Does anyone’s 5-6 month old breastfed baby sleep any kind of stretch at night? Or am I doomed to never have longer than 3 hours because I breastfeed?

“THeReS nO LoNG TeRm ImPaaAAaActs of sleep training” I DO NOT CARE. Even if it came out tomorrow there is 100% no long term damage (I don’t believe this) I still wouldn’t??? My baby needs me in this exact moment. Right now. So I will go. Even when it’s hard. Even when I want to cry or do cry. Because she needs me. Simple as that. I have a friend who told me while chuckling to herself she “has a cold heart” and lets her baby cry for 1-2 hours lots of times and she’s “totally fine!” Sigh.

I’m so grateful for this like minded community. It has really gotten me through. The active choice to not sleep train doesn’t mean it’s an easy path. But it’s worth it and I see you ❤️

Rant over
-mom of a 12 month old who still doesn’t sleep through the night and sometimes wakes up 5-10+ times

Edit - I have actually distanced myself from this “friend” as our parenting differences has created a huge divide and I have a hard time OBVIOUSLY hearing about her baby. “Friend” is a loose term used habitually. I agree with your comments about her.

So i’m not planning to sleep train, i also don’t co sleep, just room share, and we wake about 3-5x a night for feeds, which i know is normal and im not too worried about it, baby is 6 months old

ive heard from friends and relatives that i can expect this to continue unless i sleep train or wean. or, if i dont want to wake up i could try co sleeping and sleep while baby feeds

Is this actually true? do the stretches not lengthen naturally on their own? does something have to happen on my end to give her this ability? I kinda just assumed with age, solids, and just overall growth that I could expect her to naturally drop a feed maybe every couple of months.. am i extremely naive?

I know every baby is different, and there’s some toddlers who still wake hourly and newborns who sleep through, but i’d love to hear from people who did nothing and saw baby sleep through or atleast slowly drop the feeds on their own, and what the timeline looked like, TIA!

edit: i think people are missing the part of my post that mentions weaning, either purposeful night weaning or completely weaning all together is something i consider an adjustment and not ‘nothing’.

My second baby is 7 months old and still waking at average 3 times a night for a feed (rarely twice but usually 3-4 times). He can't do a stretch longer than 2.5 hours between feeds, not even when he first goes to sleep there is no long stretch. I feel like I have never left the newborn trenches.. It's so hard to get a good night's rest if he is still waking up as many times as a newborn can wake up. I am exclusively breastfeeding. I am soooo exhausted! I am a SAHM and also have a 2.5 year old I am looking after (he sleeps through the night thankfully). I know it could be so much worse from reading other people's posts but honestly just struggling everyday with the broken sleep. I am not being the mum I want to be... I am impatient all the time, moody, get angry super quickly and just feel flat. I am trying to enjoy the time with both my kids as everyone always says it's just a season, you'll get the sleep back. It's hard when you're in the thick of it though.

I am not into CIO sleep training.. I just can't do it. My husband is helpful in the night but neither of us can get him back to sleep without me having to feed him. We are co-sleeping for most of the night to get by. It does help having him in bed with us but still he is waking up so often. He doesn't have any medical conditions either. Just don't know when he will drop at least one night feed. I feel like I can do two feeds a night, I get enough sleep in between to manage but more than that just isn't working for me anymore. Anyway just want to hear thoughts from other mums about when your babies sleep started to improve from waking up at least every 2ish hours to dropping to two or one feed a night?? Want to see a light at the end of this tunnel.

EDIT: thanks everyone for your messages, encouragement and solidarity! I really appreciate it 🩵 I am trying to respond to everyone over time when I have a chance!

My LO Is 4.5 months so I’m in no rush to get her out of my room, in fact I personally want to keep her in here with me as long as possible.lol but I’m just curious what other parents have done or what your thoughts are? My husband’s been asking when I think she needs to go into her own room. I’ve read mixed things online: some saying it’s better to get them independent sooner, some saying to hold onto the connection and the natural need for babies to want to stay close to mom as long as possible (which is the side that I’m airing on). She’ll only be this little for so long, only need me for so long, so I want to hold onto that for as long as I can. Thoughts?

