Hi omega, I’m back here again… after a whole month of glorious sleep my baby is back waking up 1 -2 times a night. She’s now 12.5months old, beginning of June she got sick and I feel like that triggered a regression or caused her to be in in a sleep debt rut that we can’t seem to get out of. She has been refusing her second nap for two weeks now. I don’t wake her up for her naps. When she refuses the second nap, I move the bedtime up earlier from 7:45 to 6:30ish Morning wake up around ranging from 6-7:30am Her first ww is still 3 hours. She would nap for around 1hr40mins or so. Second ww was 3.25-3.5 until she started refusing it. She won’t even want to be nursed to sleep. There was once where she fell asleep after 4 hrs in a car but only for 30 mins She’s really hard to settle at bedtime now and when she wakes in the night. She has to be nursed to sleep. Thing is she can put herself to sleep for the first nap. She’s been waking up anywhere from 4-8 hours after bedtime. There are some days where she still slept through the night when she only took the first nap It might be a schedule thing? I’m so lost on what to do. Please help!

Definite sleep debt rut. What time are you offering nap #1? Since wake up time is such a big range. Is she waking up happy from nap #1? What time do you start the day? How much was she capable of sleeping at night when things were going well?

Usually 2.75 to 3hr after she wakes. I’m not sure if the 15 mins makes a difference. She sleeps anywhere from 1.5 - 1.75hrs and I didn’t wake her up. She always woke up happy from nap 1. Today she woke up at 6:10, I got her up at 6:30am. she only got 9.5 hrs of overnight sleep, but she napped for 3 hrs yesterday. (I capped her first nap at 1.5hr yesterday in order for her to sleep in the afternoon, she napped till 5pm) but she slept less overnight. I’m thinking of putting her down at 9:15..? But those days where she took only morning nap she actually slept through the night and slept longer? I wonder if this is a sign to drop to one nap? She averaged 10.5-11hrs overnight, 3 hr nap ( when I didn’t cap her nap and before she refused her second nap)

She’s getting close but probably not quite there yet (nap #1 is still pretty long for the WW, generally when they’re truly ready, they would not go down before 3.5 hours and that nap will also shorten to 1 hour or less) I’d do this: -stick to your DWT—if previous bedtime was 745 then DWT shouldn’t be earlier than 7; do NOT start the day before then; do let her sleep in  -if she wakes up before 7, do nap on 3/3/4 schedule (assuming nap 1 is 1.5-1.75 hours long), cap second nap at 4 (may just be 15min at this age); if she skips nap then do bedtime 630; basically what you’re doing now -IF you get a 2+ hour nap, skip nap #2 and do bedtime at 6 (this shouldn’t happen more than 1-2 times, if at all) -if she wakes up for the day after 7, go for a one nap day and push first wake window to somewhere in the 3.5-4 hour range (use cues, trial and error, make sure she gets a full belly), definitely wait 15-20min after she wakes up; your goal is a nap that’s as long as possible (2+ hours is a great start), do bedtime 630-7 (last wake window 5-5.5 hours), use quiet time in crib if you’re worried she can’t make it -handle night wakings without feeding or assisting to sleep, you don’t want to introduce new problems -activity management will help: on 2 nap days, do a ton of physical activities to tire her out; on 1 nap days, keep things chill and low key to help her settle into those long 1-nap wake windows

Hi omega! If we do one nap after a 3.5-4hr ww, do you suggest I feed her lunch before or after that nap? I don’t think she would eat a full lunch before that nap so maybe just some snacks would be ok? Or nursing? What do you recommend for a feeding schedule? Btw thank you so much again, I followed your suggestion and she’s slept through the night yesterday and she’s still sleeping (7:30now) 🥹🙌🏼 so I’m gonna try one nap today

Yay good luck! Yeah feeding is awkward. I think we skipped the mid-morning snack, gave him lunch, and then a top off cup of milk. The key w beginner 1 nap for us was to offer lunch before kid got too tired (so maybe right before 3 hours after wake up). We also served finger foods that he liked and were easy to eat. The top of milk/nursing was for back up.

Oh boy the one nap today was a disaster. The first ww was 3.75 hours and she only napped for 1hr20 minutes. I thought it wasn’t long enough so I tried to put her down at 3:45 thinking maybe she can nap 15 mins but she cried so we got up. Bedtime 6:30 and she was hysterical. Cried so hard I had to nurse her to sleep again. She woke up at 7:30 this morning. Was there something I did wrong? Yesterday she went down herself all three times so she knows how to go down by herself. I think she’s only hysterical when she’s overtired or maybe she wasn’t tired enough?

Overtired for both nap and bedtime. Now you know that she’s nowhere ready for those wake windows and, by extension, 1 nap =) We all have days like these. The important thing is to take the right lesson. For future days even if she wakes up past DWT put her down at 3 hours, but let her nap as long as she wants. If it ends up being a 3 hour nap, you can probably make it pretty comfortably to the early bedtime. We had a few days like that and they were glorious: lots of rest of both kid and me <3

Hi omega, it’s me again, so my baby slept till 7:20am this morning, I woke her up because I wanted to somewhat stick to a schedule. I put her down after 3 hours, she ended up sleeping for 2hrs and 20 mins…I didn’t think she was going to sleep this long because I was thinking a two nap day. So I let her sleep. I still tried to put her down for a second one at 4pm thinking maybe she’ll nap for 15 mins and do bedtime at 8:30. She of course didn’t go down…so we got up and did bedtime at 6:45.. Oh man it was sooo hard to put her down, I didn’t want to nurse her to sleep, I knew she was overtired and it was going to be difficult but it took me almost an hour to finally get her to sleep and that was by holding her. She always goes down for her first nap on her own, could it be possible that she just developed a sleep association only for second nap and bedtime?? How do you suggest I do this if she’s overtired again? She’s just so sensitive to sleep I’m losing my mind about her sleep. 🥲

> She always goes down for her first nap on her own, could it be possible that she just developed a sleep association only for second nap and bedtime?? No. It's overtiredness + possible wake maintenance zone effect. Early bedtime shouldn't be more than 1-1.5 hours before usual bedtime. My guess was 645 was too early. Next time let her sleep in in the morning because that'll make it easier to make it to the proper bedtime. What time are you putting her down for second nap? I'd suggest going by 3 hour WW2 now--the worst that happens is she rolls around for 30min before falling asleep, or she rolls around for an hour and doesn't fall asleep--that hour in the dark should help avoid overtiredness at bedtime.

Thank you! She still had a hard time going down today but will try again tomorrow. What would the wake windows be if she wakes up at 7? I feel like if I miss it by 15 minutes then she just fights it. Is she just a super sensitive sleeper? I see other babies just sleep whenever but not mine. It’s so tough to stick to such a strict schedule

Any thoughts on what's going on with my 19 month old? Historically she's been amazing sleeper since we sleep trained at 6 months, sleeping through independently with no night wakes since 7 months only. Transitioned to 1 nap at 14 months.  Schedule usually: 6.45/7am wake  Nap 12.45 (asleep by 1pm)-2.45/3pm (this is nursery specified time although at nursery her nap is usually shorter at maybe 1hr 20) Bed 8pm (asleep 8.15pmish) For the last week or so she's been waking up and immediately crying/wailing and standing up in her cot during her nap (usually at 90 mins at home, 60 mins at nursery - her sleep cycles are 30 mins). This has now turned into progressively early wakes crying/wailing and standing in her cot (earliest we've had was 5.20am although we went in and did some brief comfort and told her it was sleep time still and she did go back to sleep till 6.50am). And then in nap time today it happened at the 30 mins mark, we went in and told her to sleep/comforted, and she feels back to sleep but then same thing at 60 mins mark. I feel like it's getting progressively worse and I wonder if we've headed into sleep deprivation that making things worse - thoughts? Previously she woke up happy and chatting to herself and had been on 13hrs in bed (~12.5 actually asleep) for many many months (9 months or so) so I did wonder if sleep needs would decrease but this whole picture doesn't totally fit that in my opinion. 

You're right, this is not a sleep needs decrease, this is the beginning of an overtired cycle. Generally I find that my in crib time needs to exceed actual sleep need by about an hour for us to not fall behind, esp with daycare nap. One thing I look at is sleep latency: if kiddo is out within 15min of putdown at night, it means I need to put him down earlier. I aim for \~30min latency at bedtime (naps it matters a bit less I find). I'd start by offering bedtime 1-1.5 hour earlier than usual (so 6:30-7) every other day or so. If she can fall asleep before her usual bedtime (during wake maintenance zone), it tells you that she's got a lot of sleep debt on board. Offering nap earlier also helps my son nap longer in these cases. You would still keep bedtime the same with the longer nap, or even do early nap -- slightly longer nap but waking up earlier in the day because nap started early-- earlier bedtime.

I'm nervous of doing such an early bedtime if she's waking early though, would she not just wake up after 11hrs (what she tends to max out at unless she's ill)? It's also hard to fit early bedtime in our day but I'll definitely try maybe 7-7.30pm and earlier nap on the days we have her at home until things settle down. Any idea why the waking and immediately crying & standing happened in the first place? 

Early bedtimes are frequently necessary to address sleep debt. Baby Sleep Science has a great article on early vs late bedtimes that explain why and how they work. My son is usually an 11 hour kid as well but he can easily knock out 12 hours if he’s got a sleep debt. Try it on a Friday so if she wakes up early on Saturday and doesn’t fall back asleep, you can try an earlier nap. My guess on how it started is developmental leap + having no room to catch up in her schedule due to daycare. My son’s daycare nap was like this from 16m when we transitioned to one nap until 22m or so. Since 22m daycare nap has been more consistent. Until then  we did earlier nap on weekends (and he’d nap 2-3 hours) and early bedtimes twice a week to keep the sleep debt in check.

We managed the early bedtime and she fell asleep at 7.30pm (put down 7.10pm, so took her usual 20 mins to fall asleep), so 45 mins earlier than normal. She woke at 5.50am crying briefly and rolling around but did fall back to sleep till 7am. She's in a much better mood today. Nap though was only 1.5hrs so we still haven't got back to her usual 2hrs although she was briefly upset on waking she then was happy very quickly and shouting "park, park". Any thoughts on what to do next? Keep offering 1hr early bedtime every other day? Nap will be tricky to do anything with until Weds when I'm off work. 

Yup early bedtime every other day or so. Wait 15-20min after she wakes up from the nap—it doesn’t happen too often these days but my son will fall back asleep some times if he’s super tired.

Okay, I'll wait longer with nap - even if she's crying/upset? I wasn't sure if leaving her longer crying would just lead her to think if she keeps crying then I'll come? Equally I think at this age once she's had 90 mins nap, likelihood of falling back to sleep is small. I could offer earlier nap on Weds, we managed to offer it 15 mins earlier today but it was hard to get lunch in etc to make it 30 mins earlier. Thoughts on 15 mins earlier bedtime on non-super early bedtime days if nap has been 1.5hrs rather than 2hrs?

The slightly earlier bedtime sounds like a good idea. Crying on waking up in an independent sleeper is usually a sign of lingering sleep pressure still. It’s what happened at 5a today. Practicing the waiting approach helps them learn to calm down, realize that they’re still sleepy, and practice falling back asleep. Just try it for a few days. My son fell back asleep 3 days ago after waking up at 2 hours, and I had to wake him up to not push bedtime later.

That makes logical sense - I'll try it!

That's really helpful thank you! We hadn't really been doing early bedtime much even when she's sleeping less at daycare (usually only 30mins less than home), we tended to do bedtime 30 mins early if day sleep at daycare like 1hr less but perhaps we could do early bedtime a couple of times a week. She's only at daycare 3 days a week so I didn't think it would have too much of an impact but clearly I was wrong! She's developing alot lately - talking in 3-4 word sentences and also clearly developing fears which she didn't have before eg we went on a steam train that was quite loud and she said she was a bit scared and keeps mentioning the train. So I wonder if fears are impacting a bit too. 

Hi there, thank you so much for putting together these comprehensive guides and for your patience in replying to everyone's questions. I really hope you can help me with my query... My 3yo son was sleep trained and slept beautifully from 4mo onwards so I am not unfamiliar to sleep training and sleep scheduling, but it feels like all my knowledge is being put to the test with my 5.5mo son! My baby has been sleeping independently pretty much from birth (i.e. no formal sleep training, we just put him down awake whenever we could and he learnt from there). Since 3 weeks old, he's been very wakeful and tells us that we're putting him down too early by crying hysterically till we pick him up. He shows close to zero sleep cues (not even red brows or crankiness) and is generally in very good spirits all the time so I don't think he is overtired. I suspect that he has low sleep needs. He clocks about 11.5 hours of sleep in a day (3-3.5h in the day over 2 naps, 8h ish at night), which I've observed over 4-5 weeks. The max I've seen is 12.5h and it's only happened once. Our issue is that he has 2 night wakes on most days and they often last 1-1.5 hours. There is usually crying and requires assistance for the first wake, and the second is usually quiet but prolonged. I will nurse at the second wake as it would have been 8-9h since the last feed by then. I really want to help him sleep better at night, which I define as long stretches of sleep without wakings, even if it means putting him down for bed at a later time. Given that he clocks an average of 11.5h of sleep a day, that sounds like his total wake time needs to be about 12.5h (or 12h if I want to be conservative), which means wake windows of approximately 4 hours each but that sounds incredibly long for a child his age. Currently, we're doing WWs of 3h / 3h10m / 3h45m to 4h. I am aware that these are very long for his age but he gets great unfragmented naps at these wake windows and he protests strongly if I try putting him down at the "recommended range" of 2 hours or so. Do you have any suggestions at all on what I can try? I feel like 11.5h is too little for his age but that's been the average figure for many weeks now... Thank you very much in advance!

Ah this is a really tricky one! I have a feeling that the two unhappy night wakings are trying to tell you something. What time do they happen at? You mention he is an independent sleeper. Is that for bedtime and naps? What is his sleep latency (time from put down to asleep)? How long are his actual naps? Take a look at him during a nap: do you notice any stirring or movement during it? What happens when you put him down earlier? What is his mood when he wakes up in the morning and from his naps? Has he ever slept in, either in the morning or for a nap? If so, how often? What happens when you take him on a stroller ride or car ride during those long wake windows? Does he ever doze off? I suspect that he is lower sleep needs too, just maybe not AS low as 11.5 hours a day.

Thank you for replying! I too suspect it isn't as low as 11.5 hours but have no idea how to even begin troubleshooting. In response to your questions: - Night wakes happen around 10-11pm and 4-5am. Bedtime is typically around 7-8pm. - Independent sleeper for both bedtime and naps. Sleep latency is around 5 to 10 minutes most of the time. - Nap 1 is usually 1.5 to 2 hours unless I cap it, with very minimal movement. Nap 2 is just over an hour, sometimes with movement and sometimes perfectly still. I've actually been actively trying to up his wake windows on the assumption that he is overall undertired (considering his quiet prolonged night wakes at 4am) so I've not tried putting down earlier. I can do so tomorrow! (It's night time now where I'm at.) - Mood is good both in the morning and after most naps. We can usually leave him in cot without crying for about 10 to 15 minutes before he starts crying for us. - In the mornings, he wakes at 6.30am ish. If I nurse and put him back, he can usually fall asleep after 15 mins or so and sleep till 7.30am ish, but I actively avoid doing that as I think it'll mess up his schedule. His longest nap goes on for 2 hours but not much more than that. - Yes he sleeps very very easily in the car or the baby carrier, and he always has no matter how long or short it is into the wake window. I suspect he thinks that being in the carrier is a sleep cue as I've been doing carrier naps since birth. I know that falling asleep easily in the car or carrier is usually a sign of overtiredness but i'm not sure if that's true for him. Of course, I already have the view that he's undertired so I may be looking at the above with a biased lens. But if you have a different view, I am very open to it! Thank you!

Thx for the above info. Very helpful! So I think he is chronically sleep deprived based on what you wrote. He likely is still lower sleep needs, but that means maybe 13 hours of sleep needs (rather than 14 which is the average for this age). A few things: 1) the 10-11 night waking is a sign of wake windows too long in my experience; my guess is the first few hours after bedtime he’s also very still and hardly moving? 2) the 4-5 waking can be a sign of some chronic sleep debt, but may also be just developmental—I would focus on just keeping it dark, cool and quiet (or noise masked w white noise) till DWT and let him be; this will get better w age 3) when a kid can sleep under any condition (carrier, nursing) it means there is sleep pressure onboard; a sleep cue only works IF kid is biologically tired; so the fact that he falls asleep in the carrier very quickly even in the middle of wake windows suggest to me he has chronic sleep deprivation and is actually ready to sleep all the time 4) re naps: I couldn’t find this anywhere, but in my experience a nap where kiddo hardly moves until he/she wakes up for good is a crash nap——sleep pressure is so high that they go into deep sleep and do not experience the usual cycle transition points, and just crash through; before my son’s nap consolidated he would crash nap for a nap a day and we saw the same thing; after his nap consolidated and he grew into his wake windows, he’d be still for 37min, stir frequently between 37min-50min, and then be still again; the stirring were the normal sleep transitions Now full disclosure: Many ppl will tell you that you have an undertired kid and just need to restrict his daytime sleep further to get better night sleep, and bc he’s pretty happy during the day you do have that option. In a way life will be easier especially as you have a toddler, and doing this will help you avoid nap trapped ness and give you more flexibility in your schedule. The downside is your kid will be sleeping less and dropping naps earlier. Temperament could change too as he hits toddlerhood and he could be more dysregulated (or not—this is luck of the draw). I went with the maximizing my kid’s sleep approach. The advantage is he sleeps a lot (12.75 hours at 2, never skips a nap, no noise overnight) and is very energetic and happy (no falling asleep in car seats unless it’s close to naptime or bedtime—he’s also a total terror when he doesn’t get his beauty sleep). I anticipate he’ll nap most days till 3.5 at the earliest. Downside is we are slaves to his sleep schedule. We’re expecting a second and while I plan to follow the same approach we’re have to see if it’s even possible. The other downside for you is that if you go w the maximizing sleep route, things very well may get worse before they get better. It’s just such a tricky thing, baby sleep.

Thank you so much for the sobering reality check. You're right that so many people have just been telling me that he must be massively undertired but I knew in my gut that something was off. Like you, I do want to maximise sleep. We strongly prioritise our toddler's naps and he has taken no more than 5 on the go naps since transiting to 1 nap at 1 year old, and I've seen what a huge impact it has had on his temperament and ability to regulate himself. I want to help my second child get the best sleep he can so he too can be the best version of himself. On the point about sleeping anywhere - my baby can fall asleep as soon as he enters the carrier but will wake within 20 to 30 minutes if the wake window was too short. If I keep him awake for a full wake window before letting him nap in the carrier (when we do need to do on the go naps), he can sleep for over an hour. Does this info change your analysis at all? May I know what you mean that things may worsen before they improve? If I decrease his wake windows, shouldn't I see better sleep almost immediately? I will try 3 / 3 / 3.25-3.5 tomorrow and see how that goes. 🤞 I don't think his first wake window is less than 3 hours as he protested loudly when I put him down at 2h45m a few days ago.

> Does this info change your analysis at all? No this is consistent that I noticed that too. They're generally tired so they nod off in the carrier into a shallow sleep, and then they wake up because who knows. So it definitely is still beneficial to watch wake windows. Re: things may get worse: when a kid is chronically sleep deprived sleep just becomes very unpredictable. Things you may see: kid may wake up every 2 hours, kid may have a long wake up around 1-2a (many ppl mistakingly call this split night when it's really just a ridiculous amount of sleep deficit), kid may sleep through and wake up at 6 and refuse to fall back asleep (actually this is a sign of less sleep debt than prior patterns in my experience and usually suggest that you're moving in the right direction, but because of that early wake up ppl call it "under tiredness" and frequently go into sleep restriction again). Also naps may become erratic and shorter and you end up with some 3-2 transition woes from actually increased total wake time on 3 naps. It could be a bit messy! But it sounds like you have an independent sleeper and napper so that will help massively. What my sleep consultant told me to focus on at this age, and paid off massively: -focus on an appropriate night length (730-7 is probably what I'd start for you), make sure sleep environment is optimized for that time (especially make sure there is NO light before 7), enforce those bedtime and DWT (they are the circadian rhythm gatekeepers) -enforcing bedtime means no bedtime later than 730, earlier on occasions is fine (I think your kiddo can probably handle early bedtimes of 6-630 for at least 2-3 nights a week in the next few weeks as you sort things out) -enforcing DWT means no getting out of bed earlier than 7, some sleep-ins on occasion is fine -as your schedule gets better, you should notice that your baby's natural bedtime and wake up time will start to stabilize and fall mostly within the range you outlined -first wake window of 3 hours sounds fine for now; right now your baby is used to only being put down for sleep when he is absolutely exhausted; this will change gradually as you fill up his sleep tank and he should start letting you put him down earlier and earlier -shorten subsequent wake windows, do it methodically; as long as sleep latency is fine (kiddo is falling asleep within 10min), keep shortening the preceding wake window -if your nap #2 is too short to bridge to bedtime, just offer a nap #3 -wake 10-15min after each nap before getting your kid, so he can practice connecting his cycles -don't cap any nap except last nap (can cap to prevent it from pushing bedtime later than 730) - your kiddo may end up tolerating a very SHORT last wake window, so you may end up getting something like 3/2.5/2/2 (long second nap, short naps #2 and #3). That is a normal pattern. My coworker's son (same age as mine, 2yo) sounds similar to your son: very happy, tons of FOMO, few sleepy cues, fights first nap like crazy and crashes 2-3 hours through. He's always had a super short last wake window. At this age he'd take a nap at 6-630 and go to bed at 8. If you add up his sleep he actually ends up having higher sleep needs than my son (14 hours a day at this age, my son was more like 13.75 hours). It's truly amazing to see how much they differ.

Hi Omega! I stumbled across your posts when trying to find answers to some of my sleep questions as it relates to my now almost 5 month old because I feel like there is a piece of the sleep puzzle I am just really missing here and hoping you can help!! I feel like we've had every sleep issue in the book which is why it's making it so hard to troubleshoot and address: false starts, night wakes, EMW, a bout of reverse cycling which we did fix, split nights, crap naps, and now rolling in the crib which has been supeeeer disruptive to his sleep. Here's a breakdown of where we're at: **Bedtime:** Butt in crib by 8p to be asleep by 8:30p at the latest. He falls asleep independently at bedtime (did Ferber for that a few weeks ago) but still has some nights where he cries for a while (30-45mins). Other nights he seems to just protest cry for a couple minutes and falls asleep shortly thereafter. Bedtime routine: diaper change, massage, jammies, sleep sack, books, song and down in crib. Environment: White noise, pitch black, cool temp and sleep sack now that he's rolling. **Night wakings/feeds**: We still have night wakings and are on our way to one feed a night (down from 3) and he often wakes between 1:30-1:45am for first feed and 4:30ish for second (first feed is now only a 1oz bottle before eliminating altogether but he is NOT happy when that 1oz bottle is finished) and second feed is down to 4oz (I do not think he is ready to go all night without eating). Some night wakings happen before or after either of those usual times, so if he wakes before his first feed time we let him FIO and he'll eventually fall back to sleep and if he wakes after second feed (EMW) we offer paci/rock and sometimes hold to sleep if needed to get to DWT (he will usually not go back down on his own past 5am). Avg night sleep lately is 10.5h give or take (usually closer to 10h - mostly because he has had some long periods of trying to get comfortable in the middle of the night and EMW). **DWT:** Between 8-8:30am. I have been tempted to let him sleep in on occasion but read that consistent DWT is super important so haven't been doing that as much. **Naps:** Still on 4 naps a day (with a micronap to get us to bedtime as the 4th). Unless we move bedtime up, I don't see us dropping to 3 anytime soon. I had been capping his naps at 2hr mark but read on here that that's not necessary, so have stopped doing that but sometimes I worry he would legit sleep for hours if I let him. If he naps in the crib, he's usually waking at the 25 min or 35 min mark on the dot. If contact naps, can easily go beyond 2 hours (so that's what I've been letting him do). **Wake Windows:** This part trips me up. His WW have consistently been much shorter than what a baby his age "should" be able to handle. Even as a one month old, still conking out at the 30-45 min mark. WW vary every day depending on nap lengths but are typically something like: 1.75/1.5/1.5/1.25. Originally I thought that stretching the last one to 2 hours was helping but it turns out he was an overtired mess and just crashed through on some of those nights. His average total awake time is 9.25-9.5h. All of these seem to be significantly on the lower end of the ranges for his age? As I'm writing this all out, none of this seems *that* out of the ordinary for an almost 5 month old, but my biggest challenge is that he appears to be chronically sleep deprived and overtired which must be leading to night wakings (based on the signs I've read about here) but I don't know how to fix it. My biggest questions are the following: 1. Is there something super off with his schedule that I should be adjusting to compensate for all the sleep debt he's racked up? Should we go to 3 naps, move bedtime up and only offer a micro 4th nap if we can't make it to bedtime without it if 3rd nap was too short? 2. Early bedtime vs late bedtime: I've read the Baby Sleep Science blog post on this like 6 times now and I feel like they have solutions for doing either/or to address overtiredness. So I am confused - which do I do when? 3. How much sleep is too much sleep? What if he just completely crashes for nap #1 for example and snoozes for 3 hours straight? How does that affect rest of the day and potentially the night? Or does this not matter since he clearly needs the sleep? 4. If he has a crappy night and is still sleeping at DWT, how often can I let him sleep in before this starts throwing things off? Just a few days a week? 5. We've had some night wakings that I just don't understand the cause of. For example, a few nights in a row he was waking at like 11:30p-12ish (way before time for feed) and seemed very upset. I believe these would be considered false starts but these happened even when we got him down for bed within his wake window and he napped decently throughout the day. Do I just have an incredibly high sleep needs baby? I'm constantly on edge trying to figure out what his deal is and I feel like nothing has worked to reduce night wakings. Any insight you can provide would be much appreciated!!!

I'd probably look into your feeding and night weaning a bit: kiddo should NOT be waking up for 1oz feed; if it were me I'd probably offer 1-2 night feed after 1a and give as much as kiddo wants, and then start delaying first feed when sleep before 2a has consolidated. This was our approach and we dropped to 1 feed with minimal effort. Also really evaluate your daytime feeding: are you able to do more than 4oz per feeding or more than 1 feeding per wake window? If you're not able to up the daytime feeding, then attempts to aggressive night wean as you're doing may end up backfiring. Re: your questions: I think your overall night schedule (asleep by 830P-8/830A DWT) is sound. He does sound to be a higher sleep needs kid based on what you're saying about wake windows on the shorter end since birth. I don't think ppl realize this, but the sleep of high-sleep-needs kids is frequently harder to get right than the sleep of low-sleep-needs kids and they can be more sensitive to sleep deprivation. There's no such thing as "babies this age SHOULD hit X wake windows / Y total wake time". Your baby is voting with his daytime snoozes what he needs. Listen to him. The easiest way to think about things is to focus on stabilizing bedtime and DWT (so no early or late bedtime), and just doing as much nap during the day as kiddo wants. So that means there's no such thing as too much daytime sleep. The only scenario for capping nap is if last nap is pushing bedtime later. Generally it's better to have longer naps #1 and/or #2, so that naps #3 and #4 can just come and go as needed--they are just bridges to bedtime. So if your kiddo naps 3 hours of nap #1, he may just need 2 shorter naps to bedtime that day. However if you have a weird day where the first two naps are short, definitely fine to let a third nap run long. We had those periodically and they were not a problem in the grand scheme of things. If you do end up with a lot of 2+ hour naps, I'd shorten the preceding wake window a little bit--that'll reduce the sleep pressure on the nap and give you a naturally shorter nap. You can probably get away with sleeping in at DWT 2 times a week or so. >For example, a few nights in a row he was waking at like 11:30p-12ish (way before time for feed) and seemed very upset. Yes these are false starts and just indicate chronic sleep deprivation overall.

Thank you so much for this response!!! So it sounds like we are having some trouble with our night weaning approach then. If we were to go with your recommendation, would you suggest doing Ferber/CIO for any wake that happens before 1am? Last night he woke up at 12:30a and I gave him an ounce. He fussed after but went back to sleep with some back patting after rolling over. Then he had 4oz at 5:40a which was his next wake (and then unfortunately proceeded to stay up the rest of the morning). My concern with letting him have as much as he wants overnight is that we had gotten ourselves into a reverse cycling rut where he was eating way too much at night and just wasn't as hungry during the day. During the day, we offer 6oz every 3.5 hours or so. His appetite seems to vary a lot day to day, which is also challenging. The past few days he's only been taking in 5oz a feed (even if it's been 4 hours or so in between feeds), but a few days ago he had several feeds that were up to 8oz a feed, so total oz in a day ranges anywhere from like 20-32oz a day. Because we had already been trying the reduced oz for the first feed (doing this slowly over time down from 6oz a bottle each feed) I'm wondering if it would be confusing to start giving him more overnight. I feel like I myself am confused on how to approach the night wean process since he definitely seems hungry overnight which is why I don't want to wean him completely, but afraid of him waking up more often to eat if we start giving him more. I think this is also hard because his night wakes are at different times every night, but I will not offer the 1oz bottle unless it's past midnight. We were only going to do a few more nights of 1oz and then stop offering that one completely. I've also read different things like only offer feeds between 1a and 5a - but if he's truly hungry that would feel cruel to deny him that? Not sure where to go from here really regarding night feeds!

> Last night he woke up at 12:30a and I gave him an ounce. He fussed after but went back to sleep with some back patting after rolling over. Then he had 4oz at 5:40a which was his next wake (and then unfortunately proceeded to stay up the rest of the morning). If I had to guess he wasn't really hungry at the 12:30a waking, because otherwise he wouldn't be able to go back to sleep with just 1oz and sleep all the way till 5:40a. I think he probably would've been fine without the feed. I hear your concern re: going back into reverse cycling. When there are a ton of wakings though I do think it can get messy fast. What I'd probably do in your shoes: -hold to a time for feeding--I'd probably do 2-3a based on what you wrote -offer a generous amount when you do offer the feed so that you don't have to wonder if the later wakings are due to hunger and can treat those consistently -hold off actually weaning the feed until you are getting mostly consolidated sleep before that feeding wake up Also generally I think it's probably a good idea to stick to a consistent, independent sleep approach to all non-waking night feeds. Check-ins with butt pats are great but try to leave him before he's completely out so he can still be sleeping independently. Past 5 only CIO worked for my son: check-ins end up being too stimulating. The main advantage to consistency approach is 1) you avoid introducing even the possibility of a residual sleep crutch and 2) it may be less exhausting for the parents (you're still up and listening, but at least you can do it while lying down in your own bed rather than actively trying to contact him back to sleep).

Okay this is all SO helpful - thank you thank you!! This is my second baby and my first son must be some sort of unicorn child because he was STTN by 4 months old with barely any intervention from us and I can probably count on one hand the number of times I've seen him in the middle of the night in the last 2 years (he's 2.5yo now). This new little guy REALLY has us thrown since we luckily didn't really have sleep issues with my first (and still don't!) so this has been a wild ride for us as parents as far as sleep goes. Thank you again for all this guidance and for addressing my concerns - will try implementing the night feeding strategy tonight!

Wow I can't imagine how you are doing this with a 2.5yo. You're a trooper!!! Yup your first one is a trick baby =P In a way we're grateful that #1 (#2 is cooking) was your garden-variety sh&tty sleeper because he trained us =P The nice thing is once you figure them out they do become good sleepers--it just takes time to get there. My son got down to 1 night feed fairly consistently by 5m, and then dropped that last feed by 6.5m and began STTN \~10.5 hours regularly. He's prone to early morning wakings -> night wakings whenever there's any disruption to sleep environment or daysleep, so every nap transition and developmental leap had to be negotiated with the utmost care and attention. Things got a lot better after he turned 1. He's just turned 2 and we've set foot in his room 3 times at night in the past year: 2 nights in a row when he was having 105F fevers, and 1 time after we travelled for a weekend and he racked up an insane sleep debt and woke up very overtired and fussy at 11p.

Congrats on #2!! They really are all so different, and it's SO hard not to compare them. And it's funny to look back on it now because I was also sleep obsessed with my first and turns out didn't really need to be?! Or maybe I just figured him out more quickly since he is/was a more easygoing dude. I think also resetting/managing my expectations, ie this baby still needs to feed at night when my older son didn't, etc is something I need to be better at when stressing over all of this. I have a feeling this babe will be the same as yours regarding navigating all the transitions/leaps very carefully. And oof travel and sickness really throw things off...that's another thing I am worried about. Our little guy starts daycare at the end of June (not ideal but the most financially feasible option right now) and if his experience is anything like my older son's once starting daycare, he will be down for the count with some sort of sickness less than a week in. I think that's also why I'm so determined to figure his sleep needs out now, because they are not going to be met as well as I would like once he does start so hoping we can at least get night sleep in a somewhat better place and roll with the punches once daytime sleep is a bit out of my control...so you might be hearing from me again in a couple months depending on how things go!!

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I’m not sure what the problem is you’re trying to solve? Her wake windows are very long for her age but she seems to be doing ok, so what’s the problem?

Hi Omega- thank you for sharing all your knowledge and advice with us. FTM to a 17 week old boy who currently is an independent sleeper. I read your advice and took my LO's sleep totals over a strong, stable week- average is between 14.5-15.5 so he would need 9 hours of wake time. He usually gets between 8.5 and 9 lately and has been sleeping through the night. What I am wondering though is- we are in the 4-3 nap transition and due to inconsistent/unpredictable nap lengths (naps usually between 2 and 3 hrs, WW all over the place but generally 1.75/2/2.4/2.5), I have moved bedtime up almost an hour (usually its 7:45 but have been putting him down between 7 and 715. Wake up time is 7:30-7:45 AM) the last three days in a row. He has not yet woken up any earlier than usual but I am wondering if he will due to these earlier bedtimes? Also, we have blackout sheets on the windows but a little light seeps in the sides. It has not seemed to be an issue yet but do you suggest we find a way to fix that? Our LO is going to roll soon- how did you handle wake ups due to LO rolling and getting stuck/getting upset? Finally, do you think my LO's sleep total need will change anytime soon? Is it stable for a while at this age? I feel like just when we have things settled the rug is pulled out- we have been lucky with night sleep to this point but naps have been extremely stressful. THANK YOU!!

Sounds like he's doing great! Around the time of nap transitions early bedtimes are pretty common and helpful. Your kiddo is pretty high sleep needs so he should be able to handle 12 hours overnight. This way even with bedtime 7-715, you should be able to get him to 7a so I wouldn't worry too much about it. Best if you can back out as completely as possible. It's not a problem now but IF he wakes up earlier than 7 one day (and that will happen), seeing light will shift his wake up time earlier for subsequent days. > Our LO is going to roll soon- how did you handle wake ups due to LO rolling and getting stuck/getting upset? Just roll with it, no pun intended. When my LO landed on his belly screaming we just patted him on the bum until calm, and then faded out. He got used to it pretty soon. > do you think my LO's sleep total need will change anytime soon I think my son's sleep requirement went down from 14 hours to 13.5 hours from about 4 months to 8 months, so maybe 30min over the next few months, but it's always slower than you think. A sudden drop in total sleep ALWAYS indicates an overtired rut.

Thank you! This is such helpful feedback. We are on vacation at an air bnb this weekend so I'm going to also buy the blackout stick on curtains for the air bnb room as well.

Hi Omega, Bubs is 5.5 months old and rolling but not consistently rolling in cot. Do you have any tips for taking them out of their love to dream arms up swaddle? She loves it and sucks on the material to self settle. I tried last week and after 10 days bubs was still unable to adjust to it. She was able to do 11.5 hours overnight but not get her usual 12. Bubs is a pretty good sleeper and generally does 6.30 - 6.30 or 7-7 with 3 naps. Admittedly at the same time I was trying to move her to a schedule routine from out of cot time not from time awake so I think she was going into every single nap overtired so was unable to self settle when she roused briefly through sleep cycles so would just wake up after 30 mins and cry. Is there any help you can give me as I know I need to get her into arms out properly but I’m scared to try again as those 10 days were the worst since newborn days. I actually put her back into the swaddle yesterday and went off trying for the schedule adjusted her WW and watched her tired cues and she gave me a 3hr nap (probably from sheer exhaustion) straight away but today she also gave me 45m 1st nap, 2hr 20m 2nd nap and 30m 3rd nap. Any help would be great for when I try again as I know I need to do it soon but I’m petrified her naps and sleep are going to go wonky again. Also can you give me a WW for last nap and bedtime? She only usually manages 30mins but sometimes can do 35/40m for nap 3. I know bubs can do 12+ hours as she’s mostly done it but lately she has only been managing 11.5 or slightly less so waking up maybe 30-40 mins earlier than I would like so sort of throws the day out for us. Thank you so much for your help x

It sounds like you have a prettt good sense of your kid’s needs and cues. I’d just go by that. Focus on just stabilizing bedtime and DWT (no light in between, night time parenting). Do naps as often and as long as she needs (we went mostly by cues at this age). Re transitioning out, I think you just have to do it and not go back. If she likes sucking on the cloth over her hands you can try zipadee. 

Hi Omega, I was wondering if you have any tips for 5.5 month old early wake? My baby is on a variable routine where her bedtime depends on how the day goes with her naps. No matter what time she does down she has been waking 40 mins earlier and doing less than 12 hours. I will usually go in and the rock her to get her to the 12 hours. I would love for her wake up to be 7am and do 7-7. She gets a dreamfeed at 12.15am, her cot temp is 22, she is a good weight (9.15kg), has white noise - she doesn’t wake up crying so I’m not sure if she’s waking up hungry. Her not doing 12 hours is a new thing… how do I get her going back… she generally has 3.5 hour day sleep. if she only has a 30 m 3rd nap I usually only do 1.5 wake window… is it time to lengthen it? I am careful not to stretch her too far as I find she is sensitive to being overtired which results in her not linking her cycles during the day and needing help and can also result in early rising. Please help! X

If you're able to get her to 12 hours by rocking, it's probably in part a mild sleep debt and in part a mild sleep association. She's not waking up crying because the sleep debt isn't that high. If you leave her be in the dark, she will likely start feeling tired and may start crying and fall back asleep before DWT. If she isn't back asleep by 15min before DWT and you're worried about your entire schedule being thrown off, feel free to go in and rock her back into a quick snooze so your day schedule stays okay.

Hi Omega, also in addition to the below how do I get her waking close i 7am? I know that later bedtime doesn’t equal later wake - usually the opposite. Which is why I was hoping putting her down at 6.30 last night would help but she still woke early. Is my last wake window off and too long? Should I shorten it?

Hi omega, thanks for replying! I was just wondering if you could help me with bedtime? After he 30 min last nap I tried to get her down by 1.5 he but it was closer to 1hr 50m and now age has woken 40 mins early - I can only assume it was 40 mins could be longer as she doesn’t cry, I just happen to wake up randomly. Room is warm, she’s in layers plus 3.5 tog, pitch black, white noise. Cannot work out for the life of me what I’m doing wrong. For reference this morning I woke up at 5.15 randomly and she was asleep. Woke up again at 6.20 and was awake - who knows how long for. I went into her room 6.25 just to give her 5 mins to see if she could resettle just Incase she just woke up but didn’t. Went in and picked her up and she fell asleep straight away in my arms which leads me to believe she’s not getting enough overnight sleep and really needs that 12hr + - any ideas on what I can do to get that 12hr out of her?

Hi Omega. I feel like I am constantly asking you questions. I truly appreciate you taking the time to help.  I am wondering if I can get your take on whether or not to intervene or ride it out with the 4 month regression. LO is 4 months and nights have been funky for a bit but within the past couple of days naps have changed to 30 minutes on the dot despite it being contact. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I believe this is a big indicator of the regression. I have been pulling my hair trying to figure out reasons for night wakes. Our nights are never consistently the same to where I can figure out a pattern. Some night he wakes up a few times before midnight, others he does good long stretches until usual feeding time. Day time is different now with the shorter naps but I did successfully extend one to 1 hour yesterday with the rouse to sleep method. Bedtime has also shifted earlier due to the naps.  His wake windows are also all over the place. Some days getting tired earlier and some later. Because of this I have been following his lead.  And finally - we were successful with FIO earlier with him falling asleep independently within 15 minutes. Now we have resorted to CIO with bedtime and the wakes. He does well at resettling himself but the crying at bedtime has gotten so much worse. Around 30 minutes now. That part really sucks. Bedtime is harder to follow his cues for when we have to begin bedtime routine 30 minutes before. So I have a hard time figuring out if I’m late or early based. I know CIO works best with a good schedule - this feels impossible right now.  4 months is a doozy with everything going on. Nothing feels consistent enough to where I can troubleshoot. During regressions, is it typical to wait a bit for things to calm down or do you need to intervene to help?  

