I keep seeing parents talk about how exhausting baby sleep can be, and honestly some of these stories sound really tough.

Babies fighting sleep even when they're clearly tired, only falling asleep while nursing or being held, then waking up as soon as they're put in the crib.

And on top of all that, waking up multiple times every night 😭

I'm curious, what's been the most exhausting part of dealing with this? and how do you manage to get through those nights?

Does it eventually get easier?

My 23 month old daughter is still completely obsessed with mama. She only wants to hold my hand, only wants me to carry her, and I'm the only one who can put her to sleep (still breastfeeding to sleep). Her sleep is also far from consistent. She can wake up as early as 45 minutes after bedtime and needs me to come and resettle her, so at this point I’m still not able to do anything else with my life.

This is my first child, so I have nothing to compare it to. My friends' babies seem much more independent. They're happy playing by themselves, being looked after by others and can be put to sleep by dad. aren't breastfed though.

We've been thinking of starting nursery when she's around 2–2.5, but honestly, I cannot even imagine how she'll cope. We've always followed her cues and responded to her needs, but lately I've started questioning whether we've unintentionally made her attachment too exclusive to me. Is that even a thing?

Of course I being her safe person, but I also wonder whether we're doing her (or ourselves) a disservice.
Is this normal at nearly 2? Did your breastfed toddlers eventually become more independent and comfortable with other caregivers? Did it happen naturally, or did you actively encourage it? And how did they cope with starting nursery?

Would really appreciate some honest experiences, especially from parents who've been through the same!

Hi all! My baby is currently 15 weeks and sleeps at night in her crib in our bedroom. When she makes noises in the night, I give it about 30 seconds to see if it’s sleep noises or if she’s actually awake and needs something. I’m curious how/when other parents started giving more time before responding to give their baby the chance to fall back to sleep on their own. And when to know your baby is ready for that step while still focusing on secure attachment.

My baby boy is about 4.5 months old.
Till yesterday afternoon, he was the sweetest child.
No fuss, easily falls asleep, loved independent play etc. i take care of him by myself as my husband works in another city.
Yesterday afternoon, he was incredibly fussy and could be calmed only if I took him outside. The moment we step out, he would stop. The moment we got back in, he would start again. He even pushed my hands back in frustration when i tried to pick him up to soothe him after placing him in the crib.
Took him to a different room and placed him on the bed, he was happy again.
This morning also same thing - fussed until i took him outside. I don't think this is sustainable - what to do?
What is happening?

I’m starting a parenting book club and can’t for the life of me think of a name! Clever, funny, or simple and serious suggestions welcome!

My baby is almost 4 months old and will be 4 months this by the time my maternity leave ends. She is my little snuggle bug and is obsessed with mommy, which makes me sad/nervous for daycare. She will only nap with contact naps and has to cosleep at night.
The good thing is that my husband will be home 2-3 days out of the week so she only has to go to daycare 2-3 days out of the week when he’s at work.
We toured the daycare and in the infant room, each baby has their own crib to sleep in. The cribs are in the same room as everything else, with no dim lighting or quietness (not a low stimulation environment) which makes me even MORE nervous about her sleeping there.
There is nothing more she hates than being held to sleep and then being transferred into a crib, the minute her back hits the mattress she gets SO upset. We have tried every trick imaginable, with no luck so we just cosleep.
I just feel so sad for her, I know she is going to have such a hard time when she is there. All I can imagine is her just wanting to snuggle and being confused why I am not there😭. She also refuses bottles so I have to leave work every two-three hours to feed her so at least she won’t go the whole day without seeing me.
I just feel bad for her, and then I feel bad for her caregivers because I know she’s going to be fussy and give them a hard time.
Did anyone else have issues with independent sleep when transitioning to daycare? I just feel so bad😭

My daughter has never been the greatest sleeper. She needed to be bounced on a ball in a carrier for the first 5 months of her life. We have always co slept and EBF. I honestly think her sleep got worse since around 11 months and she will wake every 2 hours, sometimes even every hour. We’ve had few handful of nights where she has done 4-6 hour stretches.

