(Gentle-ish) sleep training at 4 months

I never wanted to sleep train but I ended up doing a modified controlled crying training at 12 months because it got to point where I was completely numb to her crying and I was dreading bedtime every night. She took to it really well. I put her to bed and then resettled her at timed intervals. The whole process from putting her down to sleep never lasted any longer than 20 minutes with 2-3 check ins/resettles. By day 3, she was self settling. I was amazed. She’s regressed a bit now at 15 months, but responds well to patting in the crib (which she NEVER responded to before), so it’s still fine, but sleep training is not linear!

I firmly believe that whether sleep training works or not depends on your baby and their temperament. There is no one size fits all, it just depends what you’re able to deal with as a parent.

Good luck!!

I’m currently in the same boat my baby is also 4 months we put him down and settle him once he’s asleep I go downstairs if he wakes himself up again I give it 5 minutes before I go back up to resettle him majority of the time he falls asleep before the 5 minutes is even up although some nights it does take a few tries of going back up resettling and trying again 🥲

There is a major sleep regression where they completely change how they sleep at 4 months so the best thing to do right now is stay consistent to help it pass quickly.

Recommendations even from sleep consultants is not to sleep train prior to 6 months.

Controlled crying is never needed. At 4 months they are only just learning you are separate people. Crying is the only way they can communicate needs and comfort from you is just as much of a need as food, clean nappy etc.

We started sleep training at 4 months with the help from a sleep consultant and it made a huge difference. 4 months is apparently when they start to learn to self sooth. We would put her down awake, say goodnight and leave the room. We left her to cry for a max of 10 mins before going in, but would go in sooner if it sounded like a properly upset cry, normally it was just a fussy cry and she would settle herself. I learnt for my little one that it was better to give her belly/back rubs to show her we were still there as she would get more upset if I picked her up. She learnt really quickly and aside from struggling with timings and her having false starts shes been really easy since we started sleep training. We put her in her cot at 7.15 and she sleeps through until we wake her up at 7am.

I think you'll always find different people have successes and failures with every method. You may need to try out different things to find what works for you and your little one, and also what your comfortable with.

We're in the middle of this cause my boy is similar (patting or any form of low effort settling does nothing or upsets him even more) and my body couldn't take the b bouncing by the 4th week of the regression anymore. He has taken to it like a champ but I do think it's because his temperament was already leaning towards independent sleeping (and in fact he put himself to sleep with me in the room in 3 different occasions before we started. We're on day 3 tomorrow and he was only upset the first bedtime (only needed to check ins) and the third nap of today (hardest nap because it has the least sleep pressure etc). We did wait until it seemed the regression itself was over or he'd stabilised a little before starting, although my husband wonders if we shouldn't have done it at the beginning but I really didn't want to and it took me this long to make the decision. Ultimately I realised my little boy wants to either be seriously helped to sleep (with motion or feeding) or to be left to it.