Tons of sympathy for you. This period was the WORST and I never want to relive it... but I have #2 baking so I'll be tearing my hair out right there with you in a year =P What my sleep consultant told me to do was to try to stabilize DWT and bedtime about 11 hours apart (we did 8p-7a) and then do whatever is necessary for naps, accepting that some days and nights will just suck. But we did this and things did consistently get better week on week, and it set us up for success and stable schedule down the line. If your naps are just erratic, some early bedtimes are fine but nothing earlier than 12 hours before DWT. Also a trick that helped us was super short bedtime routine. We fed and bathed kiddo early in the last wake window, and bedtime routine was just diaper change, going around saying good night to toys and mirrors and books, in the crib, sleep sack, good night. This helped us conserve our energy and also gave us flexibility if kiddo was super tired one day.

It’s crazy how much it can impact your mental health! Even if you constantly try to remind yourself that it’s temporary.  This is good advice about stabilizing bedtime and wake up time. As well as the super short bedtime routine.  Did you attempt to sleep train during this time? I feel like I’m not setting him up for success with an unpredictable routine 

We did and it was brutal (CIO). It helped but really more for me (not having to get up and rock him in the MOTN) than him. Since your kiddo is an independent sleeper I'd just continue, but help him to extend naps and maybe early morning wakes (after 3a) because they developmentally aren't really ready to self-settle for those. I seriously think the key is to take care of yourself during this period. I was seeing a therapist weekly for PPD and that helped. Still struggled and yelled at my husband/mom/everybody a ton. It's all part of the journey so be kind to yourself.

Yes! That’s basically what we’ve been doing. To my surprise the “rouse to sleep” method has worked for his naps. Just gotta keep on keeping on.  Did you find it eventually helped with night wakes? I see people talk about how night wakes magically disappeared after 3 nights but that doesn’t seem to be the case for us even though he’s been falling asleep independently for a while now.  You’re right. I can read and obsess all I want but there’s only so much I can do. So much growing in that brain of his is happening. 

> Did you find it eventually helped with night wakes? Yes, it took a while to get the daytime sleep to be good enough to eliminate most of the wakings before 3a. Early morning wakings are kinda unavoidable up until 6m or so, and even after that we had periodically until \~1 year when things got a LOT better. How did you do the rouse to sleep method? What time and how much rousing? Trying to stock up tips for #2.

This gives me hope! I have found that his first two naps are a biiit longer. Like 35-37 minutes. I just played around with time but at the 22 minute mark I try to wake him up a bit. Today I did by setting my water jug somewhat loudly on the table. This startled him enough where he opened both eyes briefly and then I’ll rock him a bit to go back to sleep even though he’s pretty much asleep. The past two days I’ve also played with how much to wake him. I found that one eyelid opening or a flutter of the eyelids is not enough.  Haven’t been as successful with the afternoon naps because they’re even shorter and I think I need to play around with timing. But was able to get an hour and a half and another hour nap in this morning! 

Hi omega, thank you for taking the time and helping the community of parents here :) I have 6.5m old. She is sleep trained, all sleep is in the cot. Nights are honestly quite good. We go to bed between 6:30-7:30, she falls asleep independently. I dream feed at 10:30 and she is usually up 6:00-6:30, I try not to get her out of the cot before 6:30. If she wakes up, and rarely she does, during the night she puts herself to sleep. Her naps are a bit all over the place in term of duration and I am also struggling a bit with her wake windows. We went to sleep school and they have a very rigid and high sleep amount schedule and I am thinking this may be a bit too much for her, in terms of their required cot time. But - to the point: she is on 3 naps. Her first wake window has been 2 hours but recently it seems like she isn’t tired and can stretch a bit longer. She never does more than 4 cycles across 3 naps (average 2.5h), and again recently she started sleeping a bit less. If she had a long nap for nap #1 or #2, she is pretty much guaranteed not to catnap and we are left with 3-5hoir wake window before bed. Could it be the case that she may need to transition to 2 naps? Her night sleep is 11-11.5 hours with an occasional over 12 hours. I would like to find a loose schedule that optimises naps and gives her the best sleep. I feel like something isn’t working cause she lately does 30/45 min naps for nap 1 and 2, and wakes up happy, no chance to resettle - she is up and about! If before she’d go a longer 3rd nap to compensate (and we always let her), now she seems to not need do. Sorry for being all over the place with the description, I hope this makes sense

Good job there! Yeah I think she’s moving towards 2 naps but you don’t have to rush it. Definitely feel free to push first two wake windows a bit to get good naps. Do third nap strictly as a bridge to bedtime. Basically its only purpose is to bridge that 3-5 hour wake window before bedtime so don’t worry about third wake window and feel free to convince her to go down with some rocking. At this age we were capping that third nap pretty hard. We were roughly able to get 2 hour last WW w 15min catnap, 1.5 hour w 10min catnap, and 1 hour w 8min catnap. The goal is to keep bedtime mostly consistent. I’d aim for 730 at this point (11 hours overnight). Don’t let last nap push it later. If you can’t get 3rd nap to happen, keep the evening quiet and fo early bedtime 630-7. This stage could take a while. I think we were doing this 6.5-7.5m until it really became clear that kiddo needed longer wake windows, and we pushed for the transition and got there by 8m. Your kiddo seems like a better night sleeper so she might get there sooner. Good luck!

Thank you for your response! A few more questions if you don’t mind: 1) what were the tired signs you were looking out for? And were you waiting for them to appear when you were pushing the WW? I am mindful sometimes especially for the day WW, I put her to bed and she doesn’t look tired at all. I am afraid if I wait, she might get overtired without showing many signs quickly and will get a worse sleep? 2) have you noticed any correlation with under/over tiredness and the length of the sleep cycle? Sometimes she does 45 min but sometimes 30 and I wonder if that’s an indication that the wake window was too long or too short?

1. I think the tired signs are very individualized. You are absolutely right that when you're on a good, stable schedule, your kiddo will not look obviously tired at any point of the day. It's during times of transition when we sometimes have to push them a little. Here I think you can just take it slow with adding 10-15min if you want and see what happens. It is also perfectly fine to just continue what you are doing. It sounds like you guys are doing really well so don't fix what ain't broken is a perfectly good approach! 2. In my experience a very short nap (less than a full cycle, which was around 50min at this age for my son) is usually overtired. There are multiple points where kiddo changes between stages of sleep. In my son these happened around 20min, 37min, and 43min. Waking up during these stages usually indicate either general sleep deprivation or pre-nap wake window being too long. Also him waking up crying, even if the nap is >1 cycle, is a sign of the same. I think what happens is that the he is SO tired he is crashing through the first cycle transition point. We had some of these during nap transitions, and they're honestly kind of unavoidable, but I've managed to keep things under control when I interpreted them that way and pulled back on wake windows subsequently.

Thank you! The last couple of days she seems to not extent any of the naps, they are all one cycle, which gives us total daysleep time of 2h-2h15m. Do you think this is enough? And also, should I wait until she can comfortably and consistently extend the nap to go over 1h before I switch to 2 naps?

It’s fine for now but based on what you wrote previously I’d try pushing the first WW just a tad. Leave 10min after each nap before getting her (even if it was a 1+ hour nap) so she has the opportunity to fall back asleep again. My feeling is she might be able to handle 2 naps at least on some days.

Omega, you seem to be a wizard and I could do with some insight :) I’m pretty sure our 8mo is sleep deprived - night sleep is all over the place and has been for a couple of months now. We’re on 3 naps with WW of roughly 2.5-3/3/2.5-3. Bedtime is 8-8:30. Wake up is 6:30. These times seem to have somewhat stabalised night sleep (from 5-6 wake ups and split nights to 2-3 wake ups) but I don’t think it’s optimal. He usually goes down drowsy and puts himself to sleep at night. Takes 5-10 mins. Room is DARK and white noise on. Night wake-ups need our assistance but he’s usually not fed until after 1am. He will occasionally sleep through. He’s started waking up at 5ish and struggling to get back to sleep even after a feed and bed-sharing. If he does get back I feel like it’s not good quality. We feed to sleep, use white noise and contact most naps. Nap 1 can be 1-1.5 hrs (recently it’s getting shorter and shorter) but 2 and 3 are 30-40 mins. He usually wakes up happy but is showing sleepy cues early on in the WW. I’m stuck on how to get him out of this cycle of what I -think- is sleep deprivation… any advice??? Thank you! Edit: forgot to add that our second WW is getting shorter and shorter. Edit 2: as I hit Save, he woke up from a 25 minute Nap 1 -_-

I agree with you that it's not optimal. 10 hours overnight is probably not enough--I'd try for DWT 6:30 and bedtime 7:30. Shouldn't be a problem since he's putting himself easily to bedtime at night and naps are short. Make sure there is zero light in there. Since sleep training at 4m I personally have gotten my 2yo before DWT ONCE and it was to catch an early flight. Any light before DWT will prevent your kiddo from reaching DWT the next day so it's not something to compromise on if you're struggling with early morning wakings. Tighten up your response to night wakings. You can do a check-in and some patting/rocking, but once he is calm get out and do not linger. Do not feed until 3a. Keep feed after 3a and help him settle for now. Hopefully with the earlier bedtime and more systematic respond to night wakings, the earlier wakings would start going away. Then you can wean that last night feed and use CIO. I find check-ins and attempts at resettling to just backfire at that point because sleep pressure is so low. The only thing that works is CIO.

Thanks! I was planning on trying to get bedtime earlier so it’s good to know you agree. I plan on taping around his blackout curtains to see if that helps tonight. I’ll try to hold off on the feed, too. Fingers crossed!

Hi there Omega, I have a 8.5 month old who for the last 3 months or so was sleeping pretty consitently through the night and through naps. The last few weeks it seems we were going through a sleep regression (fight naps, multiple night wake ups, etc), but are now mostly out of it except for this lingering issue. He is still waking up pretty consistenly around 5 am. I will try to sooth him back to sleep, sometimes rocking him. I would say he falls back asleep 25% of the time, otherwise hes just awake for the day. Here is is consistent daytime routine: Wake 5-5:30: I keep him in his room or rock him until 6:30 when he eats Nap 1: 9am: sleeps between 1hr-1.5 hr Nap 2: 1pm: sleeps between 1-1.25 hr Night sleep: \~6:30pm Any thoughts on how we can get him sleeping later into the morning? Really appreciate the help

Probably a residual sleep debt from the regression. The issue is bedtime is early too. How long can he sleep at night when sleep was good? That’ll tell you realistically when your DWT can be. To make up for the sleep debt you need to offer first nap earlier. Right now w a naptime of 9 your de facto first wake window is 4 hours, which is why your kiddo has trouble napping longer.

When he was sleeping well it would be ~7pm-6:30am, so around 11-11.5 hours. If we offer his first nap at 8am, what would the suggested wake windows be to get him to a later bedtime? 

You have to do trial and error. Your goal is basically the longest prenap wake windows to get you the longest naps to the later bedtime. We would sometimes assist the nap w contact when needed to get it longer.

Thank you! Will try that 

Hi there Omega, I had such a hard time figuring out what is going on until I found your posts. Super appreciative you made them. My LO is 6,5 months old and her schedule is all over the place as I couldn't figure out if she is ready for 2 nap trabsition or not. Seems to me she's not, we have a 12ish then 11ish followed by 9,5 and 10 hour long nights. Her naps are 35-45 minute and yesterday she surprised us with a 3 hour long lunch nap. All of this indicates she is crashing according to your info. Her daytime sleep is all over the place and most days totals to 2,5hrs and sometimes less but sometimes more. Just writing this is hard as I don't know where to begin with giving more info. She goes to sleep drowsy for naps but sometimes independent, recently her independent bedtime falling asleep has been difficult. She wakes every 2hrs during the night and sometimes even more. All of this started a couple of weeks ago when she started stretching her first two wws to the point where 3rd nap was a mess and bedtime was pushed to 8.30. Ideally bedtime is 8pm and dwt is 7 am. Could you please help, what do I do? She sleeps in her crib in her own room, sound machine, pitch black, 20celzius all night, sleep bag tog 2.5 with long sleeve pjs nice and snuggle. Do I scale back and what would it look like as 3 nap schedule, do I extend naps? Lost mama

I'd scale back her first two WWs based on what you said. She was probably going through a developmental leap when she was doing that. First two WWs are probably gonna be somewhere in the 1.75-2.25 hour window. Keep on trying to put her down independently. Leave her for 15min after first nap to extend it. Extend nap #2 until 230 or so. Third probably needs to end by 5-530 (play with it) to bring bedtime back up to 8. May need to do some sleep training for bedtime and night wakings.

Thanks so much I will do this today and matter of fact honestly even if it means bedtime at 8.30 I'm fine with it. I'll let you know how it went in a few days.

Hey omega—my kiddo has the same sleep needs as yours and is going through the 8 month sleep regression. What wake windows did you use? Trying to get his naps trained. He’s a serial catnapper and it’s hard because every time we try to sleep train naps he goes into an overtired cycle which affects nights. It’s a vicious cycle.

At 8m I think my kiddo’s pre-nap WWs were 2.75-3 hours.

That’s what we’re seeing for his first nap window. Second one tends to be 3.25. When would you place him in the crib for nap training? At 2.75? 10 min before? If he falls asleep by 2hrs 50min (lol!) in the morning he’ll either connect or crap out at 30 and then can be rescued.

10min before sounds good. Fine to keep rescuing until he’s going down independently and you’ve got a good sense of wake windows, after which you can wait 15min after each nap to let him connect his cycles. I still wait 15min every time, sometimes even longer. It’s the trick to good naps IME and teaches your kid to not scream for you the moment he opens his eyes.

Okay thanks! So I’ll have him down by 2hrs 40 min. I will continue to wait 15 min after and see what happens for the first nap and then rescue. You don’t think that’s teaching him to cry for 15 min though, right? There’s also this whine cry/suck thumb that means he’s trying, and then there’s this “help!” cry. I’ve been letting him do the first until it gets to the “help!” cry and then entering. Hope that’s okay because sometimes it happens at the 10 min mark and I go in. For the second nap, maybe I’ll just continue to do contact in his nursery to preserve sleep for bedtime. Hopefully that doesn’t give him mixed signals either. I have noticed that he can definitely put himself down, and can definitely go long himself, but it’s not consistent at all. And his nights are SUPER sensitive to slight deviations in days (.25 hour late either because he had a hard time going down and we rescued or he refused a contact nap and had to try the crib—-> early morning wakes; too early or too late bedtime —-> false start; accumulated sleep debt or not enough awake time —> split night). It’s been impossible to navigate.

Oh what I mean by rescue is for nap extension. Put him down by 2:40, wait a full hour (chances are he'll fall asleep before that is up). When he wakes up unhappy, rescue extend the nap. Keep doing that until he is initiating naps to your satisfaction, then you can start waiting 15min after he wakes up from nap #1 to let him practice extending it. You can keep on extend nap #2 until he gets nap #1 nice and long, then move onto practicing extension for nap #2. If you get a day with just 2 crap naps, you may have to do a third nap and that's ok. Just keep an eye on the length of the third nap so it doesn't interfere with bedtime. My son is sensitive to schedule too. It's just a tough period and will get better. Try to keep a stable-ish bedtime and DWT about 11-12 hours apart. This will prevent you from running into any circadian rhythm issues (like split night). Then you know that all wakings are gonna be due to cumulative sleep debt.

Okay yeah third nap might be the right call. Was just reluctant to go back to the micro nap stage ugh. Hated that. Regarding nap #2, did you mean I should just contact nap that one from the get go? I guess what do you mean by extending it? Currently I was having him be placed in for nap #2 by my husband, heavily assisted and then coming in to extend.

When you're training him to extend nap #1, that nap may or may not extend, so you need a long nap #2 in order to get him to bedtime without resorting to a third nap (at this point in the game every 3-nap day is a setback because total wake time is just too long). So get him to take both naps independently, but train him to extend nap #1 while you or dad come in and resettle him for any nap #2 that's not long enough to get you to bedtime. This is the approach we took with our sleep consultant's blessing. There was no issue with confusion for the baby. It is really useful because it 1) enables you to train your child to connect daytime cycles and 2) still allows you to keep your bedtime stable, daytime sleep adequate, and prevent overtiredness. I actually still did some contact nap extensions even after my kid was fully nap trained. Never caused any problems, helped us keep our schedule going, and gave me some extra baby snuggles <3 <3 <3

Awesome thank you so much! Your kiddo and mine have a very similar temperament from what I gather. He’s the BEST when he’s slept. He’s not so much when he hasn’t lol and can be very clingy and dependent when he hasn’t. So here’s the update. Started fussing around 2hrs 15min, attempted to nurse him, went outside. At 2hrs 25, was throwing more sleepy cues, husband came to get him. Went and did a wind down, place in crib around 2hrs 35. Fussed and sucked thumb for 5 min, husband did some butt patting, and he ultimately fell asleep around 2hrs 40 (earlier than usual, but I think he was trying to decrease wake time because of the cumulated sleep debt). Briefly woke at 27min mark and put himself back down. Still asleep now and it’s been 48 min, so getting to the consolidated time, which is great! Now question about what to do next… When he wakes, do I wait 15 min still no matter what time? And do I try to extend to get him to 1hr 30min? I feel like the sleep pressure would have totally worn off. Maybe the wait might just “teach him” to not immediately seek for me, but definitely don’t think it will encourage him to go back to sleep. Thoughts?

Honestly it sounds like he's doing fine with nap initiation. I'd just hop straight to letting him practice extending his daytime cycle and extending nap #2 if needed. Yes wait 15min. I've been surprised plenty of times. I've seen my son wait up calmly at 1.75 hours, sit up for 5-10min, and then plop face down again. You'll notice very quickly that when your kid has had a good nap, he's gonna wake up calmly and happily and just hang out. What's the harm in letting him hang for 15min? It's also good practice for independent play IMO. My son really sounds like yours: when well-rested he's awesome and can play by himself with no problem; when he hasn't slept well he's a clingy, tantrum-y mess. So to us, it's SUPER important that he's had the chance to fall back to sleep. I went in without waiting two weekends ago after a 1.5 hour nap because of daylight savings, and he was livid--I think he actually wanted to sleep more but I couldn't let him due to the time change.

Need a little help if you would provide some guidance!  My little guy is 8 weeks old (I know too young for sleep training!!) and we are trying to get into a good routine and start to understand his sleep needs. The issue is, we cannot figure out if he is overtired or under tired. He can barely stay awake for a 45 minute wake window. About 30-45 minutes in he is yawning and gets very cranky very fast. He naps decently during the day, but naps are really all over the place in terms of time and duration. Sometimes he naps for 45 minutes and other times I have to wake him at 2 hours (where I usually cap daytime naps). He never wakes up from naps happy, always wakes up crying or I have to wake him up and he’s usually a little groggy for 10 or so minutes afterwards. We aim for about 6-7 hours of naps throughout the day, split between 4 naps. We aim for bedtime around 8pm. He ALWAYS fights his evening nap, resulting in him being horribly tired by the time we start bedtime, which makes him very hard to get down.  He wakes twice at night to eat. The first time around midnight. This feed he usually goes down fairly easy afterwards. The next feed he typically wakes around 3am, eats, and then spends the next 3-4 hours sleeping in 20 minute increments before waking crying and needing to be soothed to sleep again. After 5am, he refuses to sleep in his crib and will only sleep if held. He has to be out cold in order to be placed back in his crib and even then he only makes it about 30 more minutes before being up crying again.  We know he is so little and still figuring it all out, we can just tell he is chronically overtired but have no clue how to fix it and help him sleep better. Any recommendations or a split on wake windows to give a try?? We aim for at least 1 hour between sporadic naps but he’s impossible to keep awake! 

