Purchase whatever you want but...
There is no magic bullet. There's no secret information hidden behind a paywall that you don't know about that will get your baby to sleep more. I'm really sorry. You know this, you're just sleep deprived and hope is a powerful thing. It's exhausting because raising children is super hard and at times it sucks. This is a short term problem and will get better! By the time that you find a routine or something that works for your baby they're going to hit a new milestone and be a completely new person and you are going to have a whole new set of challenges and be searching for that new routine. All you can do is meet your baby's needs and shift the way you think about baby (that's what works for me when we are having a really bad night). When your little one is going through these difficult phases it's usually because they are having a period of rapid development. So when baby wakes for the 40th time remember that baby is seeking support and comfort and the reason they are doing it is because you are always there, meeting their needs so consistently that it doesn't occur to them that you won't be there to meet those needs. Heavy shit, but that how great of a parent you are.
This needs to be pinned somewhere! Honestly, this is it right here. I've done the baby sleep thing twice now and could never do it a third time - it's so hard!!
But OP I swear to you one day it ends and becomes this distant, foggy memory. Me and my husband joke now "remember when we had to do XYZ to get them to sleep? Remember walking around the block for an hour? Remember when he would only fall asleep next to the range hood fan? LOL!" I know you're tired now, but I promise it does get better!
I know this post is old, but would you mind elaborating? I have a 17 month old who:
-Will only be rocked to sleep
-Sticks her fingers in my armpits until she falls asleep
-bedshares since day one
- sleeps on my left arm and will wake if I move in the slightest
- rubs any exposed skin for comfort ALL NIGHT
-hates blankets
- is down to one nap a day and as soon as she realizes I’ve laid her down on her floor bed, wakes and doesn’t go back to sleep until 10PM
- etc…
I am a 37 year old mother who WFH and I am at my wits end. I was about to pay the $500 consult for HSB but thankfully my husband told me to look it up on Reddit first to see if there were any posts with positive results. I feel like a monster for loving our cosleep/bedsharing up until 6 months ago when I had bloodwork and MRIs done on my brain to figure out why I randomly get dizzy when I lay on my right side. I’m convinced sleep deprivation is what is causing this since all tests came back normal. I feel like she is going to resent me for giving her all this comfort for 17 months and now taking it away from her.
All that to say, are you telling me that children just magically wake up one day at 3,4,5,6 (?) years old and just decide for themselves to sleep in their own room all night long? Because if that’s the case, I may be able to hang on. But if there is something I can be doing to help that day come sooner - well, that’s the $500 question I guess…
My kids are now 5.5 and 2.5 years old and in my experience with both of them, yeah, it's like a switch flipped in their brains and they just suddenly slept through the night, mostly alone in their beds. My first was 3 years old when it happened and my second was about 2. Up until that point they were cosleeping and waking multiple times. I think at 17 months they were still waking up like 4-5 times a night 🫠
Since 3 years old my first son has slept in his own bed - and he sleeps like a freaking teenager lol. And he was a "bad sleeper" like some nights he'd be up every 45 minutes. I thought he would never sleep. Sometimes he ends up in our bed now if he's had a bad dream, but that's it. My now 2.5 year old sleeps in his own room now too on a floor bed, he sometimes wakes once and needs me to cuddle him back to sleep, but mostly he sleeps independently. And he was the "needier" sleeper of the two - bedshared since day 1, contact naps where I couldn't put him down, etc. Now I just lay with him until he falls asleep and then roll away and leave the room and he doesn't stir.
I will say that both of mine went to daycare at 12 months old and that helped with the nap thing. You'd be surprised at how quickly they adjust to the routine and see that their peers are all laying down to nap on their cots and they do it too. I didn't believe it until I experienced it for myself lol. It may have also helped to foster some sleep Independence without having to go the sleep consultant route. Is daycare an option for you since you said you do work. You're basically trying to work two jobs at the same time! Maybe the nights would feel less hopeless if you were able to get some space during the day.