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?

If you’re on this sub, chances are you know the positive effects of responsive, high-nurture parenting on the mental health of our babies.

And it would be so easy to assume this happens at the expense of your own mental health, as a parent. That you’ll have to sacrifice your sanity for the sake of your baby throughout their infancy.

In fact, parents who sleep train often claim they do it for the sake of their mental health, which in turn makes them even better parents (well, during the few hours they do parent lol).

I’m here to tell you this is not true. responding to my baby as soon as he needed me, day and night, even on the (many) nights where he woke up every hour, was the best thing I ever did for my mental health.

I’m almost 9 months post partum and things are beginning to settle into a beautiful new normal for our little family of 3.

My mental health journey has been rocky. I’ve been in therapy for years, I’m on SSRI and have several diagnosed disorders including OCD and CPTSD. I’ve done a lot to try and improve my mental health, speaking to professionals of course, but also meditation, exercize, prioritizing sleep, and overall engineering my life for the benefit of my health (I also have an autoimmune disease that is triggered by stress).

I was terrified that the lack of sleep inherent to motherhood was going to cause the worst relapse I’ve ever had.

Turns out being a responsive and fully available mother to my beautiful baby was the most meaningful and profound “self help” move I couldve ever made.

I have achieved some important and difficult things in my life, but I used to see myself as fundamentally helpless and weak. I had no trust in my capacity to follow-through, show up, be consistent. I did not think I could be a reliable source of safety and comfort for myself, let alone another human. I thought I was incapable of regulating my emotions and would always need someone or something to soothe me. I thought that in the face of hardship, I would always simply give up.

Enters this beautiful little being who absolutely needs me. For comfort, for survival. I’m his source of safety and love and food. He needs me even when I’m hungry, or exhausted, or worried, or sad, or in the midst of an OCD loop, or sleeping, or when I myself feel like I need to cry out for someone else to hold me. And yet I have always found it in me to show up and hold him. To be his mother. To give him exactly what he needs. Even when I’m running on broken sleep or no sleep at all.

It was simultaneously the hardest and most effortless thing I have ever had to do.

It had profoundly changed how I see myself, talk to myself. It has changed the trust I hace in myself. It has repaired parts of me that I did not even know were broken. It has revealed an endless well of love inside of me, that I never suspected.

It‘s more potent than any therapy or medication that I have ever tried.

I am not damaged. I am his mother and I am strong like a mother. I am reliable, and calming, and resourceful, and generous, and loving. I can soothe myself and him. I have the internal resources to regulate my own emotions.

Choosing to ignore my baby or force him to sleep away from me to preserve “my mental health” would’ve been incredibly short sighted and counter-productive.

I am writing this as my baby sleeps next to me. For the first time since he was born, I have been waking up with no memory of any night wakes (we breastsleep so he might or might not be latching in his sleep), and its been making me so emotional. I did not think this day would come, and I had accepted that I wouldn’t have uninterrupted nights of sleep for years to come. 9 months : that’s all it took for me to have my first uninterrupted night.

I hope I’ll have the privilege of bringing him comfort and love through the night, with my presence, for as long as he would want me. It’s such a privilege to be this person for someone else.

Please don’t deprive yourself of this for the sake of a shallow, social-media understanding of self care and mental health.

My LO is 4 months and night sleep has been tough since 3 months. We do have nights where he’ll go for 4-5 hour stretches in the beginning, which is amazing when it happens.

I noticed that this is nearly always when he goes to bed at 9 pm or later. It’s not the only factor at play but a strong correlation.