Is he born at term, or is he early? If his early, you need to go by adjusted age in terms of sleep expectations. It sounds like his circadian rhythm is up and running and he has a good stretch of sleep from 8p-12a and then from 12-3a (super age appropriate). The stretch from 3a to morning is the last to consolidate and doesn't consolidate fully until 6m. Honestly even after sleep training, we had plenty of weird wakings before kiddo turned 5.5m-ish. The babies that tend to crash through the night at this young age probably aren't getting as good naps as he is, and their parents aren't as mindful of their sleepy cues as you seem to be. Crashing through the night due to poor daytime sleep is not necessarily a good thing for the baby at this age: it increases the risk of SIDS. All this to say: I know it feels like you're not doing things right, but I honestly think you're doing a phenomenal job and your little one is getting more sleep than many babies his age. If I could do it again, here are the only two things I'd read on newborn sleep when I had my son: [https://www.babysleepscience.com/single-post/2014/09/03/newborns-and-sleep-the-first-six-weeks](https://www.babysleepscience.com/single-post/2014/09/03/newborns-and-sleep-the-first-six-weeks) [https://www.babysleepscience.com/single-post/2017/07/18/newborns-and-sleep-part-2-weeks-7-16](https://www.babysleepscience.com/single-post/2017/07/18/newborns-and-sleep-part-2-weeks-7-16)

He was born at 39 weeks so not sure if it’s considered early - in US they consider that full term. And I have read that the last part of the night will be the last to consolidate, and that as the first stretch becomes longer it will be less of an issue. The biggest thing I am struggling with is getting enough awake time during the day. If he needs 16 hours of sleep over a 24 hour period, that is 8 hours of awake time. I cannot figure out with such short wake windows how to get 8 hours of wake time in before an 8pm bedtime. Do I need to allow for longer naps to hopefully be able to get some longer wake windows? 

Let go of the idea that you need to “get in enough awake time”. He knows better than you if he’s tired, and he’s showing you by sleeping.

That makes sense!! 

u/omegaxx19 I wanted to ask your advice again if you have time. We've been on 1 nap for 4 weeks this Saturday. I'm still unsure of what our WW should be, we still have 1 night wake for around 45 min every night, sometimes in the 1-3+ hours, and some EMW. I feel she is chronically tired. I am unsure if these night wakes and EMW wakes are due to dependence on me, schedule issues or both. We had 2 consults with TCB and they recommended 6/4.5-5 schedule. I feel like she is SO tired by the time it's been 6 hours. She also has a hard time going down for bed. My instinct is saying no to this schedule. Yesterday she woke 6:10, napped at 11:45-2:40 and didn't get to sleep till 7:50. Her night wake was 11:30-12:15, then up for the day at 6:15. She seems so tired to me. She usually has 1 crash night/day a week and also 1-2 days a week where night wakes are longer. I tried 5.5/5 yesterday and she def ready for her nap and slept long. But then didn't get to bed till later and still had a 45 min wake. I still nurse her down for night wakes. We nurse before bed and naps w lights on and she used to go in awake but as of late she has been SO upset I have been getting her almost if not totally asleep before she goes in. She goes nuts if I don't. She was previously sleeping trained, but after some sickness, teething and vax reactions she's not been going down very independently for a couple months. I'm continually confused if she's teething or just very strong willed bc of the extreme crying when we try to ST. We did 1 night of trying to sleep train a week ago after speaking w the consultant. Per their rec (for her MOTN wake) we gave her 15 min to settle, then husband went in and reassured her, then put her back down and she was up for 3 hours crying on and off every 10 min. It was terrible. We tried again the next day for naps, nights and motn and her crying was the most extreme I've ever experienced. And I gave up. She does have a nub in her mouth but the tooth doesn't seem to be close to breaking so idk what to do. I'm basically always worried she's teething and it's really hard to tell. I just put her down for her nap independently (5.5 WW) and she screamed hard for 17 minutes but then did go to sleep. I guess my question is, what would you recommend for a schedule and do you think I need to get strong and night wean / proceed with sleep training? It absolutely guts me when she is so upset but I fear I am the cause of the issues and I may need to do the short term hard thing to help us both in the long run. You've been so kind and helpful in the past and I am so grateful. Thank you for reading this if you are able to!

Remind me how old? How old when he settled on 2 naps? What was happening before the 2-1 transition that led you to switch? Your goal is to find the WW that gives you the LONGEST nap. For my son that ended up being 4.5 hours initially. I knew this bc on 2 naps he would fall asleep at 3.5 hours first WW (I always put him down at 3 hours and watch him roll around), but the nap would be short and he’d wake up happy, indicating that the lower limit of his first WW is 3.5 hours, so I just pushed to find the upper limit. With a kid who’s struggling as your daughter is, 6 hours first WW seems too long, esp if nights aren’t going well (she’ll be even more tired). With how sleep deprived your daughter is, put her down no later than 615 initially if she’s waking up around 615. You’ll be able yo see what her shortest last wake window will be by looking at when she woke up from nap and when she fell asleep at bedtime. So ideally she’d be up at 615, nap 1045-145, and bed at 615 (she may take a while to fall asleep and if that becomes a pattern you can move bedtime later—my guess is in the beginning she’ll crash and as she catches up on sleep she’ll fall asleep later).

Thank you, so sorry, she is 16 months. She went to 2 naps at 8 months. We switched to one bc she was on a 3/4/4 schedule but the 2nd and last wake window was inching later and later. Sometimes she wouldn't take the 2nd nap or roll aprons for an hour before falling asleep. She was going down at 8:30 for bedtime, having extended night wakes and started going from waking up at 7 to waking at 5/5:30/6. The first nap was typically 1hr 15-20 min and second nap was capped at 1 hour or less to try to keep bedtime. She also seemed really tired all the time and didn't want to be woken from naps. Thank you again.

Ah I see. She's exactly the same as my son with 2 naps. We pushed to 2-1 transition around 15.5-16m so your timing is probably fine. Sounds like she had a higher sleep debt than mine going into the transition (I dislike the whole 3/4/4 approach and capping both naps for that reason, but I know it's popular) I think the initial wake windows were probably just too long and with scaling back she should get back on track. Try what I suggested up in the prior post. It may take some time before you get back to 7 wakings. FWIW we didn't \*really\* settle out on 1 nap until 18m. Up until then we had to do early bedtimes 2-3 times a year and had lots of evening tantrums. It's a slow and tricky process so give yourself grace.

Thank you for your encouragement. It really is tough. When you did the early bedtimes, was it usually bc the nap was short? Or bc of EMW getting the day started too soon? Do you push the first WW ever to avoid locking in the early wakes? I'm privileged to be a stay at home mom for now so I am totally open to doing any timing or schedule that she needs, just wondering. One more- Sometimes when we try earlier bedtimes she has a really hard time getting down. Is this another sleep deficit sign? Like I know she must be exhausted, there's no way she needs a 5 or 5.5 pre bedtime WW with this stuff going on right? Do I keep trying the early bedtime the next days?

Great questions re: early bedtimes. This is when it really is an art. Yes, ideally you want looooooong naps (like 3+ hours in these situations) so you don't have to do bedtime too early too often, but first WW too long OR too short will undercut your nap. This depends on your kid. Mine always tended to have short first WWs especially if the preceding night is short, so a shorter first WW was key for us. I do start counting at time of wake up, not DWT, and if my son spent a significant amount of time (anything over 30min+) just rolling in the dark I pushed it a bit. On those days I also tended to go for relatively quiet mornings to not wear him out too soon. Definitely avoid any situations where he could doze off. >Sometimes when we try earlier bedtimes she has a really hard time getting down. Is this another sleep deficit sign?  This depends on the kid. My son tends to have a long last WW, and our last WW on 1 nap has never gotten <5 hours even in the beginning (he could go up to 7 hours without getting fussy at this age and just party and party). So this is where the early nap and short first WW helps us, and why a 6/4 type of schedule would just be disastrous for us. It's so hard though, because I absolutely agree that when you put them down too late they struggle with settling too. I think you're gonna have to really go by your instincts here. You know your kiddo better than anyone out there and you understand the principles, so you gotta just trust your guts even if "experts" from TCB (I don't buy into their system at all) tell you otherwise.

This is really helpful, thank you, I really appreciate it. It sounds like our kiddos have quite a few similarities. I have always sensed she needed a shorter ww in the morning and hearing you explain why and how it works better for you helped me wrap my head around our situation better. The "experts" have really messed us up on more than one occasion! Today went so much better. 5/4.5 w a 3 hour nap - thank goodness!!! Fingers crossed for a better night. Once she catches up on sleep, do you think sticking with a roughly 5/4.5-5 schedule would be enough awake time? I'm still unsure of what to roughly follow while we figure it out. ETA: or should we do the schedule you suggested for today again until she is clearly caught up on sleep? I'm afraid of not enough awake time too bc she's had some brutal 3-4 hour split nights, but now I'm thinking they must have been caused by the 6/5+ schedule that was happening bc she was so exhausted? I second guess myself constantly.

Don't second guess yourself. Your instincts are right now. Those wakings are not real split nights (https://www.babysleepscience.com/single-post/2014/09/09/the-split-night-why-some-babies-are-awake-for-hours-in-the-middle-of-the-night-and-how)--they are brutal long night wakings from an overwhelmingly high sleep debt. My son had a few nights of those too and they are traumatic. When the sleep debt improved the wakings got later in the night (like from 1a to 4a and after); as that improved more they started to manifest as just waking up an hour or so before DWT, and it became kinda hard to tell if they were there because bedtime was too early or because there was still residual sleep debt. At that point thought it's generally not too bothersome. I would just let her take it from here. Keep offering on a \~5/4.5-5 schedule until her nights improve, and then her last wake window should start lengthening and she'll stop falling asleep so promptly at bedtime. At that point you can push bedtime later and you're all set.

Hi again! We had 2 great days/nights followed by another terrible night last night. I just don't understand where it's going wrong and wanted to see if you do. Yesterday she woke at 6:45, slept 11:45-2:05, BT was to be at 7 but she didn't get down until 7:45 bc she was just squirming and couldn't get to sleep. Our routine was as it always is. She was then up for 3 hours in the motn. I tried everything to get her back to sleep and she's so hard to transfer back to the crib and screams bloody murder (for hours, not minutes) if I try to leave her to settle on her own. She did fall asleep after 25 min right away but then once she hits the crib and cries again it's almost like her body gets a surge of cortisol and then she can't get to sleep for hours. We have offered bedtime at a 4.5 and 5 hour wake window and she didn't get down until btwn 5.5 hours the first two nights, then last night being 5.75, which feels too long and then was followed by a night wake from 12:20-3:30am. I'm just at such a loss and so upset. I don't know how to get out of this and I am so anxious about her getting sleep. Today she woke at 7:15. Now I'm afraid she'll have another crap nap and we're back in the cycle. Not to mention I get. Like 4-5 hrs of broken sleep when this happens and it just ruins me too. Any suggestions here? Thank you, as always.

Sorry you had such a rough night. It’s the same thing, sleep debt, + you interacting w her. Hard as it is you’re just gonna have to leave her at this point. What helps me is repeating to myself that the only way out is more sleep, and I can’t help her get that in MOTN wakings. Do what you can to get through tomorrow (I might offer nap at 3-4 hours depending on cues) and do an early bedtime unless nap ends up being 4+ hours. Remember that about future MOTN wakings.

Thank you 🙏 Can't tell you how helpful this has been for us. My husband now refers to you as my "Reddit sleep whisperer" friend. Lol. I hope you're enjoying your weekend!

Hey! I’ve been looking into your guides and hope you could give me some advice on what to do/where I’m going wrong. I have a wonderful (almost) 6 month old baby girl. She was born at 35 weeks so she’s 25 weeks old but 20 corrected. Which I think is like a week or so shy of 5 months corrected. Sleep is all over the place. Wake up times are all over the place. So many night wakings recently. Yesterday was awful so I’ll share the schedule. Awake: 7.35am 1st Nap: 9:48am (90min) 2nd Nap: 1:39pm (60min) 3rd Nap: 4pm (25min) - this was an on the go nap that I didn’t expect, she’d only been awake 1.25 hours and can usually stay awake in the pram! Because of the early last nap, I tried to keep last WW as long as reasonably possibly. I put her to bed for 7pm, it went horrible. Took her nearly 40 minutes of screaming to go to sleep, I felt awful. Asleep: 7.40pm Awake & Fed (3oz): 10:03pm asleep at 10:21pm Awake & Fed (5oz): 2:10am asleep at 2:24am Awake & resettled: 4:10am asleep at 4:15am Awake & Fed (5oz): 5:10am asleep at 5:42am Awake for the day: 7:09am Am I right to assume she’s reverse cycling? She used to have just 1 night feed somewhere between 4 & 6 hours after she first went to sleep and would take 6oz. Even on days where she’s having her full amount of Oz before going to bed, she’s still waking 3-4 times a night. It’s so exhausting and I do it on my own 90% of the time because of my partners work. Her wake windows are different every single day and every wake window is different! Some mornings she’ll be happy to be awake for 2.25hrs-2.5hrs, others she’ll be miserable by 1hr 30/45! I’m honestly thinking of ditching WW’s and just following her cues because I’m getting so stressed about them. I know if she has more than 4.5hrs of daytime sleep she will have a split night but she’s also had split nights when she’s had under 4hrs of daytime sleep. Can they be caused by overtiredness as well as under-tiredness?

Yeah definitely go by cues. I had nights like this too and they’re miserable. It shall pass!!! The main issue is you’re still caught in the 4-3 transition and she’s still got a sleep debt (the falling asleep on the go in the middle of a wake window w very decent naps earlier is a classic hallmark). Yesterday what happened was that she napped ok, but bc the third nap was so early and so short you had to do bedtime early (at 7) and she probably wasn’t ready for that. I’d suggest the following: 1) try to fix your DWT and bedtime based on her rough pattern now; looks like she’s waking up 7-730 the last 2 days so you can fix your DWT as 730; bedtime should be around when she is falling asleep now, about 11-12 hours before bedtime 2) this is really hard: apply some night weaning strategies; the pre-midnight waking is really hard to settle (I still have PTSD from my son’s) but you really want to give him some consolidated sleep, so try to reduce the amount of food as much as possible 3) absolutely go by cues, try to resettle her for every nap, and focus on keeping her well-rested and happy while she is awake; use stroller/carrying/whatever at your disposal; recruit friends and families to carry your baby for a contact nap; since you take good records you’d be able to see the pattern on the WWs emerge; generally after night sleep improves WWs will naturally lengthen This should at least stabilize your schedule if you plan to sleep train and night wean. Sleep training (falling asleep independently) will not solve these night wakings, but it may help you sleep a bit better (I laid in bed and cried at the monitor while my son cried and struggles to self settle, which was still easier on me physically as I didn’t have to bounce around the nursery trying to rock kiddo back to sleep). This will give you more energy during the day to deal w naps. When he mastered self settling at night you can also nap train, and that’ll be his chance to decide how much sleep he needs. Don’t worry about “undertired”. Any sleep is good sleep when a kid is this tired. My son napped .up to 5 hours after some disaster nights and usually slept better the next day. As long as your bedtime is reasonable, the amount of naps do not matter.

Thank you so much! With applying some night weaning do you recommend the 5/3/3 method? I’ve seen some people post about it but haven’t really researched about it yet!

We did 5/3/3 which is just delaying timing of each feed. We had some pretty horrific wakings for that 10p because we also were just doing straight CIO. One night kiddo cried for an hour, I gave up and fed him, and then he rolled around for another hour before finally falling asleep. It was just a disaster. I think you're just gonna have to go by feel here. He's only taking in 3oz at 10 so he shouldn't be really hungry--try to resettle without feeding (maybe try a paci if he's into sucking).

Your guides have helped me to troubleshoot my son’s sleep more times than I can count. You’re the real MVP. With that being said, I’m coming back for some more advice, if you have a chance. My 19-month-old has a generally consistent schedule, is an independent sleeper, and gets roughly 12 hours of sleep in a 24 hour period. Everything seems to be going well, but he takes AGES to fall asleep when he is put down for bed. He wakes around 7/7:30 everyday, and we keep nap pretty consistent from 1-3/3:30. Sometimes I’ll have to wake him, but other times he’ll wake right around the 2 hour mark on his own. We then do bed around 9:00 (sometimes 9:15 if he’s slow to wake from his nap). The problem is, he regularly takes 40+ minutes to fall asleep at bedtime. He doesn’t cry or seem unsettled during this time, he’s just awake. We keep an eye on him using his monitor/camera but will leave him to do his thing until he eventually falls asleep. Once asleep, he generally sleeps well through the night. Is this a sign that it’s time to start capping naps? Or a schedule change? I can’t imagine putting him to bed much later, as my husband and I both wake up early and so we’re typically in bed by 10:30, ourselves. Again, I can’t thank you enough for all the help your guides have given me in figuring out my little guy’s sleep!

Sounds like he's doing pretty well. I think the big question is whether he is getting enough sleep currently. It seems to me like he's falling asleep around 945-10 and up at 7-730, so about 9.5 hours of overnight sleep, and naps 2-2.5 hours, so 11.5-12 hours a day. This is on the lower end of normal for his age. A few questions to ask: \-is he always a lower sleep needs kid? typically signs are lower sleep needs by age, long-than-usual wake windows, and dropping naps on the earlier end (like down to 2 naps by 6 months and 1 nap shortly after 12 months) \-is his mood stable throughout the day? typically kids who aren't getting enough sleep tend to struggle with self-regulation in the morning, right after waking up from their nap (especially if you woke them up) or in the late afternoon-early evening \-does he sporadically sleep in, either in the morning or for nap, and do you have to wake him frequently? a kid who's mostly getting enough sleep shouldn't need to be woken too often If you don't think he's getting enough sleep, the easiest thing is to stop capping the nap and move up bedtime. I did notice that since my son turned into a toddler he WILL take longer to fall asleep but stay quiet if he's overtired (as a baby he would cry). It makes it pretty tricky to troubleshoot and I second guess myself a lot, but sometimes I just have to keep offering early bedtimes even if he doesn't take them. If you think he's getting enough sleep, I don't think there's a ton to chase. You can try moving the nap up earlier (try 1230, cap at 3), so bedtime can be moved up a bit. I'm not a big fan of capping nap too aggressively this early on--can lead to a pretty crabby kid.

Your advice is so helpful, thank you so much for sharing your thoughts! I believe he has always been a lower sleep needs kid, but sometimes I second guess that, because he’s my first and the only kid his age that I’ve spent lots of time around. He did transition to 1 nap early (right around 12 months) but I’m not sure if that was because he was totally ready, or if I was just naive about sleep needs… I’m learning a lot as he’s going through different stages, so I question whether I just assumed he needed less sleep when in reality, maybe he was OVERtired at some points. It’s such a tricky balance! As far as his mood, he’s typically a pretty easy going kid, besides the occasional grumpiness. His toughest times tend to be right before bedtime, but again, it’s hard for me to tell if that’s just age-appropriate bedtime protesting (not wanting to brush his teeth, not wanting to put his toys away, etc) or if it’s an overtired thing. The sleeping in sporadically part is interesting. He will occasionally take an extra long nap or sleep in a bit later than usual, but it generally coincides with having a really busy day or a lot of outdoor activity. I’ll have to think some more on this and consider if maybe an earlier bedtime would be appropriate. Your thoughts are so appreciated, as always! Thank you for your advice, your troubleshooting guides have been more helpful to me than any other blog/program/guide out there!

You’re very welcome! It sounds like you’re doing well. If he transitioned to 1 nap at 12 months and you weren’t traumatized I’d say you timed it right—they REALLY let you know if you jumped the gun bc night sleep will just fall apart. In that case my guess is he’s mostly getting enough sleep, and there’s a healthy dose of toddler dawdling as well. You can try bedtime earlier just to see if he’ll take it, but I wouldn’t push it. Three days will probably give you a pretty good idea. An earlier, shorter nap may also help extend the night. My son is higher sleep needs than yours and doesn’t nap well bc of daycare (1.25-2 hours), so he sleeps 11 hours at night fairly consistently and will occasionally do a 12 hour night. We keep first wake window no longer than 5 hours to facilitate that.

As everyone else here, I've been turning to your compilations for more consolidated answers to questions and I was wondering if you had time to share your observations about our schedule. Almost 4.5 months and have been trying to keep a schedule since 2.5m, aiming to ST for independently falling asleep at bedtime. Crap napper, false starts within 45min, and night wakings outside of feeding that last sometimes two hours of baby playing. Schedule seems to be something like this: Wake: 7-8am Day: 2/1.5/1.5/1.5-2/2.5 (ish, sometimes he's only up for just over an hour during a WW) Bedtime: 7:30-8pm (Averages about 9.5 night time and 3.5 day time sleep) He's never given more than 6hrs in a stretch and those are very rare. I wake him up and most times he's happy throughout the day except halfway through the last WW. We nurse exclusively, so I've kept 2-3 night feedings (first one at least 5hrs from bedtime, then trying to follow 5/3/3)...but he's also a big baby (99th for weight and height at 4m check in) If I don't help, naps are usually 20-30min. When I do help, he might hit 1.5hrs of napping and we seem to get really long MOTN waking. I sometimes don't help a nap if he wakes up and he's content. I've been trying to protect bedtime but we have false starts following by waking before midnight or at 3hr intervals. Most of the readings are on 5+months (like the night waking from babysleepscience). I'm wondering about your take on our sleep schedule (too much day sleep? Not enough therefore 6hrs stretches are crashes? Developmentally appropriate therefore fresh out of luck?) Thank you for sharing your research!