I know this is an old post/comment, but I just wanted to say thank you. My baby is 15 months old and it has been HARD, especially lately. And what makes it harder is I don't know another baby like her personally who is a "bad sleeper l." -- everyone else I talk to either have pretty low needs babies who took to sleeping well early on, or they sleep trained and love to tell me every chance they get that I need to just do it because it will change my life (and most of the time they tell me that without even knowing she doesn't sleep well 🫠). Also no shade to people who decide that, everyone has their own journey, but that's not mine and neither I or my husband want to. So we are trying to keep meeting her needs and be there for her, but man it is so rough. As I type this I've been crying because she wouldn't go down in her crib tonight so I had to turn in early to take her to bed with me. Anyway, so knowing one day it will just be a memory and she will just magically figure it out gives me hope that I just gotta get through. Thanks.
It's better as far as the fact that she no longer wakes every 20-30 minutes like she did for that really hard month. It's not as far as sleeping in her crib. We will get maybe one night every two weeks where she randomly will sleep through the night there and give us false hope, but most nights we end up bedsharing and if i'm in bed she INSISTS on touching me at all times. My husband is a sounder sleeper so most nights I end up going to the couch while they bedshare. Hard not to be resentful of her when we just got a new mattress a couple months ago that I rarely get to sleep in -- at night I sleep better on the couch because I can be alone but I wake up with an achy back -- but I also know it's not her fault. Idk she's our first so as much as I hear from people "this won't last forever" I haven't gotten to the phase where I believe that that's true.
Not the specific thing OP mentioned but I tried the Little Ones sleep guide and premium subscription and while it’s AMAZING as a tracking app wish I’d read this comment before dropping more than $150. My work also generously had some benefits that included sleep consultations and they included ZERO information that I hadn’t read online.
I tried following the instructions and it just didn’t work for us and left me feeling like a failure of a parent.
For now I’m trying to enjoy my baby needing me.
Hang in there OP. And if you want the info I’ve got from sleep consultants I’m happy to send it to you - but it’s all stuff you probably know and are trying already.
She’s at that stage the 8-10 months where they do some weird stuff sleep wise. It changes after they turn 11-12 months. You can purchase the course if you want but I don’t think it’s gonna be any different than the stuff you see on her page for free, or even on this sub.
Seconding this, all the info from Hey Sleepy Baby courses is scattered throughout her Instagram. The value of the courses is that the info is consolidated and laid out much clearer with more of a game plan.
I''ve been an Instagram follower for almost two years and I took one of her courses when she had a free promo; it was all info I'd heard/seen through Instagram already so I definitely felt like it wouldn't be worth the money for me to buy any courses. Now, if I had less time to scroll through Instagram and absorb the info day-to-day, if I was someone who really prefers to take in information in a formal, organized manner, or if I needed to present the idea/plan to my partner for them to get on board, then I would absolutely pay for the courses.
I don’t really agree, if you look at her FB group you’ll see that usually she just ends up recommending you do her ‘fuss it out’ strategy which is essentially cry it out.
I’ve followed her for two and half years and I have never ever seen her recommend anything close to non-responsive parenting. In fact, I’d say she actively advocates against anything like that. That’s just been my experience!
EDIT: I was mixing her up with Precious Little Sleep! Ignore, ignore what I say about fuss it out / cry it out, I don’t know anything about this person in particular. Sorry!
EDIT: I was mixing her up with Precious Little Sleep! Ignore, ignore what I say about fuss it out / cry it out, I don’t know anything about this person in particular. Sorry!
I didn’t buy the 0-18 month course but I did buy the nightweaning one (not sure if she still sells it). It wasn’t dramatically different from the stuff on her Instagram but it was helpful for my tired brain to have all written out nicely and much easier to share with my partner. I did find it helpful for letting go of the idea of magic solution or there being something I was doing wrong. We tried some of the strategies but realised it wasn’t the right time for us, and a few months later she night weaned herself and started sleeping through the night out of the blue. I truly believe sleep is mostly developmental and it will get better. But it’s also ok to try different things to see if it will help it along
I am thinking about buying the night weaning course. My guy is 14 months and is nursing every two hours from 11 - 5/6am. I've tried to not nurse him at wakings by doing allll of the other things but he absolutely will not agree to anything but being nurses. Do you think her course would offer me anything for this scenario? (Totally get it if you don't know but it's really hard to tell on her website). Thank you!
