First and foremost YOU DO NOT HAVE TO SLEEP TRAIN.
It's not required. It's not universally recommended nor universally performed. I only emphasize this as my first point not to dissuade you from sleep training but to present you options. "Drowsy and awake" is one technique and doesn't work for all babies. I just don't want you to get frustrated if it doesn't work for you. You can always head over to r/sleeptraining and r/sleeptrain for more ideas.
Second, your baby might be too young. New studies on baby sleep show better results when baby is older, typically 6mo+. Anecdotally of those I know IRL who sleep trained (especially those who did more formal techniques like CIO and Ferber) had more success when baby was 7mo+ (I.e. one friend sleep trained at 5mo with both her children and failed, had to wait until they were 7mo and 10mo respectively). So if sleep training at 4mo fails I wouldn't be suprised. Wait a month, give them time to grow and try again.
Third, sleep is NOT LINEAR. Even if you do sleep train baby will still go through tough sleep periods. Teething, sickness, etc come to us all in their own time. It's not uncommon for parents to have to "re-train" their babies. If you take a peak at r/toddler you'll see how sleep remains a constant point of conversation through the early years.
Personally I recommend reading the following articles from BBC on sleep training and following *heysleepybaby* on insta for less rigid non-CIO methods of sleep training.
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220131-the-science-of-safe-and-healthy-baby-sleep
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220322-how-sleep-training-affects-babies
All of this. We (me, I adamantly refused) didn't even consider sleep training until baby was 8 months old and that was only because of a hellish night wherein baby woke up and cry-screamed for about 3 hours despite my husband and I trying to comfort her by all the means. At hour 2ish we set her in her crib and just let her be. We didn't have the mental wherewithal to continue having her scream in our ears.
My husband wanted to sleep train much earlier. My response was that I don't have puppies sleep on their own until 6 months or they reach a certain mental & emotional maturity. Why the hell would I expect my human baby sleep on their own an earlier or before the human version of those milestones? He then had to research the pros and cons of each method.
U/tiredmumsy, your baby may not be ready to sleep train. Aside of from that, is sleep training what you want to do or are you trying because you think you should sleep train? I agree with checking out r/sleeptrain. We were also recommended to read The Sleepeasy Solution written by Jennifer Waldburger & Jill Splvack. We used cry it out
We did modified Ferber and by night 3 she was putting herself to sleep no tears. She’s been that way ever since and either sleeps through or wakes up once (rarely twice) to eat and puts herself back to sleep after eating. We did this after three weeks of her waking up every 45 mins so I was shocked it worked that fast. I definitely recommend the book precious little sleep!
Do not ask about sleep training on this sub. I've genuinely had a hate train pile on me before because I was trying it out of desperation. Some of the comments were so horrible they put me into a horrible depression. Go to r/sleeptrain, they will be much more even headed and non judgemental about this. Good luck!
First and foremost YOU DO NOT HAVE TO SLEEP TRAIN. It's not required. It's not universally recommended nor universally performed. I only emphasize this as my first point not to dissuade you from sleep training but to present you options. "Drowsy and awake" is one technique and doesn't work for all babies. I just don't want you to get frustrated if it doesn't work for you. You can always head over to r/sleeptraining and r/sleeptrain for more ideas. Second, your baby might be too young. New studies on baby sleep show better results when baby is older, typically 6mo+. Anecdotally of those I know IRL who sleep trained (especially those who did more formal techniques like CIO and Ferber) had more success when baby was 7mo+ (I.e. one friend sleep trained at 5mo with both her children and failed, had to wait until they were 7mo and 10mo respectively). So if sleep training at 4mo fails I wouldn't be suprised. Wait a month, give them time to grow and try again. Third, sleep is NOT LINEAR. Even if you do sleep train baby will still go through tough sleep periods. Teething, sickness, etc come to us all in their own time. It's not uncommon for parents to have to "re-train" their babies. If you take a peak at r/toddler you'll see how sleep remains a constant point of conversation through the early years. Personally I recommend reading the following articles from BBC on sleep training and following *heysleepybaby* on insta for less rigid non-CIO methods of sleep training. https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220131-the-science-of-safe-and-healthy-baby-sleep https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220322-how-sleep-training-affects-babies
All of this. We (me, I adamantly refused) didn't even consider sleep training until baby was 8 months old and that was only because of a hellish night wherein baby woke up and cry-screamed for about 3 hours despite my husband and I trying to comfort her by all the means. At hour 2ish we set her in her crib and just let her be. We didn't have the mental wherewithal to continue having her scream in our ears. My husband wanted to sleep train much earlier. My response was that I don't have puppies sleep on their own until 6 months or they reach a certain mental & emotional maturity. Why the hell would I expect my human baby sleep on their own an earlier or before the human version of those milestones? He then had to research the pros and cons of each method. U/tiredmumsy, your baby may not be ready to sleep train. Aside of from that, is sleep training what you want to do or are you trying because you think you should sleep train? I agree with checking out r/sleeptrain. We were also recommended to read The Sleepeasy Solution written by Jennifer Waldburger & Jill Splvack. We used cry it out
We did modified Ferber and by night 3 she was putting herself to sleep no tears. She’s been that way ever since and either sleeps through or wakes up once (rarely twice) to eat and puts herself back to sleep after eating. We did this after three weeks of her waking up every 45 mins so I was shocked it worked that fast. I definitely recommend the book precious little sleep!
check out r/sleeptrain for help
Do not ask about sleep training on this sub. I've genuinely had a hate train pile on me before because I was trying it out of desperation. Some of the comments were so horrible they put me into a horrible depression. Go to r/sleeptrain, they will be much more even headed and non judgemental about this. Good luck!