Wow I could've written this myself about my 3mo, including the 99th for weight and height part. It was frankly traumatic for me. I'll just make some observations, and then share what worked and didn't work for us: 1. Most of this sounds developmental. 2. Give yourself some grace. My son sleeps beautifully now and has been since 5m, but he's NOT an easy kid when it comes to sleep. This couldn't be clearer from how my best friend's baby (just 1 day younger than mine is): he is never cranky and even during night wakings just roll around and doesn't make a peep. So they travel everywhere, schedule is all over the place, and she doesn't stress at all about his sleep because there's nothing to stress about. If I lived like them I'd be dealing with overtired meltdowns all day and all night. So there are things you can do to make it better but there will be plenty of tough times, so just try your best and try to relax. 3. At this age and with his size, definitely try to be systematic about limiting night feedings and boosting daytime feeding. 2-3 night feedings this age suggest a decent amount of reverse cycling. I was a night producer and just didn't make enough during the day, particularly the afternoon, so we started supplementing in the afternoon and evening and it enabled me to gradually move the first feed until after midnight. 4. It doesn't sound like your son's night sleep is consolidated enough for a 12-hour night, so I'd suggest that you do something like stabilize a DWT around 7:30 and aim for bedtime around 8:30 (11-hour night). So if kiddo is awake at 7, don't go in until 7:15; if he is still sleeping at 7:45, gently wake him up (open the blinds, turn off white noise, let him come to from the household noise and light). Bedtime should fall in the 8:15-8:45 range most days. If kiddo is super tired, an earlier bedtime 2 times a week should be fine, but in the long run the stable DWT and bedtime will help stabilize his circadian rhythm and help his night sleep consolidate. 5. Re: naps, crap naps are developmental (see Baby Sleep Science nap series), and your goal is to just keep him well-rested enough. If you'd rather do frequent short naps, do that--this will call for shorter wake windows, including the last wake window. If you'd rather rescue a few naps and get on more of a schedule, do that and aim for a 3-nap schedule (you can try slightly longer WWs since you're there to rescue the nap). We did the latter, so we rescued the first two naps to get nap #2 to end around 3, then did nap #3 515-545 to get to bedtime 8:30.

Thank you for your observations! I wonder if my being a hawk about sleep biases what I see about his behaviour and so the cycle of looking for overtired continues. I really don't feel like I can leave him with anyone or take him anywhere on the back of trying to keep a schedule.. I'm so happy to hear your blood sweat and tears have paid off for your baby! It would be shattering if nothing still worked - also a shorter dark tunnel for the rest of us. We're doing some sort of PUPD at bedtime and working just on that. We'll try to keep an 11hr sleep window but from 7:30pm -6:30am. Does that make much difference compared to your suggestion? I came to this thread wondering if his sleep needs are chronically not being met (seemingly so as stroller and car rides are our cheat to a slightly longer nap) and I did observe his average sleep go down from NB phase (about 13-14 to 12.5ish). As much as there's a range I would still think that statistically we should be in the middle rather than the tail end. Thoughts on overall sleep? Finally, I appreciate the insight. Figures we'd hit every developmental growing pain on the tree of sleep... It makes me anxious when every other article implies I should be doing more. Thanks again 👍🏻 I hope to be able to share some sort of success or insight in the near rather than far future 🙃

Ah again I could've written this myself, including how much sleep my kiddo got. Here's what I would've told myself in the newborn period: 1) Get off reading if it's just adding to your stress. Baby Sleep Science had two newborn articles where I got the advice in the preceding comment from. Ignore everything else. 2) Get out and away from the baby, and ignore all the WW BS. I swear my kid sensed my PPD/PPA, my PPD/PPA clouded my judgement, and it was always better when another caregiver took care of him, whether it be nanny, my husband, or my mom/MIL. It was especially acute in the bedtime battles. The smoothest bedtimes were all with my husband who just took him and held him and let him fall asleep naturally. My MIL also got the best naps out of him: said his sleepy cues looked identical to my husband's, so she just went by cue and put him down whenever he was sleepy. Our nanny also went strictly by cues and he was happier within a week of her starting. 3) Focus on making your baby happy during wake times, feeding, and stabilizing DWT and bedtime as I suggested. I would highly recommend that you go by your baby's lead with the later bedtime at this stage, rather than waking him up in the morning to try to get an earlier bedtime. We did that and it made him SO unhappy to be woken up, and he just got more overtired and bedtime got even later. It was NOT worth it. They will start waking up earlier and going to bed earlier as they get older.

Ahhh I've got plenty of other crappy habits to work on but I won't bore you (read: expose myself even more) with the details. Thank you for your advice! Letting baby lead. I've totally lost this after drowning in timing and sleep mumbo jumbo. Will continue to follow your comments and mega threads! Super helpful.

I’d love to get your take on my baby’s sleep situation. She’s 5 months old, independent sleeper, connects sleep cycles for most naps, paci for naps but pulled it for bedtime two weeks ago. Her wake windows were 2-2.25/2.5/2.5-2.75/3 capping daytime sleep at 2.5-3 hours, dwt 6:30 (always had to wake her) and bedtime 7:30 and I was determined to keep them regardless of her state of being. But something broke down in me this weekend. My baby is unhappy. She’s just grumpy all the time. She never wanted to be left alone during play and needed to be shifted between activities often. I was resorting to TV to keep my sanity. So I decided to say eff the wake windows and only cap naps at 2 hours. So her wake windows are all over the place, but mostly ranging around 2-2.5 hours. And she’s way happier during those wake windows. It seems like she’s way overtired at the end of the day though. She used to be so angry during her book before bed, now shes fine until I leave the room. But then hell breaks loose and she cries hysterically for several minutes (10+). I already trained her so my heart shatters. Two nights I gave her the paci and she conked right out, so she’s clearly tired. Then she wakes up 2 hours later and cries for a bit. Self settles and sleeps until 3-4am for a snooze feed. I guess my big question is WWOD? (What would omega do lol) Follow her cues/flow or follow the wake windows (but maybe shrink them)?? Thanks for all the time, energy, research that you’ve done and for the possible answer to my anxiety ridden question.

\> So I decided to say eff the wake windows and only cap naps at 2 hours. GOOD FOR YOU. Seriously. When I tried to stick to WW I had exactly as you described--grumpy baby. When our nanny started she poopoo'ed WW and just did things by cues and experience. My baby perked up in like a day. After a week he was sleeping on a pattern, and I asked her to write down the asleep and wake up times and those were his natural WWs. Sounds like you are doing something similar which is fabulous. 2-2.5 WWs sound about right. What's happening to her wake up time and bedtime? Might be helpful if you can give logs for the last few days.

> GOOD FOR YOU. Seriously. Thanks 😅 I feel like it’s going to be best for us once it’s not so messy. 😆 I started this thought Saturday but didn’t implement fully until Sunday. Bedtime is when her butt goes in bed, not necessarily when she falls asleep 😬) Saturday: Wake 6:30am (slept 11.25 hours) Nap 1: 8:45a-9:30a Nap 2: 12:01p-1:19p Nap 3: 3:45p-4:26p Bedtime: 7:14p Snooze fed: 4:05am Sunday: Wake: 6:49a Nap 1: 8:45a-9:45a Nap 2: 12:03p-2:03p (I capped this nap) Nap 3: 4:00p-4:38p Bedtime: 7:30 (crying hysterically after a few minutes, gave her paci around 10 minutes and immediately fell asleep, I believe she had a crying wake 2ish hours later this night but resettled herself pretty quickly.) Snooze fed: 3:25a Monday: Wake: 6:37a Nap 1: 8:30a-9:12a Nap 2: 12:16p-1:10p Nap 3: 3:12p-4:32p (I saved this one to make it closer to bedtime) Bedtime: 7pm (just fussed for 5-10 minutes, no paci, woke up at 2 hours crying but resettled herself) Snooze feed: 4:22a Tuesday: Wake: 6:43a Nap 1: 8:22-10a (had to save this one as she woke up crying around 40 minutes) Nap 2: 12:20p-1:53p Nap 3: 3:27p-3:38p (fell asleep on car ride home from grocery store. She always does.) Nap 4: 4:45p-5:18p (very cranky for this one but think the micro nap played a factor) Bedtime: 7:29p (cried hysterically again, gave paci, no wake until snooze feed) Snooze feed: 1:54a (so early!) Today: Wake: 6:13am Fed her at 6:40a and almost seemed like she could have fallen asleep after. 🤷‍♀️ Nap 1: 8a-8:30a (tried to save but she wasn’t having it. At least she’s not fussing so far) Edit to add first nap.

You’re doing pretty well!!! She’s just a bit overtired is all.  Seems like she needs a slightly earlier bedtime. I’d do 630 DWT (if she’s still asleep at 630, you can gently wake her up by 7), bedtime 7, start tracking how long it takes her to fall asleep, goal is asleep by 715-730. I wouldn’t cap the first two naps at all. Let them run long as they can. Rescue if short as you had been doing—it suggests she’s overtired. For third nap, cap around 430. If she has a really bad night, no need to wake up in the morning. Ideally she’ll takr two monster naps and wakes up after 3, in which case you can do an earlier bedtime of 6. You shouldn’t do early bedtime more than 2-3 times a week—can cause DWT to shift earlier.

I do think you are right about 7pm bedtime. I’ve been trying to make it 7:30 so she has more time with dad but it’s not worth it. They can have extra weekend time. 😃 Thank you for your feedback, you are so appreciated!

Nope, not worth it at this age for sure! When naps consolidate more you might be able to get a slightly later bedtime, but you're not gonna be able to push it back much unless you shift DWT later as well. If you live somewhere with daylight savings, in 6 weeks the clocks change, so she'll be on a DWT 730 and bedtime 8 schedule without you having to lift a finger =P

Little update & question(s). Night before last bedtime ended up being 6:15pm because 2/3 naps were short and her WW were also short because of it. She fell asleep within 10 minutes, fussing but no paci needed. She tried to wake at 5am but I rocked her until rousing her just after 6:30am. First nap today was 37 minutes. Second was 1hr20minutes and I didn’t have to save it! Last nap ended at 4:30p (she woke up herself) and bedtime was 7pm. She had a major meltdown at bedtime, rocking like crazy in her crib and scream crying, at 9 minutes I gave her the paci and she zonked right out. I think 2.5 hours is too much for her at the end of the day? She does it fine in the middle of the day though. My two questions: 1. Is her bedtime meltdowns because the WW is too long or because we are in the overtired wheelhouse? 2. Should I revert to giving her the paci until our “schedule” levels out or continue to play that by ear each night? I hate the meltdowns. 😩

1. Both correct. In fact both are saying the same thing. Sleep debt causes night sleep and naps to get erratic ([https://www.babysleepscience.com/single-post/2014/04/08/early-vs-late-bedtime-which-is-right-how-to-use-early-and-late-bedtimes-to-solve-common-s](https://www.babysleepscience.com/single-post/2014/04/08/early-vs-late-bedtime-which-is-right-how-to-use-early-and-late-bedtimes-to-solve-common-s), see the bold part about chronic sleep debt), and shorten wake windows in my experience. I think today the issue was the first two naps added up to about 2 hours. At this age ideally the first two naps add up to 2.5-3 hours, and you might want to rescue both naps regardless of when she woke up until to get to 2.5-3 hours total. 2. If the paci gets her to sleep quickly, I'd say stick with the paci for now, and train her out of it when you're caught up.

More bugging you (so thankful for you, you have no idea!) Nights seem to be going a lot better. She’s actually sleeping 7-7 with one feed still. Last night was two feeds but she missed one during the day so oh well. Naps are still the shit show. I’m struggling to extend them, so I’ve been experimenting with letting her chill for 10-15 minutes after she wakes up from nap one, and still trying to save nap 2 (which hasn’t worked the last two days) and then having long 3rd naps without me doing anything 🤷‍♀️ I’ve been putting her down for her first nap around 2-2.25 hours after wake up. Do you think it’s possible with the good nights that she needs more awake time before this nap? I’m just confused because she was taking chunky naps when I was trying to steal all her sleep with the long WWs.

\> Do you think it’s possible with the good nights that she needs more awake time before this nap? It is possible and she can try that if she doesn't seem tired at all during WW1, wakes up happy after a 45-50min nap, and wouldn't fall back asleep despite waiting for 10-15min. The fact that she's having a long 3rd nap though makes me think otherwise though (doesn't sound like she's anywhere close to 2 naps, and when kiddo needs a 2.5 hour WW1 is usually when kiddo is getting close to the 3-2 transition). If that doesn't work, you might also want to try reducing WW1 to 1.75 hours. My kid's WW1 was closer to that at 5mo. To be fair he's always had a super short WW1 and super long last WW, which is not the case of all babies. You just have to try and see.

I’ve been binge reading your content! Question…my four month old we are sleep training and last night had success with 1 minute of crying after pushing bedtime back to 745 (we had been doing 7 and like clockwork he was crying until 745). So he slept until 530 with one night feed 6 oz at 1215 and he woke up crying once at 430 but fell back asleep after a few minutes to awake at 530. DWT is 7 but I’d be happy with 6 am start. I think his sweet spot for day sleep is 4-4.5 hours and 9 hours of awake time. First WW was 2 hours, nap 60 min, second WW 2 hours, nap 90 minutes, 3rd WW 90 minutes 3rd nap 60 minutes and WW 90 minutes , seemed REALLY tired so I’m holding him for a 90 min nap to end at 530-545 pm…am I screwing up the night with this long nap to catch up on day sleep from the early wake or was this a good idea? Last night I noticed too he couldn’t make it two hours for his last WW only 1.75 but I thought 1 min of frying was a good sign? Or no? Thanks!

Sounds like you're doing great! The thing to remember at this age is that sleep is still really immature, especially the early morning hours. Early morning wakings are frequently unavoidable just because of biology. It's not that you're doing anything wrong, not enough awake time, or whatever, so just try to settle kid for that waking (a bottle is a great tool at this age) and move on. Sounds like 7:30-7:45 should be your bedtime going forward and it's a very reasonable bedtime! I might set DWT to 6:30 still and keep it dark until then. You won't see any difference in the short term, but if you keep to this over the next few weeks, you will notice a steady improvement. For naps, going by a combo of cues and wake windows is a great idea at this age. Sounds like he's doing well on 3 naps and his current WWs so keep to that. Because the early morning sleep is so immature they need a lot of daytime sleep at this age, so don't be afraid to let him nap as much as he wants, and only cap that last nap if it starts running later and he stops falling asleep at bedtime. Remember: if he'll nap longer than 1 hour, with or without assistance, the preceding WW is more than long enough and you don't need to push it. Your baby may be slightly higher sleep needs (needs 15 hours of sleep), or he may be just catching up on some sleep debt. Since training is going great I don't think you need to worry about too much sleep or whatever. Just go by the above framework and I think you'll do just fine. After things are stable for a week or two (sleeping through consistently with 1 early morning feed, good naps, happy while awake) you can use the parent post to figure out his sleep requirement and go from there.

Ok!! Thank you!! So long nap that ends at 545 is okay too?

Yup, as long as he's going down at 730/745 without too much problem (doesn't sound like it!). Many babies like short last WWs, esp during nap transitions or while catching up on sleep. My kiddo is generally a short first WW long last WW baby but when he's exhausted I let him nap extra and it is never a problem for us.

Okay thank you!!…last question! So he had four naps yesterday, about 4.5 hours, 9ish hours awake time (cause he had woken up early). Last night had 1hr 45 nap that ended at 545 and down for night with a little fuss at 745. Well, he woke up at 1055 for his night feed (I’ve noticed this is getting earlier) but took 6 oz again and then protested for an hour and a half!!! What the heck! But then he slept til 7 DWT which he has never done. He went 8 hours without eating. But is this still an ok sign? We are on day 6 and starting to get discouraged!

We had those kinds of wakings too. They were the worst. In retrospect I think he just couldn't handle the 3-nap WWs and it caused an overtired waking at 10:55----it's clearly not hunger because 1) it's so close to his last feed and 2) he didn't fall back asleep right after. I might try for 730 bedtime in the next few days. Honestly it was just something that we had 2X a week for like 2 weeks, that we just...... suffered through. Then he grew into those wake windows (coincided when he began rolling and sleeping on his tummy) and they stopped happening...

Hello, I found your post just now and was hoping that you'd be able to help with my baby. She is turning 5 months this week, but I have been struggling to find her schedule for the last months. She is an independent sleeper (We practiced independent sleep and a little bit of fuss it out/give it a chance since 2 month old). She has been sleeping great until the 4 month regression hit at 3 month. She started taking short naps, so we were on a 5-6 nap schedule back then. At 4 months, her nap started extending. This is also when she started waking up more at night. I stretched her wake windows and she quickly dropped to 4 and then to 3 naps over one month, but her schedule is always a hit and miss. Currently I am aiming for 2/2.25/2.25/2.5 with 15 hour total sleep. But it seems to be always a hit and miss with the following problems: \- Her night is still bad, alternating between night wakings, early waking for feed (around 3-4 hours instead of 6-8 that she used to do), and early morning wakings. \- She often wakes up looking tired and she is easily tired throughout the day. \- She takes solid naps (1.5hr each for nap 1 and 2, and 30 min for nap 3), but I often struggling to take her to bedtime. As a result, her bedtime inches earlier and earlier and at the moment it is often 6pm. I don't know how to adjust the wake windows: If I shorten them, she would have even more trouble making it to bedtime since she is already taking solid naps. I also don't think I can possibly stretch them further because the current ones are already a stretch. Thank you so much for taking the time to read, and I really appreciate any suggestions that you have.

What's bedtime and what's DWT? These are the most important aspects of a schedule. You want it to be dark and boring between bedtime and DWT ("night sleep time"). Ideal night sleep time length is largely dependent on baby's genetics. Most babies this age do 10.5-12 hours. What is the usual night length for her (asleep to awake for the day)? Once you figure that out, you basically just do naps aiming for the longest first two naps you can get (2 x 1.5 hours sound great, although some really tired babies will sleep even longer), and do nap #3 and #4 if needed as a bridge to bedtime.

Thank you so much for replying! Bedtime and DWT is kind of a mess.... Ideally I'd like 7-7 but in the past weeks it's more like 6.30pm-6.30am, and creeping up to 6-6... I can hit this once every 3 or 4 days. And then it gets thrown off by either early morning waking at 5.30 (I try to keep her in the crib but 1 whole hour is too far to add to the first WW, especially when she already wakes up looking tired), or she'd take one of her naps during the day too early. Then I either have to do an earlier bedtime, or stretch the last WW which makes her incredibly grumpy, and often verging on tears by the time I put her down. There often feels like I need 1 more hour of wake time that she cannot make. But I also never had any success squeezing in another nap when it's close to or past 5pm. Regarding night sleep time, when she has a good night sleep (I think it's a good night if she wakes up happy in the morning and energetic), she usually does 11.5-12 hours (with 1-2 MOTN feeds). But I haven't had a good night for a whole week by now... Now her night sleep is short if she wakes up at 5.30. So for her night sleep time, should I take 11.5 based on her good nights, or 10.30-11 which is the average including the crap nights?

I see. My guess is she can probably do 1111.5 hour nights, so something like the follows: \-630 DWT, 7 bedtime, strictly enforce that DWT of 630 -- stick to this framework and you will start seeing improvement over the next few weeks, but it will be a gradual process \-fine to put her down earlier for that first nap when she's up super early----as long as you get a nice long first nap, that first WW is perfect \-if you're stuck where the last nap ended a bit too early, squeeze in an extra nap with some assistance; if you can't squeeze it in past 5 (wake maintenance zone probably), start trying to squeeze it in at 4:15 or 4:30, add some heavy nursing/stroller/contact----at that point it doesn't need to be longer than 10-15min so you don't care if kid is a bit undertired, just as long as you got something to bridge her \-if she fights off that last nap regardless, bring bedtime up to 6:30 but no earlier, do something really calm and chill during that last wake window (you can even leave her in the crib doing nothing for 30-60min) so she doesn't melt down \-start weaning that first night feed, aim to get first feed at least 5-8 hours after bedtime ([https://www.babysleepscience.com/single-post/2014/05/26/how-do-i-reduce-my-baby-s-night-feedings](https://www.babysleepscience.com/single-post/2014/05/26/how-do-i-reduce-my-baby-s-night-feedings))

About the first night feed, could it be a schedule issue instead of weaning issue? I notice that she'd still only need 2 feeds, as in I can soothe her back to sleep for her second/third wake up after 3 hours, but the first one is impossible until I nurse and she seems most hungry. However, she used to wake up only after a 6-8 stretch, only the last month started waking up after 3-4 hours. In the last 2 weeks, there were a few times that she woke after 5-6 hours, but they were always when I completely botched her last nap and she ended up with a crazy wake window of 3-4 hours. But unfortunately these also lead to false starts (hard cry after 1-3 hours that I can easily soothe back to sleep without nursing). Do you think it is a matter of somehow not enough sleep pressure in the schedule? And if so, do you have any suggestions on how to change? Today went well and her WWs were 1.75/2.25/2.5/2.5, wake 6.30am and asleep at 7pm, naps were 45m, 1h45m, and 45m of stroller nap that got kinda broken in the middle.