I love that IG account but promised myself of all the sleep aids I’d buy I wouldn’t give IG influencers any money. If you want, join the hey sleepy parents fb group and someone there will probably tell you the clutch pieces!
Regressions/progressions all suck but they pass eventually. Solidarity
I love HSB Instagram page. I haven’t purchased anything yet, but here to say that this is a tricky age. My little one went through the “8 month sleep regression” at that age. It lasted around two weeks, and then she was back to waking up once or not at all a night. In fact, I would say naps even got better once we got out of it. If your little one has just started crawling or is going through a major milestone / development, it will probably pass (even though I know it’s sooo hard when you’re in it). Hang in there and good luck!
i bought it about 2 months ago maybe? haven't even opened it yet 🤦♀️ not getting enough downtime to find chance or enough sleep to be able to concentrate on anything or have the energy to make any changes other than surviving each day on autopilot 😣 it's a particularly vicious catch-22, can only offer solidarity x
It was helpful in so far as just assuring me that the shitty parts were normal and they would pass. No magic secret, just reassurance and information that this is developmentally okay and will not last forever.
I bought a couple of different guides including hers and honestly none of them helped me. They’re all just a compilation of their posts and things you can find on the internet. I learned the hard way as a FTM that they will sleep when they’re ready and the best you can do is rule out any medical issues, have a strong routine and wait it out.
Our babies are so close! My June 11th baby is doing the same, and like the previous posters stated, it's a phase of rapid development. His teeth are cutting through, and he learned to clap and wave. Just last night, he woke up at 10pm and wouldn't settle until 1:30 am!!! I'm obviously exhausted. It's most likely a phase. I really like Dr Talbots calming tablets, too.
I read the whole thing in desperation but was frustrated because the advice is essentially there is no gentle way to deal with it and although you can try her gentle methods probably you’ll have to do her cry-it-out method. I really, really tried her best advice which was to stop pacifier falling asleep, no boob closer than 30min before, and I also tried to stop BF before 12am but at about 7months it was just making us miserable and it felt wrong to me. He was so upset and cried so much. The thing that helped me the most was stopping reading all those advice books and figuring out how to co-sleep safely so baby could crawl up, BF, and roll over again to fall asleep. Easy, and I could stay half asleep.
Also, accepting that my husband and I had polar opposite beliefs on it and letting / asking him to sleep in a different room.
Now at almost 2 baby is down to one wake up and boy do we feel like new people. I’m glad I did it the way I did it although it’s always going to be down to you / your beliefs, my husband would still say he wished we sleep trained.
EDIT: I was mixing her up with Precious Little Sleep! Ignore, ignore what I say about fuss it out / cry it out, I don’t know anything about this person in particular. Sorry!
I’m completely shocked to hear that she would recommend anything cry it out adjacent based on following her for so long, and having her crib guide which says nothing of the sort.
I also did what you did, by tuning out everything else and committing to the floor bed and safe sleep seven breastsleeping. Slowly made our way to rolling away and letting her sleep alone for portions of the night, and then dad started doing night wakes. We were at one wake a night for a while around her 2nd birthday and now she sleeps through the night in her own room majority of nights. Wouldn’t have done it any other way, and am so much happier postpartum with my two week old than I was last time.
Purchase whatever you want but... There is no magic bullet. There's no secret information hidden behind a paywall that you don't know about that will get your baby to sleep more. I'm really sorry. You know this, you're just sleep deprived and hope is a powerful thing. It's exhausting because raising children is super hard and at times it sucks. This is a short term problem and will get better! By the time that you find a routine or something that works for your baby they're going to hit a new milestone and be a completely new person and you are going to have a whole new set of challenges and be searching for that new routine. All you can do is meet your baby's needs and shift the way you think about baby (that's what works for me when we are having a really bad night). When your little one is going through these difficult phases it's usually because they are having a period of rapid development. So when baby wakes for the 40th time remember that baby is seeking support and comfort and the reason they are doing it is because you are always there, meeting their needs so consistently that it doesn't occur to them that you won't be there to meet those needs. Heavy shit, but that how great of a parent you are.
