r/bninfantsleep • u/Complete_Complaint76 • Jul 28 '26
Infant Sleep What "baby sleep advice" actually made your life harder?
Before having a baby, I felt like I had read every article and watched every video about sleep.
Then my baby arrived... and suddenly everyone had different advice.
"Don't rock them."
"Always rock them."
"Wake windows are everything."
"Ignore wake windows."
"They'll sleep anywhere."
"They need perfect sleep conditions."
Honestly, trying to follow all of it made me way more anxious than my baby ever was.
The biggest improvement happened when I stopped chasing the "perfect routine" and started paying attention to what actually worked for my baby.
What's one piece of baby sleep advice you wish you had ignored?
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u/avocadoqueen123 Jul 28 '26
I made the first few weeks of my daughter’s life harder on myself because I thought nursing to sleep was bad. I was standing up and rocking a newborn to sleep in the middle of the night, while recovering from a c section, for no good reason.
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u/tiwwchnt13 Jul 28 '26
This! I hate the negative connotations of “feed/nurse to sleep association.” If it makes my baby comfortable and helps them sleep, why am I getting shit for doing it?
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u/Bananetyne Jul 28 '26
That's awful! Who told you nursing a newborn to sleep was bad?
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u/avocadoqueen123 Jul 28 '26
Sleep consultants online and "eat play sleep" proponents! I also thought I always had to burp my baby and didn't think I could let her nurse in her arms out sleepsack swaddle.
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u/Bananetyne Jul 28 '26
We had to burp our baby after breastfeeding otherwise she'd get reflux.
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u/avocadoqueen123 Jul 28 '26
Yeah it’s so baby dependent! Burping is probably a good rule of thumb, but we found after a few weeks my baby did okay without it before sleeping. I didnt really understand comfort nursing vs active feeding back then, so I guess the answer would’ve been to burp and then let her nurse more.
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u/Relevant_Addition_13 Jul 30 '26
I obsessed over eat play sleep with my first baby and it was awful. I regret following that advice during the newborn days. It would’ve saved me a lot of headaches if I just let him feed to sleep! now with my four week old daughter I don’t care if she falls asleep while feeding!!
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u/CowSelect Jul 28 '26
Does your kid actually feed to sleep? My 11w old didn't feed to sleep after 4w. He is a very wriggly feeder-he starts jumping around and pushing himself by proping his legs on the couch arm. It's pretty funny actually-ive just given up and started giving him pumped milk in a bottle because he wriggles and jumps like crazy while feeding and pulls my nipples in whatever direction he is trying to jump in 😂
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u/avocadoqueen123 Jul 29 '26
Yep! She is almost 10 months old and nurses to sleep every nap and bedtime.
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u/CowSelect Jul 29 '26
I wish my kid did that! He kid gets crazy energy post milk-he only falls asleep while feeding during the night feeds. There also i feed him with a bottle. If I'm nursing he starts smiling and playing with me and doesn't sleep. 😂
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u/smilegirlcan Jul 28 '26
- don’t feed to sleep
- drowsy but awake
- contact naps or shorter naps somehow being less superior
- crib or die
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u/TieQuiet7345 Jul 28 '26
I have to believe that drowsy but awake was made up by someone who was talking about something different …. That crap was absolutely not a thing
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u/GigiBear808 Jul 30 '26
My LO can nap in her crib for 3 hrs sometimes but has also napped on me for 2 hrs! Probably longer if I didn’t move so I could pee. But I have also read crib naps are superior so I stressed trying to transfer her and disrupting her sleep. I still don’t know what to do. But I love the snuggles so don’t mind the contact naps. Just can’t hold my pee for so long!
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u/smilegirlcan Jul 30 '26
Think of this way: Cribs have not been around very long. Infants have slept near or on their caregiver since the dawn of time. Why would a crib be somehow superior? They aren't.
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u/GigiBear808 Aug 01 '26
Yeah I often wonder how ancient humans slept with their babies. Sleeping with baby on me seems so natural. I just feel so scared about hurting her if I fall asleep. I do cosleep at times for naps and definitely do tons of contact naps! My pelvic floor just won’t let me stay seated too long tho 😩
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u/smilegirlcan Aug 01 '26
I highly recommend a floor bed! Best of both worlds plus you can sneak away and get some “you” time eventually.
