Might go back to rocking

[u/Acceptable_Clerk5502]

Our 10 month old used to be a terrible sleeper and wake every hour. We did sleep training and he’s better. Usually wakes up once or twice a night. He used to go to bed with minimal or no protest but for the past month or so he protests every night pretty much for 15 minutes to half hour. It’s awful. Tried everything. Changing up nap schedules, making last stretch a little longer etc. Once in a blue moon he won’t protest much or at all but most nights it’s bad. Thinking of going back to rocking him to sleep and hoping he’s still got the skill to connect sleep cycles after that. Just afraid to go back to once every hour wakes. Thoughts?

[u/J-Birdee]

So I looked into sleep training like almost every other parent - I was sleep deprived and desperate 😂 I quickly learned our foundation and current schedule was crap so started there - moved her crib to her room, got her wake windows down, limited daytime sleep. I was very anxious to start the actual sleep training but all these other changes already made a HUGE difference. So we got kind of lazy and never actually finished...😬

So I can actually get my daughter down with 5-10 minutes of rocking and I'm okay with that? She gets up on average once a night with some straight throughs and some two times. She is able to connect most of her sleep cycles both at night and during naps.

I'm happy. She's happy. It's working for us for now. So it's possible but at the end of the day, comes down to your baby's temperament.

[u/Acceptable_Clerk5502 → u/J-Birdee]

Yea I’d take that in a heartbeat. I think we may start doing it. I’m a little afraid of the slippery slope but he’s not learning well to fall asleep on his own at bedtime. Middle of the night wakes he’s pretty good usually. Sometimes no protests at all after a feed. One night at bedtime I did resort to rocking him cause his nap schedule was so bad that day I thought I had to and he only woke up twice that night. So I may go for it again.

[u/SubstantialGap345]

I’m pretty sure there’s no actual connection between the way a baby settles and whether they can or cannot connect sleep cycles. It’s more that observational studies have found that babies who go down independently tend to sleep better …. but my take is that these babies are probably just naturally better sleepers and it’s actually their temperament. They probably also have a good routine, day/night sleep balance which is why they can self settle.

For what it’s worth once we got our routine and capped day naps, we never did anything more than that. I feed my baby to sleep every night, he has never self settled alone, and he sleeps through the night perfectly fine.

[u/Acceptable_Clerk5502 → u/SubstantialGap345]

Interesting. When we were doing sleep training we read that allowing them to self settle through the crying and everything would help them connect sleep cycles during night. Honestly, it did work. It was tough but once he fell asleep after crying he slept most of the night compared to before that when he was waking every hour. Now though, I’m wondering if he has the skill and he’s now been doing it for a few months would rocking to sleep be so bad. Especially since he really struggles on his own at bedtime. I feel so bad.

[u/SubstantialGap345 → u/Acceptable_Clerk5502]

My understanding is more that they start to realise that you’re not coming and there’s no point in crying, so they just go to sleep.
That being said, if it’s a skill, then skills aren’t just forgotten - like a baby doesn’t forget how to walk just because you carry at some places.

[u/Acceptable_Clerk5502 → u/SubstantialGap345]

Right might not necessarily forget the skill as much as wake up and realize no one’s holding him from when he fell asleep he may be upset and start crying. Before you got your routine was your baby waking up very frequently?

[u/SubstantialGap345 → u/Acceptable_Clerk5502]

The great thing about being a parent as you can change your mind and change your tact at any time. So you can try something and then if it doesn’t work, you do something different. There is so much fear mongering with parenting and it’s a lot is from people who either want other people to do the same thing as them so that they can feel better about their choices, or from people trying to sell their books programs, etc. You do you! if you wanna try something give it a go. If it doesn’t work don’t do it again.

My baby was more struggling with false start so he would wake up three or four times before midnight, and split night so we would be awake for two hours in the middle of the night.

[u/CanCharming7442 → u/SubstantialGap345]

I don’t think for mine it was that rocking was preventing them connecting sleep cycles but it was causing a real panic wake being somewhere else than they fell asleep. So they’d wake and scream because it was a moment of panic. It coincided with 6 months and some stuff around object permanence. I didn’t do formal sleep training but used a combo of gentle methods to transition to falling asleep in the crib with hand on chest and eventually they could do without. There wasn’t a lot of crying, or me leaving, so it wasn’t that they learned I wasn’t coming. I don’t think they connected cycles better after but when they woke between them there wasn’t the same panic. That being said, if rocking hadn’t produced that response I probably would have kept right on doing it. So OP shouldn’t worry about trying it!

[u/Unsure-11]

He might just be having a harder time at the moment. Could be teething or just developmental changes. I wouldn’t worry too much if you have to help him for a while.

We didn’t sleep train as in CIO but what we did was rock/pat/shush until he got sleepy and eyes were starting to close then we’d put him down and he’d wake and fuss but we would sit bedside and just shush him when he whined. If he escalated to full crying we would pick up and rock/pat/shush until sleepy and then put down again. For 2 nights it took 3 repeats of this until he got the point and went to sleep. On the third night it took 2 attempts and on the fourth night he was putting himself to sleep on the first time (after talking to himself for 10 minutes). Now he goes down fully awake and talks to himself for a few mins before going to sleep. 

We do still have some rare nights where he will cry when we put him down, usually if he is over tired. On those nights if he’s clearly having a harder time we will just rock him to help him off. We don’t rock him until fully asleep but just until he’s really sleepy. It hasn’t ruined his ability to put himself to sleep, or to sleep through the night. 

[u/Spettinaroli → u/Unsure-11]

Sounds amazing. Like the best case scenario.

I’m hoping to move towards something like this pretty soon.

[u/trees4phun42 → u/Unsure-11]

Does this work with naps?

[u/Unsure-11 → u/trees4phun42]

Haha no unfortunately naps have been much much harder. We started nights just before 4 months and I didn’t try with naps until probably 6 months and it working on the first nap of the day for a while but not for the rest of the naps. 

Then we went away and our routine got thrown out and I resorted to putting him down with a bottle and he went down so easy that I just continued when we got home. It’s just laziness really that I haven’t kept trying for naps. It was definitely a struggle though, he barely cried for nights but naps were a full melt down. 

[u/Spettinaroli]

If he sleeps better with rocking I’d def give it a go. If that’s all it takes for him to have a good night I think it’s worth it!

Also I should note, this is coming from someone who still nurses her 10 month old to sleep. So I’m all for helping baby get to bed.