windows?
5 min before? 10 min before?
Our guy doesn't really show sleepy cues until he's crying to be nursed
Thank you so much for posting this. We tried it with our 4.5 month old last night and she put herself to sleep after 1 check in (10 mins after I first put her down)! She did the same thing for her first nap this morning and then only fussed for 4 minutes for her second nap! This is a game changer for us!
For reference I have a 17 week old that only falls asleep if I breastfeed him. What do you do if:
1. In the first part, before you lay them down, walking around doesn’t make them sleepy? In fact he cries when we walk him around. As noted above he’s used to feeding to sleep so walking seems to annoy him.
2. In the second part, when you hide, do you turn off the lullaby and light? I imagine you leave the white noise on?
3. In the third part, he doesn’t stop fussing and you go back in, do you just stay there until he sleeps? Or do you hide again if he settles?
It's been a while but I have since had another baby so I'll try to answer these as best I can!
1) This one is so tricky. I've had the same situation with my second little one. I've found you either have to absolutely nail that window (which is so hard to do) or feed till sleepy and then quickly put in the crib.
2) Yeah, when you hide, lullaby and light go off. White noise on.
3) I would actually never leave, not until she was asleep, or the allotted time was up and I needed to get her to sleep however I could. I was giving her a chance and if she couldn't do it in 10-15 mins, I knew she wouldn't be able to and I had to get her to sleep myself. Then try again the next day.
You say you did a shushing and patting method. What about pacifier and reinserting? I'm worried it defeats the purpose if she can't do it herself yet
My baby absolutely hates it when I try to soothe him while he is still in his bassinet. He very loudly complains about seeing me but not being held but he is not crying. For your method, should I stay by his bed and keep trying to reassure him? Or should I just pull the plug at that point?
was this attempted when baby was already out of the swaddle? and do you have an opinion on whether that matters? thanks!
If baby is still fussing after 15min of calm chicken, but not all out crying do you pick them up and give them a different method for napping? Or do you keep going? Or start the process over?
Question - what if they fall asleep but wake up a few minutes later or prematurely - like only 20 minutes of napping? Let them fuss for 5 minutes again?
That’s what I am trying ; letting him fuss for the 5 mins or close to it first, because to me it’s like the pause before intervening ( I always peek in to make sure he is safe though) Then I do the Give Baby a Chance times according to specific sleep type, in this case, because “premature wake”, I calm him for a max of 10mins
I wonder about the 4th option not listed, you put baby down & they don’t fall asleep at all? Baby can lay there wide awake for at least 20m before starting to fuss from boredom/lack of attention, and it’s not a wake window issue, dark room, 70°f.. what’s the routine for this circumstance?
What would you suggest doing if baby gets wide awake and starts babbling and playing right away once she’s put down for a nap? I waited 15 minutes and she never got fussy or fell asleep but I gave up because I was worried about crankiness later after 15 minutes (she fell asleep nursing 2 minutes later and was yawning/rubbing eyes before)
So you wait for 5 minutes of fussing in order to play clam chicken, for a max of 15 minutes at naps and 30 min at night?
Yep, exactly.
Feel free to play around with those times to see what works best for you and your little one. That's just what I found worked best for us.
You're constantly racing against the clock of overtiredness too, which adds another level of difficulty to it 🤪
Thank you so much for this! Did you start with naps or overnight? And did you put baby in the crib awake or already asleep or drowsy?
Sorry, just saw your other question about naps.
We actually started with naps, rather than bedtime. At that stage, she was still waking once (maximum twice) to feed overnight, but most of the time was able to connect cycles between feeds. Once we had naps nailed, we used the same process for nights to drop to one feed a night, and then eventually to no feeds a night.
She now sleeps for 2.5 hours during the day (she recently dropped to one nap) and a blissful 12 hours straight during the night. (I *never* thought I would be able to type those words!)
No worries at all! Glad to be of help :)
After putting her in her sleep suit while playing the lullaby in her lamp-lit room, I would hold her and sway/rock her for a good 10-30 seconds or so (still, while the lullaby was playing) to get her nice and calm. I usually looked for a droopy eyelid or two as the sign she was ready, and that's when I immediately set her down in the crib, said the key sleepy phrase, turned off the lamp and turned on the white noise.
I never put her in the crib already asleep... I guess I always aimed for the infamous "drowsy-but-awake." (Over time, as she got more skilled at this sleep thing, I could put her down pretty wide awake and she'd be off to the land of the z's within 5-10 minutes.)