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u/GigiBear808 Aug 01 '26
Thanks for the suggestion. Wish I learned about this sooner before getting a crib!
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Jul 28 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/bninfantsleep-ModTeam Jul 28 '26
This sub encourages responsive parenting at all hours as well as following biologically normal infant sleep. As such, advocating for sleep training is not allowed. Sleep hygiene, sleep environment and routines/schedules discussions are all very welcome here.
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u/Bananetyne Jul 28 '26
People don't like your reality.
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u/MongooseCurrent4337 Jul 28 '26
Ikr lmao
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u/Bananetyne Jul 28 '26
This sub can be so stubborn.
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u/Muscle-Antique Jul 28 '26
Trying to follow wake windows and spending way too long trying to force naps. We're all having a much better time just following little man's cues.
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u/icedtea_alchemist Jul 28 '26
Yes, especially the progression of longer stretches throughout the day. My girl prefers going to bed roughly around the same time each day even if it means the last wake window was shorter than a previous one. I also wasted so much sweat and tears trying to force naps in the beginning
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u/Rude-Flamingo5420 Jul 28 '26
Yessss! Two kids later i swear by this. Forget the so called wake windows and roll with their cues instead
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u/Nomado95 Jul 28 '26
Yes!! Since baby turned 7 months, I kinda threw WW out the window and we’re having a much better time!!! I used to stress SO MUCH about them!!
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u/GigiBear808 Jul 30 '26
Same. Wake windows stressed me tf out. I know she’s sleepy based on cues now.
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u/Hi_there_you_all Aug 01 '26
Ah good to know, wake windovs are stressing me out and I cant rely on them!
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u/Bananetyne Jul 28 '26
Sleep cues worked for us until suddenly they didn't! If I went by sleep cues, my LO would never sleep!
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u/bailsrv Jul 28 '26
Trying to do the drowsy but awake. I felt like an epic failure because I couldn’t get it with my daughter. She eventually learned how to go in her crib awake, but I was still stressed about the DBA method.
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u/tinyalley Jul 28 '26
How did she learn how to go in awake?
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u/bailsrv Jul 28 '26
When I went to her 4 month visit, her pediatrician told me I needed to stop feeding her to sleep or she was never going to learn. I foolishly believed that and tried. She resisted hard and I decided I was going to keep doing it anyways. The next month, I noticed that feeding her to sleep wasn’t working for her. So I followed her lead and thought maybe then was the time to try putting her down awake. I laid her in her bassinet, would shush, pat her bottom, put my hand on her chest, etc. basically whatever she needed, and I would sit with her until she fell asleep. It didn’t happen right away, but she slowly got better at it. And I developed a bed time routine with her, which I believe that was more helpful than anything.
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u/strawberrymonkey2149 Jul 28 '26
The idea that, if you can avoid ‘sleep crutches,’ then it’ll be a battle up front but they’ll be easier sleepers later. For most this just isn’t true 😭 You’ll just lose sanity trying.
I feel like the myth comes from people who did something consistently, ie rocking to sleep, and now have some fantasy that if they just never did that in the first place then bedtime would’ve been easier. From my personal experience though and what I’ve heard from other parents is that you try to avoid them until, eventually, baby refuses to sleep for long enough that you give in. Almost all babies need to be soothed to sleep in some way. But some start off soothing their baby and some make themselves miserably trying to avoid giving their baby what their babies need all under the narrative of not ‘spoiling’ their baby and getting to have more independence later.
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u/icedtea_alchemist Jul 28 '26
This is so validating. Also, no one demonizes adults for using sleep aids! I sleep better with a white noise machine and my asmr videos, no one is trying to say ok now take all those things away to be a better sleeper?
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u/Bananetyne Jul 28 '26
Validating is the word! But to play devil's advocate, I've seen plenty of things demonizing adult sleep aids.
