Method that doesn’t involve letting a baby cry?

[joryanne]

I don’t want to do any type of sleep training that requires letting my baby cry, does this exist?

My 6 month old wakes every two hours to feed. He nurses and goes right back to sleep. We tried starting purées at 4 months old in hopes that higher calorie intake during the day would help with him waking but it didn’t make a difference. I’ve tried co sleeping twice last week and it didn’t make a difference. My baby is in the 100th percentile for his height, he’s huge if that’s relevant.

He has his two bottom teeth and pulls at his ears constantly. He was checked for ear infections and they assume he’s pulling at them for teething pain.

He recently started stretching out when he cries so I assume he’s been gassy lately too.

I am mentally not able to let him cry nor do I want to but I’m so tired so I figured I’d ask incase anyone has any advice that could help.

Thank you for your time.

 

[pinkjellybeans32]

@joryanne Raising my spirited baby book suggests a gentle nudge approach to sleep training. It doesn't involve any crying.

 

[mrmonroe]

@joryanne I hope you find your answers, but I was personally unable to find a method that didn't involve crying.

I will say I tried both CIO and Ferber (with several months in between them.). The experience of both was massively different. I could not handle CIO but I found Ferber to be not that bad. Reading the actual book (how to solve your child's sleep problems) helped me realize that it was intended as a gentle sleep training method, and in many ways it is.

Not saying you should do that, but just to let you know it might be an option if nothing else pans out.

 

[heavendreamer]

@joryanne Just to let you know I have tried every single training method, got sleep consultants, modified our routine, etc. and my 8 month old baby still wakes 2 3 times in the night to feed. She can do longer stretches sometimes but most of the time no. Am I sleep deprived? Yes. Is it ok just to accept that my baby doesn’t sleep through the night like some others? Yes. I got very frustrated at one point because my baby hasn’t slept through the night but then again, every baby is different. Sometimes sleep training just doesn’t work.

 

[seekinganswersinlife]

@heavendreamer Night weaning is a separate process and objective than sleep training (independent sleep at bedtime)

 

[heavendreamer]

@seekinganswersinlife I think to breastfeeding babies, it’s hard to know the difference as a lot of mums just choose to feed them back to sleep and it seems to be the quickest and most effective ways to put them go back to sleep

 

[seekinganswersinlife]

@heavendreamer You can feed them back to sleep overnight and still have an independent sleeper at bedtime, per my comment above. People sleep train their babies and keep night feeds all the time.

 

[heavendreamer]

@seekinganswersinlife I understand your point. I think a lot of people seem to think the purpose of sleep training is to stop babies waking up in the night (regardless of what the reasons of night waking are, whether it’s because of hunger or not being able to fall back to sleep independently), hence my comment.

 

[beachenviron]

@heavendreamer Same here, 4 sleep consultants, still wakes up multiple times.

 

[heavendreamer]

@beachenviron It sucks doesn’t it Sometimes whenever I hear successful sleep training stories I question myself deeply…

 

[noarque]

@joryanne Probably going to say the opposite of commenters but I did not sleep train for this exact reason. I could not handle listening to my baby cry when he wanted to be soothed.

There are days where my now 15mo wants to be rocked to sleep a little before being put down and other days he can be put down no problem. It really just depends. But I feel better knowing that if he’s upset or wants comfort, he can get it. My 15mo has slept through the night since he was 5 months old when he dropped his early early morning feed.

The big caveat with this is my baby did not nurse (had a bottle), so that is probably making things way different too.

 

[slython]

@joryanne A bit of crying can be involved when working with a baby's sleep, but I believe that crying can also be a sign of a wonky schedule. So let's start there.

How many naps are you guys at a day? At 6 months my son was between 3-4 and woke once during the night. He has never been a great sleeper so that was very good for us.

Wake windows were really helpful for my baby. You can google them and try to implement the "normal" WW schedule for them. (My son was always a bit longer than the recommended WW). Try that for a few days and see if you get any cut downs on the night wakes.