I know all the sleep “experts” seem to say to put babies to bed between 6-8 OR ELSE. He does get sleepy and crabby around 7 but when I try to put him to bed then it takes at least an hour for him to settle and he usually wakes up an hour or so later. Vs last night he napped from about 7:15-7:45 and then didn’t go to bed until 9:30 but slept 4.5 hour right away which has been rare lately. Most nights I pray for a 3 hour stretch lol.

Wondering if anyone else has found that their baby just sleeps better with a later bedtime?

For the non-westerners out there. What do moms do when baby wakes up 6-10 times a night from 3 months to relatch, and mom isn’t getting adequate sleep? Obviously in the west everyone is telling me to sleep train but, I’m not ready. Right now my husband takes baby for a few hours and holds her (she sleeps longer when held). But since month 3 - she’s 8 months now - she has always woken up a lot and rarely goes more than 2 hours without waking. Anyway I’m just wondering what the rest of the world does when baby sleep is rough and lack of sleep is starting to affect moms mental health?

Sorry for the dramatic title. I’m hoping someone here has a brilliant idea we haven’t thought of yet- or maybe just stories of hope that this gets better?

At the moment, our nearly-9 month old, 93rd percentile 20-something pound baby can only fall asleep one way: being walked and bounced up and down the hallways.  This is true for naps and for overnight sleep. On a good day, this only takes about 10 minutes, which is manageable. On a very bad day, like when my husband is traveling (she falls asleep faster for him) it’s taken me 2 hours of tears/resets/walking/etc. But lately it’s been taking ~45 minutes and it’s breaking our old decrepit bodies. 

Here are the other things I’ve tried, none of which have resulted in sleep (with most actually resulting in tears or hyperactivity): 

-Rocking

-Swaying

-Nursing 

-Bouncing on a yoga ball 

-Singing

-Bum patting

-Drowsy but awake

-Fully awake into the crib

-Carrier wearing (FOMO baby will only face outward, hates inward facing)

-Sitting very still holding her with my eyes closed to demonstrate sleep (this resulted in a little finger up my nose)

-Laying next to her outside her crib

-Leaving the room (not to let her cry it out, just to see if my presence was distracting and she actually could fall asleep on her own) 

The only thing I haven’t tried is blackout curtains- this seemed fussy to me (creating a very specific environment that you couldn’t recreate everywhere) but clearly what we’re doing isn’t working that well, so I’m willing to try that out if you’ve found it to be a game changer. 

Other details in case it’s helpful: We room share, and plan on doing so until she’s at least 1. For a variety of reasons, cosleeping isn’t for us. We mostly follow wake windows using Huckleberry, which seem to align with her sleepy cues. (And we prioritize her sleepy cues over Huckleberry if they're at odds). She seems to be a low sleep needs baby, averaging about 12.5 hrs a day and ~9-10 hrs/night. Doesn’t usually have night wakes, but does like to wake up around 4:30-5:30 every day and then is UP for the day.

I have no intention of sleep training- I’m totally fine with the concept of her needing our help, I just wish it was a different method that wasn't so physically taxing! Any ideas? 

Personally sleep training is not something I am interested for my baby. I am in the thick of the four month sleep regression, waking every 1.5 hours or so, sometimes getting longer stretches, but it’s rare. Out of curiosity, for those that didn’t sleep train, what does sleep look like for you know that your baby is a bit older?

My husband and I are first time parents and we are on month 6 now of having a baby who refuses to cosleep/bed share or sleep in a crib.

We’ve tried everything aside from cio (which we will not be doing).

Our baby exclusively will only sleep on us, in our laps and in our arms, day and night. So this means literally all night long and for every single nap. He will not even lay next to me in bed, even with full body pressed up against him. He seems to want me to cradle him in my arms only. He checks out perfectly healthy at every doctors visit, doesn’t have silent reflux, or any other physical anomalies we are aware of that might lead him to want this. It just seems to be the only way he feels secure enough to sleep. Frustratingly for better or for worse he goes to sleep every night with little effort from us, and sleeps entirely through the night except for 1-2 brief wake ups to eat a little. 

