My LO is down for her second nap of the day so I wanted to take a second to tell you mommas what really helped me “train” my daughter on sleep. I say train lightly because mostly I was just helping encourage her to learn how to sleep. The greatest gift you can give your baby, yourself, their siblings and your spouse! Every baby works differently but this is what helped us fully train our girl in just two weeks!

My LO has been in her crib since 2 weeks old. We tried a bassinet bedside and no one got any sleep. We have a monitor and she sleeps right across the hall. I always have my eyes on her.

Before this she would only sleep in her bouncy chair..while I was bouncing it. Everyone had to stay dead silent and naps would only last 20-30 minutes leaving her cranky at wake ups. She’d only go down with bottles and wake 3-4 times a night to eat. I was exhausted and thought it was time to get her sleep trained. Here’s what worked for us!

around 6 months our littles have about 1.25-2.5 “wake windows” this is how long your little can stay awake before they’re over stimulated and need a rest. The idea is to track for a couple days and get a hang of your baby’s ideal wake window and catch before your baby is too tired. Once I tackled her wake times and sleep sings I moved to naps.

Because my baby was used to falling asleep in her chair i did anything to get her in her crib. Rocking, feeding, waiting until she was almost asleep and then placing in the crib. Some days it worked and some it didn’t. But you’re shooting for a hour. “Crib hour” and ideal sleep time for your babies nap. Once she woke up in her crib for every single nap and knew where she was and where she had slept, I started placing her in there completely awake BEFORE her wake window ended. Ideally 15 minutes before. She fussed and cried sometimes. I’m not for crying it out but I did and she NEVER cried for more then 12 minutes.

Second we tackled nighttime’s. I’d do our normally routine but start with a bottle, end with a change, then place in bed AWAKE. This is ideal because you want your baby to learn how to self soothe and fall asleep without your help. Ideal bedtime being anywhere from 6:30-8 (my little is 7)

She’d play for a minute and then fuss but within 3 days she was falling asleep independently. I noticed she’d still wake those couple times a night but understood and self soothes herself back to sleep!!

My love now sleeps 7-7:30/8 with only 0-1 wakes for a feed. Goes down for three 1-2 hour naps everyday with no fuss and enjoys and understand sleep. I was suffering so hard and was so exhausted and I did so much research and finally found something easy and not harsh that worked so well. If anyone wants any advice at all I’m here to help!!