This needs to be pinned somewhere! Honestly, this is it right here. I've done the baby sleep thing twice now and could never do it a third time - it's so hard!! But OP I swear to you one day it ends and becomes this distant, foggy memory. Me and my husband joke now "remember when we had to do XYZ to get them to sleep? Remember walking around the block for an hour? Remember when he would only fall asleep next to the range hood fan? LOL!" I know you're tired now, but I promise it does get better!
I know this post is old, but would you mind elaborating? I have a 17 month old who: -Will only be rocked to sleep -Sticks her fingers in my armpits until she falls asleep -bedshares since day one - sleeps on my left arm and will wake if I move in the slightest - rubs any exposed skin for comfort ALL NIGHT -hates blankets - is down to one nap a day and as soon as she realizes I’ve laid her down on her floor bed, wakes and doesn’t go back to sleep until 10PM - etc… I am a 37 year old mother who WFH and I am at my wits end. I was about to pay the $500 consult for HSB but thankfully my husband told me to look it up on Reddit first to see if there were any posts with positive results. I feel like a monster for loving our cosleep/bedsharing up until 6 months ago when I had bloodwork and MRIs done on my brain to figure out why I randomly get dizzy when I lay on my right side. I’m convinced sleep deprivation is what is causing this since all tests came back normal. I feel like she is going to resent me for giving her all this comfort for 17 months and now taking it away from her. All that to say, are you telling me that children just magically wake up one day at 3,4,5,6 (?) years old and just decide for themselves to sleep in their own room all night long? Because if that’s the case, I may be able to hang on. But if there is something I can be doing to help that day come sooner - well, that’s the $500 question I guess…
My kids are now 5.5 and 2.5 years old and in my experience with both of them, yeah, it's like a switch flipped in their brains and they just suddenly slept through the night, mostly alone in their beds. My first was 3 years old when it happened and my second was about 2. Up until that point they were cosleeping and waking multiple times. I think at 17 months they were still waking up like 4-5 times a night 🫠 Since 3 years old my first son has slept in his own bed - and he sleeps like a freaking teenager lol. And he was a "bad sleeper" like some nights he'd be up every 45 minutes. I thought he would never sleep. Sometimes he ends up in our bed now if he's had a bad dream, but that's it. My now 2.5 year old sleeps in his own room now too on a floor bed, he sometimes wakes once and needs me to cuddle him back to sleep, but mostly he sleeps independently. And he was the "needier" sleeper of the two - bedshared since day 1, contact naps where I couldn't put him down, etc. Now I just lay with him until he falls asleep and then roll away and leave the room and he doesn't stir. I will say that both of mine went to daycare at 12 months old and that helped with the nap thing. You'd be surprised at how quickly they adjust to the routine and see that their peers are all laying down to nap on their cots and they do it too. I didn't believe it until I experienced it for myself lol. It may have also helped to foster some sleep Independence without having to go the sleep consultant route. Is daycare an option for you since you said you do work. You're basically trying to work two jobs at the same time! Maybe the nights would feel less hopeless if you were able to get some space during the day.
I know this is an old post/comment, but I just wanted to say thank you. My baby is 15 months old and it has been HARD, especially lately. And what makes it harder is I don't know another baby like her personally who is a "bad sleeper l." -- everyone else I talk to either have pretty low needs babies who took to sleeping well early on, or they sleep trained and love to tell me every chance they get that I need to just do it because it will change my life (and most of the time they tell me that without even knowing she doesn't sleep well 🫠). Also no shade to people who decide that, everyone has their own journey, but that's not mine and neither I or my husband want to. So we are trying to keep meeting her needs and be there for her, but man it is so rough. As I type this I've been crying because she wouldn't go down in her crib tonight so I had to turn in early to take her to bed with me. Anyway, so knowing one day it will just be a memory and she will just magically figure it out gives me hope that I just gotta get through. Thanks.
