@opsthryl Thank you so much for the detailed post. I just made a post yesterday (I think, I’m losing track of time) about my baby waking up every 1.5-2 hours at night and asking for help.
I have a question about your schedule. Why is there a gap between wake ups and feeds during the day? I need to feed my daughter as soon as she wakes up and is still groggy, otherwise she doesn’t want to eat. :/
@amysmith0515 Tbh I don’t know… that’s the schedule I guess? I did read somewhere that if babies wake and immediately demand to be fed that could be a habit or something. I am not sure, but this seems to work okay for us.
One thing is that in the morning, since I am the one going into his room to wake him for his 7am feed, sometimes he’s still groggy and doesn’t want to eat. So perhaps it’s to account for some wake up time?
@amysmith0515 Hey there! For nap times we are generally more flexible. He never sleeps exactly one hour haha.. he sleeps anywhere from 40-90 minutes (but don’t let him sleep more than 90 minute naps). I only feed when it’s time… even when he wakes up early. Then we just do tummy time and play till it’s time to eat
@amysmith0515 That sounds so rough. Don’t give up hope! (Or channel it into motivation to do this ) I was in your boat multiple times (each leading to another attempt at sleep training) and didn’t get it until now
@opsthryl My baby wakes at 8am but still insists on going to bed for the night after 9pm I don’t get why he can’t just go to sleep at 8-8:30pm. We have a similar schedule to yours and by the time the 4th nap is done he wants a 5th nap (we try making it his bedtime but he treats it as a nap). Do you think this is because he is too young? He’s 20 weeks old.
@dtom What if you try waking him 15 min earlier every day? (Vs you letting him wake, instead you decide when he wakes)… and then shift his sleep time up 15 min as well.
When J had his crazy days I let him sleep in until 8/830 because i was so exhausted that I didn’t want to get up. As a result… he had later/inconsistent evenings. Since I started to wake him up, he slept earlier haha… maybe that can help you? It was torture for me though in the morning but worth it so my husband and I could eat dinner finally at 8pm with him in bed
@opsthryl Yes I actually have been doing this. Every day is different since his naps range widely from 30-45 mins and it affects his bedtime. I noticed he gets super tired after 9pm no matter when his 4th nap was. I just haven’t seen him ever sleep before 9pm no matter when I wake him in the morning! So I’m not sure if it’s habitual or maybe he will eventually do that on his own.
@dtom That is rough :/ do u think it’s an age thing? I read that younger babies sometimes have later bedtimes but it starts adjusting when they get older. My LO used to do a 9pm bedtime but now it’s gradually moved to 7/730
@opsthryl I’m at the exact point as you so thank you for this! Super helpful!! Baby is 5m here, EBF, and now waking those exact times to nurse at night and it’s turned me into a zombie. At 2m she was sleeping through with 1 night feed at 3-4am and I stupidly thought “wow when she’s sleeping through the night at 4m and we have a sleep regression maybe it’s just she goes back to waking 1x per night” lolololol Oh, past me.
Did you find the dream feeds helped consolidate wake ups at night? My biggest fear is that I dream feed baby at 10:30pm and then she’s up again anyway at 11:30pm, 1, etc. like “hello? Ready for my snack again” and it just starts the 2 hour wake cycle before.
I totally relate! I was thinking the same thing with the dream feeds haha.. because at the time, he was waking me up to nurse (I would feed him and then have to wake up every 1-2 hours to keep doing it!).
I used this method during sleep training:
Set alarm to feed baby 10:30PM and 3:30AM.
Do NOT feed baby if he is crying. Only feed baby if he is asleep (like a true dreamfeed). Do sleep training the rest of the time. This is because if you feed him when he cries at night, he will require nursing to be put back to sleep (aka counterproductive to sleeptraining).
So as a result, when I snuck into his room and did the dream feeds, even if he wakes up in between the feeds, I did NOT feel bad to just sleep train him and NOT feed him because I knew he had been well fed (We did pop-ins every 5-10 minutes, max was like 50+ minutes of him complaining before he slept)
The first night was okay. The 2nd night was the worst! But then things gradually got better after that... and I only nursed him on the scheduled 1030 and 330 (so I controlled the schedule vs his crying used to summon me)
) I was in your boat multiple times (each leading to another attempt at sleep training) and didn’t get it until now 
