@bobezeh Parent of a baby who slept in 45-90 minutes at a time until 8.5 months checking in! 
I could have written this. I would get sooo annoyed (and still do) at parent complaining about baby sleeping 4 hour stretches. Or people who were like oh, I just did this one thing and then my baby slept through to the night. Nope! We added a 30 minute routine around 4-5 months and that helped a tiny bit. Stopped feeding to sleep. We tried different gentle and gradual things that seemed to work for others. Nope. Still couldn’t fall asleep alone and we’d end up waking up all night to rock him back to sleep. My husband and I basically slept poorly in shifts from when he was born until a couple weeks ago.
I never thought I would be that parent, but at 8.5 months we did full extinction CIO sleep training. It was the best decision we could have made. Anything gradual just seemed to escalate him bc he wanted to be held once he saw us. I’m not gonna lie, it was brutal. He cried for 2 hours the first night before going to sleep. (Again, hate all the parents who complain about how hard it was to watch their baby cry for 30 minutes!) I’m convinced some babies are just difficult to get to sleep no matter what, like there is no easy way, it’s just different levels of hard. Our baby is an angel when it comes to literally anything but sleep. But the second night, he cried 15 minutes. And since then it’s usually about 5-15 minutes of fussing before he’s out…and then he sleeps for hours. Last night he slept without needing comforting from like 8pm to 2am. I’m starting to get enough sleep to do more than barely minimum functioning for the first time since he was born and it feels amazing.
So, all that to say that if you need to, it’s okay to do less gentle methods. I promise your baby will still love you just as much. Having a baby that doesn’t sleep leaves you exhausted and bitter. My husband and I were getting resentful of each other when there were nights the other got more sleep. It’s rough out there. Hang in there. You’re not alone with your terrible sleeper.
I could have written this. I would get sooo annoyed (and still do) at parent complaining about baby sleeping 4 hour stretches. Or people who were like oh, I just did this one thing and then my baby slept through to the night. Nope! We added a 30 minute routine around 4-5 months and that helped a tiny bit. Stopped feeding to sleep. We tried different gentle and gradual things that seemed to work for others. Nope. Still couldn’t fall asleep alone and we’d end up waking up all night to rock him back to sleep. My husband and I basically slept poorly in shifts from when he was born until a couple weeks ago.I never thought I would be that parent, but at 8.5 months we did full extinction CIO sleep training. It was the best decision we could have made. Anything gradual just seemed to escalate him bc he wanted to be held once he saw us. I’m not gonna lie, it was brutal. He cried for 2 hours the first night before going to sleep. (Again, hate all the parents who complain about how hard it was to watch their baby cry for 30 minutes!) I’m convinced some babies are just difficult to get to sleep no matter what, like there is no easy way, it’s just different levels of hard. Our baby is an angel when it comes to literally anything but sleep. But the second night, he cried 15 minutes. And since then it’s usually about 5-15 minutes of fussing before he’s out…and then he sleeps for hours. Last night he slept without needing comforting from like 8pm to 2am. I’m starting to get enough sleep to do more than barely minimum functioning for the first time since he was born and it feels amazing.
So, all that to say that if you need to, it’s okay to do less gentle methods. I promise your baby will still love you just as much. Having a baby that doesn’t sleep leaves you exhausted and bitter. My husband and I were getting resentful of each other when there were nights the other got more sleep. It’s rough out there. Hang in there. You’re not alone with your terrible sleeper.
we didn’t sleep train and this saved us! Tired children sleep….even with “associations”