Sleep training a 12 week old - success w/o CIO

[worriedone]

I’d love to hear success stories of improving independent sleep in younger babies (eg 3-4 mos) without using CIO.

Context: FTM. EBF Baby has been 100% contact sleeping for naps and overnight. Between struggling with the swaddle, worries about reflux/choking in his sleep, early signs of rolling, and not wanting him to become overtired with crap sleep we were putting him down less and less and eventually we’re holding him for every nap and overnight. I’ve paid for and downloaded tons of sleep resources (eg taking Cara babies, moms on call, little winks sleep nurturing newborns, hey sleepy baby). I’ve learned a lot and we’ve made progress with watching wake windows to have more success getting to sleep and less bouts of overtiredness, identifying baby’s sleepy cues, starting to form a daytime schedule, creating a good sleep environment, establishing nap and bedtime routines, why baby isn’t brushing sleepy cycles and starting to break the feed-sleep association, but ultimately nap and bedtimes can be more unpredictable than we’d like and baby won’t sleep longer than 50 or so minutes in a safe sleep space.

Goals:
- naptime and bedtime are predictable and manageable for a range of caregivers - meaning it takes less than 30 min for baby to fall asleep and they can do so independently without specialized techniques or support that are unique to a particular caregiver
- baby sleeps overnight in his minicrib
- baby eventually drops his 1-2 night feeds (by 6 mos)

Im considering the Batalle sleep school mainly because I’m not interested in CIO OR CIO adjacent methods. I think we could make progress on our own but it would be sllloow. I’d ideally like to implement a structured methodology sooner rather than later so we’re more confident in introducing new caregivers into the mix as I prepare to return to work and so I can enjoy the rest of my leave (my entire time off has been healing and adjusting to new motherhood while nap trapped).

Have you tried Batalle for a baby this young? Other methods? What has worked for those who have LOs who can fall and stay asleep independently?

 

[fellipe]

@worriedone Would you be willing to share the little winks sleep nurturing newborn sleep guide? FTM here and really really struggling with day time naps
Hello, sorry but not sure if you’re still willing to share nurturing newborn? I am at my wits end but my hubby doesn’t want to buy it

 

[katrina2017]

@worriedone We used Precious Little Sleep SWAP with jiggling in crib and eventually faded it out. Took about a week and baby got to a point where we could put down and she’d fall alseep on her own. I was surprise how easy it went, maybe it was nothing we did and she just figured it out on her own. However it didn’t last long. We’re going through a sleep regression now at 3 months and back to square one with contact napping and bouncing to sleep

 

[seekinganswersinlife]

@worriedone The rules of this sub dont allow for promotion of sleep training for babies younger than 4 months, as generally the developmental skills for self-settling arent present yet.

The most-oft recommended book here is Precious Little Sleep, which I believe has chapters around Fuss It Out for babies younger than 4 months (ie. allowing 5-10 minutes of fussing at the beginning of sleeps before intervening - but I havent read the book so dont quote me).

This is another gradual method, and I believe the author implemented it starting at 15 weeks.

I'm not sure what "CIO adjacent" means to you, but any method of teaching independent sleep will likely come with some protesting. You will pay with time or tears - as you said, you can make progress on your own but it will be slow. Less tears = much more time. Youre at a good place now to start with good sleep hygiene, which it seems you are researching and soaking up!

 

[worriedone]

@seekinganswersinlife Also noticing your username - we tried to introduce the snoo at 9 weeks, it didn’t work for us - LO doesn’t immediately cry at waking so by the time he fuses enough to activate it he’s wide awake and doesn’t respond to the motion soothing - any recommendations on finding success with the snoo in an “older” newborn

 

[seekinganswersinlife]

@worriedone We started in the Snoo the day he came home from the hospital, so I'm not sure how much I can advise on that scenario (there is a SnooLife subreddit however). I have read that it can take "older" babies a week to adjust. The only thing I can suggest is using a baby monitor to see when hes awake and manually bump up the levels before he makes noise.... but I would guess if hes not fussing right away, you dont wake until he is FULLY awake. You could try increasing your baseline to like level 2 so its just higher motion all night, but I'm not confident that would really help either.

 

[worriedone]

@seekinganswersinlife Thank you! We tried both so I guess he’s just not feeling it

 

[seekinganswersinlife]

@worriedone Maybe ask in the SnooLife subreddit for better insight, as those people are still deep in it. At this point the Snoo seems like 800 lifetimes ago

 

[worriedone]

@seekinganswersinlife Thanks much! I’m still learning the terminology in this space so I’d definite consider what I’m looking for to be more building a foundation of healthy sleep skills abs giving baby space to fuss and problem solve but not be left in a state of fear, confusion, etc. I’ve read the moms on call approach (full night CIO) and other approaches like Ferber which are more gradual but still intentional crying. None of it aligns with my parenting style so I definitely appreciate you sharing the gradual methods!