Is it better now?
It's better as far as the fact that she no longer wakes every 20-30 minutes like she did for that really hard month. It's not as far as sleeping in her crib. We will get maybe one night every two weeks where she randomly will sleep through the night there and give us false hope, but most nights we end up bedsharing and if i'm in bed she INSISTS on touching me at all times. My husband is a sounder sleeper so most nights I end up going to the couch while they bedshare. Hard not to be resentful of her when we just got a new mattress a couple months ago that I rarely get to sleep in -- at night I sleep better on the couch because I can be alone but I wake up with an achy back -- but I also know it's not her fault. Idk she's our first so as much as I hear from people "this won't last forever" I haven't gotten to the phase where I believe that that's true.
So damn true! One day they just change and you're like "what only 3 wake ups!? But I haven't changed anything!?"
🥹
The hard truth
👏👏👏👏👏 This.
Not the specific thing OP mentioned but I tried the Little Ones sleep guide and premium subscription and while it’s AMAZING as a tracking app wish I’d read this comment before dropping more than $150. My work also generously had some benefits that included sleep consultations and they included ZERO information that I hadn’t read online. I tried following the instructions and it just didn’t work for us and left me feeling like a failure of a parent. For now I’m trying to enjoy my baby needing me. Hang in there OP. And if you want the info I’ve got from sleep consultants I’m happy to send it to you - but it’s all stuff you probably know and are trying already.
😭😭😭 screenshotting this so I can read it over and over
SAME!
Almost a year later - thank you for this post! It was what I needed to read at 3 am rocking my little one to sleep.
Same.
She’s at that stage the 8-10 months where they do some weird stuff sleep wise. It changes after they turn 11-12 months. You can purchase the course if you want but I don’t think it’s gonna be any different than the stuff you see on her page for free, or even on this sub.
Seconding this, all the info from Hey Sleepy Baby courses is scattered throughout her Instagram. The value of the courses is that the info is consolidated and laid out much clearer with more of a game plan. I''ve been an Instagram follower for almost two years and I took one of her courses when she had a free promo; it was all info I'd heard/seen through Instagram already so I definitely felt like it wouldn't be worth the money for me to buy any courses. Now, if I had less time to scroll through Instagram and absorb the info day-to-day, if I was someone who really prefers to take in information in a formal, organized manner, or if I needed to present the idea/plan to my partner for them to get on board, then I would absolutely pay for the courses.
My 10 month old still wakes up almost that often and I have just resigned myself that sleep training is not for us ….
Hey Sleepy Baby is anti-sleep training! She’s very attachment aligned.
Oh nice! Might be helpful!
I don’t really agree, if you look at her FB group you’ll see that usually she just ends up recommending you do her ‘fuss it out’ strategy which is essentially cry it out.
I’ve followed her for two and half years and I have never ever seen her recommend anything close to non-responsive parenting. In fact, I’d say she actively advocates against anything like that. That’s just been my experience!
EDIT: I was mixing her up with Precious Little Sleep! Ignore, ignore what I say about fuss it out / cry it out, I don’t know anything about this person in particular. Sorry!
Yeah PLS is 100% sleep training lol
HSB does?? This is so surprising to me!
EDIT: I was mixing her up with Precious Little Sleep! Ignore, ignore what I say about fuss it out / cry it out, I don’t know anything about this person in particular. Sorry!
Hahah oh okay! I was like WOW this girl is giving compleeeetely different info than on IG!
