I know where you are coming from. We had a really difficult time with our son and his sleeping, which was strongly affected by his acid reflux (which was undiagnosed until 3 months old), where he'd wake up every 1-2 hours, all the time. We were also about to 'lose it', from physical and emotional exhaustion, and tried so many different things, including a sleep doula.

It was a HUGE waste of money. (about $700 for 2 nights of her time at our home, plus another $200 for a swing she recommended to help him sleep, which is actually not good for babies as it is 'motion sleep'... ) She charged a huge amount of money, and taught us techniques that we later realized where actually band-aid solutions to work for now (which also didn't actually work anyway, neither her techniques nor the swing), but were also bad sleeping habits down the road... (and of course she mentioned how she'll be available for 'sleep training' later, to eventually undo the bad sleeping habits we would've been encouraging...) We found it to be a total rip off.

What did work for us, however, is using 'The Sleep Sense' method to sleep train our son at 4 months old; it is a cry-it-out based method. It was the start of drastic improvement in all our lives, especially our son, as he started to sleep better.

I can send it to you by email if you're interested; message me here on the board.

Tatiana

Sandy, that's definitely progress! And she is getting more sleep now, so that's great.

I just want to mention quickly that the total cry-it-out method (or the 'extinction method') can/should only be tried on 'older' babies (9 months or older, according to our doctors), who can last through the whole night without needing to feed out of hunger. Younger babies do need to nurse, just simply for biological reasons, and so then the 'Ferber'-based method is an option then... the Ferber method will probably be easier on younger babies, whereas 'older' babies (9 months +) - as you found with your wonderfully strong-willed daughter - can resist much longer.

The earlier sleep training starts (as of 3 months of age), the easier it will be; I think he's definitely ready to start anytime. Vacations and other 'outside of usual routine' events can interfere with the gains of training, but you can always 're-train'; training is an on-going thing anyway, you're never really done... Teething should not be keeping babies from sleeping, and it's impractical to wait until teething is done, as a) you'll never really know when it's done, and b) there are always new teeth coming...

From what I hear, your son is more than ready for sleep training, so now it's just for the parents to get ready... good luck!

Thank you so so much - this is the only place where I feel like I am getting support from people who have been through this. I think we will start next Friday.

You're not a bad mother! Every mom does things a little different than the other. Both Tatiana and I are sharing our sides of the story, but that doesn't necessarily mean we're absolutely the only way to go. You're going to have a lot of people with a lot of opinions, at the end of the day, the choice is ultimately yours. Besides the battle of breast vs bottle, sleeping is a major topic of debate as well. Use your judgment, we're not here to tell you whether your decision is right or wrong, just offering you an option that we think could work for you, as it has worked for us.

My daughter was close to 9 months when I finally budged and decided to go with sleep training. Prior to this, she started off co-sleeping and by the morning, would end up bed-sharing ...it got to the point where she would only sleep in our bed, with her mouth glued to my breasts. She didn't need the milk, she was just sucking for comfort.

It's definitely not easy to sleep train, but think about it, if you do it now rather than when your baby's 15 months old, it's much easier now...when you have a toddler, they cry harder, and louder, then you're on a totally different playing field...I have a very tough baby that even after 2 weeks, still screams and cries for at least 30 mins. We're not even attempting the naps training at the moment, under the advice of our pediatrician. Based on the fact that she's so darn difficult, he told us to get her under control with her sleep first. I can't imagine what she'd be like if we decided to sleep train her later...

If you decide to sleep train, my best suggestion, based on what you're saying, is that you should go out for a few hours and let your husband do the training.

Anywho, just my two cents :)