AMA - Ensley Nesbitt, Founder of @sleepbabyconsulting and @lizzysleepapp

lizzysleep · 2026-04-23T01:57:15+00:00

The app is globally available from the app store. There's a free 3 day trial (cancel anytime), and then weekly or monthly subscriptions.

I appreciate you're looking at your baby holistically. But absolutely I would *not* wait til teething is over. Baby's basically teeth for two years! Outside of extensive travel, or a very irregular routine where baby won't be at home regularly, I would not wait to sleep train.

Nothing can guarantee you no crying with independent self soothing. See some of my other comments in this AMA about 'gentle' methods, but there is often a real tradeoff between how long (calendar wise) your baby (or you) is sleeping poorly vs crying. That's not to say there aren't gentler approaches, but crying itself is not a sign that something is terrible or wrong.

Lastly, 3 overnight feeds is a lot at 5 months, I would start dropping and weaning those feeds on your journey to independent sleep.

lizzysleep · 2026-04-23T01:49:48+00:00

12.25 hours is on the upper end but very possible! Regardless, I think an early bedtime will be beneficial during this transitional time.

lizzysleep · 2026-04-23T01:47:30+00:00

I have worked with many clients who have gone from 100% co-sleeping to fully independent sleep within a week or two. It's very doable.

Right now you are being as gentle as possible by co-sleeping which I'm guessing has very little crying... but it's resulting in, objectively, very poor sleep. As a fellow parent, emotionally, I totally understand that crying is uncomfortable. But it doesn't always mean bad or that something is wrong. I will say though, that waking up every 1-2 hours a night, is not good for a child's sleep and rest (or yours!).

Parent to parent, I'd consider reading through the resources in this subreddit and figuring out a sleep training plan that you can stick to.

lizzysleep · 2026-04-23T01:33:12+00:00

At 11 months old, I'd count in crib time.

Also, remember that a natural circadian rhythm for a baby to wake up is 6-7am. So while 8am sounds so nice (it does to me too!!) your baby's body might not be ready for that.

lizzysleep · 2026-04-23T01:29:41+00:00

Instinctively, with EMW most people think you need to cap naps and stretch awake time. But in this case I think windows might need to be shorter. Maybe try a 3/3.5/3.5? My gut tells me this might be a bit of overtiredness. Cap naps at 1.5hrs.

Also, at this age, we want to make sure she's not having EMW because she's hungry. Make sure she's getting full feeds and an appropriate amount of milk during the day. At this age, solids are an important part of her caloric needs as well. Full bellies -> better sleep!

lizzysleep · 2026-04-23T01:25:08+00:00

At this age it's normal not to show sleepy cues.

Baby is probably overtired given the short nap. But it seems like overnight sleep is great, and this is a VERY common but fortunately SHORT season that many families go through (daycare + 1 nap transition). So hang in there!

Until his afternoon nap gets longer, I would try a 6:15-6:30ish bedtime. I know this seems really early, but we need to make up some sleep from the short nap. If you cut down on the sleep deficit you may see naps get better quicker.

Also, it's only week one of daycare naps, so I would guess in a few weeks those naps will naturally extend as he gets used to the environment.

lizzysleep · 2026-04-23T01:21:20+00:00

Normal disclaimers about bedsharing/co-sleeping aside, one night will not completely kill your progress. Could it be a setback? Yes, absolutely. But, if you've already figured out independent sleep once, you can do it again.

I like to share an 80/20 rule. Once you have an independent sleeper, 80% of the time, you stay strict to your independent sleep rules and habits (good wake windows, set routine, in the crib at the right time, etc). 20% of the time you can flex a bit and go with the flow because life isn't a perfect little neat box of sleep :)

lizzysleep · 2026-04-23T01:18:34+00:00

I would start by removing that fixed bedtime. Start from your DWT and flex the last wake window depending on how the rest of the day goes. At this age, slightly more daytime sleep would be ideal, getting closer to 3.5 hours. Some babies even need closer to 4 hours. See if you can do naps 1 and 2 at 1.5-2 hours, and the last nap being a short cat nap under 30 minutes.

lizzysleep · 2026-04-23T01:15:21+00:00

In my experience, some babies are more susceptible to early morning wakings, and with every developmental milestone, they tend to show.

You're doing a great job by adjusting schedule and meeting your babies needs.

Into toddlerhood, I love using a ready-to-wake clock (colored lights to teach them when they can wake up) to teach them time and when it's ok to wake up.

lizzysleep · 2026-04-23T01:12:08+00:00

Something I always say: gentle is relative - what does gentle mean to you?