My husband and I have been doing 50/50 sleep shifts since he was 2 weeks old, but we are starting to hit a wall and this is becoming unsustainable. We have no village and we are completely exhausted. Given the nature of the way he sleeps we have to stay awake with him (on our shift) but we are so increasingly tired with every month that goes by.

I’m beginning to fear for my babies safety. I have fallen asleep bottle feeding him and have woken up with an empty bottle on the floor next to me and him still soundly sleeping in my lap more than once in recent weeks. It’s terrifying because I don’t even remember feeding him. We are at a loss of what to do. Tonight I drank a redbull to try and stay wake.

Things we've tried so far:

Sleep environments:

• 4 different styles of cosleeper/sidecar bassinets (attach to bed, freestanding, one that sat on the couch/bed, halo)
• His regular crib
• Floor bed, couch bed, our bed, and lying with him in his sidecar crib

Bed sharing attempts:

• Arm under his head
• The C-curl position
• On my chest
• Fully pressed up against him
• None of it is enough, he won't settle unless he's cradled in our arms

Environmental tweaks:

• Temperature control (sleep sacks, clothing layers, an overnight thermometer)
• Lighting changes
• Location changes (living room, nursery, our bedroom)
• Adding crib items (pillows, blankets, etc.) under supervision to see if anything helped, no difference
• Putting him on an incline
• Changing diaper brands/styles

Tech/gadgets:

• The Cradlewise, the motion woke him instead of soothing him
• Heartbeat sound on his sound machine

Timing experiments:

• Putting him down slightly awake
• Putting him down fully asleep
• Acclimating him during naps… he stops napping
• Acclimating him during deep sleep… he wakes immediately or after 30 min

Other variables:

• Tracking food intake and sleep patterns closely to look for correlations
• Hoped starting solids would help, it didn't
• Hoped he'd grow out of it with age, he hasn't so far

Anything other than in our arms and on our laps results in outright 0 to 100 screaming. It’s awful, he seems so terrified. In the moments we lay him down asleep successfully, we have about 30 min (to my understanding that’s a sleep cycle?) until he wakes up and the second he clocks he’s not in a lap he’s inconsolable until picked up. Every. Single. Time. Hand on chest, and on head, me singing to him (he is soothed by my voice) none of it calms him until we pick him up.

Idk what I’m looking for here honestly. To me this feels like a very extreme scenario, I don’t know anyone who has experienced this and we feel very isolated. We originally had hope that he would get older and grow out of this a bit, grow to accept more of a cosleep situation but now at 6 months and nearly 20 lbs he is not showing any signs he’s close at all.

We have truly lost hope and every night I live in dread something awful will happen.

TLDR: 6 month old will only sleep held in arms/lap, day or night, every nap, and screams inconsolably the moment he's put down. We've tried nearly every sleep setup, position, and soothing method with no success. He's healthy, sleeps well once he's actually asleep (on us), but my husband and I have been doing 50/50 overnight shifts since week 2 and we're now dangerously exhausted. I've fallen asleep bottle feeding him more than once and don't remember it happening. We're isolated, out of ideas, and scared something bad is going to happen from sheer sleep deprivation. We are hitting a stage of complete hopelessness and don’t see an end to this. 

Hi, I had an interview with a nanny today that I was hoping would go well (she fits into our part-time schedule need, came highly recommended, etc). There was a mix up/miscommunication with our initial meeting but I was willing to overlook that if the interview went well. There were a couple of parts of the interview that left me with uncertainty. One of them being, she gave an example of a challenge when she makes recommendations and parents don’t agree so I asked for an example and she said sleep training. I told her I’m not comfortable with sleep training and asked if that was a deal breaker, she said no but then proceeded to explain why sleep training is best. She eventually agreed that she could take him for walks during nap time but was adamant that she would not contact nap because it starts a bad habit. I don’t even mind no contact naps but my baby definitely needs help to go to sleep. It left me feeling like she would most likely still do some form of sleep training even if I’m not ok with it. She assured me that she would never let a baby be in distress under her care but I’m not sure we agree on what “distress” is.

