Sleep schedule help

*I am so grateful to anyone who takes the time to hear this and give me advice*

My daughter is almost 6.5 months old.

For the past month or so, we decided we were going to attempt to sleep train her. The issue we were having is she would wake up every morning around 3am-4am to eat but often times, it would be a huge struggle to get her back to sleep.

Well.. we were doing okay and she seemed to be over waking up and was sleeping through the night. She sleeps from around 6pm-6am. Super early on both parts but she is exhausted by 6pm and it’s hard to move that time. She’s been sleeping that early since she was a newborn.

Now that she’s older, it’s more clear when her naps should be and such. She normally only sleeps 40 minutes - an hour for a nap. Seems short to me.

This is where everything involving her nap schedule throws me off..

My other daughter is 5 years old. Her preschool is 20 minutes away. So in the morning, it’s about an hour in the car and in the afternoon, it’s about an 1.15 in the car. So often times, my baby will fall asleep in the morning for 7-10 minutes. Often times my baby can only take a 30 minute nap in the afternoon because she took so long to fall asleep and I have to get her up to go pick up her sister.

It’s such a complete mess. I purchased the TCB newborn course and I really didn’t find it that helpful. A close friend gave me a few tips from the other course she offers and I tried it but my daughter cries bloody murder for so long until she falls asleep. I feel like by now, a month in, we should see progress but it’s actually the opposite.

Last night, she woke up at 3:30am. I went in there and sang her a very short song and walk out. I did that several times and it took my daughter until 6am to fall back asleep. I didn’t pick her up, didn’t feed her, just sang this 5 second song each time. It was the absolute worst few hours ever. It’s awful and I don’t want it to be this way. My husband is completely over the sleep training stuff.

Does anyone have any advice? Has anyone had to deal with being in the car so long with a baby and having short naps? I’m okay with a little CIO but it just seems excessive. We NEVER pick her up and feed her during the past month and it doesn’t help. It takes her so long to fall asleep. It’s awful.

Please help!! Thank you!