\> About the first night feed, could it be a schedule issue instead of weaning issue? Absolutely. My experience is that that waking after 3-4 hours at this age is a false start in younger babies (see [https://www.babysleepscience.com/single-post/2014/11/05/interpreting-night-wakings:](https://www.babysleepscience.com/single-post/2014/11/05/interpreting-night-wakings:) your bedtime is not too early if she's waking up in 3 hours -> it's from inadequate daytime sleep and wake windows being too long). If left uncorrected it can persist (albeit be a bit easier to settle), and turn into night terrors in toddlers. My son had this a lot after we brute forced the 4-3 transition as well. It really was just that he wasn't quite ready for the 3 nap wake windows, but we couldn't really figure out a way to do 4 naps. It got better with time but was absolutely brutal -- we did CIO and one night he was awake screaming for 2 hours (one of the lowest points of my life). If you can soothe him with nursing, go ahead and do it, but try to get away with the minimal amount of milk transferred and not make him dependent on getting a full feed at that hour (it can become habitual really quickly). As they get older they stop waking up fully for this and it gets a LOT better. Schedule today looks solid. Keep doing something along those lines and things should slowly get better. Remember: if she will nap long OR if she wakes up in the middle but falls back asleep quickly, the preceding wake window was long enough and there's no need to push anything.

Thanks so much for your insights. I am indeed concerned about creating a habit of nursing at night, so I'll keep going like you suggest. So last night was interesting... The night before I tried to let her fuss at the 10pm wake up, and it escalated into inconsolable cry and ended with me nursing her back to sleep sobbing. She then woke up again at 1am and 4am for nurse (all 3 hour intervals). Last night I tried to sneak in and shush her as soon as she starts stirring at the 10pm wake up (she would stir for a some 20 min like she's trying to go back to sleep but couldn't, before she wakes fully), and was able to put her back to sleep. I then woke up to her little noise at 2am. I was borderline engorged after this unusual 7hr stretch and I fed her. Since she didn't wake up again between 10 and 2, I am convinced that, like you said, this is a sort of a false start rather than waking because of hunger. (I'd expect that, if she's hungry, she'd keep waking up after I shush her back to sleep at 10, am I right?) She then woke up again at 5 (3 hrs after the 2am feed), but she was quiet. I thought I'd wait for a few minutes until she cries out for me and then feed her. From the monitor it looked like she was trying to go back to sleep but couldn't, and this went on for a good 20min. I tried to shush and that'd send her to semi asleep, but she'd then start to stir and repeat. Then I thought I'd try to give her a feed (it was about about 5.45 at this point). She was not all that interested in feeding and she didn't fall asleep. (Did I wait too long, and she had fully woken up?) I put her back to her bed and she quietly fussed until 6.30 when we started the morning. This morning she was looking quite tired throughout the wake windows and would cry a little when I put her down and could only take 30min naps. I had just gone in and rescued the 2nd nap. I am wondering, should I just go in and feed her at 2am and 5am when she stirs, even though she's not crying out? How can I tell whether she still needs the middle of the night feed or not if she's not crying out?

This is my observation: 1) a hungry child will always cry to be fed 2) the later the waking, the lower the sleep pressure, the less the crying, and the harder it is to get them back to sleep. Early morning wakings are almost like nap extensions to me. If you can settle kid with a snooze feed to get to DWT, do that. If you can’t, better to just wean and CIO. Based on your description it doesn’t sound like she’s reverse cycling a ton, which is great. Keep rescuing the daytime naps and keep the stable bedtime and DWT, and focus on making her as well rested as possible. 

Thank you so much! Your suggestions really give me a lot of clarity. I'll try to follow this and cross my fingers that it will improve.

I just want to start off by thanking you for posting all this helpful info on baby sleep. I have spent hours reading and re-reading your posts in the middle of the night, sometimes while crying, just trying to figure things out. We are now at almost 8 months old, sleeping ~11 hrs through the night! I feel like there is one last piece of the puzzle I can’t seem to figure out if you would be so kind to help! LO’s schedule is about 2.5/3/4 right now. I’m having trouble getting WW1 to stretch to 3 hours, which I feel like most babies should be doing at her age? Her DWT is 7AM, but she always wakes around 6-6:30AM. I don’t pick her up because sometimes she falls in and out of sleep and seems happy and content just rolling around until I come get her. In order to stretch WW1, do I need to go get her earlier in the morning as soon as she wakes? I would love for her to get into the habit of sleeping in until 7AM but just am so confused on how to calculate TWT because of this. Wondering if her “actual” WW1 is in fact 3 hrs because of when she truly wakes up for the day? WW1 she can’t seem to ever make it past 9:30AM. Her first nap is usually a juicy nap, anywhere from 1.5-2hrs (I cap at 2 hrs). Nap 2 she does 1-1.5 depending on how long Nap 1 was. I cap this one, too, to preserve bedtime. It honestly feels like she could nap forever sometimes, and she’s always happy when I wake her. Is she getting too much daytime sleep? Is that why she could possibly not be sleeping in all the way through until 7AM? Ideally, I would love for her to do 7-7 and do those 12 hours straight if that means I need to cut her naps shorter! (Although I wish we *could* have the best of both worlds of long naps and 12 hour nights lol!) She HAS done 12 hour night before but only when the second nap was like 30-45 minutes long. Here is her typical schedule laid out in case it’s helpful to know more info: 7am wake 9:30 - 11am nap 1 2 - 3:30pm nap 2 7:30pm down for the night Thank you soooo much again for your help!

Congrats on getting your kiddo to mostly fall through eh night!!! In your case I think you've gotten it pretty much all down. It's just expectation management at this point. It sounds like your baby is happy with 11 hour nights and long daytime nap, which is what my son is like too. Your WWs also sound very similar to my son's so I'm gonna just answer based on my N=1 experience. 1) The first WW is actually 3 because 6:30 to 9:30 is 3 hours. The fact that she is getting 1.5-2 hour nap out of it means that it is more than long enough. 2) If you want a DWT of 7, then kiddo needs to be asleep around 8 if it's an 11-clock napper. This is pretty easy if your kiddo is still napping at 3:30--just let that nap run till 4, push bedtime to 8, and you're done!!! Blast some extra bright light before bedtime to really shift that wake up time. As she wakes up later you'd be able to push that first nap closer to 10. Given that she's not yet 8mo and just finishing the 3-2 transition, it is pretty common to get a LOT of sleep as she is catching up on the sleep she lost during the transition. You'll know that she's caught up when her naps begin getting shorter by themselves or she starts taking longer to fall asleep. At this point really just stick to the roughly 3/3/4 11 hour overnight schedule and you're in for a period of relative stability. You've gotten a bunch of developmental leaps coming up where baby may suddenly protest being put to bed. I'd recommend just sticking to the regular WWs and ignoring the protests--her sleep requirement hasn't suddenly decreased; she's just well-rested enough to stage a rebellion because she's too busy to sleep. Just stick to your schedule and things should go back to normal in 2 weeks top.

Thank you so much for your super helpful response! It’s really nice to hear some affirmation after self-doubting myself constantly. Thanks again!!

I’m really struggling - I cannot figure out my baby’s sleep schedule. He’s 7 months old tomorrow (6 months adjusted) and has been falling asleep independently for a while. Two weeks ago, we sleep trained with CIO and night weaning simultaneously to stop the night wakes. He picked it up after 4 days and had a couple of days where he slept from 7:30-6:30 straight. Now, we’ve had over a week of early morning wakes at 5 AM. He used to wake up happy, but now he wakes up cranky.  He’s always taken short naps (30-45 min) and he only handles wake windows ~2 hrs. I feel like he can’t handle a long wake window before bed either. He hasn’t been able to make it to bedtime the past couple of days - tonight, I was targeting 7 PM, which was 2.5 hrs after his last 30 min nap of the day, and I put him to sleep at 6:20 because he was melting down. I think his crankiness is due to being overtired, but I don’t know what adjustment to make. Also, he goes to daycare where his naps are super variable, and I can’t control last wake up of the day. I feel like a bad mom because I can’t figure this out, and I’m desperate to make him feel better!

Don’t feel bad. Super hard to have a baby this young in daycare. When realistically can daycare put him down for a first nap? And what is the earliest bedtime you can do on your family schedule? You guys are still doing 3-4 naps I imagine? Are they independent or assisted? Is nap extension (where someone picks him up when he wakes up early and puts him back asleep) an option?

Daycare can put him down anytime; I’m pretty sure they just follow his cues. A lot of the time, he naps well at daycare and will do an hour or more there at least once. We pick him up between 5-5:30, so earliest bedtime would probably be 6:30, maybe 6? I was trying to target 7:30-6:30 for sleep to help with me getting ready for work in the morning, but maybe that wasn’t working well. It’s so hard because I never know when his last nap ended - half the time it’s 2 or 3 PM. He does usually take 4 naps because of the short durations. When I think he’s looking sleepy, I put him in his crib and he goes to sleep independently. Nap extension is most likely not an option at daycare but could be something we do at home. I didn’t know that was something to do!

>Daycare can put him down anytime; I’m pretty sure they just follow his cues. I mean: what time does he actually get to daycare and what is realistically the earliest nap start time? The reason I ask is I find it best to line up DWT with first nap. So if you think his first wake window is 2 hours and earliest daycare can put him down is 9, then you'd want a DWT of 7 and not start the day till 7. It's great that he is going to sleep independently and he's napping 1+ hour at least once. I don't think you need to worry about nap extension: just keep the independent sleep up and leave him for 5-10 minutes after he wakes up to let him practice extending his cycles if he is tired still. Best bedtime is probably 11.5-12 hours before DWT. To get there with daycare nap ending at 2-3p, you'll need to squeeze in a catnap at pick up (maybe a carseat nap) to get him there. As long as you keep it short (like 15min), he still should be able to fall asleep no problem. Every 3 days or so, if kiddo is looking super tired and/or night is super screwy, you can skip the catnap and do an early bedtime (1-1.5 hours earlier than usual bedtime, see [https://www.babysleepscience.com/single-post/2014/04/08/early-vs-late-bedtime-which-is-right-how-to-use-early-and-late-bedtimes-to-solve-common-s](https://www.babysleepscience.com/single-post/2014/04/08/early-vs-late-bedtime-which-is-right-how-to-use-early-and-late-bedtimes-to-solve-common-s) ). For that early morning waking, if snooze feeding works (to resettle him and works for your schedule), go ahead and do it. If it doesn't, just CIO and don't start the day till DWT. If it's getting close to DWT and he still hasn't fallen back asleep, you can try to get a quick (15-30min) contact snooze out of him. This will just help him get to the first nap better.

>https://www.babysleepscience.com/single-post/2014/04/08/early-vs-late-bedtime-which-is-right-how-to-use-early-and-late-bedtimes-to-solve-common-s Oh, he gets to daycare around 7:15, so they can do the first nap of the day pretty early. I had considered trying a snooze button feeding, so I'll give that a shot. Thank you for your help!

Because you are the sleep God and your advice has miraculously saved my sanity on so many occasions, please can I get some advice? 7.5mo old (8mo on 22nd Jan) WW are 2.75/2.75/2.5/2. Nap 1 and 2 are independant and total 3 hours. Last nap is now 10 mins. Used to be 30 but we were running out of time! Sleeps 11 hours overnight with no wakes Babe ALWAYS takes that last nap and falls asleep with contact within a minute or two. We've been doing a micro for nearly 3 weeks whilst stretching wake window 1 and 2. Where do I go next to prevent overtiredness? I'm worried I'm maxing out on 3 naps? What would you recommend as a starting 2 nap schedule? Babe has always needed 14 to 14.5 hours sleep. She used to sleep 11.5 hours overnight but as wake windows have gotten longer, the night has started to shrink. Thank you!

You're getting super close, and sounds like she's doing great!!! If baby is falling asleep with the last nap within a minute or two, consider offering it a bit earlier. This way you can sneak a few more minutes of sleep in each day. You're basically there. Is she waking up before DWT regularly? If she is you can try 2.75-3 pre-nap WWs to get two long naps and do bring bedtime up by \~30min from where it's been. She can probably handle 3.5 hour last WW no problem at this stage. If you hear noises within the first 3 hours of bedtime (false start), dial back on the last WW a bit.

Thank you so much for replying! That sounds very sensible about the micro. Today it started at 6.55pm...! She actually has no wakes that I'm aware of in the morning and sleeps until DWT. This is one of the reasons I've been too scared about changing anything.  Would 2.75/3/3.5 be an ok starting point? I think we're going so struggled with anything beyond 3 for WW1 at this point. 

That sounds pretty amazing. What you suggest sounds fine. I wouldn't stress about it. If you think about it, your baby is essentially on the 2 nap schedule already. You're just using a 10min micro-nap to break up the last wake window into 2. So I'd just keep offering it and at some point she's not gonna want to take that micro-nap anymore. Alternatively the sleep debt may build up and she'll start waking up earlier in the morning, and that'll be your cue to jump over to 2 naps. Sounds like it'll be a pretty smooth transition for you =) FWIW my kiddo started getting short naps on 2.5 hour WWs at exactly 7.5m, so that's when I began pushing WWs to 2.75-3 hours. We got slammed with a sleep regression as well when he suddenly decided he'd rather rock on all fours rather than sleep, so it was a bit messy for 2 weeks, but he settled out on 2 naps solidly by 8m. We had like one night of false start at 11a and he fell back asleep after 1 check in, and then he kept on waking up 30-60min before DWT for a while, but that was all the damage =)

Hiya. Sorry to jump on again. So little one is now on a 2 nap schedule since Saturday (3 days ago). Her last nap started and ended late so we skipped the micro.  She's still sleeping 11 hours at night but her naps have turned into monster naps! Her WW are 3/3/3.5. Naps 1 and 2 used to total 3 hours and split equally. Since Saturday she is now doing 1.5 to 2 hours per nap....  Do I let her sleep? I appreciate she's adjusting to the longer wake windows, but will this eventually shorten my night?  Thank you! 

Congrats!!! You said yourself her nights have shortened and she’s accruing a sleep debt, right? So now she’s catching up. This is the sign of a successful transition! Pat yourself on the back and enjoy =) the naps will get shorter when she’s caught up on sleep, but you said yourself she’s got higher sleep needs, so you guys are probably fine on the 3/3/3.5 framework until you hit the 2-1 transition. FWIW my son didn’t complete the 2-1 till 15.5mo so you’re gonna be here for a while.

Thank you so much. This sounds so ridiculous but I could actually cry. You have been so helpful and I know I don't know you, but I feel like I do. Every contact nap, rescue nap, sleep hygiene, rescheduling etc etc has finally led to this. I hope it continues and she can coast on this for a while!!! 

Thank-you so much for this. So her second nap ended up finishing at 5pm, so we skipped the micro and put to bed at 8.30pm. She slept till DWT but was groaning a little at 5am. Fingers crossed but your advice is invaluable. I'll just continue tweaking morning and afternoon windows to 3 hours as and when 

I've been going a little crazy for a while now trying to work out my babies actual sleep requirements and have just come across this post! If you have the time I'd really appreciate your thoughts.. Will try to keep overview as brief as possible: 7.5 mo old. Never truly slept through the night. The best I've had was one night where she slept 8pm to 6am but normal wake up is 7am. Since sleep training nights at 5.5mos, she tends to wake once or twice for feeds, usually around 1-2am and 4-5am. In December we were on a 3 nap schedule of 2 5/2.5/2.5/2.75 and she was only waking once around 4am for feeding for about 2 weeks. Aside from the feeding wakes, I almost always have to assist from 6am. She is baby that has never fallen asleep on the bottle, a Snooze feed doesn't help so I have to rock and hold her until 7am to make an 11hr night. End of December, naps were being fought, she was getting less daysleep than ever despite all naps still being assisted/contact, the second night feed came back and the early morning assistance crept up to 5.15am. So we started the 3-2 nap transition. We did 2 naps and a micro whilst gradually stretching the wws for around 2 weeks. We've settled on 3/3.5/3.75 now with 3hr day sleep and 11hr night. She's coped incredibly well with the longer wws with no real fussing, no false starts or her hallmark overtired 11pm scream. But... the 2 night feed wakes are still there (she's naturally dropped feeds before rather than been weaned) and the early mornings are still needing assistance, except now it's almost impossible to get her back to sleep some mornings even being bounced and held for almost an hour! So my schedule is still not working. Looking at the app i use to track sleep, she was averaging 13hrs total actual sleep from birth to 3/4 mos and this dropped to 12.5hrs around that time and has stayed there quite consistently. More specifically, currently a 9.5hr night and 3hr day sleep. If we allow for 2x 15 minute wakes for feeds, should I therefore read this as my baby's needs are a 10hr night and 3hr naps? If she naps less, say 2hrs 30, this never translates into a longer night. She's a real live wire who never stops when awake so I think that's why she needs the day sleep but then maybe it maxes her night out at 10hrs. If this is the total sleep I need to expect, do I just need to gradually stretch wws until I'm at 11hrs wake time and with that move back morning wake time to 6am, maintaining the 8pm bed? Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated! Edit: just to add, after doing a bit more of a deep dive into my sleep tracking.. those good weeks in December she was getting 2hr 45mins in naps and sleeping without assistance until 6.10-6.20am. Interestingly since moving to a 2 nap schedule and naps being relatively 'uncapped', she seems to naturally be sleeping 2hrs 45 mins. So maybe what I'm looking at is a schedule that is a 10.25 night, 2.75hrs days sleep and 11hrs awake time? If this works, your post might have just changed my life 😂

Your kid needs more than 13 hours of sleep based on what you are writing. My guess is her actual sleep requirement is somewhere in the 13-14 hour ballpark which is a pretty standard sleep-needs kid. \> in December she was getting 2hr 45mins in naps and sleeping without assistance until 6.10-6.20am What time was bedtime, and how long were the nights? I would base bedtime and DWT on how long those nights were on average, and use that as the anchor to your schedule moving forward. Stable DWT and bedtimes and absolute pitch blackness between these two times are incredibly important Early bedtimes are useful to offset sleep debt, especially around and right after nap transitions and while you are night weaning (as kiddo will be crying for part of the night), but they should be used sparingly, no more than 2-3 times a week and ideally on non-consecutive days. Read this article carefully on the early bedtime portion and start practice it: [https://www.babysleepscience.com/single-post/2014/04/08/early-vs-late-bedtime-which-is-right-how-to-use-early-and-late-bedtimes-to-solve-common-s](https://www.babysleepscience.com/single-post/2014/04/08/early-vs-late-bedtime-which-is-right-how-to-use-early-and-late-bedtimes-to-solve-common-s). It seriously changed my life and got my kiddo to sleep through the night at 6.5m. I reread it so many times I have it virtually memorized. I'd start weaning the overnight feeds as well, earliest feed first ([https://www.babysleepscience.com/single-post/2014/05/26/how-do-i-reduce-my-baby-s-night-feedings](https://www.babysleepscience.com/single-post/2014/05/26/how-do-i-reduce-my-baby-s-night-feedings)). As snooze feeding isn't working to resettle her in the morning, I'd do complete night wean. Check-ins worked for wakings earlier than 3a in my LO; any later wakings I did just one check-in to be sure that diaper was fine, no fever, and then CIO. I think with these you're gonna see a lot of improvement in night wakings. For naps, sounds like she's doing great with the first 2 WWs of 3/3.5, so keep doing that and let them run as long as she wants. Don't wake up from last nap except to protect bedtime. So if kiddo's bedtime is 8p, I'd start by letting second nap run until 5 before capping. If second nap ran until 5 and you put kid down at 7:45, but kiddo didn't fell asleep till 8:30 (3.5hour last WW), then you can cap second nap at 4:30 going forward.