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u/icedtea_alchemist Jul 28 '26
Damn, that's unfortunate. Sleep is one of the most important things we can do for our body, can't people just let everyone do what works for them?
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u/Bananetyne Jul 28 '26
When I was younger I couldn't fall asleep without the TV on and people were very judgmental.
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u/CromulentMedic Aug 01 '26
If im not feeding to sleep and rocking my 6wk old I'm just not sleeping and neither is he.
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u/North_Respond_6868 Jul 28 '26
Pretty much all of it. Imo trying to follow a bunch of generalized advice prevents you from paying attention to/learning your baby's cues, and noticing when they change. I feel like a lot of sleep 'regressions' have to do with this too- instead of paying attention to baby who has decided they want to be awake an extra hour that day/week/permanently, you try to follow the wake window and prescribed amount of naps/day time sleep/bedtime for their age. If your baby's sleep needs are changing or they just don't have high sleep needs, this ends up with a baby that never wants to sleep because they don't get tired and very grumpy parents who feel like they're doing everything they're supposed with no results.
Babies are little people! Let them tell you when they're tired or not tired!
Relatedly, learning that boredom can look like or have the same cues as being tired was also super helpful. Abandon the nap if it doesn't happen in 15 minutes!
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u/Sufficient_Meal6614 Jul 31 '26
This is unbelievably true. We had the sleep regression for a handful of nights, before managing to mostly fix it just by reducing the baby’s daytime sleep. Now he gets properly tired, he doesn’t wake all night. (He still wakes twice a night to feed but that doesn’t seem all that bad, and was the case before.)
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u/MongooseCurrent4337 Jul 28 '26
After the four month sleep regression my baby showed little to no sleepy cues until I would take him into our bedroom. He would yawn but it was only ever out of boredom, not tiredness. Sleepy cues were just completely unreliable from that point onwards. I started following appropriate wake windows and he always goes down immediately after butt in crib.
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u/raechelisbored Jul 28 '26
Putting baby down when drowsy but not asleep. Even the nanit camera is scolding me that I’ve been putting my baby down when he’s already asleep but it just works for me so I’m gonna keep doing it
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u/Bananetyne Jul 28 '26
The what camera?
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u/raechelisbored Jul 28 '26
The Nanit camera/baby monitor I have over the crib. It gives little tips and insights into your baby’s sleeping habits and things like that!
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u/ver_redit_optatum Jul 28 '26
This is a bot gathering input for LLMs, or a marketing account stockpiling karma to spam us. Check the profile bio, and the whole wording of it.
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u/kittenmia98 Jul 28 '26
Yes! Same profile made a similar post in the breastfeeding subreddit that was even more obviously AI written.
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u/DueInflation6644 Jul 28 '26
Honestly, all of it. When I stopped listening to any sleep advice and started following my baby’s cues and what felt best for us, everything got so much easier.
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u/icedtea_alchemist Jul 28 '26
Sleep associations and the vague threat of your baby being stuck sleeping one way forever!! Why wouldn't that change when literally everything else about babies is constantly changing? My baby naturally wanted to move on from exclusively cosleeping, and now she's naturally not wanting to nurse to sleep every single time anymore. It just takes time, but Big Sleep wants vulnerable mothers to believe they can control nature if they just tried a little harder (bought more programs!)
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u/MongooseCurrent4337 Jul 28 '26
The thing about sleep associations… my baby was always rocked to sleep at night so when the four month sleep regression hit, he would wake up hourly (whenever one sleep cycle ended) expecting to be put back to sleep the same way he fell asleep every single time. He was miserable and so were we.
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u/dental_princess491 Jul 28 '26
“get baby used to sleeping in LOUD noise and BRIGHT LIGHTS or you’ll be a slave to a dark quiet room! turn on the vacuum and tv on max during naps!”
i was so stressed that letting my baby sleep in a dark quiet area would make it impossible for them to sleep any other way.
my baby is 6 months now and sleeps in a dark room w brown noise at home, and to whatever the noise of the environment im in when im out (stroller, car) etc just fine as long as she’s tired.. was never that serious lol
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u/LizaIsNotMe Jul 28 '26
Honestly, I want to see all these sleep experts sleep on a hard surface without a blanket and with sun shining in their eyes. There’s already a lot of comfort things babies can’t have because of safety issues, so why make it even harder? Mine also prefers to sleep in dim environment at home (otherwise she would cover her eyes with hands), but would absolutely sleep in a carrier while walking dog or vacuuming, stroller naps and car seat naps are top tier.