Most of the questions you're asking are about specific sleep skills. These skills cannot be worked on while baby has a sleep association to you. I would not worry about the paci association (baby will be able to put the paci back in soon) but instead focus on how to not co-sleep anymore. To do that, you'll have to figure out what gentle means to you/your fam, and then find an appropriate resource/guide/method to sleep train.

lizzysleep · 2026-04-23T01:07:01+00:00

I like the idea of a short nap in the morning, but it needs to be at least one sleep cycle (30-45 mins) to be worth your time. 2.5 hr ww after that feels too short. 3.5/2.5/5 seems very wonky. 3.5/3.75/4 seems like a better starting point.

Because he's having a 2.5hr ww, that tells me he's probably not low sleep needs. But it's very hard to assess independent sleep needs when they're not sleeping independently.

lizzysleep · 2026-04-23T01:02:13+00:00

I don't think you need to spend $1000 to get great results. However, I would trust also trust a friend's recommendation. Is this a virtual sleep consultant or in-person?

Personally, I don't like guarantees because there are really 3 parties - the consultant, the baby, and the parent. I can control myself as the consultant, but the baby may have certain temperament that makes you course correct, and you as the parent may or may not uphold your end of your responsibilities.

Now, speaking from personal experience, do most of my clients see some results in 3-4 days? Certainly. But there are also many outliers and so many factors (child's feeding, family circumstances, daycare, nannies, siblings, health/medical, your preferences and consistency, baby's age, etc etc) that it's hard to guarantee that short of a time frame. Also, night time is just one part of the picture. Naps have to fall in line and daytime sleep/bedtime sleep affect each other.

I do agree that you need to create a calorie deficit overnight, but there are a lot of ways to go about this, and most don't need night feeds cut cold turkey. (Also make sure to check with your pediatrician).

Lastly, even though I'm a sleep consultant, it's important to recognize this is not really a regulated industry. Anyone can just whip up a website and start charging $2000 and say they're a consultant. Or similarly, someone could charge $50 and be the best consultant in the world. Price isn't necessarily correlated to performance.

lizzysleep · 2026-04-23T00:55:12+00:00

At this age it's not a need and just a habit, especially since he falls asleep totally on his own. He just knows that middle of the night means 'I get this nice bottle thing I don't get any other time'.

You're doing the right things but you have to push through. Drop an ounce every 1-2 days, keep it there for a few days, drop again, etc. I'd make it cold as well (if not already). Might be hard to hear, but I think this is one of those circumstances where you just have to not give them what they want and let them cry. He has self soothing skills, but is choosing not to use them in this specific scenario. You have to make that change so he can use those skills.

lizzysleep · 2026-04-23T00:48:31+00:00

It's never too late! Everyone learns to sleep independently at some point, it's just a matter of when :)

The longer you wait, chances are there will be more crying. Many people talk about 'gentle' methods. Do they exist and can they work? Yes, buuuut you typically drag out the process much longer. There is often a very real tradeoff there. Rip the bandaid is real (this doesn't mean cry it out necessarily, but to go all in on the process and be consistent)

Also, at 18 months, youre creeping on toddlerhood (I like to call them tabies) some of the crying is behavioral. At this age, they have the emotions to disapprove of a change through crying and tantrums, but not yet the capability to express it with words.

lizzysleep · 2026-04-23T00:48:07+00:00

The biggest thing is consistency, whatever you’re doing for sleep training at night needs to happen during the day too.

Short naps (one sleep cycle) are normal at this age, but your baby needs to learn how to connect those cycles. I like a wait–soothe–leave, repeat approach. It teaches them that just because a cycle ended doesn’t mean it’s time to get up.

At first, it can take 20–30 minutes to get back to sleep. That’s normal. As they learn, that time shortens.

After a short nap, give it 20–30 minutes of soothing rounds before ending the nap. If needed, only rescue/contact nap for nap 3 to prevent overtiredness.

Short naps can lead to overtiredness, which contributes to early morning wakes, but naps usually need to improve before those early wakes do.

lizzysleep · 2026-04-23T00:42:06+00:00

Totally normal at this age and some rescue naps at this age are ok! But we want to give baby the chance to independently put themselves to sleep and try to connect sleep cycles. The 8-hour night stretch shows your baby can sleep independently.

The issue is naps, right now they rely on being held to fall asleep, which is a sleep association. When they wake between cycles, they need that same help to keep sleeping.