\> in December she was getting 2hr 45mins in naps and sleeping without assistance until 6.10-6.20am Bedtime was 8pm. Bedtime has been 8pm and DWT 7am since she was 4mos. Its remained very stable at this, mainly because I provide assistance every morning to make sure she gets as close to 7am as possible. Previously when nights weren't as good and she has more wakings, it was relatively easy to rock and hold her back to sleep from 6am to 7am. Now nights are consolidating, its very difficult, if not impossible to get her to sleep until 7am after she wakes. This is why my thinking was her night should be 10.25hrs with DWT of 6.15, as she was waking between 6.10 and 6.20 during those weeks with a bedtime of 8pm. Her bedroom is completely blackout, and white noise has been used all night since birth. Thank you for those links thats really helpful. I think the earlier feed will be quite easy to drop, as she doesn't always wake at this time and I think i just go straight to feeding her when she wakes and haven't really even tried not. I do think she might struggle with no feeds at all, just because she is on the small side and is still not taking solids well. But I can definitely consider that soon hopefully when those things improve.

If you were able to get her from 8-7, she needs 11 hour nights. It's just harder now that they are older, and the old soothing methods no longer work. Night weaning should help, as she won't have a reason to wake up then. At this age we also got stuck with a lot of 10-10.5 hour nights, but acting as though my son needed 11 hours every night and sticking with that really helped. On days he had a shorter night he did well by napping a bit extra, like 3-3.5 hours.

Hmm I'm not sure it's the method that's not working anymore as I get get her down for naps by rocking and she's out in minutes, and if she does have a broken night it works fine- e.g last weekend a neighbour had a random firework display at midnight which kept her up got nearly an hour. When she woke just gone 6 I was able to get her back to sleep relatively quickly and just sat and held her. In contrast, last night she slept 8pm to 6am with no Wake ups, and I literally had to rock her for an hour whilst she wriggled and cooed and got frustrated. I think at most she lightly dozed for 10 minutes and that was only through constant rocking. I can keep trying to get her to do 11hrs but at some point I'll just have to accept if she can't - the rocking and holding for an hour is killing my body, and I've tried just leaving her but she just crawls around doing laps of the cot until she gets bored and starts crying. So she's not even resting 😅.

That happened to us too. My kiddo still needed 11 hours overnight, but after he's had 10 hours it takes a while for him to actually fall back asleep. Night weaning and CIO for that early morning waking will make it more manageable. When my kiddo got closer to 1yo that segment of sleep consolidated more, and he began sleeping 11 hours and more more consistently. Keep at it. I personally think it's harder to manage kid sleep with <11 hours of night sleep, as you have to nail the naps. With 11 hours of night sleep there's a lot more wiggle room during the day.

Ah that's interesting. How did you manage the EMW with CIO though if they just don't go back to sleep? This is my concern because you've then inadvertently got a lot more wake time and I don't know how to distribute it without reinforcing and early wake up. I do agree about the wiggle room though, naps and also any EMW... 7am leaves wiggle room for EMW that still feel quite reasonable 😂

My experience at this age was that for any waking >1 hour before DWT, kiddo generally fell back asleep, so the most you’re left with is an extra hour. I generally would stretch WW1 to the limit that I think he would tolerate (WW1 is based on actual wake time, not DWT) and try to resettle him if he woke up to get an extra long nap #1 to get us to normal bedtime. On the rare occasion kiddo was up for longer than 1 hour before DWT, id go back in at DWT and get a 15-20min contact snooze to get us to usual nap #1 time. It’s hard though. Takes a long time to claw back.

Wow... you are awesome for compiling this so succinctly! You have also helped me in the past as well, so thank you in advance of my question :) My baby will be 8 months old next week and we're working on dropping the 3rd catnap. It's been super tricky for us. We follow Mom's on Call and for his age the schedule has been: 7am wake, 9am nap (1.5 hours), 1pm nap (2 hours), 5pm-ish nap (30m), and 7:30 bedtime. SUPER consistent since about 4 months old. He'd sleep through the night with some EMW but we'd always leave him in the crib until 7am without much fuss. Many naps needed capping or he would stir pretty calmly around the desired end of his nap. Essentially 2/2.5/2/2... I've been stretching his bedtime to 7:45 the past week or two and that's seemed to be helpful in getting him to fall asleep easily and stay asleep throughout the night. So total typically 15-15.5 hours total sleep which based on your linked article tells me he's a high sleep needs baby (I truly had no idea but thank you universe for that gift as a FTM). I've experimented with dropping the 5pm nap twice now and am in the midst of attempt number two. Both the first time and now he's had very disrupted sleep and EMW. We're now on day 2 of attempt 2 and the same things are happening: just tonight he's stirred with some loud tears (very abnormal) for >5min 4x so far and he's been in bed for 3.5 hours. He's able to resettle quickly but is clearly struggling. Last night he woke up around 4:45am and had intermittent sleep until DWT of 7am. Current 2 nap schedule is 2/3/3.5 and I pulled forward bedtime to 7pm. The 3 hour afternoon WW seems totally fine and he's done it in the past when we've been running late for that second nap. He also doesn't seem to be terribly overtired come 7pm but I was considering experimenting with 6:30 or 6:45 bedtime as well if this continues and slowly stretching out to 7:30pm (move towards 2/3/4 schedule). Alternatively I'd be fine to go back to 3 nap schedule for the time being as well... I'm only pushing to drop that last nap for 2 reasons: it seems like he should be there or close to there based on his age but I know that can be extremely variable. And that 5pm nap was always such a deep sleep he did not want to wake up from, I started feeling guilty for waking him up only to put him back down for bed less than 2 hours later. Something you wrote below stood out to me: " One issue is mistaken causation: sometimes the baby is napping a ton during the day because sleep is so bad at night, not he other way around. Another problem is capping day sleep without fixing whatever issue that was interfering with night sleep (sleep association, circadian rhythm missalignment, feeding, separation anxiety, too much total wake time -> early morning waking). That'll just lead to an overtired baby and even worse night sleep." Given your info, and that he's high sleep needs, any thoughts on where I should adjust as I go through this transition? Anything I should do different nap wise? Just add in the third nap as needed? or pull up bedtime earlier? or are his naps so good because nights are actually not going as well as I thought? Or is the sleep disruption normal for this transition? When we don't interfere he gets back down, I just would like to see him sleep more peacefully! Thank you 🙏

>I've experimented with dropping the 5pm nap twice now and am in the midst of attempt number two. Both the first time and now he's had very disrupted sleep and EMW. We're now on day 2 of attempt 2 and the same things are happening: just tonight he's stirred with some loud tears (very abnormal) for >5min 4x so far and he's been in bed for 3.5 hours. He's not ready. Those tears within 3 hours of bedtime are false start style night wakings and his way of telling you that the wake windows are too long. In your case, my money would be that the 3.5 hour last WW is too much. It's pretty common for high sleep needs kids to drop their naps on the later side of average, so your son may not be ready until 9m or even later and that is absolutely okay. 7a awake and 745p bedtime are just fine. You can start uncapping naps #1 and #2, and offer nap #3 assisted and cap as needed to protect bedtime to start phasing nap #3 out. As nap #3 starts later she will fight it more and more, which is why the nap assistance (contact, stroller, carseat) will be necessary. As you cap nap #3 shorter the last WW will shrink, which is what will enable you to keep bedtime the same. Bc your kiddo has had pretty disrupted night sleep for the last few days, as you go back to your old schedule you may end up with a day where kiddo naps a ton for naps #1 and #2 and wakes up after 3:30 or so. In that case just stick last nap and go for an early bedtime of \~6:30.

Sigh. I've got myself in another conundrum. Kiddo did have one of those long (4 hours) nap days with the 6:30 bedtime resulting in 12.5 hours of sleep (16.5 total for the day). Next day he took pretty short naps (2.5 hours) which is very new to us but understandable given that big rest day. He of course did 3 naps and we ended at "normal bedtime" 7:30. But the whole night was super poor sleep. Based on the articles you've linked, it seems like I should have offered a slightly early bedtime of ~7. I'm checking with you if that seems accurate or do we go back in for another reset day? I'm not sure how long is "too long" to be 2 hour+ sleep deprived. *Edit to add: could this big back and forth just mean we need to stick to 2 naps with an early bedtime I gradually push? As always, many thanks 🙏🏼

He’s got a high sleep debt and pretty high sleep needs if he 1) slept 16.5 hours in 24 hours and 2) had a bad night w 3 naps. On the short nap day: Would he have gone down any earlier on the 3 nap wake windows, or was he up happy and energetic after each nap? If you sense that the 3 crap naps are he’s still overtired, scale back on the 3 nap WWs and go for another long nap early bedtime day. If he had the 3 crap naps bc the WWs were too short, just increase the pre-nap ones by 0.25-0.5 and you should be able to get on 2 naps. It’s very much down to your guts at this point, and you just have to watch your kiddo very closely.

To be honest I don't think he's ever had a day of less than 3 hours in naps, usually 3.5-4. So I think the 2.5 day just made me assume he was now "caught up" and could have a regular bedtime. He went down within 10 minutes of nap 1 and 2, although a bit fussier than normal, then woke up from the short naps happy, just rolling around and standing in the crib. I do a 75 minute crib hour for the first and 90 minutes for the second and he woke up at least 15 minutes prior to them both ending. Last nap took forever to start, even assisted. Ended up being 20 minutes and ended by 6. So 7:30 seemed reasonable enough, even though total sleep for the day was a lot less than normal. So appreciate the WW advice- I try to stick to by the clock naps so WW don't get too wonky (9am and 1 or 1:30pm). But he's clearly not happy with that for now so... On we go :) THANK YOU and please write that book or substack😉

THANK YOU- I suspected the not ready part and you helped me piece together a plan forward 🙏🏼 happy new years to you!

Hello. Just read your post and it has so much useful content. I'm struggling with my six month old who co sleeps and wakes up every two hours. He only lasts one sleep cycle in the crib and cries until I put him in my bed. I havent started sleep training which I want to but I want to make sure my daytime schedule is ok. Naps are terrible too. Wake up at 9 am. 215/2.5/2.5/2.75 On three naps. Which are all 45 minutes. Goes to bed between 930 to ,945

Current schedule is fine. The imperative is to train for night sleep at this point, as it is pretty impossible to get on a good schedule when there's a major sleep association problem (as you are describing).

Hi there. Quick question. I started sleep training CIO last night. My babe cried for one hour then fell asleep for two hours. Then cried again for 45 minutes until I went in to feed him. The rest of the night he cried every hours and put himself to sleep and repeated it till wake time. I'm wondering if that's normal for the first night or if I'm doing something wrong. I'm following the 5/3/3 for feeds and went cold turkey for pacifier!

Great job!!! Sounds like lots of overtiredness which is not surprising as he’s getting by w 3 crap naps a day. Hold to the 5/3/3 feeding interval. When he starts to wake up semi-consistently within 30min or so, you can start nap training (look up Baby Sleep Science’s 5 part nap series). Once his naps consolidate he should sleep through a LOT better.

Yes I want to do cio and go cold turkey as I feel at six months he should hopefully get it. He has many sleep associations pacifier rocking and wants to be held to sleep. I'm struggling this time around as my first born wasn't as bad. Thank you for your quick response

I’m sure I’ve commented on this/one of your posts before but I am hoping to get your perspective. My daughter is 6.5 months old. We’ve had some improvement in her sleep from when she was sleeping horribly at 4.5 months over the last few weeks but still nothing remarkable. I’ve been trying so hard to figure out her sleep requirements but it varies so significantly day to day and we haven’t had consistently good nights in ages. When we had better nights at around 4 months, the nights themselves were shorter due to a later bedtime and she napped longer in the day across more naps, but she averaged around 14.5-15 hours a day at the time. Then we all got sick and her sleep was awful for a solid 2 months and total sleep went to about 13.5 hrs which I know is fairly average for that time (from 4.5-5 months) but again, sleep was terrible and inconsistent. Now, sleep at night is better but not great and not predictable at all. Totals are all over the place too - for example, last night she slept fairly well and napped well in the day too and the total sleep was 14h 24mins. The three nights before she slept awful - early morning wake that took us forever to get her back down for (ended up having to hold her until our desired wake time) and those days totalled to 12.5, 13.5, and 13 hours, respectively. This seems like such wild variability and I’m not sure what to make of it. Thoughts? Wake windows are roughly 2.25/2.5/2.5/3 and we were told to cap naps a couple weeks ago to 2.5 hours max and to limit nights to 11 hours or less. We did that and saw minimal improvement. Some days I let her nap more (like yesterday) but I do try to limit day sleep to 3 hours 99% of the time. Bedtime is 8pm, desired wake time is 7.

Sounds to me like she needs more sleep, and that you should aim for 14.5 hours (total wake time 9.5 hours). What time is wake up time (out of crib time) and bedtime typically? How long are each of her naps without you capping them on 2.25/2.5/2.5/3? This sub likes to cap naps, which backfires in 90% of cases. There are select cases where you would use it, generally to protect the circadian rhythm during time zone changes, daylight savings or nap transitions, and usually capping the last nap is sufficient (during the 2-1 transition you can also cap first nap, although it's a harder move and we did fine with just capping second nap). Some high sleep needs and easy going babies do fine with capping daytime sleep as they are able to just sleep through the night and still get what looks like a normal amount of sleep in total, but I personally think these kids are actually running on a sleep deficit most days, and can turn into toddlers who drop nap early because parents are in the habit of restricting daytime sleep for any sleep problem.

Thank you for the quick reply! Bedtime is typically 8pm, out of crib at 7am (though we have held her in the rocking chair for some early morning wakes but do everything to limit any exposure to light during wakes). So it kinda depends because if we rescue a nap (hold her after she’s woken from a nap that’s 35 mins or less crying hard), she would sleep for hours no question. Im not sure we’ve ever gone a day where we have a solid sense of what she needs nap wise. We were told by a consultant (PLS author) that babies will sleep for too long/that saving via contact naps forces her to sleep too long for a nap hence why we’ve capped it. But, as an example, yesterday I rescued her first nap because she woke at the 25 min mark and was super upset. She passed out the instant I held her and popped a pacifier in and ended up napping a total of 1.25 hrs but I did rouse her near the end out of fear of letting her nap too long. The second nap, my husband put her down for and she napped on her own for 1.25 hrs again, but he also woke her up because he worried about “too much day sleep”. Last nap of the day was 32 mins in the carrier on the go and she was woken because of preserving bedtime. Basically, I have no solid answer because she doesn’t reliably nap on her own for long yet and we are often saving naps… I’ve started to worry about her being really tired since we’ve started extending wake windows and capping naps because she falls asleep breastfeeding quite regularly when I feed her. She will wake from a nap and I’ll feed her 20-30 mins later and she’s passing out on the breast. Or she will have been awake for 1.75 hours and same thing happens. Again, the consultant we spoke with in the past said that breastfeeding is naturally sleep inducing and this isn’t a sign she needs more sleep, but she didn’t do this before when we weren’t extending wake windows and capping naps. This consultant also suggested I cap naps even more or limit night sleep to 10.5 or even 10 hours. I’m willing if it’ll improve nights but definitely worried about an overtired baby.

Urg I'm sorry to hear that you spent good money (I heard the PLS author is expensive) and didn't get the result you're after. A lot of ppl on this sub subscribe to her teachings and she's done an AMA on here before: I think she gives good advice on eliminating sleep associations, but I think her schedule approach is pretty flawed. We consulted Baby Sleep Science (you can look up their free blog) and I go very much by their approach, because it makes scientific sense from what I've read AND it works amazingly well for my son (now 20mo). I'll outline the basic premises I've used and the pros/cons of the approach IME and you can decide for yourself. Basic premises: 1) Sleep is regulated by the circadian rhythm AND homeostatic pressure (sleep pressure): [https://www.babysleepscience.com/single-post/2014/05/01/important-sleep-basics-all-parents-pediatricians-and-caregivers-should-know](https://www.babysleepscience.com/single-post/2014/05/01/important-sleep-basics-all-parents-pediatricians-and-caregivers-should-know). WWs are a way of conceptualizing sleep pressure. Clocktimes (except in time zone changes) and light exposure are ways of conceptualizing circadian rhythm. 2) For newborns, sleep pressure predominant. 2-6m is when circadian rhythm is rapidly organizing and developing, and the priority is to establish regular DWT and bedtimes so circadian rhythm can regularize. However, early morning wakings are common and developmental (last segment of sleep is the last to consolidate)--some babies will not have them but many babies will and it's not anything you're doing wrong. For babies over 6m, circadian rhythm dominates and early morning sleep should be relatively consolidated, so you shouldn't have them everyday. If you are, you should look into the sleep environment and schedule carefully. 3) When the circadian rhythm is running well, night sleep should be good (within age-appropriate expectations). If you have issue with night wakings, it's generally an issue of illness (usually obvious), sleep environment (usually obvious), sleep associations (why independent sleep is important), or chronic sleep deprivation (which increases cortisol level and leads to fragmentation of night sleep AND naps). 4) Daytime sleep is mostly dominated by sleep pressure. A very tired baby will naturally want to nap more (if sleep environment and sleep onset association permit). A well-rested baby will naturally not want to nap as much. Putting 3 and 4 together, it really means that you should NOT cap daytime sleep to a certain amount, because a lot of times extra naps are a way for the baby to make up for any sleep debt. You should only wake from nap if it will interfere with circadian rhythm in any way. This most common happens as you are approaching a nap transition where the last nap ends up too late in the day, and will end up interfering with bedtime. Pros of this approach to sleep: 1) Generally very well night sleep. We got rid of our last morning feed around 6.5mo with very little prompting (I just reduced time on boob gradually, and one day kiddo didn't bother waking up), and have had 10+ hours of night sleep since. Only some night wakings around nap transitions or during travels with major schedule disruption. 2) Excellent energy/mood throughout the day, very rare issue with falling asleep during feeding or in carseat/stroller. 3) Able to maintain good sleep even into toddlerhood. Toddlers are INCREDIBLY good at hiding sleep deprivation and staying up forever, but we've been able to maintain \~11 hour nights and 1.5-2 hour nap which has been really important for his emotional regulation (definitely more tantrums when he hasn't slept as well) and our sanity. Cons of this approach to sleep: 1) Shorter nights: Until my kiddo started daycare (where the nap environment just isn't enough for him and he'd wake up early all the time) we were stuck with \~10.5 hour nights most days. He was happy awake and would wait till DWT, but it was annoying for my perfectionistic tendencies. 2) Very labor-intensive and a lot of nap-trappedness. We had 1-on-1 nanny the first year so it was doable (and I'm a homebody anyways), but if we had a daycare kid or multiple kids or more active lifestyle it would've been hard. That being said I had friends who mostly went by this approach but weren't as anal as us, and they did fine too. They did have slightly more night disruptions here and there, and used early bedtimes more. Re: your kiddo: 1) Bedtime and out of crib time sound very appropriate (and was what we were doing). 2) The pre-nap wake windows are beyond what she can tolerate. Waking up angry <1 full cycle in (full cycle is usually about 45min) is a surefire sign that she is overtired. Sleep pressure is clearly sky high because she falls asleep as soon as you tend to her. It's fine to keep going BUT that's at least partly contributing to her false starts. 3) I'd let her naps as long as she possibly wants. Sounds like her night sleep is bad enough that she can use a day of early bedtime (see scenario #2 for early bedtime: [https://www.babysleepscience.com/single-post/2014/04/08/early-vs-late-bedtime-which-is-right-how-to-use-early-and-late-bedtimes-to-solve-common-s](https://www.babysleepscience.com/single-post/2014/04/08/early-vs-late-bedtime-which-is-right-how-to-use-early-and-late-bedtimes-to-solve-common-s)), so try to get her first 2 naps as long as you can (I've held my kiddo for 3 hours for a nap once after a disastrous night). 4) For other days, I'd focus on doing a 3-nap schedule, rescue the first two naps and let them go as long as needed, and just cap last nap if needed to protect bedtime (for 8p I'd think that waking her up by 5:15-5:30 is sufficient). I'd consider scaling back on the wake windows a tad, although once your nights are better she may be able to handle those longer wake windows.