6 months is a wild time, so it may just be a phase. A tough phase, but yet a phase.

You can try to replace a night feeding with rocking if you would like to try to flip to a different sleep association. As long as you work on easing out of the sleep associations over time they will go away.

You can do this! If intense crying doesn't feel right then look into scheduling factors. Sleep math became my life with a bad sleeper. Making sure he got enough sleep during the day but not too much that it kept him up at night!

I hope this helps or gives you some solidarity!

 

[joryanne]

@slython He is doing 2-3 naps, usually between 40-50 minutes.

Wake window is between 2-3 hours.

My partner always tries to bounce him to sleep before calling me in to nurse him.

Thanks for your response!

 

[kreekcritter]

@joryanne I honestly don’t think there will ever be a training method WITHOUT crying unfortunately. Take a look at Ferber! It is more gentle than CIO

 

[ahmygodes]

@joryanne I did cry it out, but a modified version. After 2 min you go in and rub their back. Then give it 5 min. Then 10. You can increase the increments how you see fit, but the time duration should be longer than the last one. (This is more for us than them bc yes hearing them cry is painful). My son NEVER made it past the 20 minute mark, and this kid would fight sleep and SCREAM bloody murder (really). After two days it was successful. Mind you, yes this helped him learn to self soothe BUT regressions still happen, teeth still happen, life still happens… they are babies after all.

My son cosleeps a lot (and has for a while and since he was young). He was able to sleep in his crib by the 6 month mark but that doesn’t mean he’s always in his crib. Now he’s almost 18 months. Some nights he sleeps totally through the night, some nights he sleeps til 5am but cosleeps for those last few hours, sometimes he is up at midnight and refuses to go back in his crib. Kids are finicky. I do what is best for all of us in that moment so that we’re all sleeping and not every night is consistent and THAT is okay.

I truly think him “crying out out” in that modified method helped him tremendously bc up to that point the ONLY way my son was falling asleep was if you were rocking him. Does he still like to be rocked to sleep? Yes and I love to! It only takes 5 minutes now, though (or less), rather than a 20-30 min battle (lol). Not to mention, there are times he’s tired enough I can just put him in his crib and he will put himself to sleep. Again, is it always? No. But he can! And he is only able to do that bc I allowed him to learn how (as painful as it was to hear him cry those couple days). I will do it again with our next baby too, bc it worked.

 

[kreekcritter]

@ahmygodes Yep thats what they say Ferber is about, checking in every few min and then increase. I honestly don’t think there will ever be a training method WITHOUT crying unfortunately.

 

[elizabeth101]

@joryanne The chair method is fairly painless. But just know it can take forever and you can get stuck at different parts. Like now we are at the point where we can put him down and just sit in a chair in his room, no back rubbing no humming, etc. But we can't leave the room until he's out and haven't been able to get to that next level.

He's 18 MO and has always been a crap sleeper. We regret not just doing Ferber or Extinction at 4-6 months.

 

[outofplace_christian]

@joryanne Waking every two hours means that your baby can’t connect his sleep cycles and you’ve created a need to wake up and be fed back to sleep. My baby is 7 months old and also huge. At 6 months she didn’t need to eat more than once at night, and now she doesn’t at all. Your baby will cry while trying to learn to connect his sleep cycles. But the better rested he gets, the less he’ll cry. So some crying now leads to little/no crying later. Helping your baby learn to sleep is kind.

Have you tried giving ibuprofen for teething pain? It’s ok after 6 months and works better than tylonel. Our baby is also teething and has been waking up in pain, ibuprofen helps her sleep through the night on particularly bad nights.

 

[adunni]

@outofplace_christian How do you fix the feed to sleep association? My daughter is nearly 4 months, also huge and I fear that’s what I’m creating. When did you sleep train and what method did you choose?

 

[lemar349]

@adunni You fix a feed to sleep association by not feeding to sleep.

How and when to do that is up to you (there are lots of options), but the goal of all of them is to no longer feed to sleep. The earlier you stop doing that, the easier it will be on you and baby.