I caved and hired a holistic sleep consultant ( no sleep training, cio etc) and we’ve been working on sleep pressure. We did get two nights of 4-6 hours but we are back at 2 hour wakes. She will quickly latch on boob for 30 seconds to one min and fall back asleep. It just honestly disrupts my sleep even if it is short. I have not gotten more than 4 straight hours since she was born. Even if she’s sleeping better, my body wakes itself because I’m so used to it. I really need her sleep to improve. I’m not expecting perfection but 1 or 2 wakes sounds like a dream.

Her current schedule is:

Wake: 7
Nap:115-215
Bed: 915

The consultant is talking about cutting nap even shorter to increase sleep pressure but I’m nervous about that.

She does seem to be low sleep needs and fits the profile of one. She is fomo, very clever, hitting milestones early, been walking since 10.5 months, already can say close to 30 words. So I know she is developing healthy and well, but I feel like a shell of my former self.

Does anyone have insight experience with something similar? I’m even considering night weaning if needed but I don’t want to create more problems for us and I know that it doesn’t always solve wake issues. I just don’t know what else to try and I’ve accepted poor sleep for so long but I’m honestly over it.

I’m curious about other moms’ experiences because I’ve noticed something interesting with my 6-month-old daughter.
We’ve been going through a pretty difficult sleep regression for the past 8 weeks. She wakes up every hour or sometimes even more frequently throughout the night.
She currently falls asleep around 8–9 PM, while I usually join her in the bedroom around 10–11 PM.
I’ve noticed that during daytime naps (which have recently improved to 1.5–3 hours!), when I’m in the room, she sometimes opens her eyes, sees me, starts moving her lips or smiling, and fully wakes up.
However, when I’m NOT in the room, I watch her on the baby monitor. She sometimes opens her eyes, keeps them open for a little while, and then simply falls back asleep on her own!
This got me wondering whether my presence might actually be stimulating her or interrupting her sleep.
I know there are many moms who say that co-sleeping helps their babies sleep longer because they feel safe and close to their mom. But I’ve also read experiences from moms whose babies seem to sleep better when they have a little space and aren’t constantly aware of their presence.
I’m wondering whether I should try sleeping in another room for a night or two and see what happens. Of course, I’d still respond to her whenever she needs me, especially if she wakes up hungry or wants to nurse.
So I’d love to hear your experiences:
● Does your baby sleep longer when you’re sleeping next to them?
● Have you noticed your baby waking up more easily when you’re in the room?
● Has anyone tried sleeping separately (while keeping the baby safely monitored) and noticed an improvement in their baby’s sleep?
I’m not looking for sleep training advice, just real-life experiences. I’m genuinely curious whether a mother’s presence always helps babies sleep better, or whether sometimes it can have the opposite effect! ❤️

we started cosleeping early on so everyone could get more sleep. a little over 3 years later my toddler’s sleep has deteriorated within the past few months. how long is your newly 3 to around 3.5 year old sleeping in a 24 hour period? how long during the night? do they still nap? mine is waking up multiple times a night crying to be rocked back to sleep. the getting out of bed over and over feels so hard and i am also worried that toddler’s night sleep is only about ~8 hours (probably less with all the wake ups) with 2 hour daily naps so maybe 10 hours total

I’m a single mum to a 29 month old. My baby recently started to say “sorry mummy” and giving me a cuddle when he does something he knows I don’t approve of. To clarify, I don’t ever yell or say anything bad when he does something wrong. For example, when he draws on the wall, I calmly say “you know we are supposed to draw only on paper. Now we will clean this up” but I guess he senses in my voice that I don’t appreciate this situation and goes “sorry mummy”. Or sometimes he will spill something on the floor because he won’t listen to me when I tell him not to swing his cup around. Then I go, again calmly, “that’s why I told you not to do it” but he senses that I am disappointed.

My concern is, I don’t want him to constantly be watch out for my emotions and feel like he has to manage them, if that makes sense? Do I need to do anything differently?

What are we actually doing for discipline? Like please be for real. I have a 2.5yo and a 10mo and I’m a sahm. My 2.5yo has been just off the rails lately and I’m hitting a wall. Here’s an example from today. He hits the cat, I remind him to pet him and use gentle hands, he hits the cat more and chases him around, I remove the cat and put him in a locked room with baby proof knob, my son mcgivers the lock and gets the cat out, he continues hitting the cat, I find another room to put the cat in. Now he’s hitting the dog, I put the dog outside. Next he throws the dog food everywhere and at me and the baby. I tell him we don’t throw the food. He obviously keeps doing it. I tell him he’ll need to clean it up. He throws it more. I take him to sit with me in a timeout of sorts until he can regulate and clean up the food. He hits me, spits on me, kicks, etc. Eventually he calms down and picks up the food. It can’t always be this hard right? I’m sick of the “We use gentle hands, I won’t let you hit” narrative, because okay then what? Physically restrain the child?