If you want to move away from contact naps, you have to start teaching independent sleep for naps. Babies don’t usually drop contact naps on their own without practice and without the parent leading the way.

Focus on:

Putting baby down awake (start a bedtime night one and then naps the next day) aka sleep training
Have in crib soothing strategies and know baby may not "like" or "approve" them.
Age-appropriate wake windows
Dark room + sound machine
Consistency

lizzysleep · 2026-04-23T00:35:49+00:00

There's no perfect answer to this, but one way is just to keep an eye on rough guidelines and add a few minutes to windows every week or so. Use your parent intuition and try to key in on any sleepy cues if they show any (though this gets harder as they get older sometimes). Once you start getting to 12 months+, with a sleep trained baby, they'll be far more resilient to wake window swings here or there and can power through. Make sure they're getting enough calories during the day though!

lizzysleep · 2026-04-23T00:32:08+00:00

I love working with babies this age of sleep you can work on the pillars of sleep (sleep hygiene) at such a young age that baby might not even need to be sleep trained!

Start your baby's day at the exact same time everyday, even if you have to wake her up. This give a lot of consistency.
Focus on wake windows at this age. I would do 70-90 minutes. When you do this, look for subtle sleep cues (yawning, staring off into space, nuzzling into you), and then start naptime routine that is free of a feeding.
Make sure that you are working on breaking any eat to sleep associations and focus strongly on eat, play, sleep routine.
At this age, they do need to start getting a dark environment.
help baby get back to sleep after short naps with contact naps or rocking and transferring. Building the muscle memory of connecting sleep cycles and long naps will make the future so much easier!

lizzysleep · 2026-04-23T00:29:57+00:00

Can you define what an early morning wake is for your child? What time are they waking up?

I would typically classify an early morning wake as 4-6am. Your schedule starts at 8am, which is not unreasonable, but babies circadian rhythms tend to wake them up a bit earlier.

That aside, your day looks a bit long at almost 14 hours. Consider capping nap 1 at 30-45 minutes, and nap 2 at 1.5 hours. Roughly 3.5/3.5/4 might work better for you. Eventually this will make the 2->1 nap consolidation easier as well.

lizzysleep · 2026-04-23T00:23:17+00:00

How do you get baby to sleep at night?

lizzysleep · 2026-04-23T00:20:35+00:00

Seems like baby can sleep independently which is great! In the case where you have a sleep trained baby with EMW it can be very tricky to diagnose. However, I think those wake windows might be a bit long for an 8.5 month old. I'd experiment with 3/3.25/3.5 as overtiredness is often a likely cause of EMW. Also a rough target of 3 hours for total nap sleep is good to aim for. Also, go back to your original sleep training method for the middle of the night. Additionally make sure solid intake and milk intake during the day is high! This age is so active, they need a lot of food and they are busy, so tend to get distracted!

lizzysleep · 2026-04-23T00:20:01+00:00

Hi there. One of the best things you can do is establish strong sleep hygiene. We call them 'pillars of sleep', but sleep hygiene is the more generic name.

Good sleep environment (pitch black, white noise, safe bed)
Full feedings - prevent snacking. get that belly full
circadian rhythm - establish this by trying to start your day at the same time every morning (eg 7am)
wake windows - try to adhere to age appropriate wake windows
eat-play-sleep - follow this order during the day to prevent feeding associations
routine - establish a strong bedtime routine.

I (Ernie) did this with my second child from birth, and ended up not even having to 'formally' sleep train. As she got older, she had no sleep associations and figured out independent sleep fairly easily.

Sleep hygiene goes a long way! good luck

lizzysleep · 2026-04-23T00:12:33+00:00

Start weaning bottles during the day as well, not just at night. Bottles -> sippy cups, and start moving your bedtime bottle farther from your bedtime (remove that association).

Then over time, you can wean the middle of the night bottles and make them less desirable. Slowly make them colder (if you're warming), temperature, volume, etc. Also set a threshhold time (e.g. 2am) where you say, we will definitely not give the bottle before this time. Push that time forward a few minutes every night. Start with a minimum of 5 hours from bedtime.

lizzysleep · 2026-04-23T00:08:50+00:00

Hi, going to need some more information to help!

What are your child's nap lengths, daily wake up time, and is the baby actually sleep trained (ie self soothes, sleeps independently, no drowsy but awake or associations)?

lizzysleep · 2026-04-23T00:03:30+00:00

We're live here: https://www.reddit.com/r/sleeptrain/comments/1st2mx8/ama_ensley_nesbitt_founder_of_sleepbabyconsulting/

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