Sleep Training a 4-Month-Old: Kat & Chris’s Success Story
Often our clients come to us when they’re on their knees, struggling with chronic night wakings and short naps. They’ve taken sleep training video courses or worked with remote sleep consultants with no success. Their babies are fussy and clingy because they’re chronically overtired, and parents feel guilty that they can’t figure out how to help their baby sleep. They feel hopeless, and terrified that they’ll never sleep again!
The Problem
Kat and Chris were at their breaking point when they reached out to us. Their 4-month-old daughter would sleep longer stretches at the beginning of the night, but would wake up every hour after 1-2am. They were feeding or rocking her to sleep, so every time she woke in the night she was looking for their help getting back to sleep. She would only take short naps in the crib and woke up crying and cranky because she hadn’t slept enough to feel rested. In desperation, Kat and Chris split nights so that each of them could get 3-4 hours of uninterrupted sleep and they held their daughter for all naps so she could get more daytime sleep. Kat and Chris were exhausted, they weren’t enjoying parenthood and missed having quality time with each other.
The crux of their daughter’s sleep problems was that she was used to feeding/rocking to sleep and being held for naps. She was also being put down with a pacifier and still swaddled, but ready to get out of the swaddle because she was learning to roll. Further complicating things, she was still in a bassinet in Kat and Chris’s room and hadn’t slept in her nursery yet. She was also still feeding 2-3 times at night, but not eating well during the day.
Their Vision
All Kat and Chris wanted was a happy baby and a happy family. They dreamed about a world where they could simply put their baby down in her crib in her own room, say goodnight, and know that she would reliably sleep through the night. They wanted evenings free to share dinner and maybe a TV show, and for their daughter to get the sleep she needed. They wanted to have the energy to succeed in their careers and be the parents they wanted to be. They knew that if they could just get their daughter sleeping, life and work would feel so much better!
The Solution
Multiple things needed to change to help Kat and Chris’s daughter sleep independently, sleep through the night, and get restful naps in her crib. We booked a 3-night / 2-day Essential Package for Kat and Chris, which was a bit optimistic considering that their daughter had zero self-soothing skills, but it all worked out!
Their Coach Amy came to their home at 5pm with a preliminary plan. She first checked their nursery for safety and ensured she could fully see their baby on their video monitor. From there Amy explained to Kat and Chris what she recommended to change for their bedtime routine. They had been feeding and rocking their daughter to sleep with white noise in a dark room, so those were the first things they needed to change. Amy recommended that they put their daughter in her crib fully awake, without a swaddle or pacifier. So before bedtime, Amy guided Kat and Chris to dress her in a regular sleep sack and feed their daughter in the nursery with the lights on (and the white noise off), a little earlier than they normally would. They agreed to follow her recommendations, and their daughter DID cry on and off while she learned to settle herself, but she didn’t cry nearly as hard and long as when they tried to sleep train independently with a remote sleep consultant who had given them a plan with intermittent checks (this made their daughter cry much harder!).
Night one, Kat, Chris and Amy agreed they would give their daughter one dream feed, but let her settle herself back the rest of the wake-ups. Apart from the dream feed, she woke up five times on the first night, but successfully put herself back to sleep every time. Night two, they decided to keep the dream feed for another night to see how she did. Apart from a couple of short periods of fussing in her sleep, Kat and Chris’s daughter slept through the night. On night three, they decided to try skipping the dream feed, and she slept straight through without a peep until nearly 7am!
Naps were more challenging (which is as expected when a baby is used to contact napping), but within a couple of weeks Kat and Chris’s daughter was consolidating her sleep cycles and taking longer naps in an ideal 3-nap/feed schedule. Anyone could put her down, and she would peacefully drift off to sleep. Kat and Chris were thrilled with her progress after a few days, and continued our work on naps after Amy left.
The Results
To recap, in three nights, Kat and Chris’s 4-month old daughter:
- Moved from a bassinet in her parents room to her crib in the nursery
- Got out of the swaddle and into a regular sleep sack
- Learned to self-soothe without the pacifier, feeding or rocking to sleep
- Night weaned, and began getting all her calories during the day
- Slept through the night on the 2nd and 3rd night
- Practiced connecting her sleep cycles for naps
And here’s what Kat had to say about working with Mommywise:
