Gentle sleep training.... What's the best way to do it?

Question

Okay mamas, it's time to sleep train. I said I'd never do it but the entire month of August has been AWFUL. My son used to wake up 1-2 times a night and I was fine with that. We'd rock him or I would nurse him and he'd fall back asleep easily. This month he has been waking up 3-5 times a night crying. He falls back asleep very quickly almost every time so I think he just wants to be held. I can't do it anymore though, I'm getting 4-5 hours on average each night and I'm starting to suffer mentally and physically from it. I want to do as gentle of a method as possible. I would also like to start weaning him during the night if I can. ANY recommendation would be appreciated. I do not want to listen to him cry for more than a few minutes. TIA!

Answer

After doing Ferber, I don’t think “gentle” works effectively. We will be doing Weissbluth for our next kids. It was far more effective, far less crying and far less confusing for her.

Answer

There will probably be more than a few minutes of crying but that’s ok! He’s learning a new skill and that’s hard so just be there to support him but teach him at the same time. We tried the chair method and that didn’t work because he was too excited I was in the room so we ended up doing a modified Ferber method. I would do a bedtime routine then put him in his crib and wait 3,5,10,10 minutes. He usually fell asleep in less than 20. But modify whatever method you want that makes you feel best!

Answer

There will always be tears, whether you use a gentle method or not because your baby has to learn something new and that’s frustrating. The gentlest method I know is you do your bedtime routine, put baby down and stay with them and comfort them with your voice, maybe patting or rubbing their back but no picking up. You can move a bit further each night if that feels comfortable. However I would never pick a method like that for us because staying with her would have been too confusing and more frustrating for her then just leaving. It also takes much longer to learn = more tears. In that sense, weisbluth could be considered the gentlest sleep training method because it gets you results the fastest with the least confusion for your baby... good luck anyway 🙂

Answer

I definitely think every baby is different and you need to find what approach works for you. With my son we did Ferber method but at 5.5mo and it worked for him, but now when 8 mo sleep regression and leaped kicked in we tried Ferber and it didn’t work it just made it 10x worse and confused him even more. So we ended up doing Weissbluth at the time and within 2 days he was back to waking up 1x for a feed.

Gentle sleep training.... What's the best way to do it?

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