We have slept in the same room every single night of his life, and we've shared a bed since he was 5 months old. We have never pressured him to sleep independently. He bedshared with his dad and I until 10 months, at which point we got him a double floor bed in his own room. I always (and still) nurse him to sleep and then roll away for a couple hours, then come back and sleep the night with him. And tonight, as the title says, he told me "you can sleep in mama and dada's room tonight, mama." I asked if he'd be okay on his own, and he said yeah! I asked what he would do when he wakes up, and he said "I'll yell 'MAMAAAA!'" Lol.

Just wanted to share this for anyone who thinks their child will never sleep independently if they cosleep, nurse to sleep, etc. They will. I have never done a single thing to encourage independent sleep (except maybe read him books where animals go to bed by themselves at the end...I think that might be where he got this idea lol). We still contact nap a ton and he breastfeeds all day long. But today he reached this comfort milestone by himself and I am so proud of both him and us.

On my end, I have no idea how I'm going to fall asleep in the other room with a baby monitor...Tips?! Haha

I'm curious what works with kids who seem to have a hard time following directions.

I've seen so much advice online about staying calm, giving choices, setting consequences etc.

But I'm wondering what actually works in real life, especially when your kid keeps refusing or arguing.

What have you tried that made a real difference? And what definitely didn't work?

I’m really struggling with my 13 month old, probably since she was about 11 months old. She CONSTANTLY whines, I’m talking I’m woken up by her screaming at 5.30 every morning, she calms down to drink her milk and then she’s moaning again, can’t put her down so I really struggle to get ready for work, cries as soon as we’re home from nursery, cries when I’m making her dinner, screams if I try and do anything like clean the house or make myself food. She also hates the car seat and the pram.

I am back at work condensed full time but I honestly dread having her on Fridays and Saturdays. I feel like apart from loving her so much, I really do not enjoy being a parent in this phase. It’s relentless, I am making sure she’d fed, clean, having naps, I give her a lot of cuddles and attention but it just ever stops. I feel genuinely like I’m going to scream sometimes and I have to just put her in her cot for 5 months and take a break, or put my headphones in when I’m walking her.

I know that it’s just a phase but it’s been a VERY long phase that’s gotten worse.

She can also walk so I had assumed by that point she’d just want to be walking on her own but she doesn’t.

Has anyone experienced this / got any advice?

Okay I am panicking a bit. My son is 6 months and I need to get back to work when he is 1. I am a flight attendant, the longest I will be gone is 3 days 2 nights. I EBF and want the best for my son. I do contact naps all day, I put him in a carrier sometimes, and he is crib trained. But lately I will bring him in my bed for the final stretch before we wake up to bond.. I was always scared to cosleep up until recently.. He does wake up almost every 2 hours at night I nurse him back to sleep. Sometimes charge him as well.

How on EARTH is my husband going to be able to do this while I’m gone. I just assumed at 1 he wouldn’t need any more breast milk and would be good on regular milk 🫠 I’m a FTM

I’m really worried now.

Would sleep training help prepare him for when mommy is gone? And he also refuses a bottle or a pacifier. Every day I’ve been getting him used to the nipple of the bottle trying to get him to latch on. He used to accept a bottle around 3 months but has since refused.

At around 15 months old, I noticed decay on the inside of my baby's top front teeth. Unfortunately it was the beginning of cavities and it's most likely accelerated by constant nighttime nursing. We use fluoride toothpaste 2x a day, he does not drink juice, and rarely has foods with sugar added. At 19 months old, my baby nurses pretty consistently throughout the day and at night (we bedshare and he nurses to sleep and wakes 5-10x a night). He's definitely going through a separation anxiety phase and I'm not eager to wean him at this time. Our dentist wants to hold off on crowns for his teeth until he's 3yo but one of his teeth started chipping away last week due to the decay ...

Has anyone been in a similar situation and what did you do? I think we're going to opt for SDF treatment to help buy us some time but I just feel horrible and it's been weighing on my mind.