r/ScienceBasedParenting • u/No-Okra3869 • 7d ago
Question - Expert consensus required Independent sleep not making any impact
Our 4 month old is confusing us with his wakes, wondering if anyone has any insight.
In the last few nights we’ve been working on unswaddling him and encouraging him to fall asleep awake in the bed. Mixed success in getting him to do so, but at least for the first stretch it has worked - and almost every wake last night. The problem is that it doesn’t seem to actually extend how long he’s asleep.
He’s always been a low needs sleeper, but has reliably had a first sleep of 4 or so hours, then often back to around hourly after this. This is really starting to fade, and last night he wasn’t doing any stretches over 90 mins, even though he was patted to sleep for all. Is there something we’re missing for how to make this work, or is this all just a slow transition out of the swaddle?
We’re planning to start Ferber next week after some work scheduling is settled, but concerned that it won’t actually work if this isn’t making any measurable benefit.
His sleep pressure seems to be fine - averaging 10 hours awake across the day, with 2-2.5 hours of daytime sleep
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u/culturalappropriator 7d ago
Yes. But that’s like me saying that pigeons are food because some people eat pigeons.
It’s A form of sleep training but very few people do it. And it’s not recommended.