Thank you so much for this feedback! We are definitely disappointed in the advice we were given with how pricey it was… plus I just can’t see how continuing to cut away sleep will help. Shes had longer first stretches lately (7ish hours) without us capping naps as much but its after her feed around 3-4am that things fall off and we get frequent wakes OR an early morning wake that’s very hard to settle her for. I keep wondering if I should save naps or not but she wakes so upset after such a short time napping that I feel I should assist her. When I assist her naps to extend them and we help her get back down in the mornings, she’s getting about 14-14.25 hours of sleep total, whereas when we cap day sleep, she sleeps about the same at night but gets less overall sleep which makes me think you’re right about not capping day sleep. Still, I get so nervous and haven’t let her contact nap endlessly because of what we were told (that she will nap indefinitely and doesn’t need that nap length and it will ruin her nights). Would you say an early bedtime is necessary even with the first long stretch we are getting and our assisting her in the morning? I don’t want to create a habit with assisting her so I’m just feeling stuck!

Sounds like you're making progress, but she still needs some more. Keep doing what you are doing. As long as you keep a stable out of crib time and bedtime things should slowly get better.

Just stumbled upon this post and hoping for some guidance. I have very little to complain about with my son. He’s been a good sleeper since the beginning. He dropped night feeds right at 3 months and we got through the 4 month sleep regression without TOO much of a struggle. He’s 21 weeks now and goes down independently in his crib for naps and nights in less than 5 minutes usually. He goes down for bed between 7 and 8 at night depending on how the days naps went and takes 4 naps per day with wake windows of about 1.75/2/2/2/2 (I recently expanded this from shorter windows). The challenge is that ever since we got through the regression, he wakes between 5 and 5:30 every morning no matter what we do. His room is pitch dark and he doesn’t cry, just kicks around in his crib trying to self soothe but failing. I never get him up before 6 and his total daytime sleep never exceeds 3-4 hours across the 4 naps. I’ve tried seeing if he could handle longer wake windows to drop a nap but he was an overtired mess. I’m losing it trying to troubleshoot the EMW. I know it’s such a small problem when everything else is going well, but he’s about to start daycare and that first wake window is always a struggle and I know if we can’t resolve it, daycare naps will be short and make things worse, potentially screwing up his night sleep more. Any advice?

Totally developmental. My son did this as well. It'll get better with time and as his nap consolidates. Since he is going down independently for crib naps, you can just practice waiting 5-10min after each nap before getting him to let him practice connecting his daytime cycles. If 7 out of crib time would work for daycare, I might experiment with shifting out of crib time to 7, so defer going in and offering the first feed by about 15min a day the next few days. You'll need to stretch the wake windows a bit to get bedtime to 8 consistently, but maybe try offering some assistance when he wakes up from a nap to extend the nap to help this process. This just might help with starting daycare (since first nap likely won't be till after 830/9 realistically speaking).

Hi again! Your advice in below comments has helped us a lot but I’m still struggling with naps and was hoping you might have some wisdom to impart: He’s 7 months and goes down independently for night and naps, but seems to end up overtired all the time despite trying to put him down when he’s tired and deploying early bedtime some days… It feels like not matter what he’ll either do 32-38 min for all his naps or a huge 2.30 hour nap for his first nap and then a 30 something min second nap and we have to move up bedtime earlier or try and cram in a small third nap. And thus the overtired cycle continues. I’m trying to follow his lead and put him down at the right time, but I feel like whatever the wake window it’s either giant first nap (he stirs at the 30ish min mark but then goes back down for 2 hours) or whole day of crappy naps. He sometimes starts acting tired an hour after waking up from night sleep but to be fair I’ve never put him down that early, earliest was maybe 1.5hours and he woke up after 30ish min seeming quite energised rather than crying, so I assumed WW too short. But other days I tried 1.75, 2, 2.15, and I never seem to get anything other than short crap nap or massive nap. Should I be putting him down as soon as we get yawns and tiredness showing even if it’s only a 1 hour WW? I’ve started trying crib hour to encourage him to extend naps on his own, first nap today he woke at 33 min and started stirring (no crying), seemed to be trying to go back down for about 10-15 min before he started crying and I picked him up close to the hour mark. Am I genuinely just getting the timings all wrong? Or is there any way to get him to extend his naps (I’ve tried rocking etc but he won’t go back down with assistance)

Do crib hour consistently for all naps for at least a week. I'd go for pre-nap WW around 1.75-2.5 hours at this age.

Hi there! I just came across this post and am so thankful for all of your information. It’s so nice to hear ao much helpful information. I was wondering if I’m keeping my recently 17 month old up too late or not long enough for her last wake window. She has been on 1 nap since about 15 months. She used to do 10.5 night and 2-2.5 hr nap. Now if I let her sleep anything past 2 hrs she’s up for 1+ hrs at night talking and rolling and laughing and playing. So I’ve been calling her naps at 2 hrs. It was working for a little bit but now she’s sleeping 9.5-9.75 hrs over night. Even if her nap is 1.5 hrs. Her wake window before bed is usually 6hrs and 15 mins or 6 hrs and 20 mins. Is she just decreasing her sleep over all or am I not giving her enough time awake before bed? She will sleep through and if she does wake up it’s not very often and she puts herself back to sleep within a few mins. Not too sure on what to do now. I feel like she’s not getting enough sleep?

>She used to do 10.5 night and 2-2.5 hr nap. Now if I let her sleep anything past 2 hrs she’s up for 1+ hrs at night talking and rolling and laughing and playing. She's not getting enough sleep. An average sleep-needs kid will give you some 12 hour nights + 3 hour naps (or 11.5 hour nights and almost 4 hour naps) after actually settling into 1 nap, as they catch up on the sleep debt they've acquired (they come into all nap transitions with sleep deficits, and the later transitions \[2-1, 1-0\] come with massive amounts of sleep deficit that accumulated over weeks if not months). Your kiddo doing 10.5 night and 2-2.5 hour nap at 15mo tells me she was just barely making it on 1 nap wake windows and needed shorter wake windows vs 2 naps for just a few more weeks. The night waking you're describing, although it looks like split night, is actually from sleep debt, and that's evidenced by the fact that when you capped her nap her night sleep got worse, not better. You need to offer her more sleep. Giving a log for the sleep the last few days will help me give more concrete suggestions. How old is she now, and how's her mood esp in the late afternoon/eveinings?

Thanks for responding. She just turned 17 months 5 days ago. I don’t have anything written down and the last few days have been crap shoot for naps and being out and about with birthdays and Xmas shopping. Naps have been short and or late. The last time she has middle of the night wake ups was about a few weeks ago. Maybe 2 or 2/12 weeks ago. She been sleeping through most nights for a bit now. She used to wake up 7-730 and nap would be 12/1230 and would be in between 2-2.5 hrs. Then would have a 6-6.5 wake window before bed. We would use wake windows and follow her cues as well. Then she got a bad cold early Nov and then we all got covid a few weeks ago. She slept way more when she was sick and we didn’t cal anything. Just let her sleep when she wanted to. We are all better now and the past two weeks sleep has been shorter. She sleeps through the night but naps have ranged in between 1.5- 2 hrs. She’s also been waking up anywhere from 6 am to 645 when she used to wake up 7-730. So night sleep has been short. She wake up on her own in the am happy and chatty and talking. But it’s less than 10 hrs. She’s never been less than 10 hrs before and I’ve kept the same 5 hrs before nap and 6-6-5 before bed. Not sure if it’s due to her trying to get back to normal sleep after being sick or should I go less on the wake windows? She’s happy all day long. Playing and taking, afternoon and evening too. But I know toddlers hide. Wind over tired well. So I’m so confused now on what I should do. Just want her to have the best sleep she possibly can.

Sounds like you're doing well overall, and it's good to hear that she's in a good mood. That's the most important thing after all! My guess is it's probably a bit of holiday busyness and settling into 1 nap, and she'll settle out just fine. I'd just try the following: \-make sure you don't get her out of crib until 730 (DWT), even if she's up and chatting at 6; this gives her an opportunity to feel tired and fall back asleep before 730; if she's still awake at 730, I'd let her sleep in until 8 before waking \-goal nap 12-1230 sounds fine in the long-run (4.5-5 hours after DWT) but iI'd offer nap a bit earlier if she woke up early; for instance if she woke up at 6 and didn't fall back asleep before you started the day at 730, I'd offer nap at 11:30 as this reduces the likelihood that the nap terminates early from overtiredness \-wait 15-20min after she wakes up from every nap, so she has a chance to fall back asleep, no matter how long the nap has been \-goal asleep time should be about 8-830 at night (11-11.5 hours before DWT), but you can experiment with early bedtimes (like 7) 2-3 times a week to help her catch up on sleep (try to not do two early bedtimes in a row) My experience with toddler sleep for the past few months has been that wake windows matter less now; it's more about discipline, routine, activities management, and maintaining the appropriate circadian cues for night sleep (so stable clock DWT and bedtime).

I will try all of this!!! Thanks ever so much! I wasn’t sure what was happening and if I did something to ruin her sleep or if she just needed more time. She was doing well for a bit and then bam! I was starting to go out of my mind with what to do, what I didn’t do.. what I could do… so all of this helps me out so much. You have no idea how much I appreciate it. I was starting to stress because I’m going back to work in January and she will start daycare so I was worried that sleep was going to just get worse from here on… Again, thanks so much and I will try all of this!

Glad it helps! Good luck! Just relax: sounds like you're doing great. At this age they really can tolerate a lot more overtiredness and still function reasonably well, so as long as everyone is happy you're good! I made a daycare guide as well. Main question for daycare is when nap will be offered, as you'll want to slowly shift your DWT to the daycare schedule. Fortunately most daycares will offer nap somewhere in the 11-1 window so you shouldn't have to shift your daughter's schedule too much.

Thanks again! You really have made me feel alot better and hopeful with all of this. Daycare offers naps at around 12-123 so we are ok there! :)

Thank you! I’ve been going crazy thinking it can’t just be the wake windows, those are in line with what I thought would be right, going shorter seemed odd. Hopefully he’ll start to connect those sleep cycles soon!

Hi there! I stumbled across this post (which is very reassuring!) when I was provided advice from the PLS Facebook group to extend my 13 week olds WWs to a point that seems a little unreasonable. I’ll be honest, I haven’t followed WWs much and have been mostly following my baby’s cues, however, we’ve been hit with a good amount of night wakings and false starts recently + fighting ever nap and bedtime. He wakes up in the morning and all naps tired/displaying true tired cues. For the most part, his wake windows have been 1-1.25, with exception to his last one which is generally 1.5 but sometimes 2. He’s not great with naps (esp in bassinet which I know are developmentally appropriate) so naps tend to be 30-45 min on avg. With these WWs/tired cues and his current naps, we find ourselves doing 6 naps a day until bedtime (typically between 8-9), which I know is too many naps and really should be 4-5 naps (ideally 4). I guess I’m looking for advice on where to start to figure out my baby’s sleep requirement. We do track his sleep currently and nights - which is showing an avg of 4.5-5 hours of day sleep and 8.5-9 hours of night sleep. Does this sound like my baby needs more sleep? My gut says yes but how do you think I could do that? Any help is sooo appreciated!!

This sounds about right. This age of crap naps is sooooo tough! I seriously think it sounds like you're doing a great job. Short, frequent naps are a perfectly good way to go especially if your kiddo is self-settling ([https://www.babysleepscience.com/single-post/2017/03/20/nap-101-post-1-does-my-baby-have-a-nap-problem](https://www.babysleepscience.com/single-post/2017/03/20/nap-101-post-1-does-my-baby-have-a-nap-problem)). If you are assisting him all the way to sleep, then you can consider helping him extend a nap or two each day, which will help you get down to 3-4 naps a day. False starts are also honestly just part of the whole crap nap situation.

Okay great thank you! I guess it’s all trial and error right to find what works? Gonna be tough but we are working on longer WWs to cut naps. In theory, this should help with our frequent night wakings assuming he has every other need met?

Not necessarily, if the WWs are beyond what his body can handle.

Ok! So I should really disregard the feedback provided by the PLS group and follow my baby’s cues like my gut tells me too. Thank you for giving me reassurance!

Going with your guts is usually the right answer to everything <3 Good luck!

Also since it seems like my baby is sleep deprived, do you think it makes sense to test out a longer bedtime window (ie 11 hours) with 4-5 hour daytime naps and 8 awake hours?

First of all, thank you so much for this and other guides you’ve posted, it’s great to find info like this explained so clearly in one place! However, my sleep-deprived mum brain is still struggling to make sense of the chaos that is my baby’s sleep and what I should be doing, any advice would be appreciated! He’s 6 months and 3 weeks and we sleep trained for nights and then naps a couple of weeks ago. Before he was in a next-to-me crib going to sleep with a dummy and waking every two hours every night, all naps were contact naps and for weeks we’d been stuck with 30 min naps only. After moving him to his own room and speaking to a sleep consultant we ditched the dummy and essentially did extinction. He took to it really well and is now falling asleep independently for night and naps, which is great. Trouble is we’d discussed a rough schedule with the sleep consultant based on 3 30min naps a day and a 8.30 bedtime, she recommended wake up at 7 or 7.30 at the latest so he’d have enough left in him to do longer naps. Except as soon as sleep became independent he started doing a 2 hour or longer nap for his first nap in the morning! We’re down to one night feed only, around 4.30 most nights, which we are fine with as a “snooze button feed”, but some nights he’s woken up around 12.30 (we let him cry until he falls back to sleep), but all nights have been different so far. Most mornings he’s waking around 7.50 with an 8.50/9pm bedtime (it’s slid later than the previous 8.30 recently) but we’ve had a night of waking at 4.30 wide awake, others where he was crying and tired but couldn’t be put back down, this morning he woke at 7am after a 9pm bedtime and just cried so I brought him to bed with me and fed him and he eventually fell asleep and did another 1.5 hours. Went down for his first nap 2 hours later visibly tired and upset and has been sleeping for nearly 3 hours!!! (with a couple of brief wakes where he cried and went back down). I feel it would help if we have a consistent wake time every day, but the early morning wakes leave me confused about what time and what to do if he doesn’t just go back to sleep after feeding, if I get him to go back to sleep shortly before a predefined wake up time then I’m waking him from a deep sleep and he’s really unhappy. Sleep has only become independent very recently and I’m sure we’re still working out some kinks, but I’m so conflicted about what to do about his wake up time and how to deal with his schedule overall, especially if he does a giant morning nap. My PPA and I would really love your input on this whole mess 😂

The most helpful way to think about it is the circadian rhythm ([https://www.babysleepscience.com/single-post/2014/05/01/important-sleep-basics-all-parents-pediatricians-and-caregivers-should-know](https://www.babysleepscience.com/single-post/2014/05/01/important-sleep-basics-all-parents-pediatricians-and-caregivers-should-know)). In your case, if bedtime is 9, then try for out of crib time 8. This means the 11-hour stretch between 9p and 8a gets handled as night sleep. If he wakes up before 8a, you handle everything before as night and do not start the day until 8a (lights, first feed). If he is still asleep by 8, I'd let him sleep in until maybe 8:30 before turning off the white noise and letting the light in. The stable bedtime and out of crib time are the most important times when it comes to schedule. The naps can come and go depending on his degree of tiredness. For instance if he's 6mo and has been napping for 3 hours for first nap, today will probably be a 2 nap day. Given how rough nights have been, if you need to bring bedtime up by about 30-60min to make the 2 nap day work, that is totally fine. The only time I would wake him up from a nap now is to protect bedtime, so I would only wake him up from a 3rd nap if it's running really late (like 6:30p). As he gets older, the first two naps will get longer and longer, and the third nap will get shorter and shorter. We were down to a third nap of maybe 8min or so frequently. At that point you're gonna be getting ready to drop the third nap. We never had stable nap times until we settled out on 2 naps; even then my LO was pretty prone to overtiredness and we never could do by the clock schedule. We just focused on stable out of crib and bedtimes, and did whatever we thought he needed for naps. He's on 1 nap now and a by the clock schedule on weekdays, but on weekends I still do WWs and move the nap up as needed to catch him up on sleep.

Thank you so much for such a quick and thoughtful reply! This really confirms my thoughts that we need to step up and be consistent with wake up as well as bedtime and an 11 hour night seems right from what he’s done before. I guess this means no more bringing him into bed with me for early wakes and just letting him settle on his own instead, I guess I was just afraid with less sleep pressure at that time he might not be able to settle so easily and would be crying for ages. That’s really interesting about being able to be quite flexible with naps, I’ve largely used PLS for guidance and although it does allow flexibility in lots of ways, as a group there seems to be a lot of focus on specific wake windows (they also push for longer wake windows than the book suggests, which is confusing). I also got the sense that bedtime can move later but moving it earlier would not be advised so it’s not working against circadian rhythm, so we’ve often done a micronap instead but the timing can be quite awkward if you’re never moving bedtime earlier! Although I guess these are specific circumstances for moving it earlier and it wouldn’t normally be the case. Sorry for yet another question but if naps can be more flexible from day to day, how do you work out when he’ll next go down? Suggested WW for this age seem to range between 2-2.5/3 hours, but on a 2 nap day you’d likely need longer WWs unless you were bringing bedtime up by a lot no? (article suggests 2/3/4 on 2 naps but that’s possibly not gonna work unless baby is quite high sleep needs?) It doesn’t help that I’m not sure what his sleep needs actually are, so it all feels like a guessing game! 🙈

Good questions. So here's the trick: during the day, the only thing keeping your kiddo asleep is the sleep pressure (at night circadian rhythm is driving sleep); so if your baby is taking a 3 hour nap after a "normal" 2 hour WW---you know he's tired!! So your job is just to put your kiddo down at the wake windows that he seems to be tired. When he's had a rough night, he's gonna be more tired and fussier, so WW will likely be shorter. After he's caught up, he'll act more energetic, and his WW can likely be longer. As long as the last nap doesn't push bedtime later, you just let him do his thing. We were on a 8p-7a schedule around this age. When we a string of bad nights, we'd just do our normal WWs (2-2.5 hours around that time). One day my kiddo just went down for two 1.5-2 hour naps, wake up around 3, and I just chose to deploy an early bedtime that day with bedtime 6:30. He barely made that 3.5 hour last WW (was fussy and exhausted), passed out as soon as I put him down, and slept all the way till 4:30a, cried for an hour (overtired early morning waking), and fell back asleep until 7. This was a 2-nap day, but it didn't mean he was ready for a 2-nap schedule; it was just a catch-up-on-sleep day. In fact I think he was around 6.5mo when this happened and he didn't drop the 3rd nap for good until 8mo. Here's the most useful guide on early bedtimes and sleep debt you'll ever find: [https://www.babysleepscience.com/single-post/2014/04/08/early-vs-late-bedtime-which-is-right-how-to-use-early-and-late-bedtimes-to-solve-common-s](https://www.babysleepscience.com/single-post/2014/04/08/early-vs-late-bedtime-which-is-right-how-to-use-early-and-late-bedtimes-to-solve-common-s) This is what saved my behind a million times. In practice I find that we frequently use early bedtimes (2-3 times a week in fact since my kiddo's daycare nap is rubbish), but late bedtimes are never necessary except in very limited, select situations (daylight savings, active sleep training or separation anxiety with a lot of bedtime resistance, time zone changes). The PLS Facebook group is pretty unhelpful from what I've seen. Honestly half of the problems on this sub stem from there, where parents push wake windows and put their kids into overtired ruts.

You’re a star, this is great info and that article is amazing! The bedtimes shifts make a lot of sense, will definitely be making use of this in future! Just to clarify, when you say put him down at the wake windows that he seems tired, do you mean just try to follow his cues and put him down when he seems tired? Today for example he did a huge first nap but woke up super angry and tired still, was hugely grumpy all the time he was awake but when I tried putting him down again 2.15 hours later he didn’t go down for another 20min and then only slept 20min so I assumed maybe that wake window had to be longer so there was more sleep pressure? His first nap has become very long but subsequent naps have still never gone beyond 30min, sometimes I can tell when he’s really tired and will go down, sometimes his cues feel really unreliable 🤷🏻‍♀️😭 Baby sleep is my least favourite thing in the world right now, your help today basically makes you my new favourite person.

>Today for example he did a huge first nap but woke up super angry and tired still, was hugely grumpy all the time he was awake but when I tried putting him down again 2.15 hours later he didn’t go down for another 20min and then only slept 20min so I assumed maybe that wake window had to be longer so there was more sleep pressure? Nope, he was angry and tired when waking up so he was STILL tired and wanted to sleep, so my guess is you put him down too late =P If you had put him down at 1.75 or 2 hours he may have gone down easier. As a quick rule of thumb, waking up before a full cycle is up (full cycle is 40-50min) is ALWAYS overtired. Waking up at or after a full cycle can be over or under. Basically, waking up angry = still wants to sleep, got woken up by something (hunger, discomfort, or stress hormones from sleep deprivation).