3-4 Months
By 3 to 4 months, infants are forming a nighttime sleep cycle. They're more sociable, don't usually suffer from separation anxiety, and start snoozing better. However, most 3- and 4-month-olds aren't developmentally ready to self-soothe, so sleep training may be difficult.
Dr. Schwartz recommends to begin sleeping training when your baby is about four months old. At this age, babies are typically old enough to learn to self soothe, and may no longer require night feedings.
Five magic kisses – Give your child a kiss and then say “I'll come back in two minutes and give you another kiss” and by the time you get to 5 the idea is that they have fallen asleep. This helps if the child suffers from anxiety of you leaving.
Studies indicate that as many as 20 percent of children between the ages of 1 and 3 still continue to wake up regularly in the middle of the night, But experts agree: it's never too late to learn good sleep habits. The goal with sleep training, at any age, is for the child to fall asleep on their own.
Top reasons why sleep training fails:
Inconsistency in the parent's reaction to the child waking up during the night. Parents didn't give sleep training long enough. Parents only focus on nighttime. Sleep is a 24-hour cycle of awake and asleep time.
You start with letting your little one cry for just a few minutes before briefly checking on them. As the night goes on, you gradually increase those response times until your baby falls asleep independently. Your baby's intervals of crying should be no longer than 10 minutes.
While most babies can learn to sleep on their own when they're between 4–6 months old, they need someone to guide them. Fortunately, there are several sleep training techniques to help your little one learn to fall asleep (without relying on your nightly nursery performances).
Start a Routine
A 7pm-8pm bedtime is ideal. An strong-willed AND overtired toddler can make for one dramatic bedtime. Find the right bedtime, and stick with it. During bedtime routine, give them something they can control (choice of book, PJs, etc.)
Babies fight sleep for a variety of reasons the seven most common being separation anxiety, overtiredness, overstimulation, teething, hitting a milestone, traveling and discomfort or illness.
The goal is to teach your child to stay in bed, not punish or scare him. Reward your child. Soon after your child awakens in the morning, reward him for what he did well the night before. Don't dwell on misbehavior from the previous night.
Anxiety may present as fear or worry, but can also make children irritable and angry. Anxiety symptoms can also include trouble sleeping, as well as physical symptoms like fatigue, headaches, or stomachaches. Some anxious children keep their worries to themselves and, thus, the symptoms can be missed.
For most of them, I think it's because they're afraid they're going to miss something. With others, it might be because they're frightened of the dark, or afraid to go to sleep. And for some kids, they simply want to be in control. Bedtime just becomes another arena in which kids will try to fight with you.
Experts say that resistance to bedtime is normal. All children go through a phase in which their favorite word is "no." During this phase, the desire to disobey parents is often in conflict with lingering separation anxiety, causing the nighttime behavior problems.
A baby "should simply be allowed to 'cry it out'. This often requires an hour, and in extreme cases, two or three hours. A second struggle will seldom last more than 10 or 15 minutes and a third will rarely be necessary."
Crying During Sleep Training
There is no arbitrary amount of crying that means a child has cried “too much.” Your child should be given the amount of time and space they need in order to figure out how to fall asleep on their own.
Leaving your baby to 'cry it out' has no adverse effects on child development, study suggests. Summary: Leaving an infant to 'cry it out' from birth up to 18 months does not appear to adversely affect their behavior development or attachment.
If you leave a baby to cry alone in a room during the day, it's called neglect. But if you do the same at night, it's called sleep training.
To put it simply, “cry it out” (CIO) is a sleep training method (sometimes dubbed “controlled crying” or “extinction”) that requires you to let your baby shed some tears and be fussy for a set period of time, so that they can learn to self-soothe and fall asleep on their own.
Sleep Training Doesn't Break Your Bond With Baby
Not only are sleep-trained babies sleeping better, but researchers found no correlation between sleep training and negative outcomes such as depression, sleepiness, or damage to parent-infant bonding.
Four-year-olds should ideally get between 10-and 13 hours of sleep, including naps. If your child has dropped the nap, aim for a 6 pm -8 pm bedtime. If your child still naps, you can move the rest closer to 8 pm.
It is a common misconception that if you want your baby to sleep well, you have to do some form of sleep training, but we're here to tell you this isn't the case! Many babies, and especially those under 3-4 months of age, are perfectly capable of achieving good sleep without any formal sleep training.