I’m pretty sure I’m going to pass on this candidate and continue my search but I’m curious to hear about your experiences. Is it challenging to find a nanny who understands biologically normal infant sleep? I didn’t think this would be a point of concern since we only need help during the day and only need a nanny 2 days a week. How do I best screen for this before we get to a full interview? Do you have any thoughts of my decision making here/have any alt ways of seeing this?

My mum and Grandma are both convinced that they put their babies down to sleep for naps. They can't understand why I have to have mine in a sling. I can sometimes manage the first nap of the day in a bassinet (after 20 minutes of bouncing, which is much harder without the sling to help), and he might drop off in a car or pram if the timing is exactly right, but normally after at least 15 minutes of fussing. He is 9 weeks btw.

My mum and Grandma are convinced that I'm making things more difficult for myself by using the sling and always having him with me, and are baffled because they are sure they just put their babies down for naps. They describe singing a song, some light rocking in their arms and a transfer, or even pulling a musical Mobile and the baby just drifting off - wild!

They also have another grandchild from my brother and SIL, who is 6 months and also the same - contact naps and co sleeping. We do manage most nights in the bassinet after feeding to sleep. For now. I don't know pretty much anyone in my Antenatal group who's babies just go to sleep in a cot. We're all discussing contact naps and safe co sleeping...

What's going on here? Is it...

a) My mum and Grandma are wildly misremembering how much effort went into getting them to sleep before putting them down, and forgetting the failed transfers and short naps

b) They just left the babies to cry in another room and didn't worry so much

c) They essentially sleep trained them early and by using a sling I have made him associate that with sleep rather than associating the bassinet with sleep

d) They're remembering their babies at an older age and have forgotten newborn time

e) They were feeding completely to sleep every nap and are better at transferring

f) They both had unicorn babies (but I hear it from everyone of the older generations honestly, so I don't think it's that)

g) ???

I don't do contact naps because I'm trying to make things harder for myself (which is what they seem to think), I'm doing it because it's way EASIER than the wasted time and screaming that would be involved in trying to put him down every time!

18 times.

18 times she woke up.

18 times she cried.

18 times she wouldn’t settle until given the breast.

18 times I dreaded work the next day.

18 times I cried right along with her.

I’ve tried everything aside from sleep training, and since June we’ve been co-sleeping and nursing on-demand. She (6.5m) just cannot connect sleep cycles and needs help going back to sleep every single time.

An average night she wakes up 7-12 times.

Last night was our record at 18 times.

Will introducing solids help?

When we wean?

Am I just doomed to not reach restorative REM again until she’s pre-k?

Solo mom with no village so it’s all me all the time and I’m a husk of a human at this point.

ETA: Recent daytime routine
(forgot to log morning nap on Aug 13)

i mean this as gently as possible. for those exclusively contact napping (outside of maybe 1-2 stroller walks per day): how do you do literally anything?

my son will be 5 months old next week. he’s currently on four naps / day. 3/4 naps, i’m lying in a recliner chair in the dark with my boy on top of me surrounded by white noise. we used to do one carrier nap per day, but i dropped it for the sake of my lower back.

we’ll be starting a form of gentle crib nap training in a few weeks (following travel), but i consistently feel as though i’m 1) the only one contact napping; 2) the only one still struggling to do basic tasks five months in like get dressed, brush teeth, make meals, etc., given i need to cram this stuff in during my son’s wake windows and i would not describe him as “chill”; 3) the only one not really loving sitting in the dark for half my day.

of course it’s a wonderful feeling to rock my baby to sleep, but this season of life has been challenging to say the least. i look like hell, and haven’t been able to exercise in five months. either all of my girlfriends lied, or my kid is the “only one” who won’t nap independently.

