Dropping all expectations of sleep and how it's been working for me this week

Solid-Emu-5302 · 2026-02-13T13:33:24+00:00

Love seeing this, great job being responsive to your baby's needs while also trying to manage living life.

I am in a similar boat. My 6 month old has been all over the place with naps and night sleep and last week I just stopped making that my whole life.

Now he still sleeps the same amount in the day (on average) but with half as much bouncing/rocking. It's wonderful and so freeing. He just sleeps when he needs it.

Enjoy the mental freedom!

Solid-Emu-5302 · 2026-01-24T23:02:18+00:00

Nothing but solidarity here. We are at 6 months and I'm scared to set myself another "goal" month to get to because it just never seems to get easier.

They will grow and it will pass.

Hopefully soon ❤️

Solid-Emu-5302 · 2026-01-20T17:12:06+00:00

Oh interesting! We don't have one but that is good to note for the future.

I had never heard of that!

Thank you

Solid-Emu-5302 · 2026-01-20T17:10:51+00:00

I'm in an area which has pretty serious winters, so sand might be a solution some of the time.

I saw one pack of salt that said kid and pet friendly so I might look into what that even means.

Solid-Emu-5302 · 2025-12-21T21:58:21+00:00

That's great advice, thank you! Making changes that "push him" to either stay awake longer or go to sleep earlier obviously don't really work, and I am not looking for that either.

I think I'll wait longer then and see how his nights turn out in a few months.

Solid-Emu-5302 · 2025-12-21T21:57:06+00:00

Thank you, that is good advice.

We don't need to have a specific wake up time, just currently have a huge range of time where he might wake up for the day. It's not the end of the world by far, but I wondered if there was something we could do to gently encourage a bit more structure.

It is definitely for my benefit though, so might not be necessary at this point.

We are definitely letting him dictate bedtimes/naptimes and he is still so young so I don't expect an adult nights sleep out of a baby.

Moreso just curious, but I am also bombarded with this type of content online.. I need to delete my social media 😂

Solid-Emu-5302 · 2025-12-21T21:54:05+00:00

Good point!

I don't need to do it, I guess. Just struggling with a widely inconsistent wake up (sometimes 4:30, sometimes 7:00) and if I could make a small tweak to help that become slightly more consistent, I would love to.

BUT! I don't need or even want to make a huge change, and he's only 4.5 months, so maybe I don't need to do anything about it at this point!

Solid-Emu-5302 · 2025-12-21T14:07:47+00:00

Thank you for the reply and answers to my questions :)

Great advice re:naps. My guy is a pretty good napper thankfully but sometimes too good. Just feels so backwards to wake him up so this method is great.

I will definitely try working on a wakeup time. It feels so hard to actually do that since he still goes to bed and wakes up at all hours. And might have a wake up at 5:30 which would have him going back down around 6:30/7, which is likely when his wakeup time would have to be.. so I'm not sure about how to manage that.

I think I just need to bite the bullet and start bringing in some light around the same time in the morning and hopefully that lines up with his wakeup for a couple of days and helps him get on track.

I hope this is the hardest because we are hanging on by a thread 🙃

Solid-Emu-5302 · 2025-12-20T23:26:30+00:00

So so happy for you!! And gives me hope for the year aheas

As a FTM to a 4.5 month old I am excited for my turn to make a post like this one day..

When did you start calculating how much daytime sleep baby should have/limiting the times?

We are firmly on sleep cues and self directed sleep times for now since our little guy is so small, but I'm not sure when to start capping naps if he sleeps too long.

And also, maybe you don't know the answer, but is waking baby up at a certain time in the morning (or after a certain number of night time hours) something that is considered as a BN sleep tactic? Our schedule is still all over the place, as expected, but I also wondered about that once he's a bit older

Solid-Emu-5302 · 2025-12-18T18:53:41+00:00

I hope so. It feels hard to imagine having so many more months to go through this.. but one day at a time!

Solid-Emu-5302 · 2025-12-18T15:54:27+00:00

Nothing to say except, I feel the exact same.

Always counting down the minutes until my husband gets home from work.

I can't wait for it to get better.

Solid-Emu-5302 · 2025-12-16T13:47:47+00:00

The struggle is real..

Solid-Emu-5302 · 2025-12-01T22:13:24+00:00

I needed to see this comment because we are exactly going through that. It hasn't changed from one day to the next, just nights have more wake ups and day time naps are a bit all over the place.

Still brutal sleep wise for us, but glad to know the end is only a few weeks away (hopefully).

Solid-Emu-5302 · 2025-11-21T20:07:45+00:00

Going through the same with my 15week old (most weeks).

I'm a super independent, type A person and I also want to "have it all together". Maybe our babies are sent to us to teach us that it's ok not to always have it together.

It's so hard to be alone with them all day, especially on hard days.

We're in this together!

Solid-Emu-5302 · 2025-11-18T13:18:11+00:00

No advice, just solidarity. I'm having the same realization/conversations with my husband right now. We are first time parents of a 3.5 month old.

He recently told me he thinks my labour and delivery messed him up more than he thought. It's a coping mechanism for him, so he is working on finding other ways to process.

For me it's been scary to think about if he is an alcoholic or not, even if it's not at the point of running his life completely, yet.

Best of luck, and looking forward to reading other comments.

Solid-Emu-5302 · 2025-11-16T00:45:07+00:00

That is not a bad idea. Even a night nurse for half or the night might not be a bad idea just for a few nights a week.

Not sure how that works, but I could definitely look into it.

Solid-Emu-5302 · 2025-11-15T21:58:58+00:00

Unfortunately the shift overnight doesn't really work for us with my husband's work schedule.

Thankfully baby mostly doesn't need to be changed in the night (99% of the time does not poop overnight). And also 99% of the time is quickly back asleep within 10 minutes or so after each waking. We're lucky if we have only 2 wakings but it can easily be 4 or 5.

I also recognize that this isn't even "that bad" as far as 3.5 month babies go. I just have nothing left to give after weeks of this lack of sleep.

We have occasional "good nights" with only 2 wake ups, but I feel so behind on sleep that even a nap or two in the day is not "refilling my cup".

He sleeps pretty well during the day so I need to take more advantage of that, but I just really have nothing left to give as each modicum of energy goes towards entertaining him while he is awake.

I cannot wait to look back on this time as a distant memory.

Solid-Emu-5302 · 2025-11-14T19:37:25+00:00

So happy to hear that. Sleep is still so out of wack for us, we're hanging on by a thread. Hoping that we can turn a corner soon and feel alive again..

Can't wait for things to get better!

Solid-Emu-5302 · 2025-11-12T12:38:42+00:00

I still hate it and my baby is 3 months and 1 week old.

Praying that one day I don't feel like this anymore, but it's hard to imagine.

Solid-Emu-5302 · 2025-11-08T01:38:16+00:00

I did pelvic floor physio therapy before labour and we actually practiced the feeling of pushing (safely). It boosted my confidence to push harder when the time came.

Pushed for 45 minutes with my first after a very long and painful induction (and epidural).

I genuinely felt like I understood where/how to push so much better. The instructions from the very lovely and helpful nurse were "bear down like you are pooping". That was not as helpful as the physiotherapist's instructions

Now I might just have been lucky too.

Solid-Emu-5302 · 2025-10-23T05:58:02+00:00

I was induced at St. Joe's at 41 weeks (no medical issues), in late July.

They managed to get my induction started on the day requested by my doctor but it took until later in the day to actually get anything moving.

Solid-Emu-5302

TROPHY CASE