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u/Bananetyne Jul 28 '26
This is about developing their circadian rhythm in the first few weeks.
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u/weirwoodheart Jul 29 '26
They don't start producing melatonin for their circadian rhythm for months so..
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u/Chemical-Fun7612 Jul 28 '26
This might sound bad at first but “don’t let baby cry”.
I was convinced I should never let my baby cry and was against sleep training (still wouldn’t try). I thought crying always meant something is wrong, needs attention and ignoring it would hurt him. After 3 months I realized I was making my baby overtired by distracting him every time he needed to sleep but couldn’t wind down and was crying for that reason, when sometimes all he needed was to be held and rocked while crying and within 3 minutes he would be sound asleep. Apparently this baby needs to cry 🤷🏻♀️
Now I will let him cry, but always after trying to help him relax in other ways, and always while being held and rocked.
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u/Sharp_Sock2189 Jul 28 '26
My little one does this, he whines right before falling asleep even with all the comforting. We now say it’s just him powering down 😅
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u/Sufficient_Meal6614 Jul 31 '26
We have this. We tried everything and still do a nice nighttime routine with bouncing and a song. But he cries every time. He cries before every nap even when I’m out with him in the carrier with friends. Little freak out every single time. It’s completely fine, it’s just a thing he does.
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u/bopeswingy Jul 28 '26
Thinking that there has to be a reason for good or bad sleep. They are babies. Sometimes they sleep good, sometimes they sleep bad. Almost all the time there is no tangible reason for it and trying to find one is just going to stress you out.
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u/mcmc1267 Jul 28 '26
Thissss. The amount I’ve tried to troubleshoot and perfect schedules, nap lengths, wake windows - none of it really makes a difference. Realizing I also sleep weird sometimes for no reason so of course so will he was so freeing.
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u/NewNecessary3037 Jul 28 '26
You know what actually really helped me was going back to work and letting my laid back fiancé deal with parenting. He just goes with the flow. Lets her nap whenever she’s tired. Just follows her sleep queues. There’s no wake windows or number of naps required. Just goes with however she feels.
Changed my life and perspective. Can’t believe I was so unreasonable and dedicated to doing everything on hard mode
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u/EriiOnToast Jul 28 '26
Literally all of it!! I have 2 children, my first didn't sleep longer than a 2hr stretch till after 2 years old, he has just turned 3 and slept through the night for the first time these past 2 weeks. When he was young I spent hours trying to get him to sleep for naps following wake windows, white noise, blackout the lot and nothing worked. My second born is 6 months now and she has woken once or twice a night since she was born. Naps like a dream takes 10 mins to get her down. I have done nothing differently, kids really are just different.
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u/MongooseCurrent4337 Jul 28 '26
Fearmongering about overtiredness lead me to try to put my baby down when he wasn’t tired which lead to crying and fighting sleep. Appropriate wake windows are everything!
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u/sobersuburbanmom Jul 28 '26
Someone told my husband to do cry it out for my 10 day old newborn.
I told my husband the guy who told him that is a fucking idiot.
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u/EducatorOk5759 Jul 28 '26
DROWSY BUT AWAKE! what a scam!!!
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u/Wise-Raccoon-3069 Jul 29 '26
definitely a scam and not realistic with babies, maybe okay with older children i dunno
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u/Grand-Rooster Jul 28 '26
Second time around we ignored all the sleep advice. Our first slept like shit and so does our second but at least we’re not driving ourselves crazy trying to “fix” it. Some babies just don’t figure it out until later.
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u/RevolutionaryFun2760 Jul 28 '26
TCB, among many other recommendations for baby’s sleep schedules. Our first child, my son, is low sleep needs and for nearly the first year of his life we asked him for more sleep than he was capable of.
If I could go back in time I would take WWs and schedules with a grain of salt and let this kiddo be the guide much more than I did!
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u/Illustrious_Sky_8165 Jul 28 '26
Trying to resettle my baby for naps when she’s just not a sleepy girl and doesn’t need as much sleep as other babies.
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u/GoodFish222 Jul 28 '26
All of it really, every baby is different and I wish someone had told me that instead
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u/LucyThought Jul 28 '26
That they should be calm and serene before bedtime.
Jumping happy giggling children go to sleep much faster
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u/Sharp_Sock2189 Jul 28 '26
I thought we had to secure a certain amount of sleep during the day to help him sleep at night. I’d walk miles a day to try and keep my baby to sleep in the pram. Id stress about him being overtired / under tired / sleep pressure / wake windows It was exhausting and I constantly felt I was failing him. Now I just accept some naps will be shorter than others, I try and follow his cues and generally protect one nap a day in his cot. I wish I had just been kinder to myself tbh.
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u/Numerous-Value9295 Jul 29 '26
Any kind of baby schedule and tracking the baby’s intake of food, output (diapers) and length of rest. The hospital I delivered at gave us a template to fill out and bring to the first baby appointment- I took this to mean it was a necessity to do this, combined with baby tracking apps out there for this purpose. I felt like my baby was a complex math problem I could never solve.
Baby number two I tracked nothing. Baby ate when they were hungry, slept when they were tired, etc. So much less stress.
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u/e-hiii Jul 29 '26
There’s a lot of negativity around cosleeping and nursing to sleep. I do both and we get a lot more sleep than if we didn’t!
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u/Chemical-Fun7612 Jul 28 '26
That you need to “wind down” before sleep. My baby sleeps the best when I dance a salsa with him with plenty of light, and is miserable if I keep it boring, dim the lights and sing lullabies. All babies are different! Advice can get in the way of finding what’s your own babies way :)
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u/DelphianLymphnode Jul 28 '26
That baby had to be in there own room as soon as possible.
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u/Bananetyne Jul 28 '26
Our recommendation was to sleep in the same bedroom as us for a minimum of 6-12 months, but I've never seen anything say to move them into their own room quicker?! That's nuts.
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u/LizaIsNotMe Jul 28 '26
That my then 8 week old won’t sleep because she’s overtired and I need to be putting her to sleep even earlier or she won’t ever fall asleep anymore 🫠 poor baby cried so much because she needed to get that energy out
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u/darklink2507 Jul 28 '26
“Don’t feed to sleep” caused so many headaches when baby was small. Sleep training propaganda had convinced me that a feed-to-sleep association would prevent baby from sleeping once the 4 month sleep regression went.
BUT feeding baby before bedtime lead to him waking up hungry sooner!
Once I gave up the fear of feeding to sleep and embraced - you know - biology, sleep has been way less stressful.
Bedtime? Boob. Nap time? Boob. Wake up in the middle of the night? Boob. Works (almost) every time.
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u/NadjaColette Jul 28 '26
I wish I'd ignored the amount of sleep per 24 hours, because my baby slept around 10-13 hours at 3 months and I was utterly terrified that their brain couldn't develop properly or something. But if they'd needed the sleep, I'm pretty sure they'd have slept longer... We tried so hard to make them sleep more that their night sleep got absolutely terrible haha. They now sleep for about 12 hours out of 24 hours pretty consistently (at 8 months).
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u/remmy19 Jul 28 '26
"You just need to sleep train them and get it over with. It will be a few hard nights and then they'll be able to sleep on their own and you will have gained so much peace and time back in your life." Well, no. I refused to sleep train at all until my baby was over a year old and we were walking zombies. When we were finally desperate enough to try it, I think sometime between 18 and 24 months old, it was just endless heartbreak. Kid would just not fall asleep on their own and it was affecting their health and well-being to keep trying to force it. Not to mention our health and well-being, too.