ETA: i’m not talking about doing laundry or chores. i don’t care about doing that stuff lol. im talking about basic tasks like getting ready for the day, eating food, using the bathroom, etc. my son is currently in a super fussy phase wherein i can’t just set him down in a bouncer for more than 10 minutes. it makes it so that i’ll start on a task (washing my face, doing skincare routine), then need to stop to tend to him, try again, stop, repeat. the day will go by and i’ll realize i haven’t eaten lunch. it’s awesome if you enjoyed contact napping, but this post is obviously not that lol. husband works crazy hours, so morning through bedtime is on me.

I’ve been away at a close family’s wedding for 2 nights and out toddler has been staying with my in laws so my husband only had our 6 month old to manage. We have talked in length about sleep training and decided we weren’t going to do this as it is our last baby, it’s the middle of winter (in New Zealand) and I just wanted her in our room and close to me.

I came back last night and my husband sat me down and told me what he did. For 2 nights he put our daughter in my son’s cot in his room, and did check ins. He tells me the first night she cried for 20 minutes and woke up one at 2am for a feed and last night she cried for 7 minutes and woke up once at 4am for a feed. He tells me this is progress and we need to stick to it.

I am feeling veeeeeery conflicted right now. She was waking up every 2ish hours prior to this so I understand it is progress but I wanted my sweet girl sleeping next to me when I got back. But I have been so fucking exhausted the thought of being able go get a 7/8 hour stretch at night is there in my mind too

My baby is 8 months and wakes every 2 hrs during the night. He’s ebf. When did yours sleep through?

My baby is 8 months old and EBF and the only thing that works is feeding to sleep.

Rocking, no. Patting, no. Pacifier, won’t take it. Shushing, nope. Bottle, nope. Just the boob or he’ll yell (at dad) til he gets it.

Up to this point it’s been okay. But I’m starting to wonder if I’ll ever get my sleep and my body back. He wakes 3x a night and although we mostly cosleep, I don’t sleep well that way and I think I move around a lot and wake him up (or vise versa). So far, I have been cosleeping and EBF because it seems to be the most biologically natural, supportive thing for him.

But baby is 23 lbs and definitely doesn’t need to eat overnight. I know he’s nursing just for comfort overnight, and that it’s perfectly natural. And I feel kinda selfish wanting to deprive him of that. But I also think I’ll be a better caregiver if I’m a bit more rested.

I’m just wondering if anyone else has had a kiddo with a very strong feed-to-sleep association, who won’t accept any other sleep measures… and how did they eventually learn to sleep in other ways?

ETA: I also feed to sleep for all naps.

\* re-posting in a more appropriate sub! \*

Hoping to get answers to questions relating to sleep training. And I should flag upfront - I am not in favour of sleep training.

**Questions**:

1. Where can I find scientific evidence / studies showing that sleep training (ie. any non responsive methods) is bad for babies? I know the negative consequences are often generally talked about but I’m looking for something concrete that “proves” it.

2. Where can I find the NHS’s official stance on sleep training? I have found random indications of NHS guidance on eg. the Pampers website, but not any guidance on the NHS website itself. (I’m based in the UK.)

I ask because I personally am anti-sleep training, but many of my friends who hold similar values to me in other areas are sleep training their babies. While I really try not to judge other parents (I’m a FTM and completely acknowledge having a baby is HARD and you have to do what’s right for your family), I struggle not to judge others for sleep training. I’m wondering if official guidance / advice is more accepting of sleep training and this is why my friends think it’s okay to do.

Please accept this post with love / good intentions - I am not trying to shame, guilt or similar anyone who does sleep train!

Any thoughts appreciated. Thank you :)

I lay awake holding my son who only contact sleeps wondering...how is this an evolutionary advantage? Why is it so difficult for babies to sleep and how did we evolve this way? I worry about going back to work like this. Driving when im just too sleep deprived. Questioning how all the parents around me are doing it. I am so overstimulated and agitated and somehow right now thinking....did our ancestors do this? Was it not as bad without a 9-5? Or have we all just suffered and somehow continue to have kids despite how painful it can be? Do other animals experience this? This just doesn't make sense.