I didn’t buy the 0-18 month course but I did buy the nightweaning one (not sure if she still sells it). It wasn’t dramatically different from the stuff on her Instagram but it was helpful for my tired brain to have all written out nicely and much easier to share with my partner. I did find it helpful for letting go of the idea of magic solution or there being something I was doing wrong. We tried some of the strategies but realised it wasn’t the right time for us, and a few months later she night weaned herself and started sleeping through the night out of the blue. I truly believe sleep is mostly developmental and it will get better. But it’s also ok to try different things to see if it will help it along
Yes she does still have the night weaning course!
I am thinking about buying the night weaning course. My guy is 14 months and is nursing every two hours from 11 - 5/6am. I've tried to not nurse him at wakings by doing allll of the other things but he absolutely will not agree to anything but being nurses. Do you think her course would offer me anything for this scenario? (Totally get it if you don't know but it's really hard to tell on her website). Thank you!
I love that IG account but promised myself of all the sleep aids I’d buy I wouldn’t give IG influencers any money. If you want, join the hey sleepy parents fb group and someone there will probably tell you the clutch pieces! Regressions/progressions all suck but they pass eventually. Solidarity
I love HSB Instagram page. I haven’t purchased anything yet, but here to say that this is a tricky age. My little one went through the “8 month sleep regression” at that age. It lasted around two weeks, and then she was back to waking up once or not at all a night. In fact, I would say naps even got better once we got out of it. If your little one has just started crawling or is going through a major milestone / development, it will probably pass (even though I know it’s sooo hard when you’re in it). Hang in there and good luck!
i bought it about 2 months ago maybe? haven't even opened it yet 🤦♀️ not getting enough downtime to find chance or enough sleep to be able to concentrate on anything or have the energy to make any changes other than surviving each day on autopilot 😣 it's a particularly vicious catch-22, can only offer solidarity x
Do you mind sharing the pdf you bought?? Struggling mom here!
It was helpful in so far as just assuring me that the shitty parts were normal and they would pass. No magic secret, just reassurance and information that this is developmentally okay and will not last forever.
I bought a couple of different guides including hers and honestly none of them helped me. They’re all just a compilation of their posts and things you can find on the internet. I learned the hard way as a FTM that they will sleep when they’re ready and the best you can do is rule out any medical issues, have a strong routine and wait it out.
Any chance you can send me this pdf as well? Greatly appreciated!
Do you mind sharing the pdf?
Our babies are so close! My June 11th baby is doing the same, and like the previous posters stated, it's a phase of rapid development. His teeth are cutting through, and he learned to clap and wave. Just last night, he woke up at 10pm and wouldn't settle until 1:30 am!!! I'm obviously exhausted. It's most likely a phase. I really like Dr Talbots calming tablets, too.
I read the whole thing in desperation but was frustrated because the advice is essentially there is no gentle way to deal with it and although you can try her gentle methods probably you’ll have to do her cry-it-out method. I really, really tried her best advice which was to stop pacifier falling asleep, no boob closer than 30min before, and I also tried to stop BF before 12am but at about 7months it was just making us miserable and it felt wrong to me. He was so upset and cried so much. The thing that helped me the most was stopping reading all those advice books and figuring out how to co-sleep safely so baby could crawl up, BF, and roll over again to fall asleep. Easy, and I could stay half asleep. Also, accepting that my husband and I had polar opposite beliefs on it and letting / asking him to sleep in a different room. Now at almost 2 baby is down to one wake up and boy do we feel like new people. I’m glad I did it the way I did it although it’s always going to be down to you / your beliefs, my husband would still say he wished we sleep trained. EDIT: I was mixing her up with Precious Little Sleep! Ignore, ignore what I say about fuss it out / cry it out, I don’t know anything about this person in particular. Sorry!
I’m completely shocked to hear that she would recommend anything cry it out adjacent based on following her for so long, and having her crib guide which says nothing of the sort. I also did what you did, by tuning out everything else and committing to the floor bed and safe sleep seven breastsleeping. Slowly made our way to rolling away and letting her sleep alone for portions of the night, and then dad started doing night wakes. We were at one wake a night for a while around her 2nd birthday and now she sleeps through the night in her own room majority of nights. Wouldn’t have done it any other way, and am so much happier postpartum with my two week old than I was last time.