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.
Experts recommend beginning sleep training when babies are 4 to 6 months old. This age range is the sweet spot, since babies are old enough to physically make it for six to eight hours overnight without needing to eat but aren't quite at the point where the comforting you provide has become a sleep association.
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.
Signs that your baby is ready for sleep training include: sleeping for five to six hours or longer on occasion, waking more frequently at night after a period of stable sleep and reaching 4 to 6 months of age.
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).
Because of this “cry-it-out” sleep training can be damaging to a rapidly growing brain – and to a growing psyche. Researchers have documented how, with sleep training, infants' fight and flight instincts activate in the face of extensive distress, such as being left without comforting physical touch.
Is sleep training safe? There has been ample long-term research studying sleep training, and there is no evidence that sleep training is physically or psychologically damaging to babies and children.
The 5 3 3 rule is a sleep training method that involves setting specific intervals for sleep. The method involves having the child sleep for 5 hours, followed by 3 hours of awake time, and then 3 hours of sleep again.
Self-soothing for babies
Babies typically learn to self-soothe around 6 months. Check out what else to expect from your baby. Follow their milestones here! There is no age-related milestone for self-soothing.
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.
Pick-up/put-down method
Simply pick up your baby whenever they cry, soothe them briefly, then put them back down, drowsy but awake. Repeat these steps until the little one falls asleep. The key is to gradually teach your child that you are close and they are safe, so they can fall asleep on their own.
“One of the biggest drawbacks of sleep training is that there are many different methods, and it can be difficult to figure out which one to try and when,” says Alfieri. “There isn't a particular formula or a 'one size fits all' method that works for all babies.”
Every baby is different. But experts say that, on average, it takes about three to seven days to achieve successful sleep training results. The key to succeeding in a week is consistency. Your baby won't learn to fall asleep and stay asleep on their own after only seven days if you do not keep trying night after night.
At what age can you start sleep training? Most experts recommend holding off on sleep training until a baby is about 4 months old. By that point, most babies can sleep for long stretches, and are old enough to learn how to self-soothe if they do wake up. .
How long to let a baby cry it out? For the cry-it-out method, you let your baby cry until they fall asleep, and rest assured they will. Some babies may protest for 25 minutes, others 65 minutes, and some even longer. It's important not to put a time limit on it (that's a different sleep-training method).
Some babies learn to self-soothe naturally as they get older. However, in other cases, parents or caregivers try to encourage the behavior through various techniques. Many approaches exist for encouraging babies to self-soothe, ranging from the extinction method, or “cry it out” (CIO), to more gradual approaches.
Around 3-5 months, you should also be on the lookout for the five signs of self-soothing: sucking on hands and fingers, bringing hands to midline, burrowing into a parent's armpit to turn off stimulation, developing a whiney, self-soothing cry, and rolling on his side or tummy.
It's OK to let your baby cry if the baby doesn't seem sick and you've tried everything to soothe your baby. You can try to leave your baby alone in a safe place, such as a crib, for about 10 to 15 minutes. Many babies need to cry before they can fall asleep. And they'll nod off faster if you leave them to cry.
Babies express their needs to the mother (or caregiver) through crying. Letting babies "cry it out" is a form of need-neglect that leads to many long-term effects. Consequences of the "cry it out" method include: It releases stress hormones, impairs self-regulation, and undermines trust.
Here's how it works: After your usual bedtime routine (bath, milk, story etc) lay your child in her cot, give him a simple goodnight message, such as 'night night, sleepy time now', and leave the room. If (or more likely when) your child cries, wait for two minutes before returning. After two minutes, go back in.
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.
TLDR; yes, it is normal and typically not something to be concerned about. You've heard it from us before, and we will continue to assert that crying is absolutely a normal, unavoidable part of having a baby.
But if your baby's naptime is typically on the shorter side and only lasts 30 minutes or so, you may want to limit how long you let her cry (to around 10 minutes) before you try another sleep training method or even give up on the nap for that day.
Use the “core night method” – once your child is capable of sleeping for a certain length of time through the night e.g. 10:30pm to 3:00am, and does so for three to seven nights consecutively, you no longer need to feed him/her during this span of time.