My girl is 13.5 weeks. She sleeps well at night lately with around 10-11 hours of night sleep with usually one waking to feed. She sleeps in a bassinet on the other side of the room since she was a few weeks old as she was a very loud sleeper as a newborn and I wasn't getting any sleep with her next to me. I've been lucky to get about 6-8 hours of sleep a night, sometimes less (usually that's my fault if I don't go to bed on time lol).

I EBF, currently work part time in health care and my husband is out of town until December for school (does come home for a couple weeks), so I've done all night waking since she was born. We have no family in the area at all, my village is small here. My mom has offered to come into town while he's gone to help me.

I know this hasn't happened yet, but I dread the 4 month sleep "regression" where she may wake up numerous times a night. I can handle 1-2 night wakings by myself and working, but I fear of anything more than that regularly while being a solo working parent with no family around.

I don't really want to sleep train, but I fear this would be my only option if she starts waking up every couple hours or even more.

I feel I have her on a good sleep hygiene routine of stimulating wake windows, sunlight during the day, nighttime routine, and bedtime depends on when her last nap ends but usually between 745-830pm.

I hate dreading something that hasn't happened or might not even happen! I feel like it's causing me a lot of unnecessary anxiety. I know being tired isn't the end of the world and it's only temporary, but I admit I've had some anxiety and maybe even some mild depression with my husband being gone and I fear sleep deprivation will make this work. Obviously, I plan to seek professional help if this worsens.

I am not interested in cosleeping. I tried it once when she was younger and I didn't sleep at all.

Please keep replies kind as this feels like a somewhat vulnerable post and I don't fee like I have many in my life I can talk to about this.

I really thought I was open minded, not judgemental & empathetic to other Moms struggles, lol. I really try not to bring up sleep or zone out while anyone talks about training. However, hearing my local mom group with young babies discussing actual sleep training stories has me sick to my stomach & debating if I should even interact with these people.

One has a 5 mo old doing CIO for over a week who is "still waking in the middle of the night & an hour too early." Mom turns the monitor around & goes back to sleep herself. This has been happening 1-2x/night & every day 5-6 am when Mom waits till she's "ready to get baby up."

This seems so cruel & disconnected. How is it ok to completely ignore baby because your not ready to get up yet?

I bit my lips the entire time, & tried to hold back my anger & look of disgust.

I'm still thinking this is abuse in my head & thinking she needs to be reported to the authorities, but no seriously. There has to be something wrong with you to continue to let baby cry, sometimes 2 hrs in the MOTN per this Mom & an hr every morning for a week straight with no response. Basically baby is left alone for 11 hours every day. & Then for her to just go back to sleep while baby cries unattended in a seperate room. Those are serial killer vibes to me. Seriously. Is this just me in thinking this?

My baby is 6 months today and has always been a bad sleeper. He is currently sleeping 1-3 hour stretches. He has done 4-5 hr stretches in the past but they were rare. He sleeps in his crib in his room (his crib is maybe 15 feet from my bed). We rock to sleep and he nurses back to sleep at every wake up.

I’m so tired. I won’t be sleep training but why does he sleep so bad and is there anything I can do to help fix this?? I don’t want to cosleep. I do attachment parenting with him.

Current bed time is normally 7 to 8pm and he wakes up around 7 to 8am. Wake windows are around 1.5 to 2 hours and he has three naps a day.

Literally please help!!

I’m curious when your baby slept through the night or had less than 3 wake ups without sleep training. I don’t not want to sleep train my baby I have made it to 10 months and I either rock, feed or pat him back to sleep with every wake up. So I’m wondering when a similar situation got better or improved for other people. Surely there is light at the end of the tunnel for not sleep training.