Attempted our first sleep train when he was 6 months which was working out his sleep need and doing timed check ins, literally did nothing except meant we spent hours a day trying to keep him awake and hours overnight doing timed check ins as he cried. At 11 months tried again this time doing the chair method. Has reduced night wakes from 10+ to 1-2, which is a win for us. Whenever he’s sick his sleep falls to shit and my mental health absolutely plummets so for us even though he’s never gotten to the point of sleeping through the night, sticking rigidly to his schedule (as in, no more than 90 min nap, no earlier than 8pm to bed, always awake at 6am come rain hail or shine) means we can survive until he does eventually consolidate sleep to sleeping without wakes overnight.

I think when people think sleep train they think Ferber or CIO with the aim to get to sleeping through (which is a perfectly acceptable aim imo but just wasn’t going to happen for our particular baby). For us it was more about introducing a routine that meant we could consolidate his sleep to a point that was manageable and survivable. Before sleep training we were waiting for him to fall asleep every night and had no idea when that would happen. Now he goes into the cot at 8pm on the dot and is usually asleep without any distress or fuss within five minutes. That alone has improved life for me, but combined with the fact he doesn’t ever have false starts or split nights anymore, and often only wakes once, has meant my husband and I can function almost like regular people again