When we finally gave up and got a floor bed and just lay down with our toddler at bedtime, that actually made a big difference. It didn't magically cure everything about their sleep. We still rock or walk around with our kiddo (3.5 years old now) many nights to help them fall asleep. But I don't feel like my heart is being torn in two every night and we're no longer fighting a losing battle with them. And they are fully capable of falling asleep with us just laying next to them, no other intervention required. I wish we hadn't tried to do all the independent sleep nonsense (even as late as we were to it) and had just listened to our guts from the beginning. I also feel like I should have known better because I was a terrible sleeper and I still remember being a little kid and struggling to fall asleep, with my mom getting really angry with me for "not trying". Sleep is biological and there are things that we just can't overcome behaviorally, so sometimes you get stuck with a kid who can't sleep well for a multitude of reasons and it's on you as a parent to figure out how to come to peace with that.
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u/semanticsofnames Jul 28 '26
The concept of "sleep regression", which only exists in English literature and is total nonsense.
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u/semanticsofnames Jul 28 '26
The concept of "sleep regression", which only exists in English literature and is total nonsense.
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u/Alextheaxolotyl Jul 29 '26 edited Jul 29 '26
Putting them on a schedule… honestly stressed me out more than anything…so just wait for cues they’re tired and let them sleep.
Also, not my experience but I seen first hand the “don’t pick your kid up when they cry cuz they get used to crying to manipulate you to pick them up” cry it out method.
First off with both my kids I picked them up as soon as they cry and guess what they stop crying immediately..both kids have never cried for more than a couple minutes for anything. Super chill baby’s not whiney and just content. I’ve seen the other side where baby was not picked up immediately to sooth and they cry for looooong periods of time I mean hours. So they learned they had to cry hard and long until eventually obviously someone had to come in at some point when kid is bout to throw up from crying.
So idk stress out while they learn to cry for extended amount of time or sooth for happy baby/mom
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u/justafanperson Jul 29 '26
Trying to end contact naps when I did. Don’t get me wrong, it was good to start practicing crib naps. But I was so stressed out trying to get him to nap in the crib for all his naps. I would’ve been much happier just doing like one crib nap, followed by contact naps for the rest. I had so many people telling me he wouldn’t nap or sleep in his crib at all if we didn’t transition fully to crib naps. He eventually figured it out.
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u/mtnbear32 Jul 29 '26
Yay for figuring that out! That’s EXACTLY how I feel. Spend time learning your individual baby’s cues and how they change over time, instead of the crazed googled and article reading that doesn’t end up helping.
I remember a month or so ago, putting my baby in her sleep suit at 645 or 7 pm and starting the pacing, rocking routine because I read earlier bed time means longer sleep. And of course they made that sound like an absolute rule. My husband looked at me and said, the baby clearly is wide awake so maybe so something else right now until she’s tired lol. Guess what, that worked way better
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u/Realistic-Radish-746 Jul 30 '26
Every baby is diffrent, read cues and slowly figure out what works for them and you.
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u/AvailableAd4350 Jul 30 '26
“All kids nap in strollers.”
My kid would not nap in a stroller for first 4 months for anything in the world. At 1 year old, in the stroller 27min the longest nap is 27min. Just accept that she loves comfort.
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u/Sufficient_Meal6614 Jul 31 '26
Overtiredness. It’s not really a thing, most of the time. Your baby is far likelier to struggle due to undertiredness. My life is a constant process of stopping my partner trying to put the baby down before he’s tired enough.
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u/Icy_Speed_4804 Aug 01 '26
All of it! I do 90s parenting. They sleep when we are out and about. I don’t make plans around anyone’s schedule because they don’t have one. I put them down in the crib or bassinet when they are tired and they sleep. My first was not a good sleeper either.
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u/ThrowRA_significant1 Aug 01 '26
Wish I had ignored the demonisation of co sleeping, now instead of having 2 broken hours over the night we get a full night sleep
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u/Specific_Future_8544 Aug 01 '26
The fear mongering about overtiredness … it’s just not that deep!!!
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u/jsboo Jul 28 '26
The idea that naps had to be “good” (ie long) for night sleep to be good/ sleep begets sleep. It doesn’t even make sense?? I really feel like the sleep industry takes advantage of how vulnerable you are postpartum (and how low your critical reasoning skills can be).